Posts: 61 Location: New Orleans, LA Joined: 14.01.06
As The Simpsons Movie continues to rake in box-office "D'OH!" (sic!), leave us turn back the clock 41 years to the release of the big screen adaptation of an earlier 20th Century-Fox TV production, namely...
FOR THE FIRST TIME ON THE MOTION PICTURE SCREEN IN COLOR! Adam West As Batman And Burt Ward As Robin Together With All Their Fantastic Derring-Do And Their Dastardly Villains, Too!
Batman, an exciting action motion picture released by 20th Century-Fox loosely based on the ABC primetime series of the same name, opened on this date at The Paramount Theatre in Austin, Texas --a good 48 hours preceding an infamous shooting incident which took place in The Lone Star State Capital.
A William Dozier production written by Lorenzo Semple Jr. and directed by Leslie H. Martinson, it starred Adam West, Burt Ward, Lee Meriwether, Cesar Romero, Burgess Meredith, and Frank Gorshin. (Since scores of us Batfans have already seen this film over 550 dozen times, I won't go into the details of the plot! )
The Batman motion picture, intended to introduce the viewing public to the Batman characters, was originally scheduled to be made prior to the TV series debut; however, ABC, noticing the faltering ratings of several of its TV series, ordered the Batman TV series moved back from its intended premiere date (fall 1966) to a midseason January 1966 debut.
Production on the movie was put on hiatus until filming on the TV series' first season finished. The movie was intended to aid 20th Century-Fox in selling the Batman TV series to overseas markets. Its larger budget allowed the producers to create 3 new Batvehicles: The Batcopter, The Batboat and a souped-up Batcycle (having appeared only once on in the TV series' first season [in episode #8723, "The Penguin Goes Straight/Not Yet He Ain't"] as a prototype), and then use them in the series' second season. Due to financial limits of the TV series, the footage of The Batcopter and The Batboat was lifted directly from the film and edited into the episodes where needed.
It was among three big-screen versions of primetime favorites distributed to theaters in the summer of 1966: the other two being Columbia Pictures' The Man Called Flintstone and Universal Pictures' Munster Go Home, both of which were sired from series ending this year, The Flintstones on ABC and The Munsters on CBS, respectively. This was the first appearance of Bob Kane's revered Caped Crusader in a feature-length vehicle on the big screen, presaging all others...including the Warner Bros. films (1989-2005 [so far])! A happy 41st Anniversary to the first ever Batman movie!
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Edited by AH3RD on 30-07-2007 09:48
RE: SATURDAY, JULY 30, 1966 -
Posted on 12-08-2007 02:04
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