Batman in 1960's: Adam West

THE 1960's SERIES

 

Adam West is arguably the most recognizable Batman face to date. He is perhaps as associated with Batman as Christopher Reeve is with Superman, Boris Karloff with Frankenstein's monster and Douglas Fairbanks with Zorro. His portrayal represents the late 1940's/50's and the story ideas more so on the early to mid 1960's comic books. The series itself was enormously faithful to the Silver Age comics while also adding its new ideas to the mix which were later copied or absorbed to the comic books. At the time it was still close to a decade before the darkness fell again on the caped crusader in the comics.

The first episode of the series is based on 1965's Batman #171, but it was more so the plot that was inspirational for that episode, while the Batman character was more faithful to the earlier portrayal of the 50's. The character at the time was a deputized honorary member of the police force, and very much a Sherlock Holmes in a costume, closely working with the police, solving clues with Robin/Watson and bringing criminals behind bars.

William Dozier (producer): When you're working on something you begin to visualize these characters coming to life. (...)  I was impressed by [Adam West's] looks. (...) He had an immediate and a very intelligent insight in the what we were trying to do, he grasped the duality of this thing immediately, he would have to play it very straight and very square in order to have it come through as humor. (...) he turned out to be exactly right (CBS 1966)


Adam West: To me it was so enormously fresh and funny I couldn't resist it (Holy Batmania doc)
I felt I had such an opportunity to create a character that would become a part of pop culture (Batman: The Complete History) 

The show was supposed to be played very seriously in order to be 'unintentionally' funny with it's over the top translation of comic book stories of the 50s and early 60s to the screen. Some examples of where the comic books stood with their approach and storylines in the 50s/60s:

William Dozier: [The Batman comic books I've read] were all so juvenile, and so then a very simple idea struck me, and that was to overdo it. And if you overdid it I thought, it would be funny to adults, and yet it would be stimulating the kids, the daring, doing, but you had to appeal on both levels (Holy Batmania doc.)

Charles Fitzsimmons (Associate Producer): It was a tough search [to find the lead actor] because you've got to find an actor who was prepared to play Alice in Wonderland as if though it was Hamlet (Holy Batmania doc)

The yellow oval emblem appeared in comic books in June 1964 when a big revolution hit the mythology. The new look symbolized the beginning of a new, more serious era, getting rid of the camp, aliens and bringing back more serious stories, old villains and a new, more sophisticated artwork. Ironically less than two years later the TV show reversed the process and it wasn't until 1968 that Batman once again tried to get back to the darkness and stayed this way. The TV show however, used Carmine Infantino's new emblem

In the beginning though, they were about to go with the old emblem (screencap below from the screentest)

West's Batman, like his comic book counterpart, was both a great detective, being able to solve Riddler's crimes and find solutions of the problems when the Police didn't have any, and also a great chemist and technician

Worth noting is Batman's posture when he's standing still. He crosses his arms like a bat while listening to the conversation or waiting.

Also, in the comic books Batman was virtually inseparable from Robin since 1940, and the comic book relationship between Batman and his young and enthusiastic sidekick is also present in the show.

As far as visuals, the series' Batman is a mirror image of the comic book incarnation of the time, perhaps too perfect, since West's mask even retained the black front which was simply a shadow in the comics.

While intentionally fun and light hearted, the series seems to take a lot of heat from various Batman related personalities, notable in the 'Legends of the Dark Knight' and 'Shadows of the Bat' documentaries

Paul Dini (BTAS) I think Batman had been haunted by the 60's show. For years after that show had ended. And i don't think there was anyway to shake that in the public's mind. 
 
Frank Miller- The campy old tv show Batman was essentially mocking the source material.(...)It was much campier than the comic had ever been.

Michael Uslan: There's more to Batman than Pow, Zap, and Wham. And for about 20 years whenever anyone mentioned the word Batman. Or wrote about it in print Pow, Zap, and wham were always attached to the name.

However it seems like all of the Batman directors are, or at least were fond of the show, and Christian Bale cites Adam West as his favorite actor portraying Batman (along with Michael Keaton)

Christian Bale:  I think what Adam West did was great. I just didn’t realize when I was watching it as a kid that it was a spoof, you know? It was a very campy kind of thing, performance that he was doing. (movies.about.com 2005) 

Tim Burton: I grew up with the TV series (Washington Post 1989)

[Joel] Schumacher wanted Batman & Robin to be more of homage to the TV show of the 60s than any of the more recent, darker looks of the aptly named Dark Knight. (denofgeek.com 2010)

Rather reassuringly, leaning against another wall [in Christopher Nolan's office] is a framed poster of a 1966 Batman movie (Empire Magazine 2011)

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