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OT: Adam West, TV's Batman Passes...and the World Mourns

posted 7 years ago by ecarle (14979)
5 replies | jump to latest

Adam West has died at age 88 and it is as if a head of state has gone.

He was a handsome man with a great voice who lucked into one of those roles -- like Norman Bates for Tony Perkins or Mr. Spock for Leonard Nimoy -- that lasted three years in the work and haunted him forever.

The multiplicity of articles and tributes I've read on West make certain points as to why his passing is so important to many:

ONE: The Batman TV series of the 60's more than the Superman TV series of the 50's, touched the lives of the Baby Boomer generation on first run, and then many later generations thereafter in re-runs. "Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel" became a clarion call of nostalgia.

TWO: The Batman series used major "former" stars as the villains, including a slew of Fox contractees who also happened to be Hitchcock veterans: George Sanders and Anne Baxter(hmmm), Tallulah Bankhead and Walter Slezak(hmmm), along with Cliff Robertson the same year he won the Best Actor Oscar and the Fab Four of villaindom(Cesar Romero as the first Joker; Burgess Meredith as the first Penguin; Frank Gorshin and, once only, John Astin as the Riddler, and a whole bunch of Catwomans, the sexiest being strapping and curvaceous Julie Newmar.)

Thus was the template set for the comic book movies to come: insert Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, Jack Nicholson, Arnold, Jim Carrey, Michelle Pfeiffer -- the stars mattered in the movies, too. Almost always as villains.

THREE: And of course, the ABC Batman can be seen as ground zero FOR the comic book movie. Superman came out about a decade after Batman went off the air, and eventually Batman got a movie, too (though he had one --a 1966 theatrical for Adam West, Burt Ward, and the villains.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

...but rather touchingly, these obits for Adam West salute...Adam West.

His Batman was seen as rather the straight man to all those star villains -- which is how Keaton and Kilmer and Clooney were seen, too. But all these years later, West is being praised for what was essentially an expert COMIC performance...with Batman being a Big Boy Scout whose true north of honesty and integrity was sacrosanct(kids idolized him) but who nonetheless played old Bats for a certain cluelessness about the darker side of society. And sex.

I'm impressed by: Adam West lived to 88. So he didn't go down to drugs or alcohol or other effects of a busted career. His resume shows he kept scrambling for work for decades, and got it. The modern cartoon guys wanted him -- The Simpsons and Family Guy. Sitcoms used him. Very soft core porn used him -- but for comedy, not for sexual participation. He earned a living and lasted and came to know he was loved.

I once watched a football game with Adam West. Well, he was in the row behind me. LA Raiders in the 80's. I had some good tickets gifted me and West was right behind me...with James Garner. They were very amiable to each other and to us. I recall thinking: cool, James Garner is a bigger star than West, but its mainly TV for both of them now, and Garner appreciates West's plight. It seemed like two guy friends having an afternoon they long agreed to and finally got. Memorable football game.

RIP, Adam West. And hang in there, Burt Ward. You were good in the harder role on the show.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Two TV Batman/Psycho connections:

ONE: In a article, Burt Ward spoke of how many female fans he got from playing the obnoxious Robin. Lots of them...and he wasn't really a teenager. So...he got a lot of action.

But one of them proved to be nuts, said Ward -- she wanted to re-enact the Arbogast staircase killing in Psycho with a real knife, and came at him at the top of the stairs. He fought, survived and ran away.

TWO: Not long before debuting as Batman, Adam West appeared in an episode of Joe Stefano's "The Outer Limits." I recall tuning in because West had been announced as Batman, and I wanted to see what he looked like. I think it was about astronauts on a sand planet being trapped by shark-like monsters who trolled the sand for victims -- rather like that cult comedy-horror movie "Tremors" of many years later(with Fred Ward and Kevin Bacon.)

So Batman worked for the Psycho writer.

[–] Doghouse (447) 7 years ago

I was never much of a Batman watcher, although I saw enough of it to realize that West's earnest and deadpan delivery was his greatest comic asset. Leslie Nielsen would later capitalize on his own similar abilities in Airplane and the Police Squad series and films. But West was demonstrating his comedy chops years before Batman.

In 1963's Soldier In the Rain, West is a straight-arrow Captain escorting a Batallion General to the office of Tom Poston, a completely clueless and gullible Lieutenant. West says, "This company's in charge of Lt Magee."

Catching the slip, the Batallion General corrects, "You mean Lt. Magee's in charge of this company," before proceeding into the building. West lingers just long enough to utter an uncertain, "Weeellll..."

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I was never much of a Batman watcher,

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Oh, I was, as a kid.

Though I guess I was sophisticated enough to realize that by the show's third season, the fad had seriously faded. The show went from two nights a week to one(thus no overnight cliffhanger), and the villains lairs were reduced to a pitch dark soundstage with new props each week, rather than the construction of a new set for each villain. You could FEEL ABC's lack of interest in the show and it died mid-season.

But oh those first two seasons. Season One(65-66) started late(in January 66 I think) so only Season Two(66-67) went the full distance. That was enough back then to clock a lot of shows. And the summer of 66 between the first two seasons had a movie in theaters. (Meanwhile, MGM got away in the mid-sixties by packaging recent two-part episodes of The Man From UNCLE as theatrical movies, tricking people to pay to see what they had just seen for free on TV!)

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although I saw enough of it to realize that West's earnest and deadpan delivery was his greatest comic asset.

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Like others, I only caught that in re-runs when I was older. Its a razor's edge perf, West doesn't play Bats as an idiot, and sometimes he says something really smart and hip, out of nowhere.

I think I always liked the Catwoman plots, which had her all out to get some from Batman -- while pathologically trying to kill off Robin the Pest.

Speaking of which -- they added Aunt Harriett or whatever her name was to Wayne Manor to make sure that it wasn't just a house of men. You know, 1966 and all.

And this: Alfred the Butler was played by Alan Napier, who had been in Marnie as Sean Connery's father -- great casting in both roles, I'd say.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Leslie Nielsen would later capitalize on his own similar abilities in Airplane and the Police Squad series and films. But West was demonstrating his comedy chops years before Batman.

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I never thought of that.

West was ahead of his time!

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In 1963's Soldier In the Rain, West is a straight-arrow Captain escorting a Batallion General to the office of Tom Poston, a completely clueless and gullible Lieutenant. West says, "This company's in charge of Lt Magee."

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Yes, I remember him there. He was around and working all the time before Batman made him famous. I would say that, as with Norman Bates for Perkins, the role started as a trap ...and became a saving grace later. Both men would always be remembered for something and that kept them marketable.

Soldier in the Rain is an interesting movie. Jackie Gleason and Steve McQueen as military buddies -- with McQueen the dumber one. Its a comedy for the most part, but it swerves at the end into a very brutal bar fight with two guys pummeling McQueen until Big Jackie enters the fight to help his friend. Jackie gets winded, McQueen REALLY brutally polishes off his foes(for a 1963 film) though he doesn't kill them. And Jackie soon dies. Heart attack. Some comedy.

But I will always remember the film for the velocity and ferocity of that fight scene. McQueen's stunt work and punch throwing are great. Gleason is a believably big guy in a fight. Its a good scene with a sad ending.