A birthday rumination on what might have been …
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UPDATED 1/16/22: Caroline Munro turns 73! This piece first ran in 2016 but it’s as fitting now as it was then. Enjoy. — Dan
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When Sir Christopher Lee died, I wrote that the one great villain he never got to play was Ra’s al Ghul, Batman’s megalomaniacal adversary (click here).
When I was a kid in the ’70s I’d write to DC Comics — not quite understanding how such decisions were made — pleading with them that Lee be cast as the Demon’s Head. Ideally, the movie would be based on this Denny O’Neil/Neal Adams/Dick Giordano/Irv Novick masterpiece:
Adams, of course…
But if Christopher Lee were the perfect Ra’s al Ghul, then Caroline Munro was the perfect Talia.
I knew Caroline Munro from The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and The Spy Who Loved Me. She was not just beautiful, she was magnifcently sexy and, like Talia, had an appearance of exotic, if nonspecific ethnicity.
Adams, from Batman #244, reprinted in the special edition above.
Lee and Munro acted together in Dracula A.D. 1972. If only they could have been reunited.
The British sci-fi/horror actress’ birthday is this week (she was born Jan. 16, 1949) and usually we do a 13 COVERS salute to our favorites here at 13th Dimension. But that’s not really fitting in this case.
Instead, just ponder these pix and imagine the ideal casting that was, sadly, never meant to be:
Adams
So did Neal Adams base Talia on Caroline Munro? We asked him. Click here to see what he had to say.
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MORE
— CHRISTOPHER LEE: The Greatest RA’S AL GHUL That Never Was. Click here.
— REEL RETRO CINEMA: The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. Click here.
January 17, 2016
Who would you have cast for Batman back then?
January 17, 2016
Y’know, I always had trouble on that front. I think I probably would have looked for an unknown. Thinking back, I suppose it’d be someone athletic but not bulky. Batman was a lot leaner then. Steve McQueen would have probably been a good choice in retrospect. But he would have been too old by the mid-late ’70s.
January 18, 2016
Clint Walker as Batman.
January 18, 2018
I was just thinking about that as I read this (I’m not sure why it showed on my FB page two years later, but so it goes). My 1970s Adams-esque Batman choice has always been Clint Eastwood. He had the height (especially to be almost eye to eye with Christopher Lee), the long, rangy muscular build, the face, the attitude… he’d have been just right.
January 4, 2017
I couldn’t agree more on your two choices. And oh my Lord the memories thus kid had of Caroline Munro. But for batman during this time period, Tom Selleck. 🙂
January 18, 2016
Timothy Dalton as Bruce Wayne
January 18, 2016
If Caroline Munro is in the movie, who cares who is playing Batman.
May 17, 2016
Caroline Munro would have been the perfect superspy Baroness Penelope St John-Orsini, back in the late ’70s!
January 16, 2020
I’ve always been partial to an early 70’s James Caan as Bruce/Batman
January 16, 2021
I always look forward to this article getting re-published. Such a beauty…..
January 16, 2021
Rumor is that Ms. Munro was offered Ursa in Superman and had to choose between Superman or the Spy Who Loved Me. While Spy is my favorite Roger Moore Bond and one of my favorites period, I love the first two Superman movies and would have loved to have seen Ms. Munro as Ursa.
Second the earlier mention of Clint Eastwood for a Bronze Age/70s Batman. When it comes to Batman’s love interests, I’ve always been more of a Catwoman shipper, and I think Ms. Munro would have been a great Catwoman. Ms. Munro would also have been my first choice for Modesty Blaise.
January 16, 2021
I would have gone for a Bond Girl as well, but I would have chosen Carole Bouquet for her portrayal in For Your Eyes Only. She played the crossbow wielding assassin.
January 17, 2021
PERFECT!!!!!!!
January 20, 2021
Caroline was not a great actress, but I am sure a fan. Even joined a little Caroline Munro Fan Club (’79-’80) and still have that (minimal) stuff. She and the lead singer for The Zombies were a thing and he wrote a great song about their break-up. Was a hit in the UK and elsewhere…not here. “Caroline Goodbye.”
January 16, 2022
Always a treat to see this again. I could go for Caroline or Jane Seymour as Talia at the time. I lean more to Caroline, but Lee HAD to be Ra’s!
As for Batman, if you’re not going to give Adam West a chance at reinterpreting the character into a Bronze Age version (which I think he could pull off), then how about David Selby? He was extremely hot, career-wise in the early 70s, coming off his teen-idol favorite status as Quentin on Dark Shadows. He was even part of a “Dynamic Duo” in the film “Super Cops”, where the lead characters were nicknamed “Batman and Robin”. On Dark Shadows he proved he could play wealthy, charming but conlficted heroes with a dark streak. He even played an out-and-out villain on the show a few times, so he could tap into that, and was somewhat of an “evil” Bruce Wayne on Falcon Crest years later.
January 16, 2022
Doug, Caroline Munro has a website now and her autographed photos aren’t really that expensive. Someone got me some for her birthday. She threw in a few freebies as well. That is just FYI, for anyone who wants an autographed photo of her.
Already mentioned it, but I’ll say it again. Caroline would have been an awesome Modesty Blaise. I think it is a travesty that, after the awful Monica Vitti abomination, that there was never a properly done Modesty movie.