This new episode fortuitously appeared as a push notification in my Podcast feed just as I was heading out for my daily constitutional...walk.
A few thoughts in somewhat of a chronologcal order:
- Tim mentioned Einser's remark about the movie being written before the series, that I believe features both in his book and in his TTBP blog entry - it's a tidbit that gets regurgiatated regularly over time. From what I can tell there is no real basis or corroboration for this at face value. Not to say that Lorenzo didn't have some sort of loose treatment for
a Batman movie concept, but in terms of the nuts and bolts of the movie that we come to know, it's fair to say that even as late as mid-March of '66, Lorenzo had still not finalized the synopsis and subsequent screenplay that eventually crosses Dozier and Horwitz desks in late April. To this point is an interesting correspondence that Dozier sent to Semple on March 15th, 1966 in which he reminds Lorenzo that he needs to make sure he writes the Joker into the story and also makes a point of telling him to keep the "shrunken man" business to a minimum. See below...
- In the first edition of Eisner's book, he makes reference to a few specifics from a first draft of the script - now that is something I would love to read, but have not come across in my research thus far.
- Regarding Frank's performance and Paul's observations of a less manic approach; in all honesty i'm contiunally impressed by what Frank does actually manage to do given how little is actually on the page for either he or Cesar. It's not unfair (I don't think), to say that Riddler and Joker are ultimately superfluous to the otherwise Pengy and Catwoman oriented plot of the movie. It's yet another feather in the caps of Frank and Cesar as the irrefutible professionals that they are to be able to do so much with comparatively so little to work with on the page. As a a lot of the folks here on our message board know (from prior discussions over the years and as recently as our Video Bat-Chat sessions), one of my personal favourite Frank moments in the movie is: "I've got the perfect idea..."
(Any excuse to use this GIF!)
- The movie was shot on the same 35mm film stock that was used for the series, for the movie it was indeed (as Paul suspected) masked off to produce a widescreen presentation for it's theatrical release. Scott has a relevant anecdote to this effect that i'll tag him in to share...
- I believe Tim queried who the "Frank" in the memo was whilst discussing the Schweppes gag - Frank H Ferguson was in-house legal counsel at Twentieth Century Fox. Not to be confused with the actor Frank Ferguson of Peyton Place fame, who was also concidentally contracted at Fox at the time.
- The official contract for the movie Batcycle between "Kustomotive" and TCF/Greenway is dated April 12th, 1966, a week after the date on the final draft of the movie script and only six days before the finished Batcycle was delivered.
- Just an additional "FYI" given that it came up in the Batcycle context, from what I can tell in the exchanges that took place between he and Dozier, Lorenzo was back in the US from Spain by late 1965/early January 1966.
, but it doesn't quite feel the same as the carefully crafted phenomenon that had burst onto the scene merely seven months before. It's a bigger spectacle, but there's no sense of grandeur. And that's partly on Semple, although not as much as it is on Martinson and Dozier.
