The Manta's Shadow, Part V - The Batmobile!

This week, fanboys ( and, presumably, fangurlz) everywhere are eagerly awaiting the cinematic nerdfest known as The Dark Night Rises and the internet is abuzz with Batman news and opinions. In a shameless gambit to snare even one unwary web surfer to My Humble Blog, I present to you a tale of the Batmobile from the critically acclaimed and culturally relevent 1966-1967 TV series, Batman.

In 1966, I was an adorable 9-year old who loved comic books and was thrilled that a live-action TV series featuring the super-cool Batman was a becoming a reality. Unfortunately, even for an optimistic child, this show was a harsh reality. I kept watching every week, believing in my little heart that, surely, this mess would get better. Such was not the case. This incarnation of Batman was a buffoon not a hero. But I kept watching and watching. Soon , I found two Truly Cool things about the show: Catwoman (Julie Newmar version, please. Sorry Eartha.) and the Batmobile. In that order.

Now one would think a vehicle called the Batmobile would be inspired by a bat. But one would be wrong. Mistaken and incorrect to be sure. From whence sprung the inspiration for this menacing design ? From the manta ray, of course, old chum! (The title of the post provided a significant Bat-Clue!).

The vehicle in question started life about a decade earlier as the Lincoln Futura Show Car. A rolling embodiment of gaudy post-war euphoria and impracticality, the Futura was a one-off vehicle that was shown off at auto shows to give folks a glimpse of the bright future ahead of them (Pintos, Pacers and Chevettes being impossible for the 1950's mind to grasp). According to oobject.com the Futura was "originally designed by William M. Schmidt and his design team at the Lincoln Styling Department. It's rakish lines are said to have been inspired by the mako shark and the manta ray. Turns out, Bill Schmidt was a SCUBA diver back when diving was one of the most macho of activities.

These vintage photos show the Futura in it's pre-batiffied state. Personally, I don't see a lot of manta ray in the design, but I'm going to milk this angle for all it's worth. Did I mention that The Dark Night Rises opens at theaters everywhere on July 20th and that you can  pre-order tickets on-line as soon as you finish reading this post?

Just to assure you that I didn't dredge up the only manta reference on the net, I'd like to cite wikia.com which says "The body of the Futura was fabricated by Ghia of Italy whose artisans hammered the car's panels over logs and tree stumps to create the sleek manta ray-like car.

According to these websites the Futura was built for a cost of $250,000. That was a butt-load of money in those days and still is.

Sadly, the Futura experienced perhaps the highest rate of depreciation in automotive history. Custom car designer George Barris reportedly bought it for one dollar and had it sitting around his garage when the call came from ABC saying they needed a Batmobile for their upcoming series. Mr. Barris was planning to build a completely original design but ABC stipulated the car had to be ready in three weeks. Suddenly the Futura began to look sufficiently battish. In record time Barris and company made the bat-modifications, gave the car a killer paint job and an automotive legend was born. 

A theatrical footnote: The pre-bat Lincoln Futura was featured in the cinematic masterpiece It Started With a Kiss starring Debbie Reynolds (aka Princess Leia's MOM!) and Glenn Ford (Lincoln/Ford hmmmm). Here Ms. Reynolds demonstrates the future Batmobile's ability to multi-task as furniture.

Personal footnote: Lady in Red looks extremely hot even by today's standards but is most likely dead by now.

So stay tuned for the next episode of The Manta's Shadow on this Bat-Channel!

The Manta's Shadow: Part II The War of the Worlds

 Aloha, and welcome to the second installment in a series of posts that examine the influence of manta ray shape, design or function in science and culture.

The image of a manta ray evokes a variety of responses from people. Many SCUBA divers appreciate the graceful fluidity of its movements as it seems to soar through the water. Technically inclined persons can admire the manta's hydrodynamic efficiency with a shape that minimizes turbulence and drag. To others, a manta seems to embody the mysterious and sinister, a dark and almost mythological creature of dread.

Today's subject is the 1953 film The War of the Worlds. This movie, an adaptation of the H.G. Wells classic novel, is considered a sci-fi classic and introduced what were (at the time) ground-breaking special effects. A central component of these effects were the Martian war machines designed by artistic director Albert Nozaki. In updating the story for a modern audience, Nozaki discarded Wells' mechanical tripods and re-imagined them as sleek, stealthy and sinister appearing...

...MANTA RAYS !


Just look at the thing! Even as a little kid watching this on Saturday Night at the Movies I could tell these were manta rays transformed into really cool-looking alien craft. For die-hard sci-fi purists, note that in the photo above, the faint green columns of "sparks" under the craft. Nozaki, faithful to the novel, had his machines walking on "tripods" of force rather than mechanical legs.

The Internet Movie Data Base states in its "Trivia" for War of the Worlds "Albert Nozaki based his designs of the Martian machines on the shape and movement of manta rays". While the shape may have sprung from an appreciation of aerodynamics, it is probably just as likely that the form was chosen because it evoked feelings of fear, foreboding and the unknown. To quote the website Roger's Rocketships "Their appearance was halfway between the current mysterious Flying Saucers that everyone was talking about and manta rays. Neither association was good. Flying saucers frightened people and manta rays were something people avoided because of their sting. And well they should!"

Divers out there will immediately protest that mantas have no stinger, but that's not the point (ha!). Even today, the majority of people think manta ray and stingray are synonymous. All the more so in the pre-Animal Planet early 1950's. Roger's observations accurately reflect the conventional wisdom  of the time as well as the film-maker's intentions. In the 50's mantas were scary.

The down-turned wing-tips add to the manta-like appearance as does the central green light positioned where a manta's mouth would be. Disrupting the manta-effect is the long "gooseneck" projection from whence came the "death ray" which reduced anything it touched to cinders (a stinger, if you like).

If you enjoy sci-fi (as I do) check out Roger's website at www.rogersrockets.com. He has a lot of info on spacecraft from classic science fiction films and you can even purchase schematics of the Martian war machine.

Mr. Nozaki's imaginary craft continues on even today. Sci-fi fans purchase and build models of what they like to call "manta ships" from that long-ago movie. And you can count on other sci-fi references coming up in future posts on The Manta's Shadow.