Cultural Allusions in Batman Forever (1995)

[Silver Nemesis]

This thread is a companion piece to the Comic Influences on Batman Forever (1995) feature. While that article examined the film's references to the comics, this thread covers its references to everything else; to other movies, literature, art, architecture, music, real life people and events.

I'd originally intended to post this as a feature for the movie's twenty-fifth anniversary back in 2020, but the site's feature editing section was down at the time. It doesn't look like that part of the site is every coming back, so I figured I might as well post this here in the forum to mark Batman Forever's thirtieth anniversary.
The opening credit sequence, with the actors' names flying across the screen and the hero's emblem reversing into shot, was likely influenced by the opening titles of Richard Donner's Superman (1978).

Batman Forever's musical score was composed by Elliot Goldenthal, who that same year scored Michael Mann's Heat. Both films star Val Kilmer and feature bank robberies. This is coincidental, but I'm mentioning it anyway.

Schumacher cited 1930s New York as an influence on the look of Gotham City.

Schumacher and production designer Barbara Ling also cited modern day Tokyo as an influence on the colourful neon lights prevalent throughout Gotham.

The works of French-American industrial designer Raymond Loewy and American architect Hugh Ferriss were also cited as influences by Ling.

Joel Schumacher cast Tommy Lee Jones as former district attorney Harvey Dent after working with him on The Client (1994). Jones's character in The Client was also a lawyer.

After flipping his coin at the beginning of the film, Two-Face says, "Ah, fortune smiles. Another day of wine and roses, or in your case, beer and pizza!" This is a reference to the second stanza of Ernest Dowson's poem 'Vitae Summa Brevis' (1896):

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.

Two-Face later says "Open sesame". These magic words feature in the Arabic folk tale 'Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves' from the collection One Thousand and One Nights.

The moment where Batman attaches a grapple line to the airlifted vault and severs the cable with an acetylene torch recalls a scene in John Guillermin's The Towering Inferno (1974) where O'Hallorhan (Steve McQueen) does something similar to an elevator that is hanging from the outside of the titular skyscraper. In both films the hero attaches a cable to a suspended capsule before cutting through another cable so the capsule and its occupant(s) can be lowered to safety.

The Lady Gotham statue is based on New York City's Statue of Liberty.

The giant statue of Atlas behind the Wayne Enterprises building was probably inspired by the 1937 bronze statue of Atlas in New York City's Rockefeller Centre.

Among the clippings displayed in Edward Nygma's workspace is a Gotham Times Magazine cover. The logo is based on that of the real American publication The New York Times Magazine, which has been included with the Sunday edition of the New York Times newspaper since September 1896.

The use of a theremin in Elliot Goldenthal's score was intended to evoke the soundtracks of 1950s sci-fi movies.

The scene where Bruce travels between his office and the Batcave visually resembles the rocket sled scenes in Paul Michael Glaser's The Running Man (1987).

Batman's line "We all wear masks" alludes to to Carl Jung's (1875-1961) theory of the persona and the shadow. The Jungian persona is the public mask an individual presents to conceal the less attractive 'shadow' side of their identity that they don't wish others to see. Bruce alludes to Jungian psychology again in a later scene when he tells Chase "we're all two people – one in daylight, and the one we keep in shadow."

Nygma's 3D television and 'box' device are both strongly reminiscent of the technology featured in the TV miniseries Wild Palms (1993), produced by Oliver Stone and written by Bruce Wagner. The villain in Wild Palms, Senator Anton Kreutzer (Robert Loggia), successfully markets a home entertainment system known as 'the box' which allows 3D programmes to be broadcast directly into people's homes using a device fitted atop their television.

A drug called mimosine makes the owners of Kreutzer's technology feel as though they're physically interacting with the holograms, similar to how Nygma's 'box' allows viewers to feel as if they are inside a TV show. In Wild Palms Kreutzer uses a device called the go-chip to achieve neural interface with the internet, thereby gaining a form of omniscience which allows him access to all information across the globe. Nygma attempts a similar scheme in Batman Forever, connecting his own brain to those of everyone who uses the box so he can access their knowledge to grow smarter. Both evil schemes ultimately backfire against the villain.

Nygma's line "Edward Nygma, come on down! You're the next contestant on Brain Drain" is a reference to the American TV game show The Price is Right, in which a similar line is spoken to contestants.

When he first uses the box, Nygma describes himself as "a flock of freaking Freuds" in reference to Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939).

When Nygma uses the box on Stickley he sings a parody version of the song 'Top Hat, White Tie and Tails' which was written by Irving Berlin and originally performed by Fred Astaire in Mark Sandrich's Top Hat (1935). Nygma changes the lyrics to "I'm sucking up your I.Q., vacuuming your cortex, feeding off your brain!"

Following the first successful test of the box, Stickley threatens to report Nygma to several regulatory bodies including the FCC. This refers to the Federal Communications Commission that was founded by the United States government in 1934 to regulate broadcasting and communications.

The moment where Bruce first visits Chase's apartment and finds her training with the punching bag recalls a scene from The Scarlet and the Black (1983), directed by Jerry London, where Father Vittorio (Raf Vallone) visits Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty (Gregory Peck) in his flat. In both films a visitor is walking along a corridor outside an associate's apartment when he hears the sounds of a struggle. He barges into the room intending to help, only to find its occupant working out with a punching bag.

Hanging on the wall of Chase's apartment is a Rorschach inkblot. These psychological tests were invented by Swiss psychoanalyst Hermann Rorschach (1884-1922) in 1921.

Chase is shown to keep a Malaysian dream doll in her apartment as a ward against bad dreams. This could be a nod to Chuck Russell's A Nightmare on Elm Street III: The Dream Warriors (1987), in which psychiatrist Nancy Thompson also keeps a Malaysian dream doll handy for the same purpose.

In both movies the female psychiatrist explains the function of the doll to a male friend (Neil/Bruce) who visits her home, and that male friend subsequently acquires his own Malaysian dream doll later in the film. Incidentally, A Nightmare on Elm Street III was written by Bruce Wagner, who also wrote the aforementioned miniseries Wild Palms.

The art deco exterior of the Gotham Hippodrome was modelled on the Cincinatti Union Terminal designed by Fellheimer & Wagner.

Bruce bribes Dick into staying at stately Wayne Manor by offering him a Vincent Black Knight, a British motorcycle manufactured by Vincent Motorcycles in the mid-1950s. Bruce claims that 101 Vincent Black Knights were made, but internet sources state the number could be as high as 200.

The photographic figure on which Nygma models his costumes is the marble statue 'David' which was created by Italian renaissance sculptor Michelangelo between 1501 and 1504.

One of Nygma's costumed identities, Captain Kill, appears to be a parody of Sylvester Stallone's bandana-wearing action hero John Rambo, who debuted in Ted Kotcheff's First Blood (1982).

Elliot Goldenthal cited the music of Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich as an influence on his score. Shostakovich's influence is most obvious in the waltz motif Goldenthal composed for Two-Face.

 
When Riddler demonstrates the box for Two-Face, he shows Sugar and Spice two animated Warner Bros. films. The film Sugar watches is the Daffy Duck short Stupid Cupid (1944), while the film Spice watches is the Sylvester and Tweety short Satan's Waitin' (1954).

The Riddler's line, "This is your brain on the box. This is my brain on the box. Does anybody else feel like a fried egg?" is a reference to a 1987 anti-drugs PSA by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. The original ad features a man saying "This is your brain. This is drugs. This is your brain on drugs," as he fries an egg in a pan.

The gag where the Riddler examines a diamond and says "Here's a good one" only for Two-Face to respond "Now, there is a good one" as he produces a larger diamond is similar to an exchange between Daniel (Sean Connery) and Peachy (Michael Caine) in John Huston's The Man Who Would be King (1975). As the roguish duo are inspecting the contents of a treasure room, Daniel says "Look at the size of that ruby" as he holds up a gem, and Peachy responds by saying "Here's a bigger one" while presenting a much larger ruby.

The scene where Dick incorporates his martial arts training into his laundry chores is a nod to a scene from Yuen Woo-ping's Dreadnaught (1981) in which Mousy (Yuen Biao) performs his laundry duties in an identical manner.

The look of Claw Island, and 'the box' itself, strongly resemble an unused design for the Columbus Lighthouse created by Russian architect Konstantin Melnikov in 1929. The finished structure, based on a different design, was eventually built in Santo Domingo Este in the Dominican Republic.

Among the documents in Chase's apartment are several fictional magazines based on real publications. One is titled Times and is based on the American magazine Time, which was first published in March 1923.

Also present is an issue of Today's Psychologist, which is based on the real magazine Psychology Today that began publication in 1967. There's also a magazine titled Persons, the logo of which resembles that of People magazine, which began publication in 1974.

The song that plays when Dick steals the Batmobile is a cover of The Damned's 1979 single 'Smash It Up', performed here by The Offspring.

While driving around Gotham Dick passes a McDonald's restaurant. Needless to say this is a real food chain with a storied connection to the Batman film franchise. Batman alludes to McDonald's earlier in the film when he tells Alfred "I'll get drive-through."

The women Dick tries to impress on the street corner are played by members of the R&B group En Vogue.

The face paint worn by the Neon Gang members might have been inspired by some of the street gangs in Walter Hill's The Warriors (1979); specifically the Baseball Furies and the Hi-Hats.

The Ritz Gotham was inspired by the luxury hotels of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. The first such hotel to open in North America was founded in New York in 1911. The National Museum of the Native American in Lower Manhattan was used for the exterior scenes, while the interiors were shot at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood.

There's a deleted scene in which a newscaster compares Batman's crime fighting activities to the O.K. Corral. This alludes to the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral that occurred in Tombstone, Arizona on the 26th October 1881. Val Kilmer had previously starred in the film Tombstone (1993) that was based on this event.

The moment where Riddler imitates a baseball pitcher while destroying the Batcave is punctuated by the organ fanfare 'Charge' that was composed by Tommy Walker in 1946 and is commonly played in sports stadiums.

The Riddler's line "Somebody tell the Fat Lady she's on in five" is a reference to the saying "It ain't over till the fat lady sings," which in turn alludes to the character of Brünnhilde in Richard Wagner's operatic Ring Cycle.

The control console Two-Face and Riddler use to operate Claw Island's defence system is modelled on the board game Battleship. Preceded by a pad-and-pencil game dating back to the First World War, the plastic board game version of Battleship was first released by Milton Bradley in 1967.

The dialogue during the finale contains references to several American game shows. The reveal of Chase and Robin behind the curtains is a nod to the American show Let's Make a Deal, while Riddler's line "Your answer must be in the form of a question" alludes to the rules of Jeopardy.

The name and hairstyle of Arkham psychiatrist Dr. Burton, played by Rene Auberjonois, were inspired by Batman Forever producer Tim Burton.

The scene where Nygma declares "I'm Batman" in his padded cell was likely inspired by the ending of The Flash (1990-1991) episodes 'The Trickster' and 'Trial of the Trickster'. The former episode ends with the Trickster ranting in a padded cell, while the latter episode ends with him declaring "I'm the Flash" as he's taken into custody. Both Trickster and Riddler seem to have undergone a form of psychological transference where they now believe they are their arch enemy.

And that's all I've got on Batman Forever. I'm sure there are things I've overlooked, so if you think of any please add them to the thread.

[Kamdan]

The scene where Nygma declares "I'm Batman" in his padded cell was likely inspired by the ending of The Flash (1990-1991) episodes 'The Trickster' and 'Trial of the Trickster'. The former episode ends with the Trickster ranting in a padded cell, while the latter episode ends with him declaring "I'm the Flash" as he's taken into custody. Both Trickster and Riddler seem to have undergone a form of psychological transference where they now believe they are their arch enemy.

You've got those backwards. The first Trickster episode has him claiming he's The Flash in the back of a police van while the second episode has him in a straight jacket claiming his padded cell is his "polyfoam fortress" with no claims at all being The Flash.