Batman (1943)

Please don't spend money on this.

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

As Good As It Gets

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Batman's first movie is still one of the best Batman movies we have.Tim Burton tried back in 1989. A noble attempt, but the movie was too violent and had weak action scenes. Not just because of the stiff and heavy rubber suit. The car chase in the middle of the movie was one of the slowest ever put on screen.It's sequel, also made by Burton, was even more violent, vulgar and disturbing. It was inspired by German expressionist movies, which is a strange choice for a superhero movie. Audiences expected a classic tale of good vs evil, but saw instead a nihilistic piece of garbage.Batman Forever and Batman & Robin had improved action scenes, but ruined it with all the homoeroticism and sexual innuendo. Christopher Nolan's trilogy was much better than the previous attempts, but the movies tried too hard to be "realistic", which unfortunately made them unintentionally funny at times. It's surreal to see a growling Christian Bale dressed up as a bat, riding a weird motorbike in a Gotham that looks too much like Chicago.Batman returned last year in the sequel to Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of "Justice", and this time with more nihilism and more fake muscles on his suit. Inspired by the the grumpy pants Batman from Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns (only more sadistic), this version enjoys inflicting pain on villains. The movie was so depressing and meaningless, they even had the awful Neil DeGrasse Tyson show up and tell us how pointless our existence is. Batman from 1943 is the complete opposite of all those movies. The violence is bloodless. The batsuit is just a regular costume without a lot of unnecessary stuff. Batman stands for something good, he's not just a bully with bat ears. There's plenty of action, and no vulgar sexual content. The humor is lighthearted. You can watch it with your kids, but should probably explain why there's some anti-Japanese content in it. Back then, the Japanese were as barbaric as today's ISIS. The batsuit looks just like you would expect from a serial made in the 40s. It looked way worse in the sequel. Lewis Wilson's Batman must be the toughest live action Batman. No body armor, no fancy gadgets, no bat-tank. Just a guy with two fists and a costume. He did a very good job as Bruce Wayne/Batman, and I think it's sad that there's so little information about him...what he thought about the role, the character etc. From what I've heard, he didn't want to be interviewed back in the 60s when the new show was popular.It's funny that after so many years, and so many Batman movies, the old serials still have the best action scenes. I didn't grow up when serials where popular, but I wish more modern superhero movies could be like them.

First screen adaptation of Batman is made after just several years of comic-book releasing which caused some interaction between them. Although it was based on comic, it brought in some new details that comic took over later on. The most important thing comic took from this show is Bat-cave. Also, after this show comic changed appearance of Alfred to fit his appearance here.Originally, it was shown as 15 episodes and then, 20 years later, it came to theaters as one 4 hours long movie.Story is extremely simple and naive, characters are two-dimensional and from today's angle it looks totally silly. And yet, it has that something, that comic-book charm appealing to kids hidden in all of us. While I was watching it, I felt the same way as many years/decades ago when I was 10 year old boy, reading comics on summer vacation. In my opinion, adaptation of the comic-book should have exactly that kind of influence on audience, so in spite of all shortcomings I'm giving it strong seven.7/10You can find version of 3 hours and 35 minutes on YouTube.Spoiler warning !Movie was made during the WWII and Batman works directly for the police, trying to reveal Japanese agent that has mission to enable Japanese takeover of USA from inside. Back then all media was poisoned with war propaganda, so fact that this movie is full of racist remarks can be forgiven or at least ignored.Every conflict between Batman and villains is almost identical. Batman finds villain's layer, invades by surprise and fighting begins. There are almost no weapons, no one even uses legs to kick, not to mention something more sophisticated. It's mostly just fist fighting, like in Wild West saloons. Batman and Robin fight against two or three times more opponents and they get fairly beaten when something unexpected happens and saves their asses in last moment, so at the end they end up victorious. Villains all wear hats and during the fights those hats never fall off their heads.Because of low budget there is no Bat-mobile and almost no gadgets.

The first Batman adventure put on film everInteresting is the word for this...but I personally think the next serial, titled Batman And Robin (1949), is better. The second one had better casting/scripting/action/music. But many don't agree with me and some even get angry when I say this.I once viewed this 1943 version in an Australian movie theatre and the mostly 20something crowd was just so surprised that racist language like this was once used in Hollywood shows. As for showing this serial to today's kids? It should be fine for them, however adults might need to explain to them why the racist comments are present.

Bereft of the budgets and storytelling ingenuity Republic Pictures brought to their chapter plays, Columbia's first stab at DC Comics' Batman franchise is a drab, exceedingly repetitive bore, with J. Carroll Naish's "oriental" villain Prince Tito Daka dreaming up some of the most inane--and easily survivable--traps for heroes Batman (Lewis Wilson) and Robin (Doug Croft), who change clothes so frequently in odd places together (in the backseats of cars, in alleyways, even behind trees!) that it's not surprising Frederick Wertham would later blow a head valve over this stuff. Hell, Bruce Wayne's "excuses" for missing time with girlfriend Linda Page (Shirley Patterson) are almost brazenly gay, even for the period. The cliffhangers that cap certain episodes--usually after yet another poorly staged fistfight between the heroes and Daka's goons--are woefully under-realized (a car wreck is heard but not seen, as is a building explosion), usually with the heroes simply emerging in the next episode from wreckage we never saw happen. Skip this one.