Movies: The Return of Batman

In a college town, who today outdraws Dr. Strangelove, outclocks Gone With the Wind, and breaks all known records for popcorn sales? It's not a bird or a plane but, of all things, Batman. The 1939 comic-strip creation of Bob Kane, which Columbia Pictures filmed in 1943 as a 15-episode serial, has now been spliced, end to end, to produce a 248-minute marathon of fist fights, zombies and ravenous alligators. Last week it was packing the house at an off-campus theater near the University of Illinois, and Columbia plans similar orgies in 20 major...

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