Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Before Batman there was Batman.
Growing up in Chicago in the Fifties and Sixties, Don Glut made dozens of 16mm amateur movies — lots of monster and superhero stuff, including a 1964's Batman And Robin.
As he describes it on this site:
"For a long time during the early 1960s I’d wanted to do a Batman movie, but didn’t know how to make a decent-looking costume. (Remember how silly Robert Lowery looked in that costume in the second Batman movie serial?) Then, in the summer of 1964, several things happened. I’d decided to finish my last two years of college at the University of Southern California, majoring in Cinema. Also, the World’s Fair had opened in New York, and life-sized dinosaurs were being featured there courtesy of the Sinclair Refining Company. I wanted to see the Fair before moving away from home. Finally the World Science Fiction convention was to be held on Labor Day weekend that year in Oakland, California. Here was the plan: Go to New York first, then return to Chicago, then continue on to Oakland, and end up in Los Angeles to start school at USC. I had a friend in New York – Larry Ivie, who was also a comic-book artist and amateur moviemaker. Larry would come back to Chicago with me, then continue on to the World Con, after which he’d return to New York. Larry just happened to have on hand outfits for Batman and Robin, which he and science-fiction fan Les Gerber had worn in the costume contest at the 1962 World Con, held in Chicago, where I’d first met Larry. Taking advantage of the availability of those costumes, I decided – on the spot, so to speak – to make Batman And Robin. It was shot over a period of two days in the summer of 1964."
By 1966, there musta been 8mm cameras pointed at kids in Bat-costumes all across America. Wouldn't you love to see that stuff?
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