Feb 281973
 
two reels
Yarasa adam - Bedmen (1973)

There’s an evil, cat-petting villain in town. His plan: to insure the fashion icons around the city, and then kill them. Turkish Commissioner Gordon contacts playboy, crime-fighter, and mercenary, Turkish Batman (Levent Cakir) to save the day. The costumed superhero, along with his ward, Robin (Huseyin Sayar) set out to track down the evil-doers, and also pick up some hot women.

That music seems to work to start things off. It sounds a little like
 Ummm. That’s the theme from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
 Hey. Wait a minute. I am beginning to doubt the legitimacy of this film.

So, a slight diversion. Mainstream Hollywood films have regularly been plundered by low budget foreign filmmakers who were less likely to get sued thea locals. In the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, Turkey was at the forefront of science fiction and superhero “unofficial” flicks. They had Captain America, Spiderman, Batgirl, and several Superman films, and they had this one. Since they already were ignoring trademarks and copyrights, there was no reason not to go whole hog. Turkish Batman isn’t just swiping from DC comics and Warner Brothers. When Turkish Batman gets his mission, it is via a taped message and 8x10s, straight out of Mission Impossible. The villain of the piece is a Blofeld copy. And the music will all sound familiar. Multiple themes from James Bond, The Saint, and I Spy show up and many others I couldn’t immediately place. Swing, jazz, and rock hits also make the soundtrack, and I can promise you, no one paid licensing fees, though in those cases, they didn’t always take the best known version. That sent me looking for a really nice flute-fronted version of Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love that backed one of the best fight scenes. (It’s by CCS; thank you YouTube)

OK, so Turkish Batman steals a lot and has some good music, but how is it? Well, surprisingly entertaining, but probably not for everyone. While its existence is owed to the ’66 TV show, it doesn’t follow its quirky lead, but instead gets its marching orders from the old ‘40s serials. Yes, it’s silly, but it doesn’t admit it. And it is a lot darker than any Dark Knight has ever been on US screens.

bedmen-yarasa-adamSo, if you watch a Batman movie and say, “That’s all well and good, but where are the strippers and why doesn’t Batman shoot anyone in the face?” then you’ve found your film. All the Turkish rip-off films focus on old-school, manly-men and hot women and this film leans into that strongly. Hitting women? Sure. Killing villains? Absolutely. I know very little of Turkish culture, so I can only speculate on if they thought of superheros as adult entertainment, or if they are more laid back about breasts and blood for kids.

Our mercenary heroes (hey, it takes money to keep up that playboy lifestyle) are a fliptastic duo. They fight better after doing a cartwheel and at least Huseyin Sayar (that’s Robin) is a skilled gymnast. They first put on their costumes for a bit of sparring and flip training. And what goes best after a good workout? Strippers of course. Batman takes “young” Robin to a jazz club where we spend several minutes watching a very talented young lady, and no matter how much I liked that, Robin liked it more. That was one appreciative sidekick. By the way, where are these strip clubs with full jazz bands on stage next to the strippers? In Turkey I suppose, but we need to get some of those.

But naked babes aren’t just for the stage as Batman picks up girl after girl for a quick tryst. Hey, you’ve got to play both costumed crime-fighter and wild, rich guy, and this Batman is happy to intertwine the two. He takes off his mask as quickly as the girls he saves take off their tops. Most of them end up dead, so maybe Batman needed to focus more.

Both he and Robin also take off their capes before each fight; they were way ahead of The Incredible.

Of course the main course here is beating up criminals and there’s a lot of it. You are never more than a few minutes away from a fight. With so much punching, I noticed quickly that all the punches sound exactly the same, but that happened on a lot of the old serials.

This is a hard film to rate. There are a lot of issues with acting, editing, shooting, and plot. But it is also a must see. Turkish Batman must be experienced by every superhero fan at least once.