Someone is killing people in Turkey. So far, there have been three murders. The investigating authorities have determined that the murdered people were on a list of 10 people selected by a magazine as the most fashionable people in Turkey. The owner of the magazine, Altan Soner, who is also one of the names on the list, is approached by a representative of an insurance company. It appears that the 10 people on the list were all insured for large sums of money.
Turkish superhero Batman (Levent Cakir) receives a communication asking him to investigate the murders and find out who the culprit is. Batman and his sidekick, Robin (Huseyin Sayar) start their investigation at a strip club and plan to interview a stripper named Seher. Before they can talk to her, the stripper is killed.
The dynamic duo’s investigation continues to hit roadblocks as, one after one; the other people on the list are murdered.
“Yarasa Adam: Bedmen” AKA “Batman” or “Turkish Batman” was released in 1973 and was directed by Gunay Kosova. It is a Turkish superhero action-adventure movie.
The movie immediately goes into action mode with people being shot and the caped crusaders beating people up. There is no origin story for these caped crusaders. As a matter of fact, since there is no character development, we know very little about them except that Batman cheats on his girlfriend and sleeps with any woman he comes across. Other than the merest hint of a plot, the film is all fight scenes, nude scenes and sex scenes. It’s just a few boobs short of being a nudie cutie.
This was 1973 and Turkey couldn’t care less about copyright infringement. Besides the Marvel infringement on the Batman and Robin characters, the movie’s entire soundtrack is bits and pieces of other movie soundtracks as well as snippets of old top 40 songs. For example, Sonny and Cher’s “The Beat Goes On”, the James Bond movie theme song, the theme song from the 1963 movie “Charade”, Led Zeppelin’s song “Whole Lotta Love”, “Time is Tight” by Booker T and the MGs, and the theme song for the James Bond film “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”, just to name a few, and believe me, there’s more. In addition, the film contains a Blofeld-esque villain who, for most of the movie, is unseen other than him petting a cat.
The picture is washed out and the music is tinny. In addition, the synchronization between the sound and the action is off a little. You can still see what’s going on, and what’s going on is a hoot. The movie is silly nonsense and difficult the follow but still, even if only for nostalgia, it is a lot of fun.
The title is a little confusing. Yarasa adam means bat man in Turkish. Betmen or bedmen is the Turkish version of the American word Batman. Therefore, the title of the movie is actually “Batman: Batman”