20 Things You Somehow Missed In Batman Returns
12. The Outlandish Fashion
From Batsuits and Catsuits to Victorian dress, Batman Returns is filled with some outlandish outfits just for openers.
In addition to this, costume designers Bob Ringwood and Mary Vogt provided a host of outlandish 1940s-style costumes for supporting players, stand-ins, and extras. You can find plenty of authentic looking beige trenchcoats, dresses with padded shoulders and cut to accentuate their hourglass figures, slightly more masculine Victory suits, and plenty of hats.
Things then get really fascinating for Shreck’s annual Maxsquerade Ball which, as the name suggests, is an opportunity for all of Gotham’s high society to wear masks, “get juiced, and dance… badly”. Here with see an incredible number of innovative ideas for such a brief scene, including partygoers posing as the Mona Lisa, Julius Caesar complete with a dagger lodged firmly in his back (fittingly, the Mayor uses this costume), the Leaning Tower of Pisa, a polar bear, and a racetrack, amongst others.
Ironically enough, it is only Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle who attend without wearing any masks at all, as they are both bored of wearing masks every day. Indeed, in a way, they arrive to the ball wearing their actual masks – those of normal human beings.
It was an idea so striking that Christopher Nolan recycled it in part for Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne when he danced with Anne Hathaway’s Selina Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises exactly 20 years later.