The Penguin Submarine
In the movie Batman the super villains - Riddler, Penguin, Joker, and Catwoman buy a pre atomic submarine that they use to shoot torpedoes, and Polaris missiles at whomever would oppose them.
In reality, the submarine was created by Hollywood and not an actual submarine used in a war.
For the 1966 movie staring Frank Sinatra " Assault on a Queen" Frank Sinatra and crew decided to raise a old German U-boat and restore it then attack the Queen Mary. It would be far less expensive to create the hull of a U Boat than to either raise a sunk one or try to purchase a used one ( Although Penguin got a really good deal :) . The real inside of a submarine also is so small that it would be impossible to film inside so Paramount Pictures created their own.
The Submarine is very similar to the old UB series German Submarines used in WW1.
Here is a photo of the UB-88 from WW1.
Here is a photo of the set in the water during filming in 1966
There was little use for the old sub hull after the movie until Batman came along. Serge Kritzman who was the art director knew that the Batman film budget was limited so he found the hull left over from the "Assault on a Queen" movie and sent those specs to the prop department at 20th Century Fox and had a 6 foot model built that matched the full size set. They added the penguin on the conning tower, the revised paint scheme, and from a suggestion by Charles Fitzsimons, instead of propellers they had penguin flippers to propel the boat.
( Click for larger view )
The
underwater photography was done by 20th Century Fox expert L.B. Abbot who was
no stranger to mini sub filming as he was responsible for all the effects on
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
Here is The Batboat in the Lake During Filming
The filming of the sub - the miniature and the full size set was all done at the 20th Century Fox Malibu Ranch in the canyon. The Lake was called Sorenson's Lake after the great animator that passed away in 1962. The sky was a blue screen and the water was only 4' deep !!!! The Lake was drained to film " The Towering Inferno" in 1974.
The huge submarine prop was loaded up and transported in sections to the Fox Lot in Malibu and reassembled in the large pond. In the movie you notice that the stuntmen all dive at a angle because if they went in head first they would hit bottom- HARD !! Ace Hudkins one of the stuntmen, actually went in wrong and had to be retrieved from the lake, sent to the hospital and it took him a few weeks to recover !
( Click for larger view )
The miniature model last known location was at the Planet Hollywood Las Vegas location.
Here is The Stuntmen and Adam Standing on the Sub Set :)
The location of the actual prop hull is unknown. :)
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