Todd’s Movie Blog

When I was a kid I love the old Adam West version of Batman, you can catch reruns of it on the American Life Network along with The Green Hornet on Friday nights.  Though not as enjoyable at forty as it was when I was ten, the show still has the ability to charm.  A few years back I missed the TV reunion movie they did Return to the Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt, but recently was able to rent the DVD.  The film is actually two movies in one. The main plot is a campy spoof of their old show with West and Ward attending a charity car auction where the Batmobile is being sold.  It gets stolen and West drags a reluctant Ward along, convinced they are better suited to running down the thief than the police.  While tracing the clues deliberately left by the criminal they realize the solution is buried somewhere in the history of the show and look back over it’s two and half season run.  The main plot is amusing as West gets to bust out into the Batusi with Julie Newmar and continually sticks Ward with the bill everywhere they stop, the ironic joke at the end of the film is that Ward is rich and easily afforded the layout. tThe fourth wall is continually broken as West comments on Lyle Wagner’s naration as it’s being read and will glance at his watch periodically and let the audience know it is time for a commercial break.  One of the best lines is when they are attacked in a bar by a group of henchmen and the slightly delusional and overly excited West deadpans that it is nothing they haven’t face before, while the more realistic and concerned Ward quips that back then they had stunt doubles, before engaging in a Batman style fight complete with Bam and Pow flashing across the screen.  The second part of the film is told in flashbacks which traces the show from the casting of the pilot to it’s overnight success through it’s eventual decline and eventual cancelation.  Along the way you learn about the shows problem with the censors over Ward’s prominant bulge,  how Ward ended up doing all of his own stunts because it was cheaper, he was paid $350 a week while his stuntman was paid $100 per stunt. The on set fighting among the stars due to West’s tendancy to block Ward from the camera and talk over him to lengthen his own screen time, and both of their notorious sexual excapades with female fans which is ironically balanced against parents groups contending the TV characters appear to be gay.  An added treat is the showing of Lyle Wagner’s actual screen test when he wa the front runner for the title role, which showed West had the necessary lighter touch and was the perfec t choice.  The docudrama part of the film was so much more interesting than the send up plot that I wish they had just made the film about West and Ward remembering the show for an interview and had the entire ninty minutes to tell story of the show’s history with the twoo stars sharing narration, there seemed to be so much more that wasn’t gone into.