As fall creeps in, best to welcome the specters
- Mike Dewey: Life Lines
- October 12, 2024
- 824
“Show a little faith, there’s magic in the night.”
From “Thunder Road”
Cinematic songwriting was nothing new to Bruce Springsteen when his breakthrough album “Born to Run” was unleashed in fall 1975. Fans of underground radio had been aware of his gift for years by then, and his marathon performances, some as long as three hours, had been a smoky-club staple for most of the decade.
I’d been amazed by “Spirit in the Night” and “Lost in the Flood,” had been blown away by “Sandy” and “Rosalita,” but somewhere in the back of my mind, a darkened place that sometimes sheltered uncanny prescience, I had a feeling his story had only begun.
Of course, I’d felt the same niggling twinge the first time I’d heard McKenzie Spring’s “God Bless the Conspiracy” in 1972 and, a year later, Elliott Murphy’s “Aquashow,” but they kind of fizzled.
And don’t even get me started on Lindisfarne’s “Fog on the Tyne.”
Predicting the “Next Big Thing” is an inexact science, a crazy-quilt combination of talent, luck, timing and some strange pixie dust that falls only on the chosen, whose number is historically infinitesimal.
All of which brings us to the Batman movie.
No, not the recent major-studio bonanzas, those bloated, big-budget blockbusters that seem to set box-office records whenever they’re released, usually in summer or around Christmas.
The one I’m referring to — and still my favorite — is the 1966 production starring Adam West and Burt Ward, along with the most popular villains from the TV series: Cesar Romero as the Joker, Frank Gorshin as the Riddler, Burgess Meredith as the Penguin and, last but not least, Lee Meriwether as Catwoman.
It’s rather difficult to explain just how popular the small-screen version of the comic book series was, unless you experienced it as a child in the mid-’60s. TV back then was stuck in a flashback continuum that favored Westerns and cornpone fare. “Gunsmoke” and “The Beverly Hillbillies” soon begat “F Troop” and “Green Acres” while more topical offerings — “Judd for the Defense,” “Room 222” and “The Mod Squad” — struggled for ratings.
Into that prime-time stew was stirred “Batman,” which inexplicably became a nationwide sensation. Its innovation was lifted straight from daytime dramas — for example, stories that began one night and concluded the next. “Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel” worked its way into the colloquial shorthand of the young, who soon developed an insatiable appetite for all things “Batman,” everything from lunchboxes to collectible action figures.
Eager to capitalize on their runaway sensation, the creators (and the actors) threw themselves into the obvious next project, a full-length movie. This worked to perfection, and a smash hit was born.
In my little town, nothing since “A Hard Day’s Night” debuted in the downtown theater two years earlier had generated such a buzz. Everyone wanted to see it, couldn’t wait for it, and this led to a promotion that involved a local dairy business. Free admission could be gained by presenting five milk-bottle caps, which was genius. What parent could object to children drinking more milk?
I was remembering that long line of kids waiting to get into the theater the other night when I happened to stop in front of it. Thankfully, the original edifice still stands and, from what I’ve heard, has been restored to its former elegance. This represents a most-welcome shift from the tear-it-down attitude that paved the way for the razing of some of our most significant landmarks including the Old Jail, the Music Building and so many others.
Then I glanced up at the marquee and felt even better about life.
COMING SOON, it spelled out, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.
I stepped back to get a glance at the other side and was equally happy.
OCT. 30, it read, DRACULA and a line below, FRANKENSTEIN.
Two Halloween favorites from 1931, on the big screen once more.
My wife — whose first job as a teenager was selling tickets in the self-same glassed-in space that still exists — and I moved back home eight months ago after nearly 25 years on the Carolina coast.
Since then, as you can well imagine, we’ve been experiencing re-entry at considerably different speeds and with different degrees of success. She’s made the transition much more smoothly than I have, which, if you’re a faithful reader, you’ll no doubt understand.
Change and I have always had a love/hate relationship, sort of like the one Bruce Wayne and Miss Kitka (aka Batman and Catwoman) explored in that 1966 movie, the one I still enjoy immensely.
I mean I know it’s campy, and I understand the special effects are prehistoric, and I get all the criticism it’s endured over the years, but you must admit that when Batman mutters, in utter exasperation, “Some days, you just can’t get rid of a bomb!” that cinematic history wouldn’t be the same without those 10 words.
And that brings us back to Bruce Springsteen, where all of this started some 20 paragraphs ago. I referenced “Spirit in the Night,” a song from 1973’s “Greetings from Asbury Park.”
Picture this:
“Well now, Hazy Davy got really hurt
He ran into the lake
In just his socks and a shirt
Me and Crazy Janey was makin’ love in the dirt
Singin’ our birthday song.”
That, my friends, is cinematic songwriting at its best, and if you can access that recess in your imagination, where insights and sensations live side by side, sometimes uneasily, you might be able to conjure an October evening when spirits in the night do appear.
Then tune in next week, Same Mike Time, Same Mike Channel.
Mike Dewey can be reached at Carolinamiked@aol.com or 1317 Troy Road. He invites you to find him on Facebook, where there’s always a debate between Lee Meriwether and Julie Newmar fans.