Rod Steiger, The Big Knife, Frank Gorshin and ABC's "Batman"(Wha?)

I was watching The Big Knife on TCM the other night, in dropped-jaw amazement at the massively overwrought performance of Rod Steiger. Decades later, Steiger figured out this way of reading his lines(bugging his eyes, tensing his body and yelling at the top of his lungs) was comic gold -- in 1996's "Mars Attacks!" but in 1955, uttering words written by Clifford Odets, I guess Steiger thought he was doing serious work. Still, its hilarious now.

And watching The Big Knife, I got a BIG education on a Frank Gorshin routine from the Dean Martin Show around 1966/1967.

I saw this Gorshin bit on a clips show, and its on YouTube. Gorshin was The Riddler on the TV show Batman, and he was also a damn good impressionist of a few guys...notably Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster(actually, Gorshin rather sounded like Douglas in his natural speaking voice, and looked like him.)

Anyway, on Dino's show, Gorshin cashed in on his Riddler fame by doing impressions of Batman and Robin as...famous movie stars. First he did them as Douglas and Lancaster.

And then he did Batman and Robin as Marlon Brando and Rod Steiger.

Gorshin's Brando was fine, but his Steiger was PERFECT and hilarious, and I didn't realize it, but Gorshin was stealing Steiger's big threat speech from The Big Knife.

In The Big Knife, Steiger roars at movie star Jack Palance about how he's gonna lose everything.."The house, the cars, the money...EVERYTHING GOES!"

Well as Gorshin did it, Steiger as Robin thinks that Batman is firing him as his assistant and screams:

"You can't fire me. If you fire me, Batman, it all goes. The Batmobile, the Batplane, the Batboat...EVERYTHING GOES!"

Imagine Rod Steiger saying that.

He's funny as Robin; he's funny in The Big Knife.