If you read the last post, you know what’s going on. Here are another 10 movies that fans of Batman comics can enjoy instead of Zack Snyder’s upcoming blockbuster:
Ed Wood
Forget Tim Burton’s Batman films. It’s in this biopic of real-life, overenthusiastic, transvestite, vampire-toothed, and reputedly worst director of all time Edward D. Wood Jr – and to some degree in Sleepy Hollow – that Burton truly brings to life the kind of gothic, quirky atmosphere where Bruce Wayne dressing up as a bat to fight crime would not seem totally out of place.
Foreign Correspondent
Alfred Hitchcock directed a number of films with Batman-worthy set pieces, from spy yarns – The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes, The Man Who Knew Too Much, North by Northwest – to dark psychological thrillers – The Lodger, Spellbound, Strangers on a Train, Vertigo, Psycho, Frenzy. Moreover, there is a cat burglar at the heart of To Catch a Thief, and The Birds features bird attacks straight out of a Penguin tale. Yet Foreign Correspondent is the most fun of the lot, as well as one where the hero is not just reacting to bad luck – he actually throws himself gleefully at the evil plot in front of him, just like the Caped Crusader would! The movie also belongs to a set of adventure movies made *during* World War II that seamlessly combined escapist fun with real world terror, much like the Batman comics of the time.
Human Nature
All the lead characters in this movie seem to have sprung out of the Silver Age, including the world’s hairiest woman (Patricia Arquette), a psychologist trying to teach table manners to mice (Tim Robbins), and a man who believes he is an ape (Rhys Ifans). All that’s missing is Robin in a corner, shouting ‘Great Scott!’
Rio Bravo
I had to include at least one western. Despite the genre’s non-Batman-y predilection for heroes that carry guns and kill their opponents, so many other conventions fit like a glove, what with all the honorable, brooding protagonists working within and beyond the confines of the law to protect their cities from sadistic murderers. I went with Rio Bravo for two reasons. First, because Batman is such a Hawksian character, stoically carrying out his mission without mincing words, caring for those around him but more often showing it rather than saying it out loud. And second, because of the whole intergenerational bonding thing… I can just picture Alfred, Bruce, Dick, and Tim playing ‘My Rifle, My Pony, and Me’ in the Batcave.
The Maltese Falcon
The doomed atmosphere, the hardboiled dialogue, and the byzantine plot of Dashiell Hammett’s novel and John Huston’s powerful film adaptation have been reverberating around Batman stories for decades (perhaps never more clearly than in David V. Reed’s script for ‘The Daily Death of Terry Tremayne’). Despite his sharp detective skills, Humphrey Bogart’s Sam Spade is perhaps too morally ambiguous to serve as an ersatz-Batman. The other characters, though, would feel right at home in the Dark Knight’s rogues’ gallery – it’s a small step from Sydney Greenstreet’s Gutman to the more recent iterations of the Penguin.
The Murderer Lives at Number 21
There are plenty of murder mysteries around to satisfy fans of the World’s Greatest Detective, but not many are as amusing as this one, or feature a denouement that could have just as easily come out of Mike W. Barr’s typewriter.
Seven Psychopaths
Martin McDonagh, probably best known as the writer-director of In Bruges (and of several twisted plays about rural Ireland, as well as the vicious head trip that is The Pillowman), is behind this black comedy, which has absolutely no relation to the (also darkly funny) graphic novel of the same name about 7 clinically insane secret agents trying to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Rather, this is an L.A.-based cult film waiting to happen, a 21st century The Big Lebowski. At first sight, tonally and plot-wise Seven Psychopaths couldn’t be further removed from the world of Batman comics, even if the levels of blood and violence aren’t that far off from the Bat-titles circa ‘War Games.’ Yet you can just imagine Arkham Asylum harboring characters like serial killer Jack of Diamonds, who murders mid-to-high-ranking mobsters, or the Quaker, who kills through the power of guilt-tripping his victims.
The Thing from Another World
This one is for those who like stories in which Batman and his clan triumph over a supernatural threat through determination, ingenuity, and team work.
The Unknown
This cult classic about a circus freak and criminal called Alonzo the Armless looks like the darkest, most tragic secret origin of a soon-to-become Batman villain. And that is saying something.
White Heat
In this energetic and suspenseful gangster yarn, James Cagney plays a psychotic criminal that seems right out of an Alan Grant comic.
Finally, what would Batman himself recommend? Well, it is a well-known fact that his favorite movie is The Mark of Zorro, but he has also been known to spend his evenings watching Japanese erotica:
Gotham Adventures #56
NEXT: Batman strangles Batman.