20 Things You Somehow Missed In Batman Returns
19. Wayne Manor Lives In A Fish Tank
Contrary to the use of use of real English manor houses like Knebworth House and Hatfield House to represent Wayne Manor in Batman, the Wayne Manor presented to audiences in Batman Returns is a combination of special effects miniatures and full-scale soundstage sets that capture its grandeur, the loneliness within and also its sinister qualities.
In Batman, however, we were never really shown how Bruce Wayne and Michael Gough’s Alfred Pennyworth access the Batcave underneath its foundations. In Batman Returns, however, Gough’s Alfred makes mention of using the stairs and, when you see how Bruce accesses the cave, you can’t really blame him.
Bruce’s preferred means of getting down into the cave where his alter-ego resides is by way of an iron maiden whose painful spikes retract and floor slides away, propelling Wayne through a chute onto the cave floor. And the method of activating this curious device? A button concealed in a scale model of Wayne Manor within a fish tank that sits in the manor’s library. Take that Christian Bale and Michael Caine with your sequence of notes played on a piano!
As an aside, it is also worth noting that Joel Schumacher used a strikingly similar way for Val Kilmer’s Bruce Wayne to get to the Batcave from Wayne Enterprises unnoticed in the following film, Batman Forever.