adam working on his lines.separate camera shots-almost one sixth of the total for the show's two half-hour episodes-to be made with Batman and Robin dangling above the boiling wax. It is all close-up work- quips flung back and forth between the gritty Dynamic Duo and the despicable Riddler-and none of it can be done with stunt men.

It is 11 A.M. now. Everyone's mouth is sour from coffee. Shooting has progressed halfway through the boiling wax sequence, which must be finished before the lunch break. West and Ward, masked, still back to back and still hooked to their cable, are resting between takes. A piece of plywood across the big wax pot supports two green boxes on which they are sitting, slumped. West mumbles lines to himself. A makeup man peers at Robin who has a complexion problem, and decides that repairs are not necessary.

Forty or fifty onlookers-tourists, kids who should be in school but are not, friends of cousins, and Burt Ward's pregnant wife, Bonnie-have wandered onto the set past a sign that says:

ABSOLUTELY CLOSED SET. No VISITORS.

They mill about and fall over things.

A man wearing a business suit and a sport shirt buttoned all the way to the neck eyes an empty canvas chair labeled ADAM WEST. He wonders if he should sit in it. He does sit. He expects a policeman to grab him by the collar. No one grabs him. What has happened to the star system?

Director Jim Clark, a cheerful man who can run things without shouting, says, "OK, let's have Adam and Burt in the air." An assistant director yells for quiet, a warning bell rings, a red light goes on behind the camera every one keeps on talking, and the two actors are derricked into the air. West grimaces; it hurts. The men swing help helplessly on their cable; they are steadied by stagehands pulling wires attached to their feet. Another stagehand drops several cakes of Dry Ice into the water- filled wax caldron to make it bubble. Clark calls for action:

Click Here to hear above lines (60KB)

 

RIDDLER (his raw emotions showing):

This is my dream come true! With you two out of the way, nothing stands between me and the Lost Treasure of the Incas... and it's worth millions... millions!! Hear me, Batman millions!! BATMAN: Just remember, Riddler, you can't buy friends with money.

 
After a bit more of this, Batman is supposed to confound the forces of evil by detonating a barrel of candlemaking chemicals (Robin! Prepare yourself for a shock! !!) with a ray of sunlight reflected from his utility belt, thus blasting himself and Robin free. "I don't know how you do it!" Robin is to say worshipfully after they recover consciousness. "There's no time for that now, Robin," says Batman, who does not wish to be praised.

The lines do not require Sir John Gielgud to interpret them. As a matter of fact, interpretation of lines is discouraged on the Batman show. The dialogue is supposed to be solid mahogany, and so Batman always speaks in a camp-counselor baritone, Robin in Hollywood's standard boy voice, and The Riddler (played by comedian Frank Gorshin, who is especially good at crazed laughter) in a stock-model maniacal sneer. Everyone knows his lines, and things should go briskly. A vision forms in Adam West's mind: it is a gigantic Bloody Mary, coming over the horizon like a ship. A half an hour, say 40 minutes -- "Uh, hold it," says someone. There is a safety pin showing on Robin's cape. The Caped Crusaders are cranked down, adjustments are made, and up they go again. Halfway through the second take, West fluffs a line: Just remember, Riddler, you cant buy friendship with, um, yeah, beautiful, could we try that again?""

The camp -counselor vitamins disappear from West's voice as he reacts to his mistake; he mimics beating his fist against his brow in remorse. For a moment there is no trace of Batman in the dangling figure; then the camera starts a third time and West is again heroic. This time it is perfect until almost the end of the scene. Then the camera runs out of film.

 

Take Four: Someone else blows a line, and now everyone is off balance. The mistake-makers are thinking, "Oh, for God's sake," and the rest are thinking, "No, no, nothing to worry about," and no one is thinking about the scene. Two more takes are fluffed. Now the rest are thinking, "Oh, for God's sake," and the mistake-makers are thinking, "Go to hell." Is this the end of our beloved Caped Crusaders? Will Batman ever say his lines right and get out of his damned corset (MUSCULAR DISTRESS!! TEDIUM!!!) and into that Bloody Mary?

To find out, tune in again in a few paragraphs. But first -- Why is a nice young man like Billy West Anderson out here in Los Angeles hanging from a hook?

It is not customary to start television programs at midseason, but the American Broadcasting Co. was in trouble. At least one of the three networks is in trouble each fall, when the ratings begin to turn brown. In this case, ABC's new programs had leaped into the hearts of millions, but not into the hearts of so many millions as those of NBC and CBS. Disasterville!! Unless-----

"At first I was a little taken aback at the idea," admitted a high level ABC executive who was involved in the decision to send Batman to the rescue (the executive is no longer employed by ABC; in television one cannot afford to be taken aback by anything). Batman had been in the works since early summer-the original plan had been to begin showing the series next fall-and it had appalled and fascinated every one who heard about it. Executive producer William Dozier, whose firm, Greenway Productions, contracted to make Batman for ABC, recalls the "terribly silly feeling" of being caught by an acquaintance reading a Batman comic book in the first class section of a New York-Los Angeles jet. Dozier soon stopped being embarrassed and started being worried. Batman was to be an evening show; would adults feel terribly silly watching it?

No one has put it exactly this way, but it seems clear that Dozier, the ABC people, and Dozier's writer, Lorenzo Semple Jr., came to a command

 

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