Apparently, Orson Welles - writer/director of the Greatest Movie Ever Made™ - Citizen Kane, not to mention the great “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast, Touch of Evil, the Magnificent Ambersons - you get the idea. One of the pillars of quality Hollywood cinema - if such a non-oxymoronic phrase like that can be said.
Anyway, apparently he was planning a Batman movie, and even had roles cast (Marlene Dietrich as the Catwoman! James Cagney as the Riddler!!) and design sketches, but that he wanted to star as Batman/Bruce Wayne but the studio wanted a more square-jawed leading man so plans fell apart.
Wouldn’t’ve that been amazing? I wonder if the script is fleshed out enough and strong enough that it could be used as the basis of one of the newer films being planned…I would be very interested to see how Welles interpreted Batman, especially because his script was decades before the Miller/Dark Knight Returns re-interpretation of the Batman persona which now holds sway…
There are a bunch of other clues that it’s a hoax:
-Supposedly this project was in development in 1946/1947. And supposedly it involved the Riddler. Problem: the Riddler wasn’t introduced until 1948, and he remained a completely obscure character until the TV show in the 1960s.
-Supposedly Cagney was supposed to play the Riddler, a minor part. Problem: Cagney was a highly paid leading man, and never would have accepted such a small role.
-The article misspells Gregg Toland’s name … and more importantly, the article has him doing production sketches. Toland was a cinematographer, not a production designer.
-Robin is absent from the alleged script. But, fantasies of latter day fanboys nonwithstanding, Robin was one of the most popular aspects of Batman during the 1940s. It’s hard to imagine him being left out.
-George Raft was allegedly cast as Two-Face “after Bogart turned it down.” This is a joke on the famous (but untrue) story that Bogart was only offered a role in Casablanca after Raft turned it down.
-Catwoman was supposed to be given a backstory as a prostitute, something that would have given the Hayes Office fits.
-Given the huge number of famous names involved, and how far into production this supposedly went (with Gregory Peck allegedly doing costume tests) it’s impossible to believe that no trace of this project remains apart from the materials discovered by “Lionel Hutton.” Surely some biography of Welles, Dietrich, Cagney, Peck et. al. would have mentioned it?
Just for kicks, it should be pointed out that Welles did do the voice of That Shadow on the radio (he wasn’t the first one to do it, and he didn’t do it the longest, but he did play the part).
Not that I doubt this is a hoax, but this in itself isn’t necessarily proof of it. Even though Cagney was highly paid and a leading man, he may very well (as might other name stars) take a cameo as a lark or a favor (or he might under the studio system have been lent as a favor).