Posted on 03/29/2014 8:48:58 AM PDT by EveningStar
Lorenzo Semple Jr., the creator of the campily classic Batman TV series who went on to craft such big-screen paranoid thrillers as The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor -- though he would be replaced on both films -- has died. He turned 91 on Thursday...
Semple’s résumé also includes the Steve McQueen-Dustin Hoffman escape tale Papillon (1973); Paul Newman’s Harper sequel The Drowning Pool (1975); Dino De Laurentiis’ King Kong (1976) starring Jessica Lange; and the rogue James Bond movie Never Say Never Again (1983)...
(Excerpt) Read more at hollywoodreporter.com ...
ping
From “The Drowning Pool”:
J.H. Kilbourne: You know what she wants to do with that land, Mr. Harper? She wants to turn it into a Goddam sanctuary for birds!
Lew Harper: I think that’s kind of sweet.
J.H. Kilbourne: Well now, look, I’m all for saving wildlife like the next fella, but we gotta think about America’s future. Energy sources just aren’t that easy to come by.
Lew Harper: Aha! Did you come to that conclusion out of patriotism or just greed?
J.H. Kilbourne: [after a pause] Little of both, Mr Harper, - like most men of wealth.
When “Batman” came out it was like nothing we had ever seen.
Also the music was just incredible. Simple but great.
Well, Dutch camera angles were used in "The Third Man"...
It still beats the ass off all the new order versions seen in the motion pictures since Michael Keaton’s.
My father did a lot of the underscoring(music)for”Batman”!The great Neil Hefti wrote the theme.It must have taken him all of 5-minutes?
RIP.
So true. That kind of campy spoof had certainly never been on tv before. And Adam West’s speech patterns were so absolutely perfect for Batman.
the first Batman movie was made to promote the series rollout in overseas markets, if memory serves.
The Making Of “Batman: The Movie” - (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91IIOKHpEP8
The Making Of “Batman: The Movie” - (Part 2 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBITJNDxgQY
Although I have a few qualms about the old “Batman” tv-series (the self-conscious humor, which was once refreshing, has worn a bit thin over time, as pop-culture as a whole has become totally saturated in that brand of reflexivity/self-awareness to the point of torpor-inducing tiresomeness), I’ll still easily take it over any of the later “Batman” offerings.
I always remember Semple’s name in the credits.
He beat out Lyle Waggoner for the role.
I always thought that they tilted the camera angle when showing the villains because they were crooked - they were crooks.
That show was full of puns, and the crooked camera angle for the crooks was just another one.
-PJ
You see? THAT'S why we wake up every morning. You learn something new EVERY DAY! Haha! Thanks, I did not know that. I like that sort of useless trivia. No, seriously. :-)
Batman and Wonder Woman come on tonight on METV. Wonder Woman gets a little boring at times but I had forgotten just how hot Linda Carter was.
It was a bit funny at some of the messages WW sent out. One was that women could always beat men. Women were always smarter than men. Women were always nicer than men.
Now that I think about it, it was the same as most shows today.
And Adam West’s speech patterns were so absolutely perfect for Batman.
William Shatner might have done it better...
Holy Mortuary Batman!
That's not necessarily off the mark, depending on the intent of the director, and the application of it to scenes only involving crooks within the story. A different take on the white hat/black hat motif.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.