After the fall

[Catwoman]

So I was googling something and came across these pics that show someone who is obviously not Cristi Conaway (either a stunt double or quite literally a "body" double lol) in the aftermath of the Ice Princess's fall to her doom. They were posted by someone named Lena Banks who said she "laid there for three hours - ouch!"

Anybody know anymore story? Was there supposed to be a scene showing people gathered around her like that or something?

[The Laughing Fish]

That's a good find. I can't see anything on the 'net that mentions anything about an extensive scene with the Ice Princess's death, so I assume that these were photos taken behind the scenes and nothing more? But if that's the case, who is the guy standing in front of the microphones. It certainly isn't the Mayor.

Lena Banks' iMDB profile doesn't specifically say she performs stunts, but another site claims she appeared as a double more than once in BR. Although this source isn't verified.

In Tim Burton's comic sequel Batman Returns (1992), she worked as stand-in for lead actress Michelle Pfeiffer and filled in as photo double for the "Ice Princess", played by Cristi Conaway.

Source: http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Lena_Banks

[thecolorsblend]

It's pretty common for movies to use doubles to set up staging, lighting and so forth. The idea seems to be that using the actual actor to do the job is sort of a waste of his time since he could be shooting something on some other set. So they bring in doubles of comparable height to arrange that stuff.

If you've got a stunt double on set, why not use her as a double for the Ice Princess?

This could all be totally wrong but that's my best guess.

[Catwoman]

Good guess actually. Here I thought it was like something for after the plaza had calmed down from the bats and the general terror of the Ice Princess falling out of the sky like that. Oh well.

[johnnygobbs]

Good guess actually. Here I thought it was like something for after the plaza had calmed down from the bats and the general terror of the Ice Princess falling out of the sky like that. Oh well.

I think the previous posters are right.

Also bear in mind that they needed to have the mayor and his team in place for when the Princess lands on the button.  That doesn't mean they were simply standing about after the Princess had fallen to her death.

Cristi Conaway was also in New York shooting the film 'Husbands and Wives' in-between her LA production schedule for the Ice Princess (my guess is that she filmed the opening tree lighting scene at the start of the film's shoot, and returned later to do her kidnap/death scenes), so it's likely she wasn't available to do those thankless sequences where someone had to be laying for hours on top of the crushed tree-lighting controls (not that they'd probably expect a proper actor/actress to do such boring tasks when they could just get stand-ins and the like to fill in).

[Wayne49]

Fascinating shot! I never knew this existed! In fact I never see much of anything in terms of outtakes from Returns. I wish there were more.

[Catwoman]

Fascinating shot! I never knew this existed! In fact I never see much of anything in terms of outtakes from Returns. I wish there were more.

Totally agree. There are a lot of scenes and stuff I'd love to see some behind the scenes stuff from.

[Wayne49]

Fascinating shot! I never knew this existed! In fact I never see much of anything in terms of outtakes from Returns. I wish there were more.

Totally agree. There are a lot of scenes and stuff I'd love to see some behind the scenes stuff from.

I get the impression from all the specials I've seen on this movie, there was not allot of time to film ancillary scenes that provided additional scope to the story. I think with all of the visual effects they had to do (not to mention the tight window for release), that script had to be pretty rigid in terms of what Burton could and couldn't do once filming began. Even as it was, they ended up rushing the final scene where the camera pans up to the sky and we see the back of Catwoman stand at attention with the Bat signal shining bright in the night sky. I think Burton felt there had to be a bit more clarity as to whether Catwoman survived or not. I think it would be great just to see bloopers. What a laugh that would be. You KNOW there had to be some great moments between DeVito and Keaton. And probably some even funnier moments between DeVito and Pfeiffer.