Cast: Robert Lowery (Batman/Bruce Wayne), Johnny Duncan (Robin/Dick Grayson), Jane Adams (Vicki Vale), Lyle Talbot (Commissioner Gordon), Eric Wilton (Alfred), Ralph Graves (Harrison), Don Harvey (Nolan), William Fawcett (Prof. Hamill), Leonard Penn (Carter), Rick Vallin (Barry Brown), Michael Whalen (Dunne), Greg McClure (Evans), House Peters, Jr. (Earl), Jim Diehl (Jason), Rusty Wescoatt (Ives), John Doucette (Dan), Marshall Bradford (Morton), Hal Landon (Jimmy Vale), Allan Ray (Mac Lacey). Producer: Sam Katzman. Director: Spencer Bennet. Screenplay: George H. Plympton, Joseph F. Poland, Royal K. Cole (based on Batman comic magazine features appearing in Detective Comics and Batman magazines). Batman Creator: Bob Kane. Director of Photography: Ira H. Morgan. Art Director: Paul Palmentola. Film Editors: Dwight Caldwell, Earl Turner. Set Decorator: Sidney Clifford. Music: Mischa Bakaleinikoff. Production Manager: Herbert Leonard. Studio: Columbia. Length: Approximately 257 minutes in 15 separate chapters. United States Release Dates: May 26–September 1, 1949.
1. “Batman Takes Over” (Released May 26, 1949)
2. “Tunnel of Terror” (Released June 2, 1949)
3. “Robin’s Wild Ride” (Released June 9, 1949)
4. “Batman Trapped” (Released June 16, 1949)
5. “Robin Rescues Batman” (Released June 23, 1949)
6. “Target: Robin” (Released June 30, 1949)
7. “The Fatal Blast” (Released July 7, 1949)
8. “Robin Meets the Wizard” (Released July 14, 1949)
9. “The Wizard Strikes Back” (Released July 21, 1949)
10. “Batman’s Last Chance” (Released July 28, 1949)
11. “Robin’s Ruse” (Released August 4, 1949)
12. “Robin Rides the Wind” (Released August 11, 1949)
13. “The Wizard’s Challenge” (Released August 18, 1949)
14. “Batman vs. Wizard” (Released August 25, 1949)
15. “Batman Victorious” (Released September 1, 1949)
Columbia’s 1943 serial Batman was by no means a commercial failure, but it certainly did not achieve any great level of success that made the studio want to immediately follow it up with another Batman serial. In fact, Columbia waited until 1949 before deciding to produce its second and last Batman serial, Batman and Robin. Batman and Robin starred Robert Lowery as Batman/Bruce Wayne and Johnny Duncan as Robin/Dick Grayson. Like Batman, the serial was a black-and-white, 15-chapter film.
As Batman and Robin was going into production, it looked as if Columbia was going to show more respect for the Batman character in the serial than they had in Batman. The studio was fresh off their recent triumph in bringing a live-action version of Superman to the screen for the very first time—their 1948 serial Superman starring Kirk Alyn in the title role had proven to be resoundingly popular with moviegoers. Superman’s success led Columbia to assign most of the serial’s principal creators to Batman and Robin. Batman and Robin would be produced by Sam Katzman, directed by Spencer Bennet, and written by George H. Plympton, Joseph F. Poland and Royal K. Cole, all Superman alums. It certainly seemed likely that this pool of talent who had contributed so much to Superman would be up to the task of creating a Batman serial that was superior to Batman.
Unfortunately, this did not turn out to be the case—Batman and Robin ended up being every bit as poorly realized as its predecessor. Almost every element of Batman and Robin was sorely lacking in quality—bad writing, stale acting, unconvincing special effects, shoddy costuming and props, and wildly inappropriate shooting locations. Simply put, Batman and Robin demonstrated the same lack of interest in the Batman character as a screen property on Columbia’s part that Batman did.
Batman and Robin was filmed on the same kind of ridiculously tight shooting schedule that Batman was, ample evidence that Columbia still did not think much of Batman. All 257 minutes of Batman and Robin was filmed in the Los Angeles area in just one month, in February 1949!1 Obviously, nothing about the serial was going to end up being very good if it had to be done in that short of a time period.
It would probably be unfair to say that Batman and Robin was all that much worse than Batman was. But it certainly was not any better. There seems to be no consensus among Batman aficionados as to which serial was superior. For example, out of all the books and articles offering appraisals of the two serials that this author has examined, roughly half of them thought that Batman was the stronger work, and the other half preferred Batman and Robin. To put it bluntly, both serials are on the whole so bad that neither one has a noticeable advantage over the other. In other words, Batman fans, choose your poison.
This particular Batman fan is of the opinion that Batman and Robin is the worse poison. As evidenced by this book’s examination of Batman in Chapter 2, I cannot by any means give Batman a wholehearted thumbs up—but I feel it still has considerably more style and spirit than Batman and Robin does. Plus, one must remember that Batman was made a scant four years after the character’s comic book debut, during which time many key elements of his mythos were still in their infancy. Since these elements could not possibly be viewed as “time-honored traditions” in 1943, it is hard to find fault with the serial for not sticking to the comic book version of Batman all that closely.
But Batman and Robin does not deserve this same allowance. The serial was made a full decade after the character’s comic book debut, by which point most every key element of his mythos was firmly established. In other words, by 1949 these elements were starting to be looked upon as “time-honored traditions.” Still, Batman and Robin changed or ignored many elements of the comic book version of Batman, even after the character had proven his popularity. Columbia should have treated Batman with more respect when making Batman and Robin than they did when making Batman, because by 1949 he had become a character that possessed a certain degree of “longevity.” But instead, the studio treated him every bit as offhandedly as they had six years earlier, and basically doomed Batman and Robin to failure even before the cameras started rolling.
For example, Columbia still did not provide Batman with a Batmobile in Batman and Robin! By 1949, Batman simply was not Batman without a Batmobile—the car had become that important a part of the character’s mythos. But Columbia cared so little about Batman and Robin’s quality that they sent their title characters off to fight crime in a standard convertible that was every bit as plain as the one in Batman!
Robert Lowery as Batman and Johnny Duncan as Robin in Batman and Robin (1949).
And just like in Batman, Batman and Robin depicted Batman’s and Bruce Wayne’s car as being one and the same. As discussed last chapter, this obviously made no narrative sense—if Batman and Robin were so determined to keep their real identities a secret, why would they have ventured out in public in Bruce Wayne’s car? The new serial called for the heroes to be involved in at least a dozen car chases; in scene after scene, they were shown pursuing criminals in their modest convertible. These car chases would have come across as infinitely less tedious if Batman and Robin were shown driving a sleek Batmobile similar like the one in their comic book adventures.
Batman and Robin also lacked a decent villain. By 1949, the Joker, Catwoman, Penguin, Riddler and Two-Face were all regularly bedeviling Batman. But Batman and Robin’s writers ignored all of these memorable characters in favor of creating a villain specifically for the serial. The villain they came up with was an appallingly bland character called “The Wizard.”
The Wizard was Batman and Robin’s only villain—all 15 chapters of the serial revolved around Batman and Robin’s efforts to find him and bring him to justice. The villain concealed his identity from everyone in Batman and Robin, including all of the members of his own gang. Part of the “fun” of Batman and Robin for audiences was to try to figure out which character featured in the serial was actually the Wizard. But as we will see, the end of Batman and Robin completely cheated these audiences by revealing the villain to be a character that never really even appeared on screen until the final moments of the last chapter!
The Wizard wore a dark mask that covered his entire face, with nothing cut into it except for two small eyeholes, and a long dark cape. (He and Batman might have been on opposite sides of the law, but they obviously shared the same fashion sense.) He did not come across as particularly frightening or menacing; during the course of the serial’s 15 chapters, he was never actually shown killing anyone. But he was undoubtedly very grouchy—he constantly snapped at his men about their incompetence and made threats that he would finish off Batman and Robin for good.
The Wizard maintained an elaborate base of operations in a hidden underground cavern located near Gotham City. (Along with fashion sense, Batman and the Wizard also shared the same taste in hideouts.) From this base, the Wizard operated a “remote control machine” that projected a beam of energy capable of locking in on and operating any piece of motorized machinery within a 50-mile range. With this device, the Wizard planned on extorting money from transportation companies by threatening to seize control of their cars, trains, planes, etc. The Wizard peered through some sort of some sort of viewer attached to the remote control machine that allowed him visual access to whatever he chose to aim the machine’s beams at. The remote control machine used diamonds for fuel, so he was often trying to steal diamonds to keep it in operation. The Wizard also had in his possession a “neutralizer” which had the ability to make objects invisible when its beam was coupled with the beam from the remote control machine.
Now, all of us Batman fans must admit that the character has appeared in plenty of comic stories that contained, for lack of a better term, “junk science fiction”—that is, science fiction that is all fiction and no science. In fact, the 1943 Batman’s zombie machine would certainly classify as a “junk science fiction” plot device. But Batman and Robin’s remote control machine and neutralizer made Batman’s zombie machine seem downright realistic.
In Batman and Robin, we are told that the remote control machine and the neutralizer emit beams that allow them to perform their respective functions. In other words, if the remote control machine is going to be able to seize control of an automobile, it needs to aim its beam directly at this automobile. As previously mentioned, the Wizard operates these devices from his underground hideout—and he has not constructed an antenna of any kind on the ground above his lair. So how in the world is he able to transmit beams from his devices through the air, and then to any point in and around Gotham City that he pleases? And furthermore, how is he able to aim these devices so narrowly that he can affect just one vehicle, or so broadly that he can affect the entire city?
Also, how is the Wizard able to see virtually anywhere he wants within the Gotham City area from his hideout? He is continually looking through his viewer that allows him visual access to anything or anyone he pleases, but just how this viewer could possibly be connected to his remote control machine is never explained. And how could the remote control machine, or any machine for that matter, be powered by grinding up diamonds? Simply put, Batman and Robin’s “junk science fiction” was so far removed from reality that it came across as nothing more than annoying gibberish.
So basically, the Wizard was a complete dud of a character—he had no real identity, he was not particularly dangerous, and his gadgets did not make the least bit of sense. Again, one can more easily forgive Batman for choosing to concoct a new villain for its storyline. The serial’s writers had a very concrete reason for creating the Dr. Daka character—he was designed to reflect America’s involvement in World War II. Batman and Robin’s writers had no such excuse.
Another of Batman and Robin’s particularly noticeable flaws was Columbia’s choice of shooting locations for the serial. Even though Batman and Robin was set in the large metropolis of Gotham City, it seemed that the majority of the serial’s action scenes were scripted to take place outside of Gotham’s city limits. The real-life terrain that was supposed to represent the area outside of Gotham in Batman and Robin was the hills around Los Angeles. Consequently, many of its scenes featured Batman and Robin scaling jagged rock slopes or running down dusty trails lined with scrubby trees and brush. In other words, Batman and Robin often looked as if they had been accidentally turned loose in the middle of a Western movie!
Also, several of the structures that Batman and Robin used for the Wizard’s men to hide out in were ramshackle little wooden cabins that also looked like they belonged in a Western. Obviously, the cabins must have originally been constructed for some of Columbia’s Westerns, and the studio simply decided to use them in the serial instead of spending money on new, more appropriate sets. These outdoor locations and sets greatly compromised Batman and Robin’s sense of atmosphere. Gotham City had always been patterned after New York City in the comics, so Batman and Robin’s Gotham should have had an “Eastern United States” feel to it, not a “Western United States” feel.
To make matters worse, some of the music featured in the serial consisted of themes that were originally composed for earlier Columbia releases, including the 1948 western Relentless. Not surprisingly, since some of these themes were first meant for a Western film, they sounded as if they belonged in a Western film, not in a Batman film. These recycled melodies helped to reinforce the impression that Batman and Robin’s creators seemed to think they were making a cowboy picture, not a costume adventure set in a large urban area.
But the very worst thing about Batman and Robin was simply the manner in which the serial portrayed its title characters. Batman and Robin came across as so unbelievably flat and uninspired that they hardly resembled their comic book selves. After Batman and Robin’s creators saddled the characters with a pathetic automobile and an equally pathetic adversary, they further burdened them with terrible costumes, unbearably stiff dialogue and howlingly bad action sequences.
First off, Batman’s and Robin’s costumes in the serial were every bit as poor as their costumes were in the 1943 Batman. Batman’s cowl sported ears that pointed sideways off his mask, one out to the left and one out to the right; they looked more like devil’s horns than they did bat ears. And the cowl’s nose was so long, and came to such a sharp point, that from certain angles it resembled the beak of a bird. Finally, the cowl’s eye holes were cut too low, making it almost impossible to see out of.
His utility belt looked more like a sash than a belt. It did have a buckle in the front, but other than that it was nothing more than a wide strip of shiny fabric, with no pouches on it for carrying crimefighting equipment. One large loop of fabric sewn on it off to the side could be used for carrying objects. (This loop was used only once in Batman and Robin, in the opening scenes of Chapter 7—the scene is so ridiculous that it deserves an in-depth explanation, so I will provide one in my rundown of the entire serial a bit later.)
Batman’s badly designed gloves consisted of regular-length heavy work gloves with fabric sewn onto the ends of them so that they would resemble long gauntlets. Even though the serial was filmed in black and white, it was obvious that the gloves were far lighter in color than the fabric sewn onto them!
In fairness to Batman and Robin’s costume designers, they did a better job with Batman’s bodysuit than Batman’s costume designers did—it was much more form-fitting, and it had a very well-crafted bat emblem sewn onto its chest. Also, Batman’s cape in Batman and Robin was longer and much better tailored than was his cape in Batman. But obviously, these positives were far outweighed by all of the negatives mentioned above.
Once again, Robin’s costume was better designed than Batman’s. It had the same style of medieval-looking long laces running up the front of its “R”-emblazoned tunic that Batman’s Robin costume did, which recalled the character’s original Robin Hood inspiration. However, the costume was generally darker in color than Batman’s Robin costume. In fact, it did not have a light colored cape to approximate the comic book Robin’s yellow cape; instead, it sported a black cape. But this change actually looked quite good on screen. Since the serial was filmed in black and white, the black cape gave the costume as a whole more definition. Unfortunately, Batman and Robin’s Robin costume had one glaring problem, a problem that Batman’s Robin costume had as well—namely, its mask was nothing more that a cheap oval-shaped dime store mask that covered far too much of the face.
Batman’s and Robin’s dialogue in Batman and Robin was every bit as ill-conceived as their costumes; all of their lines were so mundane and stilted that the characters came across as having no personality at all. Perhaps their blandness was due to the fact that, unlike Batman, they were depicted as working very closely with the Gotham City Police Department. Consequently, Batman and Robin depicted the presence of the heroes in Gotham as an unremarkable, everyday event, as if seeing them on the street would be as regular of an occurrence as seeing a traffic cop on his beat. (As discussed in the introduction of this book, this same problem also adversely affected the comic book Batman—the character lost some of its bite once he gave up his vigilante status and became a “legitimate” law enforcement officer.) At any rate, Batman and Robin’s decision to portray Batman and Robin as rather unexceptional citizens of Gotham just seemed to take all of the mystery and fun out of the characters.
And not only did Batman and Robin not give its heroes much of anything to say, it also did not give them much of anything to do. They were thrown into dozens of scenes that were ripe with cheaply crafted cliffhanger clichés, scenes that obligated them to escape the usual burning buildings, gas-filled rooms and out-of-control cars with mind-numbing regularity.
In fairness to Batman and Robin director Spencer Bennet, the serial did feature a number of well-staged fight sequences. In fact, generally speaking the serial had far better fight scenes than did Batman—Batman’s fight scenes usually consisted of everyone basically standing in one place and flailing their arms at one another. And unlike Batman, Batman and Robin even allowed its heroes to decisively win some of their battles.
Robert Lowery’s portrayal of Batman/Bruce Wayne and Johnny Duncan’s portrayal of Robin/Dick Grayson did very little to offset all of the negatives the actors had been given to work with. Lowery and Duncan’s performances were uninspired, to say the least. While Lewis Wilson and Douglas Croft gave energetic performances in Batman that at times managed to rise above the serial’s many faults, Lowery and Duncan blandly delivered most of their lines as if they were reading them for the first time.
When Batman and Robin was filmed, Lowery was 35 years old, a little over six feet tall, and athletically built—so he certainly looked the part of Batman/Bruce Wayne. But Lowery’s glum acting seemed to suggest that he considered the role to be far beneath him. And honestly, who could blame him? Watching Batman and Robin, one cannot help but feel sorry for him as he struggles to see out of his ridiculous cowl with devil’s horns and a bird’s beak nose, and has to spout line after line of atrocious dialogue. Fortunately for Lowery, Batman and Robin would end up being little more than an undistinguished entry on his acting resume—he would go on to appear in many successful film and television productions all the way up through the late 1960s.
Duncan’s performance as Robin/Dick Grayson was even more problematic, because he was simply far too old for his role—he was 26 years of age when the serial was filmed! Duncan was youthful-looking and considerably shorter than Lowery, so the pair bore a decent enough physical resemblance to their comic book counterparts. But whenever Duncan talked, it was glaringly obvious that he was about a decade removed from being a “boy wonder.” To make matters worse, in Duncan’s scenes as Dick Grayson he was outfitted with a sports coat that had very prominent shoulder pads, making him appear more broad-shouldered than Lowery! The last thing Batman and Robin’s costume designers should have done was to put Duncan in clothes that made him look even more manly!
Batman and Robin incorporated several elements drawn from Batman’s comic book world that did not make it to the screen in the 1943 Batman. Gotham City Police Commissioner Gordon appeared on screen for the first time in the serial. The part of Gordon was played by Lyle Talbot, who turned in a likable, low-key performance. Also, the Batsignal made its screen debut; it was kept in Gordon’s office, and when he wanted to summon Batman and Robin he would shine it out of his window and into the sky. Unfortunately, Batman and Robin’s Batsignal looked like nothing more than a standard-sized television set with a bat silhouette pasted on the screen, and the image it supposedly projected was an unconvincing process shot of that bat silhouette superimposed on some low clouds. In fact, the same shot was used every time the signal was lighted during the 15 chapters, so it was always shown shining on the exact same cloud formation!
The Batcave was one of the few bright spots of the serial. It was a much larger set than the one used in the 1943 Batman, complete with laboratory gear and large banks of electrical equipment. (What purpose this electrical equipment served was never revealed.) However, Batman and Robin’s Batcave had one absurdly obvious weakness—it evidently had no passageway to allow the crimefighters to discreetly enter and exit the Wayne home! Whenever Batman and Robin were shown leaving from or returning to the Wayne home, they simply walked between the side door of the house and their car, which was parked right out in the driveway! What would be the point of having a secret base of operations if the only way in and out of it could be easily spotted by all of your neighbors?
And Wayne’s neighbors would have seen Batman and Robin passing in and out of the house. Batman and Robin’s creators must have forgotten that, in the comics, Wayne was a very wealthy man who owned a large estate situated on lots of acreage—because in the serial, they set him up in a rather modest-looking suburban home with a very small yard! The inside of the Wayne house was decidedly “un–millionaire-like” as well—it was appointed with the kind of generic furnishings and decor that one would find in a home that belonged to a family with 2.5 children, a dog and a barbecue grill on the back porch. Both Batman and Robin’s Batcave and Wayne home served to reinforce the impression that the serial’s creators simply had very little familiarity with the Batman character.
Batman and Robin’s writers were able to concoct one character for the serial that would become a mainstay of Batman’s comic book world throughout the 1950s and early 1960s. Just as Alfred had been created for the 1943 Batman, Bruce Wayne’s girlfriend Vicki Vale was created for Batman and Robin. Bob Kane stated in his autobiography Batman and Me that he first learned about the character when he visited the Columbia lot in 1948, as Batman and Robin was going into production, so he decided to introduce her into Batman comic stories.2
Kane also stated in Batman and Me that the comic book Vicki’s appearance was based on Marilyn Monroe. Kane claimed to have met the actress and spent some time with her both in 1943, when he visited Hollywood during the production of Batman, and in 1948, during his Batman and Robin Hollywood visit.3 (It is worth pointing out that Kane’s autobiography is filled with many colorful anecdotes that seem quite far removed from actual truth—so his claim to have rubbed elbows with Marilyn Monroe should probably not be taken too seriously.)
At any rate, Batman and Robin’s Vicki Vale looked nothing at all like Marilyn Monroe—the part was played in the serial by a dark-haired actress named Jane Adams. In Batman and Robin, Vicki Vale was basically a retread of Superman’s girlfriend Lois Lane. Lois worked as a news reporter and Vicki worked as a news photographer—and, just like Lois, Vicki was always getting herself into perilous situations that required a caped hero to come and rescue her. (The character would be used in the same manner 40 years later, in the 1989 Batman film.) Adams was pleasant enough as Vicki in Batman and Robin, but her performance was no more inspired than the derivative character she played.
Each chapter opens with a dramatic title shot showing the heroes against a dark background, looking intently around them as if searching for something or someone. (Given the quality of the serial, perhaps they are trying to find their way off of the screen.) Chapter 1, “Batman Takes Over,” opens with a number of banner newspaper headlines proclaiming the heroes’ success in putting an end to a Gotham City crime wave. We then see Batman and Robin entering the Batcave, where they receive a call from Alfred, who informs them that Vicki Vale, Bruce Wayne’s girlfriend and a photographer for Picture magazine, has arrived at the Wayne home for a visit. Bruce has not revealed the fact that he is actually Batman to Vicki, so he changes out of his costume and goes upstairs to the living room where she is waiting for him. As they chat, he puts on his “bored playboy” act for her, much to her annoyance.
Meanwhile, Police Commissioner Gordon is placing a call to a Gotham City electrical research facility that has just completed work on an experimental remote control machine. The device projects a beam of energy that is capable of locking in on and operating any piece of motorized machinery within 50 miles. Gordon tells the facility that the federal government has requested that the Gotham Police provide extra security. But soon after Gordon’s call, thieves break into the facility and steal the device.
Gordon, Batman and Robin go to the facility, where they are given a demonstration of how the remote control machine works. They learn that the device is powered by diamonds, so Batman urges Gordon to post extra officers everywhere in Gotham where diamonds might be kept. Their conference is interrupted by the entrance of Prof. Hamill, developer of the remote control machine. Hamill, who is confined to a wheelchair, has been in such poor health that he had to bow out of the final construction phases of the device. He is furious with the facility, Gordon and even Batman and Robin over the loss of his life’s work.
Later, at his home, Hamill is being attended by his servant Carter. When Carter leaves the room, Hamill locks the door and wheels himself over to a chair equipped with odd-looking electronic devices. He sits in the chair and flips a switch attached to it. After the chair buzzes and flashes for several moments, Hamill is suddenly able to stand on his own. He walks through a secret door located in his fireplace and out of sight.
We are then transported to the hidden underground cavern that serves as a hideout for the Wizard. His real identity shrouded by a dark mask and cloak, the Wizard is revealed to be the mastermind behind the theft of the remote control machine. He sends some of his henchmen to steal diamonds necessary for the machine’s operation. The henchmen attempt to rob a jewelry warehouse, but they are thwarted by Batman and Robin.
The Wizard, angry that the crimefighters have interfered with his operation, plans another diamond heist; he has learned that a shipment of diamonds is being transported by plane from the Gotham Airport, and he hatches a scheme to obtain them. (Incidentally, before many of the Wizard’s major scenes in the serial, we see Hamill sitting down in this strange chair, reviving his legs and walking through his secret fireplace door. Obviously, we are being led to believe that Hamill is the Wizard.)
Batman and Robin also learned of the diamond shipment and replace the plane’s regular pilots in case someone makes a grab for the diamonds. The Wizard fires up the remote control machine and takes over the plane, forcing it to land. Once the crimefighters are on the ground, the Wizard’s henchmen meet the plane and take the package of diamonds from them at gunpoint. With Batman and Robin still in the plane, the Wizard again targets the craft with the remote control machine. This time, the Wizard causes it to burst into flames and explode, seemingly with the heroes still aboard.
Chapter 2, “Tunnel of Terror,” opens with Batman and Robin running out of the plane before it is destroyed. Stowing away on a plane carrying the Wizard’s men, Batman and Robin listen to their conversation and hear the name of the Wizard for the first time. Batman is able to steal back the diamonds by replacing the package with another of the same size and weight that is full of pebbles. (Exactly why Batman just happens to be carrying a package full of pebbles that exactly matches the diamond package is a question the serial does not answer.)
The plane lands and the henchmen make their way to the Wizard’s hideout. Batman and Robin attempt to follow, but the heroes lose sight of them just before they pass through the hideout’s hidden entrance. As Batman and Robin head back to the Batcave, they notice that Prof. Hamill’s house is located close to the area where they lost the Wizard’s men.
Some time later, Bruce and Dick are listening to a radio news broadcast by reporter Barry Brown, who seems to consistently have inside information regarding Gotham criminal activity. Brown predicts that thieves will attempt to steal a shipment of unspecified material that is being moved through Gotham by train that very day. Bruce and Dick learn that the material targeted for theft is a powerful new explosive known as X–90 and that the train carrying the explosive has just left a Gotham train station. They change to Batman and Robin and race to intercept the train.
The heroes catch up with the train just as the Wizard’s men board it. As Robin drives, Batman leaps from their car onto the moving train. He climbs up the side of the train and begins fighting the Wizard’s men atop one of the freight cars. As they fight, the train approaches a tunnel. The chapter closes with Batman seemingly about to be smashed against the top of the tunnel.
Chapter 3, “Robin’s Wild Ride,” shows the crimefighter duck down and avoid the top of the tunnel. The tunnel provides the momentary distraction the Wizard’s men need to radio their boss and tell him to use the remote control machine to halt the train. Once the train is stopped, they grab the explosive, but Batman leaps down from the top of the train at them. Batman is momentarily overpowered during the fight and the criminals are able to escape with the explosive. Batman and Robin try to pursue the fleeing thugs in their car, but the Wizard disables it using the remote control machine.
The criminals present the Wizard with the box containing the X–90. But the Wizard’s triumph is short-lived, because his men forgot to steal the box containing the special detonators required to set off the explosive. The Wizard sends his men to kidnap Wesley Morton, the inventor of X–90. The criminals take the inventor to one of their secret hideouts, where the Wizard appears and hypnotizes him. Morton reveals that the detonators are being stored at the electrical research facility where the remote control machine was developed.
Later, Hamill and Carter are shown visiting the facility. Then someone’s hand is shown pressing a button to unlock the facility vault where the detonators are stored, but just whose hand it is remains a mystery.
The Wizard’s men enter the vault and steal the detonators, but as they make their escape in a truck they are intercepted by Batman and Robin. The heroes chase the Wizard’s men in their car. For some inexplicable reason, the criminals stop their truck and get out of it for a cigarette break while Batman and Robin are still closely pursuing them. This pause gives Batman the opportunity to scale a rocky hillside and pounce on the hoods. During the struggle, the Wizard uses the remote control machine to electrify a metal crowbar with which one of the hoods is trying to strike Batman. Batman grabs onto the crowbar and electrical bolts fly from it—the crimefighter is lifted off the ground, his legs jerking back and forth as if he is performing some kind of crazy Charleston-style dance. The chapter closes with Batman, still holding onto the crowbar, plummeting down a steep hillside.
(Obviously, Batman and Robin’s narrative has already collapsed into an incomprehensible heap by only the third chapter. Why did the criminals stop their truck and get out of it for a cigarette break while they were still being chased by Batman and Robin? How did the Wizard manage to electrify a crowbar with the remote control machine when the device is only supposed to affect motorized machinery? Why is Batman dancing around like a 1920s flapper? Why is this episode entitled “Robin’s Wild Ride” when Robin never takes a wild ride?)
Chapter 4, “Batman Trapped,” shows Batman grab a tree limb before he falls too far. Robin, overpowered by the criminals, is thrown in the back of the truck and brought to a cabin used as an outpost by the Wizard. Robin opens a valve on an oil drum in the back of the truck, and the oil that spills out leaves a trail for Batman to follow.
At the cabin, the Wizard tries to force Morton to give him details about all of X–90’s destructive capabilities. After rescuing Robin from the Wizard’s men, Batman bursts into the cabin. There the heroes get their first look at the Wizard—but in reality, it is not the villain himself. Rather, it is a projection of his image on a large television screen cleverly disguised to look like a doorway. Since the Wizard is not really there and his henchmen have all fled, there is nothing left for Batman and Robin to do but to take Morton, who has been slightly injured during his interrogation, to the hospital.
At the hospital, Morton reveals that all of his data regarding the X–90 explosive are at his office. Through a radio transmitter placed in Morton’s room, the Wizard has now learned this as well. The Wizard’s men break into the office to steal the formula, where they are met by Batman and Robin. During a fight, Batman is knocked into a large electrical device. The device emits a fierce shower of sparks and Batman falls to the floor.
Chapter 5, “Robin Rescues Batman,” reveals that the electrical device Batman short-circuited lost power before the crimefighter was harmed. However, the Wizard’s men are able to escape with Morton’s X–90 formula. As they flee Morton’s office, Vicki arrives on the scene with her camera and snaps a picture of them. When she develops the picture, she is shocked to see her brother Jimmy in the photo—he is a member of the Wizard’s gang! The Wizard’s men realize that Vicki’s photo could not only compromise Jimmy, but all of them, so they have Jimmy call her and arrange a meeting at a local park in order to confiscate the picture. Vicki mentions the planned meeting to Bruce, who fears that it is some sort of trap and decides to keep an eye on her as Batman.
Vicki goes to the park, but Jimmy does not; instead, another member of the Wizard’s gang meets her. He tries to forcibly take the picture from her as Batman and Robin arrive on the scene. The heroes fight him off, but the negative falls into a campfire. Batman scoops up the charred photo and takes it with him back to the Batcave. There he is able to reconstruct it and identifies another hood in the photo, Mac Lacey. Mac is known to hang out at a waterfront dive called the Harbor Club.
The heroes find Mac and capture him. As they are placing the bound criminal in their car, they hear a woman’s scream from a nearby pier. It is Vicki—she has also learned that the Harbor Club is a place that the Wizard’s men frequent and has come to look for her brother. She has not found him, but she has found trouble: The Wizard’s men have caught her snooping around and grabbed her. Batman comes to her rescue, but a stray bullet fired at him pierces a large gasoline tank on the pier, causing gas to pour into the water. Vicki falls in the water during the struggle and Batman jumps in to save her. One of the thugs throws a lit kerosene lantern into the water close to them, and the gasoline in the water bursts into flame. The chapter ends with Batman and Vicki seemingly surrounded by the fire.
Chapter 6, “Target: Robin,” reveals that Batman and Vicki simply swim through the burning water without being harmed. (Obviously this is not a particularly compelling or believable solution to the previous chapter’s cliffhanger, but given Batman and Robin’s overall quality, one takes what one can get!) Bruce disguises himself as Mac and returns to the Harbor Club, hoping to infiltrate the Wizard’s gang. The Wizard’s men are suspicious of “Mac,” but they allow him to accompany them to one of their hideouts. Robin trails them to keep an eye on Bruce.
At the hideout, the Wizard’s men listen to Barry Brown’s radio broadcast as Brown reveals that Mac Lacey is still in police custody. Obviously forced to drop the pretense that he is Mac, Bruce tells the Wizard’s men that he is a friend of Mac’s, and he disguised himself in order to get the gang to take him as a member. The hoods are still suspicious of Bruce, so they give him an important task in order to test his loyalty. The criminals have found Robin hiding outside, grabbed him and tied him up. Bruce is handed a gun and told to shoot Robin.
Incredibly, Bruce does just that, and Robin falls to the floor. But Bruce then shoots out the light in the room and helps Robin to his feet, and the two of them dash out of the hideout. It turns out that Bruce aimed for Robin’s belt buckle, so the youngster was not hurt at all. Some time later, Batman and Robin make their way back to a warehouse in the waterfront area, where Mac Lacey has told police the Wizard will strike next. But Mac’s information is simply a trap set by the Wizard to lure the crimefighters to the warehouse. The Wizard’s men are able to lock Batman and Robin in a room, which the hoods begin filling with carbon dioxide. The chapter ends with the heroes gasping for air, seemingly without hope of escape.
In Chapter 7, “The Fatal Blast,” Batman pulls a blowtorch from a loop on his utility belt and cuts through the door in order to escape the poison gas. (This is the only scene in which Batman uses his utility belt, and it is howlingly unrealistic. The blowtorch is at least a foot tall, and he was not carrying it in the scenes leading up to its use!)
Later, the Wizard plans to blackmail the Associated Rail Company by threatening to disrupt their train traffic with the remote control machine. On his radio program, Barry Brown reports that company president Winslow Harrison is traveling to Gotham to discuss the situation with Commissioner Gordon. Upon hearing the broadcast, the Wizard plans to kidnap Harrison before he can meet with Gordon. Batman and Robin have also heard the broadcast, so they race to intercept the Wizard’s men before they can grab Harrison. Vicki Vale hurries after Batman and Robin in her car in search of a story.
The heroes realize they are being tailed, so they pull over and force Vicki to stop. In one of the serial’s most bizarre moments, Vicki asks Batman, “Does Bruce Wayne know that you’re driving his car?” Batman simply answers, “Of course!” (As previously mentioned, having Batman and Bruce Wayne drive the same car makes no sense, since Batman is supposedly trying to keep his identity a secret. So evidently Batman and Robin’s writers decided to address this issue by simply having Batman infer that his borrowing of Wayne’s car was no big deal, that it shouldn’t give anyone any reason to suspect that Batman and Wayne were one and the same person!) Batman does not want Vicki in harm’s way, so he takes her car keys and tells her to wait with her car, and he will send Bruce to pick her up. But after the heroes drive off, Vicki pulls out a spare set of keys and continues after them.
Batman and Robin find the Wizard’s men just as they are confronting Harrison. Batman is able to rescue Harrison, and the two men take refuge in a small nearby cabin that the Wizard has been using as an outpost. (This is a different cabin than the one seen in Chapter 4—the Wizard’s taste in real estate obviously leans toward cabins!) But one of the Wizard’s men has left an explosive device in the cabin. The chapter ends with the cabin being destroyed by a fierce explosion.
Chapter 8, “Robin Meets the Wizard,” reveals that Batman and Harrison escape the explosion by exiting the cabin through a trapdoor hidden in the cabin’s floor. Batman then takes Harrison to his meeting with Commissioner Gordon. Batman convinces the men to tell the Wizard that the railroad company has decided to give in to his demands. But the ransom money that will be delivered to the criminal will be obsolete bills treated with a radioactive substance that will burst into flames when exposed to air.
Batman and Robin monitor the money drop, hoping if they follow the hoods who pick up the money box they will be led to the Wizard. They trail the criminals to a warehouse in the waterfront district, where Batman ends up in a confrontation with the hoods. Robin is knocked out by the Wizard, who has come to the warehouse to get the ransom money. As Batman struggles with the hoods, the radioactive money ignites and sets the warehouse ablaze. The thugs overpower Batman, knocking him to the ground. The chapter ends with Batman lying unconscious, about to be engulfed by flames.
In Chapter 9, “The Wizard Strikes Back,” Batman regains consciousness and makes his way out of the burning warehouse. He finds Robin, who has recovered from the blow the Wizard inflicted on him. The heroes see Barry Brown and Dunne, a private detective, lurking around the warehouse, and they discuss the possibility that one of these men may be the Wizard. Batman suggests that perhaps Hamill is the Wizard, but Robin dismisses this theory since Hamill is in such poor health and confined to a wheelchair.
The Wizard, furious that the railroads would not bow to his blackmail scheme, attempts to turn the remote control machine loose on all of Gotham City in order to give everyone a taste of his power. The diamonds in the machine burn out during this attempt, and the Wizard is now without his main weapon. He hatches a new scheme to obtain diamonds, one involving Vicki’s brother Jimmy.
Jimmy pretends to break ties with the Wizard and goes to Commissioner Gordon, supposedly to rat the criminal out. But in reality, Jimmy is simply looking for information regarding a batch of synthetic diamonds manufactured at the research facility. He finds out where the diamonds are being held and relays this information to the Wizard. The Wizard’s men steal the diamonds, but they are pursued by Batman and Robin. The Wizard fires up his remote control machine and forces the heroes’ car off of a cliff. (Why the villain was able to use the machine on Batman and Robin when earlier in the chapter he said it was out of order is a question the serial does not answer.) The chapter ends with Batman and Robin seemingly killed as the car crashes.
In Chapter 10, “Batman’s Last Chance,” the heroes bail out of the car right before it goes over the cliff. Meanwhile, Jimmy heads to a downtown Gotham office building that the Wizard’s men are using for a hideout, unaware that Vicki is trailing him. The Wizard’s men grab Vicki and hold her hostage. From the office building, Vicki is able to call Bruce’s home and let Alfred know that she is being held prisoner.
Alfred relays this message to Bruce, who races to the building with Robin. Once Batman gets inside the building, he is knocked out when he touches an office doorknob electrified by the Wizard as a security precaution. Jimmy finds the unconscious Batman in the hallway, unmasks him and realizes that Batman is actually his sister’s boyfriend Bruce Wayne. He drags Batman around a corner. Then, almost immediately, Batman is shown back on his feet, rushing in to free Vicki. The Wizard’s men see Batman, rushing him and pushing him out of a window. The chapter closes with Batman plummeting to earth. (Actually, this shot is pulled directly from the cliffhanger ending of “The Electrical Brain,” the first chapter of the 1943 Batman serial—it is glaringly obvious that the Batman costume in the shot does not match Batman and Robin’s Batman costume!)
In Chapter 11, “Robin’s Ruse,” we learn that the man in the Batman costume was killed—but that man was not Bruce Wayne. Dressed in Jimmy Vale’s clothes, Wayne runs out of the building, finding Robin waiting for him. Robin is so shocked to see him, he pulls off his own mask when he asks Bruce what happened. Bruce explains that Jimmy dragged him into a room while he was unconscious and removed his costume. Jimmy then changed Bruce into his clothes and put on the Batman costume himself. So it was Jimmy who rescued Vicki, and then was pushed out of the window by the Wizard’s men. Bruce assumes that Jimmy did all of this to make things right by his sister. Bruce and Robin drive back home, leaving Jimmy’s body on the street; in fact, no one mentions Jimmy for the rest of the serial, including his sister Vicki.
(This is another one of those moments when Batman and Robin’s plot completely falls apart. How in the world did Jimmy switch clothes with the unconscious Bruce in a matter of only a few seconds? Why does Robin rip off his mask while he is standing on a street in broad daylight? Why is Jimmy never mentioned again? Doesn’t his sister care enough about him to mourn his loss just a little bit, or at least plan his funeral?)
The Wizard’s men spot Bruce Wayne leaving with Robin and begin to suspect that Bruce is actually Batman. The Wizard learns that Wayne is having dinner with Vicki that night, so two of the Wizard’s men abduct him at gunpoint and take him to yet another one of their hideouts. (In a previous scene, Bruce had casually mentioned his date with Vicki to Prof. Hamill, so we are again led to believe that Hamill must be the Wizard.) Bruce is able to let Robin know that he has been kidnapped, as well as where he is being taken, so Robin comes to his rescue. He shines a flashlight that projects a bat insignia into the room where Bruce is being held, and the criminals run outside assuming Batman is after them. They see Batman running by, so they assume that they are wrong about Wayne being the crimefighter. After Bruce rescues Robin, we learn that it was Alfred who dressed up as Batman to throw the hoods off the track.
The Wizard himself has come to the hideout to question Bruce, but since Robin has broken up the interrogation, the criminal is forced to flee. Bruce changes into his costume and the heroes chase the Wizard’s car. The Wizard releases a smokescreen from his car, causing Batman and Robin to lose sight of the criminal. The chapter ends with the heroes unable to see the road, heading right for a stone embankment.
Chapter 12, “Robin Rides the Wind,” shows Batman stopping the car without hitting the stone. Later, through the private detective Dunne, Batman acquires blueprints for a “neutralizer” machine that will counter the effects of the remote control machine. The device is being developed by Prof. Hamill, but it has not yet been perfected.
Batman develops a plan to use the neutralizer to draw the Wizard out. It is publicly announced that work on the device has been completed and that it is being shipped by armored car. But the neutralizer is not in the armored car—it is merely bait meant to trap the Wizard. The Wizard’s men take the bait. From an airplane, they drop bombs close to the armored car to try to force it off the road. The chapter closes with the vehicle going over a cliff, seemingly with driver Robin still aboard. (Actually, this shot is pulled directly from the cliffhanger ending of “Slaves of the Rising Sun,” the fourth chapter of the 1943 Batman.)
In Chapter 13, “The Wizard’s Challenge,” Robin leaps out of the armored car before it goes off the cliff. Later, Hamill is shown to have finished work on the neutralizer; he gives the device, which is secured in a crate, to his servant Carter. Hamill tells Carter to deliver the crate to the research facility. The Wizard’s men attack Carter and try to steal the crate, but they are chased off by Batman and Robin. When the crate is opened, it is revealed to be empty—the Wizard’s men have obtained the neutralizer after all.
When the neutralizer is delivered to the Wizard, he demonstrates how he plans to use the device in his criminal schemes. By merging the beams from the remote control machine and the neutralizer, he is able to make any object in the path of the beams invisible. The Wizard then goes to the research facility to steal plans for a new super jet plane the facility is developing. When he gets there, he has one of his men point the remote control machine and the neutralizer directly at him. Invisible, the Wizard walks into the facility undetected. (As previously mentioned, this invisibility beam story angle makes no sense whatsoever—how are beams aimed from machines located underground possibly reaching the Wizard, who is above ground miles away? And where did this super jet plane story angle come from all of a sudden? Furthermore, just why is the facility developing a super jet plane in the first place? It is supposed to be an electrical research facility!)
Batman is also at the facility, because reporter Barry Brown had announced that the Wizard was planning on stealing the jet plane plans. The invisible Wizard makes his way into the facility and puts an explosive device in a safe where Batman is hiding. The chapter ends with the explosive device detonating.
Chapter 14, “Batman Vs. Wizard,” reveals that Batman retreated into the far corner of the safe right before the explosive went off, and consequently was protected from the blast. The remote control device and the neutralizer have started to overheat, so the Wizard again becomes visible. In his rush to get back to his hideout, he drops one of his gloves.
Batman takes the glove and performs a fingerprint check on it. The fingerprints belong to Carter, Hamill’s servant, so it seems that Carter is the Wizard. But when Batman, Robin and Gordon go to Hamill’s house to arrest Carter, they find that he has been shot to death by an unknown assailant.
In what has to be the crowning moment of Batman and Robin’s stupidity, Hamill walks in the room to find Batman, Robin and Gordon standing over Carter’s body. Don’t forget, the serial has reminded us over and over that no one thinks Hamill could be the Wizard since he is confined to a wheelchair—plus, we have been subjected to many scenes showing Hamill climbing into his ultra-secret experimental chair and reviving his legs without anyone else’s knowledge. Now in Chapter 14, he simply strides into a room, and no one even questions the fact that all of a sudden he can walk again!
At any rate, it would seem that the case is closed: Carter was the Wizard, and now he is dead. But Barry Brown is suddenly attacked by an invisible assailant right in the middle of a broadcast in which he warned that the Wizard is alive and planning on attacking Commissioner Gordon. Upon hearing this news, Batman and Robin guard Gordon in his office (Vicki is there as well). Batman has surmised that the Wizard has found a way to make himself invisible using the remote control machine and the neutralizer, so he has Vicki place a special infrared bulb in her camera lens that enables her camera to detect anything that might be shielded from the naked eye by the Wizard’s devices.
The invisible Wizard hangs on a rope right outside of Gordon’s office window holding a gun. He fires, and instinctively Vicki snaps a picture. The chapter ends without revealing whether the Wizard shot anyone in the room.
In Chapter 15, “Batman Victorious,” we learn that the Wizard was not able to get off a shot before Vicki snapped a picture. When the film is developed, everyone is shocked to see that it is a photo of Carter. This does not seem possible, since Carter was killed in the previous chapter. Whoever the Wizard really is, Batman surmises that he will try to get back to his hideout. Since he and Robin once lost the trail of the Wizard’s men before in an area near Prof. Hamill’s home, Batman sends Robin to the area to keep an eye out for the Wizard.
The Wizard makes his way back through the area where Robin is lying in wait, entering his lair through a door hidden among the trees and rocks. Robin radios Batman with this information. Batman meets up with his partner and the two enter the Wizard’s hideout. As they burst into the Wizard’s secret laboratory, the Wizard flees to Prof. Hamill’s home. Batman and Robin follow, finding Hamill and Carter sitting in Hamill’s study. The crimefighters seem not the least bit surprised to see Carter, supposedly a dead man, very much alive. Hamill tells Batman that he is ready to confess—he is the Wizard. Carter says that he and his twin brother were forced to take orders from Hamill, and that it was his twin brother who was actually shot to death. No one was even aware that Carter had a twin brother. Batman does not buy this story, so he jumps Carter. It turns out that Carter is holding a gun on Hamill, forcing a fake confession from the Professor. Carter, the one and only Wizard, will not escape justice this time.
After Carter is taken into custody, he reveals that it was his twin brother who worked as Hamill’s servant—not him. He forced his brother to give him information about the Professor’s work, which he then put to use in his criminal schemes. Every scene in the serial that featured Carter did not actually feature Carter, but his twin brother, who was never even given the courtesy of a name. So the real Carter, the actual villain of the serial, did not even appear on screen sans his Wizard costume until the final minutes of the serial’s last chapter. In other words, Batman and Robin’s final insult to its viewers was to cheat them out of being able to solve the mystery they had been puzzling over for the past 15 chapters.
Later, Batman, Robin, Vicki and Commissioner Gordon talk over the Wizard case in Gordon’s office. Vicki invites Batman to join her and Bruce Wayne for dinner that evening, and Batman accepts the invitation. Just then, a phone call comes for Vicki—it is Bruce. Actually, it is Alfred, playing a phonograph record of Bruce’s voice canceling his date with Vicki. Disgusted, Vicki puts the phone down and tells Batman that she thought she had figured out his secret identity—she thought he was Bruce Wayne—but she now knows she was wrong. Everyone shares a hearty laugh over the notion of Wayne being Batman as the serial comes to a close. (Actually, Batman has a bit too hearty of a laugh—Lowery, who has been so stiff for 15 chapters, all of a sudden lets out a spooky cackle that keeps rising in volume until he starts to sound like the Joker! Perhaps he was just relieved that this nightmare of a serial was finally over.)
I hope this summary indicates to the reader how bad Batman and Robin is. It just seems to go on and on forever, and it contains far more awful scenes than just the ones described above. Simply put, just about every foot of Batman and Robin is sadly lacking in one capacity or another, and it makes for very depressing viewing—especially if you are a Batman fan.
After Batman and Robin completed its initial theatrical run in the late summer of 1949, it disappeared into obscurity much like Columbia’s first Batman serial Batman. But as discussed last chapter, Batman enjoyed an improbable return to the spotlight when Columbia re-released it under the title An Evening With Batman and Robin in 1965, at which time audiences delighted in its outrageous campiness. For some reason, Batman and Robin enjoyed no such large-scale revival as an unintentional comedy—perhaps this was because, even though it was certainly bad enough to be considered camp, it simply did not have the hammy energy of its predecessor.
Columbia did release the serial almost in its entirety on Super 8mm film in the mid–1970s. However, it was slightly edited—to make all 15 chapters of uniform length, Columbia omitted several Chapter 1 scenes involving Bruce talking with Vicki. (Like most all serials, the Batman and Robin’s first chapter was slightly longer than the rest of the chapters in order to establish main characters and plot.)
Batman and Robin was also released on VHS videotape in 1990 by GoodTimes Home Video. The two-tape set was unquestionably a “cheapie” designed to cash in on the character’s newfound popularity following the blockbuster success of the 1989 film Batman. It was recorded in a substandard playback mode, which resulted in less-than-ideal picture and sound quality. (GoodTimes also released the 1943 Batman in this same economy format.) The GoodTimes version of Batman and Robin retained the edits of Chapter 1 found in the home movie version of the serial.
Batman and Robin was treated to a high-quality home video release in early 2005, when Sony Pictures Home Entertainment presented the serial on a 2-disc DVD set. The set’s picture and sound quality was very good, uniformly better than Sony’s 1943 Batman DVD set. (As mentioned in Chapter 2, that set varied in quality from chapter to chapter.) The Batman and Robin DVD set also restored the footage from Chapter 1 that had been edited out of the previous home video versions of the serial. Unfortunately, like the 1943 Batman DVD set, the Batman and Robin DVD set did not offer any bonus features or printed material dealing with the making of the serial. That said, however, Sony’s DVD release of Batman and Robin was a vast improvement over the previous home video versions of Batman and Robin.
Also like the 1943 Batman DVD set, the Batman and Robin DVD set featured some interesting artwork on its cover—perhaps too interesting. The cover featured a dramatic full-color image of Batman and Robin standing on a rooftop, the night sky above them lit up by a huge Batsignal. Batman and Robin were outfitted in costumes that looked like a modern comic book cover—the bat ears on Batman’s cowl were long and imposing, and Robin was wearing a full bodysuit that was red and green in color. In other words, the image looked nothing like anything contained in the serial itself! It could be argued that Sony was doing more than a little bit of false advertising by marketing their product in this manner.
In the final analysis, serious Batman fans should have a look at Batman and Robin despite all of its flaws. There are at least a few scenes in the serial that are worth watching. A number of the fight scenes are well staged, and there are fleeting moments when Lowery and Duncan are able to bring some life their characters. But if you took all of Batman and Robin’s “good” moments and spliced them together, they would probably not add up to be much longer than the running time of just one of the serial’s individual chapters.
With the advent of television, the motion picture serial format became less and less popular with audiences throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s—in fact, the genre was extinct by the mid–1950s. Since Batman and Robin was made during the twilight of the chapter play era, Columbia chose not to produce a third Batman serial. It would be almost two decades before the characters would return to the big screen—but as we will discuss later in this book, when he came back, he came back in a big way.