Billion Dollar Batman

by Bruce Scivally

  Lowery had other struggles with the form-fitting costume, according to his son. “He did have a weight problem of sorts. He often went without eating for days and worked out strenuously at the Hollywood Athletic Club and YMCA to get the pounds off so he’d look great.”27

  For a scene of Robin running across the top of some train cars, Johnny Duncan was dissatisfied to see that his stunt double was a balding, pot-bellied 50-year-old, so he recommended a buddy of his, Howard Kaiser, to be his stunt double. With his blonde hair dyed and curled, Kaiser did all of Duncan’s stunts from then on. Paul Stader doubled Robert Lowery. The previous year, Stader doubled Kirk Alyn in the Superman serial, and also worked steadily as Johnny Weissmuller’s stuntman in the Katzman-produced Jungle Jim programmers.28

  House Peters, Jr., part of the Katzman stock company, played Earl, one of the Wizard’s henchmen, in the final eight installments. He recalled, “Some of the exteriors for Batman and Robin were filmed on the site of an old oil refinery in the vicinity of 125th Street and Western Avenue in south L.A. We used this locale for at least two different chapters in the serial: a synthetic diamond factory and a research plant. There were catwalks and metal steps along the outside of the buildings; ideal for an action serial. We also did location filming in the industrial section of downtown L.A. Columbia leased a vacant multi-story building to serve as the interior of the gang’s hideout. Inside were hallways and offices which the director, Spence Bennet, put to good use. This quiet-spoken director had made many serials by then and generally was ahead of schedule.”29

  Bennet earned a reputation for not shooting second takes unless critically necessary, a condition partly forced on him by the financial restrictions. “Budgets were usually around $8,000 an episode,” said Bennet, who usually did one rehearsal and a single take. “The minute I would finish a scene, I knew exactly what the next setup was going to be. I would have it all mapped out. I kept the crew busy. I don’t know any other director who cut in the camera as I did. I said to Katzman, ‘You aren’t paying me anything on these pictures. I’m saving you my salary on the lab bill.’ And I did.”30

  Johnny Duncan claimed that on an average day, the Batman and Robin crew would shoot an astounding 55 set-ups, about ten times more than what was shot daily on an A-list feature. “Remember, a 15-chapter serial had a script as thick as three phone books,” said Duncan. “Bob Lowery and I would get to the set at 5:30 in the morning. It was so damn cold, because we shot it in the wintertime, and we’d get in these tights. When you wear tights and a mask for two or three months, and you’re supposed to think L.A. is Gotham City and make a movie-going audience believe it through your acting, and you don’t take off the mask and tights ’til 8:00 or 9:00 at night—you start to believe it!” According to Duncan, he ended up making $1,100 a week in overtime, enough for him to buy a new 1950 Cadillac Coupe de Ville with just his overtime pay.31

  The Wizard's henchmen get the drop on Batman (Robert Lowery) and Robin (Johnny Duncan) in this scene from producer Sam Katzman's 1949 Batman and Robin serial (Columbia Pictures/Photofest, © Columbia Pictures).

  The Bossman kept a close eye on the production. “Sam Katzman was a character,” said House Peters, Jr. “He was always on the set, smoking a cigar—he was a great one for visiting and sitting around the set and chewing the fat. And he had a walking stick with an electric battery in it. He got a great kick out of using that on people, especially girls. He’d approach them with it and jab their knee or their leg in the back!” 32

  The crew completed filming on February 28, 1949, after a whirlwind 26 days.33 Soon, the studio set up a local publicity tour for Lowery and Duncan. “We went to places like North Hollywood and Torrance—little outlying towns of Los Angeles County,” said Duncan. “They would announce us at the theater a week before we would make the appearance. We wouldn’t go in our costumes because, hell, we never wanted to see those things again. All we wore was sport clothes. The kids would line up for two or three blocks, and they used to have traffic cops to control the crowds.”34

  Robert Lowery did make at least one personal appearance in the Batman costume, at least momentarily. His son Robert Hanks said, “In New Orleans, my dad made a personal appearance as Batman on behalf of his studio. My mother and dad stayed in the French Quarter, and had a small wrought iron veranda overlooking Bourbon Street from their apartment. One night, my father was pretty much in his cups—well, drunk—and he decided to don his Batman uniform and step out on the veranda. He did, to much applause from a group of very young African-American kids on the street. Well, he decided to take it one step further and remove the costume altogether, and stepped out on the veranda naked. My mother tried to stop him, but she was laughing so hard, and he was so solid and strong, like a tree, that she couldn’t stop him. I understand that he pantomimed wearing his costume and cape while bare naked, which further delighted the residents. True—at least according to my mother and a friend of his who also witnessed this spectacle.”35

  In his book Batman & Me, Bob Kane wrote that when he ran into Lowery at a party in Hollywood several years later, Lowery didn’t seem too pleased to see him. When Kane asked why, Lowery reportedly said that the serial had been so successful that he had been typecast as Batman and couldn’t get another role.36 Upon hearing the anecdote, Robert Hanks said, “No truth to that at all. He had a great time and enjoyed it. We never talked at length about his role, but what he did share with me sounded like fun.”37

  Jane Adams continued acting for another four years after Batman & Robin, appearing in Westerns and TV series such as The Cisco Kid, Adventures of Wild Bill Hickock, The Adventures of Kit Carson and Adventures of Superman. Lyle Talbot added another hundred credits to his resume after completing his role as Commissioner Gordon, including playing the villain, Luthor, in the 1950 serial Atom Man vs. Superman. He is best remembered by baby-boomers as Ozzie’s friend “Joe Randolph” in The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. He retired after appearing in a 1987 episode of Newhart, and passed away in San Francisco on March 2, 1996, at age 94.

  After playing Robin, the Boy Wonder, Johnny Duncan had an amazing career. How many actors can claim to have worked with both Stanley Kubrick and Ed Wood? Besides appearing in Wood’s Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959), which has earned a reputation as one of the worst films ever made, he performed a role in Spartacus (1960), which would have been his final onscreen appearance, if it hadn’t ended up on the cutting room floor. The filmmakers needed someone to get beheaded by Kirk Douglas in a battle scene. Duncan, wearing a fake torso and fake head, played the soon-to-die solder. But the effect, which drenched Douglas in stage blood, proved too bloody for the censors, so out it came. It was Duncan’s last work in the film industry, in a career whose highpoints included appearances with future president Ronald Reagan in Bedtime for Bonzo (1951) and with Humphry Bogart in The Caine Mutiny (1954), as well as showing off his dancing skills in Running Wild (1955), Rock Around the Clock (1956) and Juke Box Rhythm (1959).

  Robert Lowery’s superhero career didn’t end with Batman. In 1956, he starred in an episode of Adventures of Superman, “The Deadly Rock,” where he played a friend of Clark Kent’s who fainted when confronted with Kryptonite, yet acquired all of Superman’s powers while he was unconscious. Throughout the 1950s, Lowery was a reliable actor in low-budget films such as 1950’s I Shot Billy the Kid, in which he played Pat Garrett opposite Don “Red” Barry as the infamous outlaw. Branching out into TV, he appeared on episodes of Cowboy G-Men, My Little Margie, The Gene Autry Show, Death Valley Days and Judge Roy Bean, as well as prestigious anthology series like General Electric Theater and Playhouse 90. In the 1956-57 season, he starred in his own series, Circus Boy, with a pre-Monkees Mickey Dolenz. He alternated between roles in TV shows and movies in the 1960s, including a part in the John Wayne Western McClintock! (1963). After appearing in another short-lived TV series, Pistols ‘n’ Petticoats (1966-1967), he retired from acting. The day after Christmas, 1971, Lowery spoke on the phone with t
he woman who had brought him to Hollywood thirty-five years earlier—his mother. During the call, Lowery suffered an apparent heart attack. His mother called for an ambulance, but by the time it arrived, Lowery lay dead in his Yucca Avenue apartment.38

  Asked for his best memories of his father, Robert Hanks said, “His sense of humor and his vast intelligence and knowledge of just about everything.”39 His father’s legacy, said Hanks, was “not to take the world so seriously as to be an asshole to others. Enjoy life, find something you love doing, and do it well. He never took acting as a serious career as compared to his father’s career as an oil attorney. He lived humility and kindness to all.”40

  As for the Bossman, Sam Katzman continued producing low-budget fare for the next two decades. He was profiled for Time magazine in December 1952, in an article titled “Jungle Sam” in which he made no apologies for his low-brow legacy, saying, “If you were to X-ray every Oscar, you’d find every one of them has an ulcer inside.”41 After making a slew of sci-fi potboilers, crime dramas and Jungle Jim films in the 50s, he produced a couple of movies starring Elvis Presley and several hot-rod films in the 1960s. His last film was 1972’s The Loners, a biker flick starring Dean Stockwell. A year later, on August 4, 1973, the Bossman passed away.

  _______________________

  1 Interview with Bob Hanks, conducted June 4, 2009

  2 Magers, Boyd, "Sam Katzman," Western Clippings Serial Report, Western Clippings website, http://www.westernclippings.com/sr/serialreport_2009_08.shtml, accessed Aug. 2, 2009

  3 Wiener, Willard L., “The Happiest Man in Hollywood: Sam Katzman, King of the Cliffhangers, May be Small Potatoes, but His Serials are Every Man’s Meat,” Collier’s magazine, Dec. 30, 1950, p. 69

  4 Magers, Boyd, “Sam Katzman,” Western Clippings Serial Report, Western Clippings website, http://www.westernclippings.com/sr/serialreport_2009_08.shtml, accessed Aug. 2, 2009

  5 Wiener, Willard L., “The Happiest Man in Hollywood: Sam Katzman, King of the Cliffhangers, May be Small Potatoes, but His Serials are Every Man’s Meat,” Collier’s magazine, Dec. 30, 1950, p. 32

  6 Ibid., p. 69

  7 Ibid., p. 32

  8 Schallert, Edwin, “Hollywood Will Assist Israel Studio Project; Video Filmers Organize,” The Los Angeles Times, Oct. 11, 1948, pg. A7

  9 Kane, Bob with Tom Andrae, Batman & Me, © 1989 Eclipse Books, Forestville, California, p. 129

  10 Interview with Bob Hanks, conducted June 4, 2009

  11 Ibid.

  12 Ibid.

  13 Henderson, Jan Alan, “Robin Unmasked! Secrets From a Low-Budget Batcave with Johnny Duncan,” Filmfax No. 103, July/Sept. 2004, p. 61

  14 Ibid., p. 64

  15 Ibid., p. 65

  16 —, “Duncan Into Serial,” Daily Variety, Feb. 1, 1949, p. 3

  17 Schallert, Edwin, “Preston Incorporates for Baseball Feature; Mary Wickes Returns,” The Los Angeles Times, Jan. 29, 1949, pg. 9

  18 Fitzgerald, Mike, “An Interview with Jane Adams,” Western Clippings website, http://www.westernclippings.com/interview/janeadams_interview.shtml, accessed Aug. 2, 2009

  19 Ibid.

  20 Interview with Jane Adams, conducted August 6, 2009

  21 Schallert, Edwin, “Preston Incorporates for Baseball Feature; Mary Wickes Returns,” The Los Angeles Times, Jan. 29, 1949, pg. 9

  22 Interview with Jane Adams, conducted August 6, 2009

  23 Schallert, Edwin, “Preston Incorporates for Baseball Feature; Mary Wickes Returns,” The Los Angeles Times, Jan. 29, 1949, pg. 9

  24 Interview with Bob Hanks, conducted June 4, 2009 25 Henderson, Jan Alan, “Robin Unmasked! Secrets From a Low-Budget Batcave with Johnny Duncan,” Filmfax No. 103, July/Sept. 2004, pgs. 65 and 134

  26 Ibid., pg. 65

  27 Interview with Bob Hanks, conducted June 4, 2009

  28 Henderson, Jan Alan, “Robin Unmasked! Secrets From a Low-Budget Batcave with Johnny Duncan,” Filmfax No. 103, July/Sept. 2004, pg. 134

  29 Peters, Jr., House, Another Side of Hollywood, © 2000, Empire Publishing, Madison, N.C.

  30 Magers, Boyd, “Sam Katzman,” Western Clippings Serial Report, Western Clippings website, http://www.westernclippings.com/sr/serialreport_2009_08.shtml, accessed Aug. 2, 2009

  31 Henderson, Jan Alan, “Robin Unmasked! Secrets From a Low-Budget Batcave with Johnny Duncan,” Filmfax No. 103, July/Sept. 2004, pg. 65

  32 Weaver, Tom, “The Serials of House Peters, Jr.,” Western Clippings website, http://www.westernclippings.com/sr/serialreport_2009_07.shtml, accessed Aug. 2, 2009, 10:32 PM

  33 —, “Data for Bulletin of Screen Achievement Records,” filed March 16, 1949

  34 Henderson, Jan Alan, “Robin Unmasked! Secrets From a Low-Budget Batcave with Johnny Duncan,” Filmfax No. 103, July/Sept. 2004, pg. 134

  35 Interview with Bob Hanks, conducted June 4, 2009

  36 Kane, Bob with Tom Andrae, Batman & Me, © 1989 Eclipse Books, Forestville, California, pg. 129

  37 Interview with Bob Hanks, conducted June 4, 2009

  38 —, “Robert Lowery, Veteran Film, TV Actor, Dies,” The Los Angeles Times, Dec. 27, 1971, p. A27

  39 Interview with Bob Hanks, conducted June 4, 2009

  40 Ibid.

  41 —, Cinema: Jungle Sam, Time Magazine, Dec. 1, 1952

  Chapter Five: KNIGHT LITE

  “The main thing I strive for is to overlay with style what is basically a pretty square character. You might say I’m trying to invest Dickensian surroundings with an Oscar Wilde flavor.”

  —Adam West1

  CAMPING

  In the early morning of March 16, 1966, astronauts Neil Armstrong and David Scott boarded their spacecraft, Gemini VIII, atop a Titan II rocket on a launch pad at Cape Kennedy, Florida. At 11:41 A.M., 101 minutes after another rocket carrying an unmanned spacecraft called Agena had lifted off, the Titan roared to life and launched the men into space. Their mission was to rendezvous with the Agena, which had entered a circular orbit 185 miles above the earth, and dock with it in space.

  About six-and-a-half hours after lift-off, Gemini VIII acquired a radar lock on Agena, 181 miles distant. The spacecraft closed on the Agena, with Armstrong reducing speed to steer Gemini’s sloping nose into Agena’s docking collar. The first orbital docking in history was accomplished.

  Then things got interesting.

  After being linked to Agena for about 30 minutes, the combined spaceships suddenly started to pitch and buck. Armstrong tried to back the Gemini away from Agena, but couldn’t. Coupled together, the two spacecraft rolled continuously—a situation the astronauts had never faced in pre-flight simulations. They finally undocked from Agena, but one of the eight thrusters that controlled Gemini VIII’s movements was now stuck. The ship spun even faster, making one revolution per second, a motion so violent the men faced possible blackout. Armstrong hit the reentry thruster system, normally used to control descent back into earth’s atmosphere. The gambit worked; stability was restored. After that harrowing experience, NASA terminated the flight. Armstrong and Scott were ordered to come home. Their spaceship splashed into the ocean off the coast of Japan at 7:23 P.M. Pacific Standard Time.2

  TV networks NBC and CBS cancelled their regular evening programs (including The Virginian on NBC and—appropriately enough—Lost in Space on CBS) to devote airtime to news coverage of the emergency splashdown. ABC was more cautious. Between 7:30 and 8 P.M., the network interrupted their programming only three times, for a total of 11-1/2 minutes.3 The result? Their switchboard lit up with three hundred angry phone calls during the half hour, growing to more than a thousand by 10 P.M.4 And why were ABC viewers so upset?

  Because the network had cut into Batman.

  Roger Arm, a 20-year-old from Queens, complained, “I was plenty mad because I missed out on Batman finding the clues and I missed out on the fighting.”5 One man, calling from Detroit, said, “What are you trying to do? I’ve got seven kids and they’re all howling and screaming.”6 Commenting on t
he outcry in The Los Angeles Times, humorist Art Buchwald, with tongue in cheek, wrote, “It gives one great faith in the American people, and shows the power of entertainment over news in TV programming.”7

  It took more than a run-of-the-mill TV series to provoke this kind of outcry. Batman exploded onto television screens in 1966 as a cultural phenomenon, a merchandizing bonanza, and—one might say—a work of art, born out of a perfect storm of influences.

  The first was the dominance of television in the 1960s. By 1949, when the Batman and Robin serial was released, the movie theater and radio were no longer the pre-eminent hubs of pop culture in the lives of Americans. In 1949, for the first time, the four television networks (NBC, CBS, ABC and DuMont) covered a majority of American households with their signals. The dominance of TV was just beginning. In 1946, less than half of one percent of Americans owned televisions, but by 1955, over half of all households owned at least one. Now, Americans no longer had to go to their local cinema and pay to be entertained—they could watch TV for free.

  Television was a death knell for the movie serials. The last one made was 1956’s Blazing the Overland Trail, produced by Sam Katzman and directed by Spencer Bennet. In typical Katzman threadbare fashion, it mined footage from three previously produced Western serials. The kind of entertainment for children that the serials once afforded migrated to the new medium of television, where Superman, portrayed by George Reeves, thrived in the 1950s.