Original subtitles

So far we have seen, at the dedication of a new bridge...

murder.

And spotted in the crowd, that sinister crook, The Bookworm.

Great Scott.

A Bookworm ploy, a ruse to divert the dynamic duo...

while a bomb was placed in the Batmobile.

Bomb detected...

ejected.

A clue. He was going to blow up the bridge.

He did. He blew it up into a giant photograph.

Like moths, our heroes followed the light...

into a Bat trap.

Was this girl really a prisoner?

Was it a trick?

One way to find out: Put her gently to sleep...

spirit her to the Batcave, test her.

Counterplot, pretend we fall for her game.

The tricky girl turned the tables.

And The Bookworm knew just what to do with him:

Bind him to the clapper of a giant bell.

Do not ask for whom this bell tolls.

It tolls for Robin.

In just one minute, the stroke of midnight doom.

A few minutes earlier...

even as Bookworm binds Robin to the clapper of the giant bell...

Batman races across Gotham City in the opposite direction...

hot on a trail that's fatally false.

- What's up, Chief O'Hara? - We searched that hall, cellar to weather vane.

- Not a trace of The Bookworm. - But how can that be?

Oh, worse news too, Batman.

You know that alleyway where you said we'd find the Boy Wonder...

- guarding Bookworm's moll? - Yes, yes, yes.

- Don't tell me. - You guessed it.

Great heavens.

I'd better try to contact Robin instantly on the utility belt wavelength.

Robin?

Robin, do you receive me?

Robin? Over.

The tricky devils.

They've turned the tables and caught Robin.

I'll call headquarters. Throw out the dragnet.

No, wait a minute, Chief O'Hara.

Let me turn my memory back.

"He strikes at midnight," she said.

But we know The Bookworm has changed his plan.

Don't interrupt.

I'm trying to fathom the subconscious of a deadly criminal.

He strikes at midnight.

A metaphor. Suggests a clock.

A clock called "he"?

Of course.

And there's only one clock in Gotham City that is called "he."

Saints alive.

Big Benjamin in the Wayne Memorial Clock Tower.

And it fits in with the plan.

Do not ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee...

- You mean... - Exactly.

And if my surmise is correct...

the ghastly fate that Bookworm planned for me...

he has twisted to Robin.

Chief O'Hara, we haven't one Big Benjamin second to lose.

Mere seconds before he strikes.

I'll shoot out the works.

Argh. Didn't even dent it.

No time for a Bat-climb.

We have one last desperate chance.

Help me set up the Bat-zooka.

The lightning rod on top.

Fire!

Bull's-eye.

Second shot. The hands of that clock.

Fire!

Mother Machree, done it again.

Quickly. Now to get the ends of these two conductive lines.

What are you doing, Batman?

Attaching lines to the nuclear power source...

both lines to the positive terminal.

As you may recall from school, like charges of electricity repel each other.

Now to rev up the power turbines.

I still don't get it, Batman.

Pray. Pray, Chief O'Hara...

that the clapper and the bell will be positively charged...

and thus repel each other!

I hope so, Batman. I hope so.

Funny, all I hear is a nightingale.

Inconceivable but true.

The precocious pest has escaped us.

But how could he, Bookworm?

How could he?

I cannot conceive, but from Gil Blas translated by Tobias Smollett...

Book 10, chapter three, quote:

"Facts are stubborn things," unquote.

Now, the fact is that our bats have flown the belfry...

unaccountably still squeaking.

Gee, and us with our super-crime not pulled yet.

Ah! Ah.

Ah.

Ah. Do not fret, my sweet Lydia. Oh, do not fret.

My brain-drenched mind has done it again.

Oh! A most delicious Bat trap.

Mwah. Oh!

And in Wayne Manor, stately home of millionaire Bruce Wayne...

and his youthful ward, Dick Grayson...

the plot is about to take a strange new twist.

Oh, what is it, Alfred?

It's a gentleman from the bookmobile service, madam.

Oh, how nice. Bring him in.

This way, sir.

How do you do?

What do you recommend this week, something for reading before going to sleep?

Oh, well, I believe that you will find this volume extremely effective, Mrs. Cooper.

Oh.

"Congressional Record, March 1919"?

Oh, it's the illustrations, Mrs. Cooper.

They are so piquant.

- Oh, you don't say. - Mm.

Look, Alfred.

Hmm.

Hmm.

Oh, well.

Subject found to be member of...

- Yes, commissioner? - Bookworm has struck again, Batman, brazenly.

- Where? - The mansion of millionaire Bruce Wayne.

He stole a single volume, a priceless first-edition cookbook.

- Was anyone in the Wayne household hurt? - Fortunately, no one.

Goodbye, commissioner.

I'll be at Wayne Manor faster than anyone can imagine.

- Batman, wait, that's not the only thing. - What else?

In the middle of the street, at Cedar and 5th, there's been a sudden monstrous apparition.

The biggest cookbook anyone ever saw.

Goodbye, commissioner.

- Aunt Harriet and Alfred? - They're not hurt, he said.

Our duty is to the public. Let's go.

What a twisted skein of events.

Typical of the frustrated author Bookworm is, over-plotting.

Either the robbery or a giant cookbook would've attracted our attention.

Foolish amateur has to try both.

Holy tome!

Back, everybody.

Back, back.

Take cover in the side streets. Take cover in the side streets.

The recipes in this book could be explosive.

Stay back.

- I bet it's hollow inside, Batman. - We'll soon find out.

- Let's probe it with our high-energy radar. - Roger.

- Hollow, all right. - Yes.

Judging from the rate of reflection, the cover contains high-tensile steel.

- Let's open it up, Batman. - Right you are.

If the cover contains steel, we can do it from a safe distance...

- using the super-powered Bat-magnet. - Great.

- I'll work the power supply. - Roger.

Bat-pull 1200 pounds.

Make it a ton.

Oh, poor puny little bat-brains.

I bet they think they opened that book.

But will they go in?

Of course they'll go in.

In the words of the poet:

"Curiosity killed the bat." Heh.

Ordinary paper.

It must cover the hollowed-out part.

I wonder what's on the menu inside.

Only one way to find out, Robin.

Let's take a bite.

Smells like soup.

Darn good soup.

Right you are.

Bat soup.

And in you go.

No! Holy stew pot!

Bookworm to Batman.

He's got this place wired. I'll bet he's watching and listening too.

Well, of course I'm listening.

Bookworm, what are you up to?

It's a curious old recipe I discovered...

in the Alchemist Cookbook, Vienna, dated 1534.

How to steam a bat.

I think he means it.

Of course I mean it, Boy Wonder.

Watch now while I turn up my radio-controlled double boiler.

Double for dynamic duo.

Cook well, my bat-eared friends. While you are stewing down...

I shall be pulling off the crime of the century with the aid of your Batmobile.

Happy juices. Heh.

Quick, let's fly.

Batman to Gotham City Police, Batman to Gotham City Police.

Red alert, red alert.

We are trapped inside a cookbook at 5th and Cedar.

Red alert. Do you receive me? Over.

No answer.

These high-tensile steel walls, they're cutting down our transmission.

- I'll get out my laser-beam cutting torch. - Don't, Robin. No, no.

It would superheat the steam and boil us in a split second.

Holy pressure cooker.

Only way to crack this would be the Bat Beam in the Batmobile...

and Bookworm has it.

We even left the engine running.

With all your might and main, men, let's go.

They'll never get to us in time.

There's only one hope.

- Get them under there. Come on. - Yeah, we're on it.

- Well? - We're getting nowhere, chief.

Oh, harder, fellas, harder.

Oh, give me that sledge, here.

Sounds like steam in there.

Dreadful.

That fine pair of crime fighters boiled in the entrails of a monster cookbook.

Who could imagine a more tragic end?

Batman to Batcave.

What's the use, Batman?

It's just possible our own super-sensitive antenna...

may pick up the signal where the police receivers could not.

- Do you think Alfred's there? - He's a creature of well-disciplined habits.

It's his regular time for dusting the Atomic Pile.

Batman to Alfred, Batman to Alfred. This is an emergency.

Might I be of some assistance, sir?

Quick, Alfred, plug me into the voice-actuated circuit of the master anticrime computer.

Certainly, sir. At once, sir.

Bookworm to bookmobile, Bookworm to bookmobile. Do you read me?

Devil to Bookworm. I read you.

Rendezvous, the rear of the Morganbilt Library.

Over and out.

The Morganbilt Library? But that's uncrackable.

It's defied every burglar in the country.

Yes, yes, my sweet Lydia, yes...

but they did not have the use of the Bat Beam.

Plans and Views, folio 369, operate cross beam.

I'm weakening, Batman.

Hold on, Robin.

Hold on, hold on. I'm getting the answer I expected.

Answer?

About the source of this steam...

Plans and Views, cut out, feedback, circuit three, operate.

- Who's the best safecracker in our files? - Uh, the Riddler.

Send a helicopter to the State Penitentiary. Have him brought here.

- Yes, sir. - All right, everybody down.

Come on, get them down.

Ready?

Fire!

Yeah!

Good grief.

We're too late.

Gone.

Consumed, I fear.

Totally consumed in this diabolical hell's kitchen.

The Morganbilt Library, unparalleled repository of literary treasures.

In an alley at the rear, there are little foxes in the vines.

Directly ahead through that wall...

the air-conditioned vault containing treasures beyond imagination.

Oh, some haul, all right.

Seven Gutenberg Bibles, 11 first folios by William Shakespeare.

Some wall too.

Three feet of cement over 18 inches of steel.

Ah! To the Bat Beam.

But what if something goes wrong, Bookworm?

Oh, it won't, it won't, it won't.

Best-laid plans of mice and men.

I don't know where it's from, but I know it's true.

Schemes, schemes, schemes, the best-laid schemes.

Robert Burns "To a Mouse," stanza seven.

Schemes.

You are graded C-minus.

Now for the Bat Beam.

- Ah. Melted. - Fantastic.

My fine twisty worms, follow me. Ha.

They'll follow you, Bookworm.

Right back into the woodwork of the prison carpenter shop.

- Impossible. - How did they escape?

Thought you had us cooked, huh?

We escaped through the manhole under your stove.

The one you used to introduce your murderous steam pipe.

It's an old mistake, Bookworm.

Armoring the walls but leaving the floor unprotected.

How did they discover our objective?

Your talk in the Batmobile was picked up by a secret mike.

Relayed to us via the automatic feedback circuit in our Batcave.

Let's clean house, Batman.

Now, Robin.

Glasses off.

All right, my fine twisty worms, attack!

Charge!

Ooh!

You should have learned much sooner, Ms. Limpet...

the oldest plot and still the best.

Crime...

does not pay.

A check for $5000 for the state-prison library.

- This is very generous of you, Bruce. - I thought it was the least I could do...

after reading about that dreadful business in the newspapers of the Bookworm affair.

And I feel our prison libraries could use some new uplifting titles.

Yes, yes, shocking.

A man of Bookworm's education.

How could such a fellow turn to a life of crime?

I'd say it's an example of the old precept "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

A wise observation, Bruce. I'll remember that.

- By the way, would you like to see him? - Bookworm?

He's outside, awaiting conveyance to the penitentiary.

Gosh, Bruce, I'd sure like to see a real crook in the flesh.

Well, I don't see any harm in it, Dick, as long as he's under sound restraint.

- Get them, Chief O'Hara. - Yes, sir.

- "Them"? - His female accomplice too, a Ms. Limpet.

Hmm. Very sad case, that one.

All right, bring them in.

Come on, boys.

All right, you crooks, and remember, be polite to Mr. Bruce Wayne too.

"The World's Hundred Greatest Crimes."

You abandoned child.

Is there no hope for you?

As you can see, Bruce, your gift was sorely needed.

May I keep that as a souvenir, commissioner?

- Oh, yes, certainly. - Thank you.

What are you smiling at?

Oh, I am so much cleverer than all of you, you see. Heh.

Oh, as the poet says, "They who lose today may win tomorrow."

Wrong, Bookworm, not the poet.

That line's from Cervantes' Don Quixote, part one, Book 1, chapter seven.

Pfft. The devil.

I think this fellow, he is almost as obnoxious as Batman.

All right, all right. Out, out, out. Come on.