While Batman never managed to secure his own series during radio’s Golden Age, his frequent appearances on The Adventures of Superman, along with the Batman comic books and syndicated newspaper strip, helped keep the character thriving into the late 1940s. Soon, he would be back on movie screens, in a second action-packed serial.
_____________________________
1 Merrill, Gary, with John and Jean Cole, Bette, Rita, and the Rest of My Life: An Autobiography, © 1988 Lance Tapley Publisher, Augusta, Maine, p. 78
2 —, “Baby Orchestra Makes Debut Here,” The New York Times, May 17, 1933, p. 15
3 —, “The Openings”, The New York Times, Oct. 4, 1942, p. X1
4 Merrill, Gary, with John and Jean Cole, Bette, Rita, and the Rest of My Life: An Autobiography, © 1988 Lance Tapley Publisher, Augusta, Maine, p. 68
5 Ibid., p. 78
6 Daniels, Les, Batman: The Complete History, ©1999 DC Comics, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, p. 59
7 —”Resolution Signed by President to Give Bob Hope a Gold Medal,” The New York Times, June 14, 1962, p. 67
8 —”Stacy Harris, 54, Actor On Radio, Stage and TV,” The New York Times, Mar 14, 1973, p. 46
9 Luther, Paul, “Inside Radio,” Evening Times, Cumberland, Maryland, Monday, August 18, 1947
10 Luther, Paul, “Inside Radio,” Evening Times, Cumberland, Maryland, Wednesday, March 24, 1948
11 Power, Ty, “It’s Going to Be a Hot Time in Ol’ Gotham Tonight!,” http://freespace.virgin.net/ty.po/Knightfall.html, accessed Aug. 2, 2009, 10:11 AM
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
Chapter Four: BATMAN AND BOSSMAN
“Accepting a role in Batman may not have been financially lucrative, but typical of my dad, the role probably amused him.”
—Bob Hanks, son of Robert Lowery1
“To me, the greatest all-time producer of serials was Sam Katzman,” said Pierce Lyden, an actor who racked up hundreds of film credits playing villains in Westerns. “The ‘Bossman,’ as Sam was known to his friends, was the most prolific serial producer around,” added Lyden. “He kept the wolf from my door many years. He was loyal and easy to work for. He always remembered the supporting actors, his stock company.”2
Sam Katzman was the best at what he did, which was to produce movies so cheaply and quickly that it would be nearly impossible for them to lose money. Born into a poor Jewish family in New York City on July 7, 1901, Katzman first became involved in the film industry at age 13. He started at Fox Studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey as an errand boy. Working his way up through the ranks, he eventually became an assistant director, but was let go in 1933 when Fox instituted cutbacks. Undeterred, Katzman set out to make a film on his own. He enlisted his friend John Wayne to star, promising to pay him after the film was distributed. He also rounded up studio space the same way. He made His Private Secretary, which he also wrote, in six days. It turned a quick profit, earning the $13,000 it cost to make and allowing Katzman to pay off Wayne, the other actors, and the studio.3 Katzman was now a producer. Throughout the rest of the 1930s, he made a number of films—mostly Westerns—for poverty row companies. In the 1940s, he landed at Monogram, where he developed the popular East Side Kids series and produced mystery and horror films starring Bela Lugosi.
Katzman began producing serials at Columbia in 1945, while still also working for Monogram. His first serial for Columbia was Brenda Starr, Reporter, starred Joan Woodbury as the comic strip heroine. In typical Katzman fashion, the 13-chapter serial completed filming in just 21 days.4 That same year, Rudolph Flothow—who first brought Batman to the screen—produced his final Columbia serial, The Monster and the Ape. Once Katzman began producing for Columbia, Flothow concentrated on producing low-budget installments of the Crime Doctor, Boston Blackie and The Whistler series. Katzman, meanwhile, produced low-budget features, the Jungle Jim series (starring ex-Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller), and all of the studio’s serials. Katzman churned out 32 serials from 1945 to 1956, with the chapter plays appearing on 6,500 movie screens in the U.S. every weekend.5 The serials and programmers were good for Katzman; by the end of the 1940s, his yearly income consistently topped $100,000.6 While others might have had ambitions to make more artistic A-pictures, Katzman was content to crank out his B-movies, saying “Let the other guy get ulcers.”7
In 1948, Katzman succeeded where others had failed when he brought the popular comic book hero Superman to movie screens as a live-action hero. Starring Kirk Alyn as the Man of Steel, Superman became one of the top-grossing chapter-plays of all time. Flush with success, Katzman contacted National Comics to secure the rights to their next most popular comic book character, Batman. Negotiations with National’s Harry Donenfeld began in October 1948, and the producer and Donenfeld soon reached a deal.8
Many of the principals of the Superman serial were also involved with the new Batman production. Spencer Gordon Bennet, who had a reputation as the ace of serial directors, was hired to helm the picture, while Superman writers Royal K. Cole and George Plympton wrote the script, from an adaptation by Joseph F. Poland. As with the 1943 Batman serial, the writers chose not to use any of the villains familiar to readers of Batman comic books, and instead came up with a new nemesis, the Wizard, a black-hooded mastermind of a criminal gang out to steal a remote-control device developed for the government by Professor Hammil. Unlike the earlier serial, however, this script did include Commissioner Gordon, as well as a Lois Lane-type character recently introduced into the comic books, Vicki Vale. Bob Kane maintained that he based Vicki Vale, who made her debut in Batman # 49 (October/November 1948), on Marilyn Monroe, whom Kane reportedly met at the wrap party for the 1943 serial and ran into again when he came to Hollywood for the 1949 serial. However, like all Kane stories, this has to be taken with a grain of salt; Monroe would have been all of 17 years old in 1943, and wouldn’t make her film debut until four years later. While it is possible that Dick Sprang, who drew the Batman comics in the ‘40s, could have used photos of Monroe for reference while drawing Vicki Vale, truthfully, the character bears no resemblance to the actress.
When Kane came to Los Angeles for Batman’s sophomore cinematic outing, he involved himself more directly in the casting of the dynamic duo, having been disappointed with the choice of Lewis Wilson for the first serial. He was pleased when he learned that Katzman had given the role of Batman to Robert Lowery, an actor who had just starred in a musical Katzman produced at Columbia, Mary Lou (1948). According to his book Batman & Me, Kane thought the 35-year-old Lowery was more athletic and had better acting skills than Wilson.9
With his dark, wavy hair, Cupid’s-bow lips, heavy-lidded eyes, and a sonorous voice, Robert Lowery did seem like a good choice to play the dual roles of Bruce Wayne and Batman. Like the comic book hero, Lowery was tall (6’1”) and athletic, and had a light, joking demeanor that masked a history of personal tragedies. Born Robert Larkin Hanks in Kansas City, Missouri on October 17, 1913, he was a descendant of Abraham Lincoln’s mother, Nancy Hanks. His father, Roscoe Hanks, was a Kansas City attorney and oil investor, and his mother, Leah Thompson, was a concert pianist and organist.
As a teen, Robert showed great promise as an athlete. Following high school, he became a boxer, a baseball player for the minor-league Kansas City Blues team, and even a football star. Football proved to be one sport too many; a play gone wrong left him with a broken pelvis, effectively ending his athletic career. When his injury healed, he took a physically challenging job in a paper factory. Not long after, his father died. It was the height of the Great Depression, and Robert was now responsible for taking care of his mother. Despite the lost opportunities and dashed dreams, Robert remained hopeful. His mother felt that his good looks and pleasant singing voice would open doors for him. She took her son to Hollywood, where he began singing with local dance bands and studying acting at the Lila Bliss studio. It wasn’t long before a talent scout spotted him and put him under contract to 20th Century Fox.10
; When he arrived at Fox in 1936, the studio changed his name first to Steven Randall and then to Robert Lowery. He showed up in a succession of bit parts, including playing a juror in John Ford’s Young Mr. Lincoln (1939); the studio’s publicity department got mileage out of having an actual descendant of Abraham Lincoln appearing in a Lincoln biopic. Ford was pleased enough with him to cast him in his next picture, Drums Along the Mohawk. He had better roles in Fox’s programmers, like Charlie Chan on Broadway (1937) and Charlie Chan’s Murder Cruise (1940). He also became friends with one of Fox’s biggest stars, Tyrone Power, with whom he was featured in five films, beginning with 1938’s Alexander’s Ragtime Band and including the classic 1940 remake of The Mark of Zorro. Lowery’s son Robert Hanks recalled, “Tyrone and my dad were best friends and spent virtually every waking second together playing tennis, racing their cars (Power had a Cord, my father a beautiful Darrin convertible) and eating my grandmother’s Texas chili. Dad lived in Laurel Canyon on Wonderland Avenue at the time and I understood from him that they’d have a few drinks and act out their respective roles. I don’t think, however, my dad’s take as Bruce Wayne/Batman was influenced by Power’s Zorro. My dad had a more relaxed approach to acting, whereas Power was far more intense in his interpretation of roles—no question about that.”11
While Power’s career soared in the 1940s, Lowery worked steadily in films of varying quality, with his most notable roles occurring in Tarzan’s Desert Mystery (1943) with Johnny Weissmuller and The Mummy’s Ghost (1944) with Lon Chaney, Jr. “Dad was not particularly busy in the late 1940’s,” said Robert Hanks, “doing a series of actioners for PRC and Republic as well as Monogram, trying to pay off his debts and a big mortgage on a house in Laurel Canyon.” He also had alimony payments from his first marriage to Vivian Wilcox, which lasted from 1941 to 1944, and his second marriage to Rusty Farrell, which lasted 17 months, ending in 1948. By the time he was approached to play Batman, Lowery was apparently not worried about the possible effect playing the role would have on his career; he was just interested in working. “My take on this is that he was offered the role principally, and took it on a lark,” said Hanks.12
Casting Robin proved more difficult. Kane suggested that they should find a young boy of 18 who looked 16 for the role, but Katzman had already decided on an actor—Johnny Duncan. Duncan was born December 7, 1923 on a farm in Centre, Kansas, not far from Robert Lowery’s hometown of Kansas City, Missouri. As a child, Duncan danced for pennies at a local bar, saving enough—he claimed—to help his family make payments on their farm during the dark days of the Depression. He eventually opened a dance studio, teaching tap dancing to the local youngsters. One night, while performing a tap dance act at Kansas City’s Tower Theater, he was approached by a scout from 20th Century Fox who offered to sign him to a contract at $50 a week—more money than the farm generated. The family sold everything and moved west, arriving at Fox just two years after Robert Lowery and his mother. Like Lowery, Duncan found himself in a steady stream of programmers, occasionally landing a small part in a big film, such as the radio operator in Action in the North Atlantic (1943), a war film starring Humphrey Bogart, or as “Jitterbug” in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944). While he was visiting a friend at the Hal Roach Studios, Sam Katzman saw him and offered to pay him more money than Fox. When Duncan’s Fox contract ran out, he went to work for Katzman at Monogram, appearing in the producer’s East Side Kids comedies. He also made a film with Robert Lowery at Monogram, 1943’s Campus Rhythm.13
At 26, Duncan was nearly a decade older than Kane’s ideal. When Katzman first mentioned Duncan to Bob Kane, the Batman creator felt the actor would be too old to play Robin. He pressed Katzman into issuing a casting call for the part. Over the next couple of weeks, Kane and Katzman saw over three hundred juvenile actors, but still felt none were suitable. Finally, Katzman called Duncan—who was on his honeymoon—and told him to come in for an audition wearing slacks with cuffs rolled up, an open shirt, and uncombed hair, so he would look as young as possible. Then Katzman revealed that the call was for the role of Robin in a Batman serial. Duncan, a fan of the Batman comic books, was thrilled.14
“So I walked in the casting office to meet Bob Kane,” said Duncan. “I opened the office door and Sam and Bob Kane were there. Sam was sitting behind his desk as usual, smoking his big old cigar, and he didn’t tell Bob Kane who I was. He said, ‘Here’s the guy you might want to see.’ Before I could close the door, Bob Kane got up, walked over to me quickly and grabbed my hand, and said, ‘I don’t know your name, but you’re Robin from now on.’ Sam Katzman sat there and laughed.”15 Duncan signed his contract on January 31, 1949—just two days before shooting was due to begin.16
Duncan wasn’t the only late addition to the cast. Two days before his signing, The Los Angeles Times announced that Jane Adams had been cast in the role of Vicki Vale.17 Like Duncan and Lowery, Adams had come to Hollywood from the heartland after first pursuing a musical career. Born Betty Jane Bierce in San Antonio, Texas on August 7, 1921, Adams had been offered a full scholarship to study violin at Juilliard, but she had other ideas. First she went to California. “I got my training at the Pasadena Playhouse for four years,” said Adams. “I took stage design, stage makeup, French, voice and diction. We performed in everything from Greek tragedy to classic comedies.”18
Next, Adams went to New York. “I just took some little pictures with me and I thought well, I’ll just see what happens,” recalled Adams. She took her photos to the Harry Conover Modeling Agency, though at 5’3” she was deemed too short for a modeling career. “I went in and all the girls were six-foot-two and fashion models,” she said. “And so I did head modeling. And I worked every day. I mean, I had more work than the fashion models, because there were so few head models. And I did a lot of the ads in the magazines for soap and all kinds of things.” Adams found a place to live in a hotel for women. “It was a very respectable place for very young actresses to live, and it was at 62nd and Lexington, I think. And I did one color photo for a very famous photographer there, and he asked me if I’d care to work on spec. And I said yes, I’d be happy to. And he took this picture.” The picture ended up being a double-page spread in Esquire magazine. “And through that,” said Adams, “Walter Wanger called me to California to test and I got a very nice contract.” Adams tested for the lead role in Salome, Where She Danced, but she was not a dancer; the part eventually went to Yvonne De Carlo.19 Instead, Adams ended up with an uncredited bit part and a Universal Pictures contract. “The fact that I’d been on the stage and could remember lines and took everything seriously was to my benefit,” said Adams. “So, I got stuck in Westerns for a while because I could learn the scripts quickly. But I did sixteen Westerns at Universal and a few elsewhere. That was fun. I liked it. The only girl with two hundred men—what young woman wouldn’t like that, you know? I got a lot of attention.”20
Adams had also experienced tragedy in her life. During World War II, she married a Navy pilot who, sadly, was killed in action on his first mission. After appearing as Nina the hunchback in Universal’s House of Dracula in 1945, she wed Tom Turnage, an Army Major General. His career kept the couple on the move, so she retired from acting until he was sent to Korea. Batman and Robin marked one of her first roles upon her return to Hollywood.21 “I suppose they looked at some of my rushes and things, and they must have thought I was right for the part,” she said.22
For the role of Commissioner Gordon, Katzman cast Lyle Talbot. One of the busiest character actors then working, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania-born Talbot had already appeared in over 100 movies, including playing the title role in the Katzman-produced serial Chick Carter, Detective (1946) and a supporting role in the Katzman serial The Vigilante: Fighting Hero of the West (1947), which was adapted from a comic book hero appearing in National’s Action Comics.
Another accomplished character actor, Eric Wilton, played Alfred, the butler. Tall, thin and distinguished, Wilton had made a career of playing
assorted butlers, chauffeurs, waiters and desk clerks in nearly 200 films since his screen debut in 1928. However, this Batman serial gave Alfred much less to do than the previous one.
Shooting began February 2, 1949.23 For Lowery and Duncan, as for Lewis Wilson and Douglas Croft before them, the costumes were a nuisance. The new Batman uniform sported a simple cloth belt instead of the previous film’s more authentic-looking utility belt, and the cowl, though tighter fitting around the lower part of Lowery’s head, still featured devil horns affixed to it instead of bat-like ears. Robin’s cape now appeared to be black instead of the traditional yellow. In reality, both Robin’s cape and Batman’s cape and cowl were made of crimson cloth, which would photograph better on black-and-white film stock. Robin’s domino mask was still of the dime-store variety. Lowery, according to his son, found his outfit “uncomfortable, badly tailored, hot and airless.”24 In an interview with Jan Alan Henderson for Filmfax magazine, Johnny Duncan said, “The tights would keep stretching out and drooping, because they were cotton tights. We were always pulling the tights up...The cowl dropped down over Bob’s nose, and had little slits for eyes holes. For the ears, they had two tubes of cotton to keep them standing up. Well, the damn ears would start flopping like a dog’s, so they had to put scotch tape on them. Every day we had to put new Scotch tape on those ears, sometimes three or four times a day.”25 The only bright spot, according to Duncan, was their boots; a Hollywood boot maker had fashioned six pairs each for them, and they were “comfort beyond belief.”26
Billion Dollar Batman Page 9
