{"id":4271,"date":"2003-10-02T17:59:45","date_gmt":"2003-10-03T00:59:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=4271"},"modified":"2015-05-08T12:47:56","modified_gmt":"2015-05-08T18:47:56","slug":"the_batman_we_n","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/10\/02\/the_batman_we_n.html","title":{"rendered":"The Batman we never saw"},"content":{"rendered":"

Though it’s something of an embarrassment to his Grand Artiste biographers and fans, Orson Welles<\/a> put substantial effort in 1946 into a Batman movie.<\/p>\n

The character was only ten years old then, and Welles was enthusiastic.<\/p>\n

Gathering many of his old friends and colleagues together from “Citizen Kane,” he proposed “a cinematic experience, a kaleidoscope of heroism and nightmares and imagery seen nowhere save the subconscious of Goya or even Hawksmoor himself.” Welles planned Batman to be an adult psycho-drama, but combined with what he described as the “heart-racing excitement of the Saturday morning serials, given a respectable twist and a whole new style of kinetic direction unlike anything ever attempted in American cinema.”
\n[…] The real treat for me was the casting notes and confirmation letters from the actors themselves such as George Raft signing up for Two-Face (after Bogart turned it down), James Cagney as The Riddler, Basil Rathbone as The Joker and Welles’ former lover Marlene Dietrich as a very exotic Catwoman with the same salubrious past Miller gave the character forty years later in “Batman: Year One.” Robin was completely absent from the picture, but the casting of Batman himself was the main reason the picture stalled and was consigned to the history books. Welles wanted to cast himself in the roles of both Batman and Bruce Wayne, but the studio wanted to go with a more traditional leading man like Gregory Peck. Peck agreed and was reportedly even shot in a makeshift costume for the part during a break between filming “The Yearling” and the classic “Duel in the Sun.” Welles, however, was incensed at the decision. Despite being friends with Peck, he felt that this casting would completely compromise his vision and was especially angry at the studio’s suggestion that he should replace Rathbone as The Joker if he really a part in the picture.<\/p>\n

Welles bailed on the project at that point, and it all came to a crashing halt.<\/p>\n

The mind boggles, especially if you consider the cachet of respectibility (and artistic inspiration)such a movie could have given to the genre so early on. Amazing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Though it’s something of an embarrassment to his Grand Artiste biographers and fans, Orson Welles put substantial effort in 1946 into a Batman movie. The character was only ten years…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[852,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dc-cinematic-univese","category-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6831,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/12\/22\/trailers.html","url_meta":{"origin":4271,"position":0},"title":"Trailers","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 22-Dec-04 9:44pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I've had my doubts about the upcoming Spielberg\/Cruise War of the Worlds -- but this trailer certainly hits all the right notes, and the very best thing they could have...","rel":"","context":"In "DC Media (DCEU, DCU)"","block_context":{"text":"DC Media (DCEU, DCU)","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/dc-cinematic-univese"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130190,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/14\/id-be-a-lot-more-interested-in-this-batman-v-superman-flick.html","url_meta":{"origin":4271,"position":1},"title":"I'd be a lot more interested in this "Batman v Superman" flick","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 14-Mar-16 8:03am","format":false,"excerpt":"Glowering. With love. \"Batman v Superman\": The\u2026 Rom-Com? We\u2019re not the first people consider a Clark Kent-Bruce Wayne romance, but since we also have a crack video team, we decided to tweak the \u201cBatman v Superman\u201d trailer to see what a rom-com between the two would look like. Behold: \u201cBatman\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131777,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/10\/11\/batman-1966-concept-art.html","url_meta":{"origin":4271,"position":2},"title":"Batman (1966) concept art","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 11-Oct-16 10:37pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Very cool pre-production drawings for various episodes of the Batman TV series. The full set is here: http:\/\/batgirlbat-trap.com\/omake\/lesliethomas.html[h\/t +J. Steven York] The concept art from the 1966 'Batman' series was absolutely beautiful There's a darker vibe to these preproduction paintings. View on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":23858,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/18\/im-batman.html","url_meta":{"origin":4271,"position":3},"title":"I'm Batman!","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 18-Nov-11 10:18pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I was less than enthused when Batman: The Brave and the Bold debuted. For me, Batman: The Animated Series was (and remains) the ultimate Batman cartoon.And yet, over time, the show grew on me with its zany take on Silver Age Bat-jinx. It took justice seriously while still incorporating some\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49152,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/01\/05\/discover-your-batman-name.html","url_meta":{"origin":4271,"position":4},"title":"Discover your Batman name!","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 5-Jan-15 11:17am","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm Batman!(h\/t +Kay Hill) Originally shared by +Jenifer the Turtle Queen: Gasps I'm Batman \u00a0 View on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/14%2B-%2B1imgmax%3D660.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":50136,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/22\/missing-the-point-of-batman-versus-superman.html","url_meta":{"origin":4271,"position":5},"title":"Missing the point of Batman versus Superman","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 22-Apr-15 7:31am","format":false,"excerpt":"The author goes a little overboard in places, but the thesis is sound: Batman and Superman fighting is not about banging together action figures; it is (or should be) about something more profound. Why Comic Book Nerds Hate 'Batman vs. Superman' A day after the Star Wars trailer broke the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50673,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4271\/revisions\/50673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}