Slumming/The Wild World of Batwoman
Slumming
It’s all well and good to watch and enjoy “quality”
film; but since I was a child, I’ve never differentiated between shlock and
more respectable expressions in media. “Plan Nine from Outer Space” ran on
Channel 13’s “Jungle Theater” from when I was a tyke to well into my teens. And
yes, I’ve seen it multiple times. Even on the big screen (in a double feature
with “The Creeping Terror”; look it up, it’s bad).
I have a queue of several dozen B as in Bad Movies to
watch and I want to write about them badly because…well, I want to. While I
wouldn’t go so far to say that there is no such thing as bad movies, just
movies that do bad things, I have to own up and say that I can find something
good in the worst, schlockiest, half-assed or quarter-assed celluloid skid mark
on the underwear of cinema. I’ve found elements of genius in porn, in Ed Wood,
in everything but Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions which I find
offensive because they’re fucking lazy. That’s my main issue; lazy, shitty, couldn’t
care less or even try to make an interesting flick attitudes that show in the
final product. Say what you will about “one-shot” Beaudine, the man could often
pull together a serviceable potboiler, Z-grade stain on the big screen’s
tighty-whities (I’m on an underwear kick; sue me), but it was generally
interesting in ways he might not have intended.
That last sentence is what keeps me vested in
sub-standard, sub-par products of near sub-human competence in filmmaking. At
the very least, a bare minimum of competence might show in cinematography.
Often, crap can be visually interesting even if the story being advanced is
incomprehensible or even if the photography doesn’t tell, or gets in the way of
telling, the story.
Sometimes, one good performance saves an otherwise wretched
narrative. Or there may be a performance so awful/weird/off-putting/tonally
dissonant that you kind of go, “whaaaaaaa---” and end with “did I just see?” In
what follows, I’ll be sharing my recent foray into this very vast terrain of
What the Fuckery.
What the Fuckery is a broad term that can also include
batshit insane Japanese triumphs like “Tokyo Gore Police” or even “Hausu”
(which are a whole different level of insane) or it can include films like
“Spider Baby” or some of what’s going to be examined in this post.
One element that qualifies a crappy fun movie for me
is that these films are typically made by enthusiastic, if marginally or untalented
people. It’s that enthusiasm that wins me over. Essentially, many of these
movies really are just adult versions of “let’s play pretend and get a camera
to film it!”
Sure, the motives for making some of this stuff may
vary, but generally speaking, there’s an infectious (carefully chosen word)
energy to them that’s difficult to dismiss. You see other people having fun and
you have to tip your hat to them. There but for the grace of the cinema gods go
they.
I’ve only seen one of these films before, but it’s
been years, decades, actually (four at the minimum, I’d say). “The Brain that
Wouldn’t Die” was remarkable to my adolescent mind in its imagery and the
overall conceit that a head might survive and even be able to talk without the
benefit of lungs to push air through the vocal cords to produce audible speech.
Never mind the content of what’s being said; you come to accept a different set
of physical and physiological laws in watching stuff like this.
Right now, I have in mind about five flicks that I’ll
attempt to do justice to. They’re all American productions, filmed in the
fifties and sixties and frankly, may well have screws loose or were made as
cash grabs to fund drugs and guns. Well, I can’t say for sure on the latter,
but in some cases, narcotics use makes the most sense for what I’m about to
watch. (And what I’ve already seen; I just watched “The Wild World of Batwoman”
and I don’t think anyone had any major ingestion of drugs, but if they had, I
wouldn’t be surprised).
What the Fuckery One: The Wild World of Batwoman
We the
girls who are dedicated to Batwoman take our oath with all sincerity! We the
girls who are dedicated to Batwoman take our pride with all sincerity! We the
girls who are dedicated to Batwoman fight against evil with all sincerity!
- - The Bat Girl Pledge
On a scale of one to ten, in terms of camp, I’d give
TWWoB about a six point five. I should add that I didn’t begin to appreciate
camp until I was in my twenties. I enjoyed the 1966-1969 Batman series with
Adam West, but preferred the single season of The Green Hornet. I liked my
comic book adaptations dark and gritty as opposed to shiny and silly. Plus,
really: Bruce Lee’s Kato. ‘nuff said.
But I did come to understand and relish camp. By the 80s,
irony was hip and camp was folded into irony such that the two could be
difficult to discern. As for the cinematic masterpiece at hand? Oh, it’s camp
all right; a veritable PRISON CAMP. Or prison of camp. Actually, it’s pretty
much shit.
Ed Wood, Jr. is often held in a certain esteem as the most
inept, awful director in history. Frankly, I’m not so sure. Ed had enthusiasm
and as we’ll see from the next entry, could produce a not insanely stupid, stumbling
piece of trash. But if he is the worst of all time (WOAT?), then Jerry Warren
is not far behind.
That said, I found “The Wild World of Batwoman” more
entertaining than I thought I would and I do think Warren was shooting for
camp, aping as much as he could with a zero budget, the camp of the Batman
series. Without the same quality of sets, writing, acting.
However, I have to give credit where it’s due and I
genuinely feel the principals gave it their all. Katherine Victor was in her forties
when she donned, well, not a cowl or cape, but a mask and feathers? Oh, and a
faux bat tattoo across her cleavage (a battoo?) to round out the ensemble.
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| Love, love, LOVE this outfit!!! |
If I recall correctly, Victor had to design her
costume herself. She’d worked with Jerry before (and being tainted by his stank
apparently limited her career; she switched to working continuity later in
life) and apparently, he was too cheap to pony up what it took to provide a
real Batwoman kit.
Additionally, one might well ask, “how did DC approve
this?” They didn’t. After the cease and desist, Warren appended a disclaimer during
the title sequence that none of the characters were based on any of the IP from
National Periodical Publications, parent company to DC. Warren won the suit against
his distributor for copyright infringement, and after Batmania died down,
re-released this masterpiece under the title of “She was a Hippy Vampire”.
Many of these types of films repurpose clips from
other films, whole soundtracks, and half-ass their own execution so badly, that
the end product can be interpreted as a collage of sorts. Bee Dub here is no
exception.
Early on, there’s a noirish set-up as a guy is cornered
by two toughs, shot to death, and robbed. That sequence can be found in the
Swedish film “No Time to Kill” (catchy…makes me think of a forthcoming Bond
film). Later in the film, the wacky Professor Neon babbles on about some
monsters he’s created and well, if I was Universal Pictures and Virgil W. Vogel
and Lázló Görög, I’d be pissed; those monsters turn out to be mole
men from 1956’s “The Mole Men”. Welp, no harm done, I guess.
I don’t know that there’s any great point in recapping
the plot in any great detail except to say that it involves, corporate
espionage, unlawful surveillance of phone conversations, communication with the
dead for tips on the whereabouts of a criminal hideout, and roofies!
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| It’s Swedish! For “grocery store”! Reaction Shots is nothing, if not educational. |
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| So much dancing. Actually, there’s some pretty bitchin’ music in this flick. |
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| Bear in mind, “I Spy” was in its second season when the movie came out. Our man here: did he get a tip from Alexander Scott? |
Anyway, out she goes:
Naturally, when I watched this, my first thought was
that this was going to be a very dark movie. We’d already had a fairly nasty murder,
now we had a drugging and abduction. Because I’m watching this in the 21st
century, I suspected the worst.
Sure, it was bad. Bad dialog, bad contrived set-up,
but nothing bad happens to our heroine. Plus, one of these doofuses (Tiger, on
the right in the following photo) falls for her (none of the Bat Girls are given
names; she’s played by Suzanne Lodge and credited as “Kidnapped Bat Girl”). Oh,
and I have to question something in that parenthetical aside: what the fuck
kind of name is “Tiger” for a gangster? Jesus Harmony Korine, was he a Jet, run
away from a community theatre production of “West Side Story”? (There is a Jet named
“Tiger”, by the way…I didn’t pull that out of my ass!)
Mel Oshin, who plays Tiger, by the way, does a
serviceable job. To be honest, there are some decent line readings here and there.
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| If only Apple watches were this fetching. |
Anyway, the way the Bat Girls and Batwoman communicate
is via wrist watches. Kidnapped Bat Girl (KBG) is trying to get the other doofus
to spill the destination so Batwoman and the other Bat Girls can find her. Of
course, our man here is no fool (well…..) and is wise to her wily ways.
We learn in short order that the dastardly bastard Rat
Fink is behind these nefarious goings-on and no, he does not resemble the Rat
Fink well known at the time:
Nope. You get this Rat Fink, instead:
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| He’s kind of a goofy dingus. Apologies to Big Daddy Roth. |
Batwoman hears Rats out and says, “Nuh-uh” and
proceeds to overpower Tiger and Bruno while Dr. Neon is tripping on some happy
pill and Heathcliff, his assistant is pretty much useless (not that utility is
a strong suit of anyone in this gripping tale of obfuscation, misdirection – as
in its misdirected, and silliness) and frees KBG.
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| Dr. Neon and Heathcliff: when you look up "useless" in the dictionary.. |
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| Making a get away. I’ll say it again: I love the outfit! |
Batwoman, being Batwoman, does the right thing and
calls the Ayjax Company (so spelled so Warren wouldn’t get sued by Ajax for
realz) to alert them to the likely theft of the Atomic Hearing Aid.
Apparently, Ayjax tried to sell the Aid to the U.S.
government, but was denied a patent and the sale was refused because the
machine is too unstable, powered as it is by plutonium. Also, if it comes into
contact with the isotope Cobalt-40, watch out, ‘cause it’ll all go blooey!
Ayjax’s Jim Flanagan recruits Batwoman and her Bat
Girls to protect the Aid from Rat Fink’s plans and comedy ensues.
Jim Flanagan, Ayjax’s rep drops by Batwoman’s bungalow
house somewhere in the Hollywood Hills (everyone seems to know where she lives;
no Bat Cave dweller she).
The Bat Girls are all assembled in a veritable shag
carpeted Themyscira. You kind of get the feeling the girls aren’t too impressed
by Jim.
Check the chick with the horseshoe out in the next
picture.
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| That’s right: wrasslin’! |
Flanagan and his boss, CEO of Ayjax and creator of the
Hearing Aid J.B. Christians are secure in knowing that they have Batwoman on
board, despite her reluctance to support what is a highly problematic device
(she’s really against this kind of warrantless surveillance!) It’s all quite
prescient and perhaps a parable for our times over half a century later.
Or it’s just that being surveilled has always been an
issue, particularly with agencies like the C.I.A. and F.B.I. running the show. Maybe
the other part of the parable is that the reason the Atomic Hearing Aid was
denied its patent application and ordered to be destroyed by the U.S. government
is that the Johnson administration didn’t want that kind of power in private
hands. Shit, it could be considered a weapon and Ayjax could no doubt have
turned a tidy profit by selling to rogue states. However, that didn’t come up
in the convo.
Rat Fink was on the move all this time and set in motion
a plan to steal the Aid right from under Ayjax and Batwoman’s noses. After
Batwoman and Flanagan depart the Bat Girl security detail, Rat Fink’s henchman
arrive incognito (fake mustaches! Fake beards!) and serve the unsuspecting
squad soup laced with Dr. Neon’s happy pills! This leads to more dancing (this
may be the dancingest superhero movie ever). Then, his goons sneak into Ayjax’s
commissary (where there’s a happenin’ jazz band and apparently a full bar!) and
distribute more of the soup, even to Batwoman! Holy Dancing with the Stars! Even
the normally staid Batwoman rises to cut a rug!
Flanagan and Tiger return to pinch the Aid and Tiger whisks
KBG again. J.B. shows up after getting no reply from any of the girls guarding
the AHA and is taken aback by the dancing detail.
So, so subtle.
Nice work, gents. Get ready for some dancin’!
Beehives, happy
soup and guns! Whoopee!
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| Tiger is clearly smitten. |
Meanwhile, in the commissary….
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| Swear to god, this is the best employee perk, ever! |
The lads arrive
to spread happiness!
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| No, Batwoman! Noooooo! |
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| Too late! |
Back to the girls, the Atomic Hearing Aid, and Tiger finds
true love!
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| Alas, poor J.B.! |
At this point, a couple of men from the U.S. Patent
Office arrive to reconsider Ayjax’s application and are taken aback when they
find the AHA has been stolen. In short order, they’re told by the fine administrative
assistant at Ayjax headquarters to go to Batwoman’s cool digs and meet up with J.B.
there, where…..
Yep, Batwoman is conversing with the spirit world to get a
fix on the missing AHA, the crooks, and of course, Kidnapped Bat Girl.
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| The patent office rep reminds me of Larry “Bud” Melman… |
Batwoman is able to converse with a spirit who has found
the device, but is interrupted repeatedly by another voice that speaks “Chinese”
(to be honest, it’s more like the kind of gibberish noises people make when
they think they’re imitating Chinese. Racists…
Everything’s gone tits up and Flanagan calls Batwoman
to tell her he’s leaving. Not sure where, but he’s done, he’s throwing in the
towel. The sexual tension is palpable (it’s not) and Batwoman cajoles him into
bucking up and getting a grip. Her girls are on the case and they’ll find Rat
Fink, the AHA, and bring this case to a close!
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| Alas, poor Flanagan… |
By this point, the Bat Girls are on it, all right.
They’re at the beach, making some kind of headway. Or waves. Or out.
And dancing (naturally).
Once our leopard patterned capri clad leader is done
sucking face, she rallies the troops and they’re off (she’s kind of a bitch; she
dresses the girls down for hanging out with boys and tells them they can come
back later for the phone numbers and then she’s all “let’s go chop-chop”…yeeesh.)
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| Off to find the AHA and KBG! We’re coming, sister! |
In the meantime, speaking of….
Tiger and KBG make cute as they discuss his wayward
life and she tries to point him in the right direction. Rat Fink abducts the Team
Bat Girls one by one and takes them to his cave/underground lair. He notifies
the henchmen and Dr. Neon, Heathcliff, and Bruno take off, trailed by Tiger and
KBG with a rope hanging loosely around her neck. Why did they even bother,
really.
Along the way, Dr. Neon keeps babbling about his “monsters”
and what lousy care Rat Fink takes of them, Bruno keeps telling him that “no
you may not go play with your monsters” but we do get a glimpse of them en
route to the lab. Tiger and KBG chat along the way about his past and when they
come out of the tunnel, lo! A vista of unparalleled beauty reveals itself.
Tiger informs our girl that what lies before them is an ancient city thousands
of years old. Great matte job from another film….
Apparently, Suzanne Lodge (KBG) expressed differences
of opinions with the director and had much of her dialog given to the girl in
the leopard spot capris. The more you know…
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| I hate to rag on anyone, but Batwoman really needs a better team. Also, Rat Fink is giving off heavy “dirty old man” vibes here. |
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| Was there ever any doubt these two would fall for each other? Notice Tiger has removed her rope! Awwww…. |
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| Howdy, Matte Shot from Another Movie! |
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| Oh, and Howdy, Mole Men! |
We’re almost there. I promise.
Rat Fink and Neon have a tiff about the monsters until
Finky-poo points out that he’s going to create more monsters by breeding them
with the girls (ew). There’s some discussion about the AHA and how it’ll be
deployed and of course, Batwoman shows up on the scene. The girls’ watches had location
devices in them or some such. Flanagan shows up in tow, as well. Let’s face it;
it’s a party.
Batwoman trains her zap-gun on the Finkster and just as
they’re about to unmask him, he triggers a multiplier doohicky and in an
inventive (for this movie, anyway) visual turn, the lab is populated with
madcap multiple Finks. They’re chased by the girls, magically freed by Batwoman’s
gun, and it’s about three minutes to an hour of dudes in a bad Shadow costume
running around a lab table, swinging on a rope back and forth and wrestling in
the foreground. It’s a mess until Batwoman adjusts some goofy machine so that the
duplicate Rat Finks are de-duped and the original remains to be unmasked.
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| Prospective monster mates! |
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| Of course, Bats get the drop on the doofuses! |
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| Don’t look for meaning here. You will not find it. |
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| No. No, you will not. |
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| Heathcliff drinking Christ knows what. After a steady diet of lead paint, the boy’s just not quite right in the head. |
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| More Rat Fink madness/hilarity. |
I swear, it’s almost over. Just a little longer, kids.
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| Goddammit, J.B., you coulda just told us. |
Naturally, naturally, Rat Fink turns out to be
J.B. Shocked? No? His motive? Do you care? Do any of us? Be that as it may, his
reason for developing the AHA wasn’t ideological or politically driven. He’s
got an eavesdropping fetish! He can’t help himself!
Goddamn. If I was Bruno and Tiger, I’d beat his ass for
being a dipshit. All of that goofy ass running around so your boss can get his
jollies listening into other people’s conversations? Damn, dudes, I’m sorry.
We’re not quite there, yet. We have Chekov’s monsters
to deal with and his Cobalt-40 isotope (not a real isotope). Dr. Neon winds up damaging the AHA and
spills or pours the Co-40 on it and this is allegedly going to set off a
nuclear reaction. Everyone heads for the hills (or the beach) and Neon hands
the tainted AHA off to Heathcliff (I’ve not said much about him because he’s just
one more comic relief in a film full of them; suffice it to say, he’s played as
a babbling idiot).
Boom goes the admixture and we cut to a pan of the
beach where our ensemble of players are laid out in varying upside down and/or
supine poses. Heathcliff survives and is speaking articulately to Dr. Neon. It
seems that he was originally Neon’s benefactor and major donor for his research
until Neon (accidentally?) rendered him an imbecile by trying out some potion
on Heathcliff. They’ll speak of this another time and this leads us to a pool
party at Batwoman’s. Gee, she’s got a swell pad!
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| Yes. “Boom!” Not sure why they didn’t go with a title card like the Adam West series… |
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| The aftermath. |
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| I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me, Heathcliff… |
Denouement, I guess.
The pool party is stupid in a different
(yet not) way from the preceding hour and eternity. A bit of slapstick renders
Heathcliff an idiot again, Tiger dances with his girls (and is himself now the
sole member of the Bat Girl Squad/Security Corp/whatev). Naturally, someone has
to fall in the pool fully clothed and well, Tiger old boy, that would be you.
Honestly, this being the first of the WTF films, I’ve
seen worse, and it’s actually kind of fun for a clumsy cash-grab. The whole adults
playing dress-up and pretend aesthetic works and the non-sequitur upon non-sequitur
sequences fit the bill as the very definition of inept.
Katherine Victor was played for a sap by Warren (she
made several films with him). From the Wikipedia page: “The original idea for
the film began with Jerry Warren realizing there was large popularity with the
comic book superhero Batman; Warren decided to make his own Bat-like superhero
character into a film. Warren offered the leading role to Katherine Victor.
Having worked on Warren's previous productions such as Teenage Zombies and
Curse of the Stone Hand, Victor was originally not very excited about working
with Warren again. To convince her, Warren promised Victor large production
values, color photography and her own bat boat in the film. None of these
promises ever came to fruition.”
It would be unnecessary to take a deeper dive into a
film like this. But I am celebrating it because despite its ineptitude, it has
spirit. Sure, its raison d’etre was to cash in on a contemporary trend in pop
culture, so it is most certainly a product of mid-twentieth century capitalism.
But it is funny. And it’s fun to make fun of.
My working assumption regarding what a dolt Warren was
is that he realized he wasn’t much of a director. This is his next to last
feature, after all, and I wonder if he was snippy less because he saw himself
as a Z-list Welles than as a man who was coming face to face with his
mediocrity.
There’s more to be said about the “bad movie” genre (sure,
that sounds pretty expansive, but it pretty much covers the criteria for
half-assed movies that purport to be genre representatives) and I will
genuinely, earnestly do so after I’ve subjected myself to them/interrogated
them as artefacts of their eras.
From the IMDB trivia page, random notes:
Despite being a
"zero budget" movie, the film did have a respectable actor, Steve Brodie,
in a major role. He is known as a B movie actor, but appeared in "Out of
the Past" and "The Caine Mutiny." He also starred in a decent
film noir, "Desperate." He went on to appear dozens of television
series, usually westerns and crime shows. [Reaction Shots addendum: in
fairness, Bruno de Vosta, Steve Conte, and Bob Arbogast also had decent careers
in TV and minor film appearances.]
Most of the
actresses were cast when the strip club where they worked was raided by the
police. The casting director showed up in front of the club as it was being
shut down and offered all of them work in the film.
Next up, a competent Ed Wood feature! No, really!
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