Holy shaken and stirred!
“So, riddle me this, trivia-hounds, can you name all the actors who’ve played James Bond or Batman in the movies? Including the likes ofDavid Niven in the first Casino Royale and Lewis Wilson in the 1943 Batman serial? Well, dynamic dunderheads, did you know one actor has not only played Batman and James Bond but did so in the same film?
“Step forward Rodolfo Vera Quizon (always billed as ‘Dolphy’), the Peter Sellers or Roberto Benigni of the Philippines. Or maybe the Benny Hill or Don Knotts. Dolphy takes the two roles (three, if you count the ‘Bruce Wayne’ part separately) in the 1966 Tagalog-language multi-hero spoof James Batman — which, with apologies to Christian Bale and Daniel Craig, is one of the darnedest things I’ve ever seen.”
Dark Knight is unforgettable, but who remembers James Batman? by Kim Newman. Thanks to Roby for the link.
This truly is our niche in world cinema: Parody, travesty, and deconstruction.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
July 25th, 2008 at 13:23
The “Chairman” in the James Batman movie reminds me of the Joker in Dark Knight:
“The Chairman himself turns out to be behind the Organisation’s nuclear plot, which allows for a poignant moment as Shirley pleads with him not to pull the lever that sets off the big bomb but begs the question of why he bothers to order the two comical but surprisingly efficient superheroes to defeat his own plan.”
July 28th, 2008 at 13:27
as a backgrounder to the review, kim newman is also a pretty good writer and has always been interested in film history and horror fiction, which he combines in his fiction to good effect. for example, “anno dracula” is an alternative history novel wherein dracula married the british queen during the victorian era, jack the ripper was killing prostitute vampires, and helsing and the great detective were put out of action early on. (the bloodsucker later shows up as the bloody red baron in ww1 in another book.) he actually kinda beat out alan moore in using/combining historical and fictional characters in fiction, i.e. anno dracula was published in 1992 while league was published in 1999.
think quentin tarrantino’s hodge-podge of interests but instead of filming it, newman decided to write about it.
(yes, am semi-out of topic but am gleeful that newman actually had to learn a bit of Filipino to watch the movies.)
July 28th, 2008 at 14:44
In a Batman movie I saw on TV when I was yea high (starring Jun Aristorenas), the kontra bida was a gal called Katrina, who was a copy of Catwoman. She had several henchmen, one of whom had a speech impediment that made him unable to pronounce the letter S, which he pronounces T instead (‘sakay’ is pronounced ‘takay’ for example). Katrina has a line there where she introduces herself “Ako si Katrina” and her henchman would interject, “The cat woman!” in Tagalog and with his speech impediment. Looking back I wonder how that got through the censors.