SS Gotham Queen question

[Fig Newton]

The episode "Ice Spy" opens with a shot of the SS Gotham Queen, a model that looks like a cross between the Titanic and the Queen Mary. Considering the show's modest budget I'm sure this rather impressive model footage was probably lifted from another 20th Century Fox production. Does anyone know what film that shot is from?

[Beat Disko Tech]

I want to say Poseidon Adventure but that wasn't filmed until 1972. It does look like the Queen Mary though. Seems the mystery continues....

[epaddon]

I need to break out the copy but I have a suspicion that the footage could be from the 1953 Fox movie "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" which had a lengthy sequence set aboard an ocean liner (in fact they used the same sets that were being used for another movie "Titanic" at the time).

[epaddon]

Just did a cross-check. It is indeed stock footage done for "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes". Although the exact establishing shot in the Batman episode is not in the movie, there is an alternate shot showing the same model where it's supposed to be the Queen Mary. I think extra footage of the miniature not used in the film was then just put in a stock footage library for exactly those kind of establishing scenes.

[Gleeps, it's Batman]

Thanks for solving the mystery.

[Fig Newton]

Yes! Thank you!!

[Ben Bentley]

I'm often in two minds about resurrecting threads, but having just finished watching "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" (and having momentarily forgotten this thread) I pulled some screen captures to compare to "Ice Spy" and indeed what we see in Batman appears to be exactly what Epaddon described, an alternate take from the same batch of footage shot for "GPB". Click below to enlarge:

"Ice Spy" - S2, 1967

"Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" - 1953

[bat-rss]

Excellent! Even the clouds match!

[Ben Bentley]

Excellent! Even the clouds match!

Again, I would need to pull the captures to support the following claim but i’m pretty certain that this sequence with the model was shot on the Fox Ranch on the same lake with the same painted backdrop as the surface level submarine sequences in the ‘66 Batman Movie.

[Dr. Shimel]

So you're saying that they simply used old footage to save some money? Oh yeah, this was the end of Season Two.

[Ben Bentley]

So you're saying that they simply used old footage to save some money? Oh yeah, this was the end of Season Two.

To be fair - the pilot opened with existing footage of The 1965 World's Fair after all! haha

[Ben Bentley]

TV Batman's connections with Fox's 1953 production of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" aren't all as obscure as the re-use of stock footage. Two cast members also appeared in both GPB and separate episodes of Batman:

Tommy Noonan appeared as "Jolly Jackson" in S2's "Batman's Waterloo"

Norma Varden also appeared as "Mrs. Monteagle" in S1's "The Thirteenth Hat"

[bat-rss]

So you're saying that they simply used old footage to save some money? Oh yeah, this was the end of Season Two.

To be fair - the pilot opened with existing footage of The 1965 World's Fair after all! haha

Ah, I see! I'll have to search the submarine fight scene for those same clouds, haha

[Ben Bentley]

So you're saying that they simply used old footage to save some money? Oh yeah, this was the end of Season Two.

To be fair - the pilot opened with existing footage of The 1965 World's Fair after all! haha

Ah, I see! I'll have to search the submarine fight scene for those same clouds, haha

Well let's start the ball rolling:

[bat-rss]

To quote Alfred in "Scat! Darn Catwoman!", "Good show, sir!"

Seems to me, though, that the clouds in the Batfilm background don't look the same as the ones in the Gotham Queen shots. We could just be getting a different section of the backdrop...