--- title: "Batman" year: 1966 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/batman-1966" fi1m_score: 73 critics_score: 79 critics_reviews: 6 published: "2026-09-19T11:48:45.368786+00:00" updated: "2026-09-19T11:49:02.134970+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Batman (1966) Directed by Leslie H. Martinson · 1h 45m · MPA PG · Action, Comedy, Crime **Fi1m score: 73** · Critics 79 from 6 reviews *In a sentence:* Four villains, one submarine shaped like a penguin, and Adam West refusing to notice any of it is funny > Adam West takes the television Batman to the cinema and plays him with a straight face for 105 minutes while four villains, a rubber shark and a bomb do their worst. It is funny for an hour, and then it is the same hour again. ## Synopsis Gotham City. Batman (Adam West) and Robin (Burt Ward) fly the Batcopter out to sea to rescue Commodore Schmidlapp (Reginald Denny), whose yacht is reported in danger, and find the yacht is a projection and a shark is hanging off Batman’s leg. Behind it are the Joker (Cesar Romero), the Penguin (Burgess Meredith), the Riddler (Frank Gorshin) and the Catwoman (Lee Meriwether), pooling their talents for once. They have taken Schmidlapp and his invention, a dehydrator that turns people into coloured dust, and they mean to use it. Commissioner Gordon (Neil Hamilton) and Chief O’Hara (Stafford Repp) wait by the Batphone while the Riddler’s riddles pile up. Meanwhile the Catwoman, posing as a Soviet reporter called Kitka, sets about seducing Bruce Wayne. ## Review The television [*Batman*](https://film.one/film/batman) was still on air when its producer, William Dozier, got a film out of it, and it knows exactly what it is: a long episode with a bigger boat. Lorenzo Semple Jr.’s script gives Gotham all four of the series’ main villains, a submarine shaped like a penguin, a shark, a bomb and a machine that turns people into dust, and asks Adam West to treat every one of them as a matter of civic duty. It is funny for about an hour. It then runs on for the rest of its 105 minutes on the same joke, and we felt the strain. Worth your evening if camp is yours. The joke is West. He plays Batman as a decent, slightly pompous public servant who has never once suspected he looks ridiculous, and he never winks. When he cannot find anywhere to put down a bomb, because every corner of the pier holds nuns, a marching band, a mother with a pram or a family of ducks, he keeps his dignity as though dignity were the point. Semple gives him the line ‘some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb’, and West delivers it like a weather report. We laughed out loud, and it was the running that did it: a grown man in a grey leotard jogging politely away from ducks. It is the best scene in the film. The villains are a mixed bag. Frank Gorshin’s Riddler is the best of them, a wiry man whose giggle climbs into a shriek before the sentence is over, and Burgess Meredith’s Penguin quacks and waddles and plainly enjoys himself. Cesar Romero plays the Joker with his moustache visible under the white greasepaint; nobody has painted over it, and we found this funnier than most of the written jokes. Lee Meriwether, doubling as the Catwoman and as the Soviet reporter Kitka, plays the seduction of Bruce Wayne straighter than the film around her, which helps. Put all four in one room, though, and they bicker, and the bickering is where the film sags. Howard Schwartz shoots it in the flat, bright colours of a comic page. The Batmobile is a black slab with red piping, the villains wear their own colours as uniforms, purple for the Joker and green for the Riddler, and the sea off Gotham is the blue of a swimming pool. Nelson Riddle’s score is brass stabs over a walking bass, and treats each fight as a dance number. The fights themselves are pratfalls: men swing, miss and fall over one another, and Schwartz frames them wide so you can see nobody is hurt. The shark is rubber and behaves like it, and the film does not care whether you notice. The trouble is that camp is a one-note instrument. The Riddler’s riddles are solved by leaps the film mocks, which is funny twice and then simply how the plot moves. Every gadget is labelled, from the shark repellent to the Bat-ladder, and once the shark has been dealt with the labelling is the whole gag. In the last half hour, aboard the submarine, we caught ourselves checking how much was left, and then felt a little mean about it, because the film had never promised to be anything else. Most critics have been kinder to the second hour than we are. This is the Batman film all the others were made to disown. Tim Burton’s *Batman* (1989) put the character in the dark, and everything since has taken him as seriously as a war. The 1966 film does not look like a mistake. It looks like a choice: a Batman who is a good citizen, a Robin who says ‘holy’ things, a Gotham whose police are pleased rather than resentful when the vigilantes turn up. It reached British cinemas on 16 December 1966 with a U certificate, and children will follow every second of it. Watch it with someone under ten, or with a drink, or both, and feel free to watch it in two halves: it was built out of episodes and it breaks back into them without complaint. Stay for the bomb. *Fi1m score 73, published 19 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics like it, and they like it for the same reasons. The praise clusters on Adam West, whose earnest, deadpan playing is credited with holding the silliness together, and on the script’s willingness to be daft: the Bat-prefixed gadgets, the brawls staged like Laurel and Hardy rather than modern action, and above all the bomb-disposal sequence, which nearly every review names as the high point. Nelson Riddle’s music and the sleek, bright design are also noted as having worn well. The reservations are about how long the joke can run. The one mixed notice, from Time Out, finds the deliberate senselessness wearing thin by the end even while admiring the production. Digital Spy is warmer but stops short of calling it more than a pleasant period romp, valuing it partly as the thing later Batman films reacted against. The spread is narrow: nobody dislikes it, and the strongest voices are prepared to call it a knowing send-up of the whole genre. ### Reviews we read (6) - **Little White Lies**, Greg Evans (90/100, inferred): The 1966 film captures the humorous, dry, and wholesome take on Batman from the TV series in a big-screen adaptation that remains one of the most enjoyable superhero films ever made. It excels through Adam West's warm and sincere performance, silly unnecessary gags like Bat-prefixed gadgets, and slapstick brawls more in the vein of Laurel and Hardy than modern action spectacles. [Read](https://lwlies.com/in-praise-of/batman-the-movie-adam-west-comic-genius) - **Time Out**, TCh (60/100, inferred): This spin-off from the camp '60s TV series features all the major villains and a flip script with some inspired slapstick sequences, but the emphatic senselessness gradually becomes tiresome. The production work is excellent overall, with fun musical cues from Nelson Riddle and sleek design that still holds up. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/batman-1) - **Den of Geek**, Mark Allison (90/100, inferred): The critic calls the 1966 Batman film a postmodern masterpiece and an ironic deconstruction of the comic-book genre that remains one of the most enjoyable superhero movies. They single out its self-aware visual comedy, such as the extended bomb-disposal sequence, and Adam West's perfectly deadpan straight-man performance amid the absurdity. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/batman-1966-is-a-postmodern-masterpiece/) - **/Film**, Sandy Schaefer (85/100, inferred): The critic calls it comic book movie camp at its finest, even decades later. She singles out Adam West's earnest performance and the puckish wit of the script matched by Leslie H. Martinson's direction, including visual gags and the famous bomb scene. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/787271/the-daily-stream-batman-1966-is-comic-book-movie-camp-at-its-finest/) - **Eye for Film**, Jennie Kermode (80/100, inferred): The critic praises it as a comic gem that any dedicated film fan would be poorer for overlooking. She singles out the infectious fun from the cast's commitment, striking design work, and inventive direction, especially the classic bomb disposal scene. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/batman-1966-film-review-by-jennie-kermode) - **Digital Spy** (70/100, inferred): The piece describes the film as a fairly enjoyable pop-art romp reflecting 1960s culture, with memorable set pieces like the shark attack and bomb disposal, while noting it is no masterpiece but an important historical moment that later Batman works reacted against. [Read](https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a837486/batman-movies-best-worst-ranked/) ## Details - **Director:** Leslie H. Martinson - **Director:** Leslie H. Martinson - **Screenplay:** Lorenzo Semple Jr. - **Cinematography:** Howard Schwartz - **Music:** Nelson Riddle - **Producer:** William Dozier - **Cast:** Adam West as Batman (Bruce Wayne); Burt Ward as Robin (Dick Grayson); Lee Meriwether as The Catwoman (Kitka); Cesar Romero as The Joker; Burgess Meredith as The Penguin; Frank Gorshin as The Riddler; Alan Napier as Alfred; Neil Hamilton as Commissioner Gordon - **Runtime:** 1h 45m - **Certificate (MPA):** PG - **Release (the US):** 30 July 1966 - **Genres:** Action, Comedy, Crime - **Budget:** $1 million - **Box office:** $4 million ## Where to watch in the US Not streaming, renting or buying in the US at the last check. Also available in: AR, AT, BR, CL, CO, DE, EC, MX, PA, PE. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Danger: Diabolik* (1968): Mario Bava’s pop-art thief, the same colours played for glamour instead of laughs - *Barbarella* (1968): Jane Fonda in space, the sixties comic-strip camp taken about as far as it goes - *Flash Gordon* (1980): Cheap, loud, sincere and scored by Queen; the closest thing to this film’s spirit - *Batman: Mask of the Phantasm* (1993), Fi1m 82: The animated Batman, grave where West is cheerful, and the better film for grown-ups — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/batman-mask-of-the-phantasm.md) - *The Lego Batman Movie* (2017), Fi1m 74: The one later Batman film that admits it finds the character funny — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-lego-batman-movie.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/batman-1966