#30 The Wild World of Batwoman (Wes)

The Wild World of Batwoman

I was actually aware of our next movie The Wild World of Batwoman purely as I’d seen the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 episode that riffed it years ago. So knowing how bad this movie was in advance, I was dreading having to watch it without Mike and the Bots to take the edge off of the torture. It turned out though that we couldn’t find a non-riffed version of this movie anywhere, so we watched the MST3K version and had somewhat of a lucky escape…

When one of the Batgirls is bat-drugged in a bat-bar and batnapped, the leader of the Batgirls, Batwoman (Katherine Victor) is called by some other Batgirls (who are listening in to the first Batgirl being batnapped via a bat-wrist-radio) to help. By now Batgirl has been locked in a cage and is being held captive by three villians, Tiger (Mel Oshins), Bruno (Steve Conte) and Professor Neon (George Mitchell), who are all working for the villainous Rat Fink (Richard Banks). When Batwoman goes to rescue her ward, Rat Fink demands that she steals him an atomic hearing aid before he’ll release her. Batwoman manages to foil the incompetent villians though and rescue Batgirl. Batwoman is than asked to guard the atomic hearing aid, but Rat Finks men drug everybody with a happy pill that makes everybody dance (has anyone got any Vera’s? Luvley….) and they get away with it. Can Batwoman defeat Rat Fink and save the bat-day? Why don’t more crimefighters try to locate stolen items via bat-séance (I’m assuming it’s due to all the massively racist spirits)? What on Earth do the monsters from The Mole People have to do with this movie? Find out right now, by reading the rest of this same bat-review on this same bat-blog! (Not really. I never answer these questions, but keep on reading anyway)

Ok firstly there’s some things that came up during researching this movie that I know Colin will cover in his review too (which you read here), but I think they need addressing. Firstly that Batwoman is apparently a vampire in this movie. Did we miss something entirely here? At what point in this film did she show any vampiric qualities at all? The only scene which even mentions vampires is right at the beginning of the film, where three wannabe Batgirls (who are never seen again) drink yogurt and are now suddenly “synthetic vampires”. This throw away scene was added to the movie after it’s name was changed to explain its new title, which brings me to item number two…

The reason Batwoman is supposedly a vampire is because this movie went through a name change to She Was a Hippy Vampire after director Jerry Warren was sued by DC Comics for copyright infringement. Somehow either the judge presiding over the case had never read (or even seen) one of his comics, never seen Batman on TV (even though this was made during it’s height of popularity) or seen one of the 1940s theatrical serials. Either that or they decided that changing the gender of a hero, and making the costume more skimpy was different enough for it not to be a complete rip off and the judge found in Warren’s favour. The crazy thing is, that the fact that it was BatWOMAN and not Batman actually was Warrens defence. I bet he wished he kept Batwoman’s sidekick Thrush in the script after he got away with that one!

Reading an interview with Warren makes the whole thing crazier than it already is though. Because he won the lawsuit, he didn’t legally have to change the title of the movie at all. The reason he did was because by the time the movie was released, four years after it was made, the Batmania was dying down and Warren thought it’d be “ridiculous” to try to cash in on the whole Batcraze. I’m starting to think that the judge that heard the DC Comics vs Warren case was Judge Rummy and DC were being represented by Lionel Hutz…

So the movie itself… Shambolic is a word I don’t use often enough, but think it’s the perfect word to describe this film. Not only does the film rip off the design of Batman, the plot is so absurd it could have been taken from one the Batman episodes of the sixties. However whilst Batman would have handled it with buckets of camp charm, The Wild World of Batwoman is so ham-fisted it just remains ludicrous. That’s not to say that this film doesn’t have its moments of inept charm, for example Batwoman being fed chocolate milk and macaroons by the villians when she goes to rescue the kidnapped Batgirl is a moment of genius, as is some of the Batgirls bizarrely fighting over a horseshoe in the background in one scene, but they are just too few and far between to really make this a worthwhile endeavour.

Batwoman herself is oddly the least wild person in the whole of the swinging sixties. She looks like 80s pop star Toyah was told she had to attend a superhero themed costume party with only 10 minutes notice, so had to put on a facemask and grab the first thing that came out of her wardrobe. She is also completely deadpan, even when saying the most ridiculous lines, which is a nice touch, but ultimately watching someone with the emotional range of a Terminator becomes tiresome (unless you’re actually watching a Terminator movie obviously).

The acting from everybody else in this movie however makes Victor look like she’s in line for an Oscar. It just simply doesn’t exist (with Warren reportedly giving lines to other actors if the person who initially had the line annoyed him, this is hardly surprising). The Batgirls “acting” consists entirely of wearing bikinis and go-go dancing. It’s just a shame that this dancing is less erotic than the Tinman’s dance in The Wizard of Oz.

This is another one of those movies that probably wouldn’t have even been heard of enough to even reach the IMDB bottom 100 if it wasn’t for being in Mystery Science Theatre 3000! As much as I loved that show, I’m starting to resent it for bringing so many just plain terrible movies to the worlds attention. The only redeeming feature I found about The Wild World of Batwoman is that we couldn’t find the whole movie, so I can hardly recommend even the most bored of you out there to watch it. A dull movie, with a plot that’s harder to find than the answer to one of The Riddler’s riddles. Less Batman, more I Wonder Why this Movie was Ever Made Woman.

#30 The Wild World of Batwoman (1966) (MST3K Version) (Colin)

Cast: Katherine Victor, George Mitchell, Steve Brodie, Richard Banks

Director: Jerry Warren

Genre: Action / Comedy / Adventure

The next movie on our list is the rather familiar sounding The Wild World of Batwoman, (1966). Now, the first thing I thought was that this must be a spin-off set in DC’s Batman universe, however, I would be wrong in that assumption.

The Batman comic was very popular by the mid-60’s and the classic camp TV Series had just started. Seeing the popularity of this franchise, director Jerry Warren thought he could capitalise on this by making his own bat-based superhero movie.

Words like ‘copyright’ and ‘intellectual property’ are not in Warren’s vocabulary and so he went off to make his own version using a female superhero imaginatively called Batwoman. DC was obviously a bit miffed by this and took Warren to court claiming plagiarism. The judge was having none of it and believed there was no similarity and that the movie could go ahead. He then promptly collected his white stick, his Labrador and shuffled gingerly out of the courtroom.

And so thanks to that judge, we have this movie on our list but thanks to fate, we could not find a copy of the original, so we had to watch the MST3K version!

As usual when we have to watch the MST3K version, I’ll begin with a short review of that episode.

It’s a Mike episode and includes a short film called ‘Cheating’, which is about a young lad called Johnny, who cheats on his Algebra test at school. It appears 1950’s USA was a tough place to grow up because once Johnny is found cheating, he is completely ostracised from society. No second chances here, he is thrown out of the student council, loses all his friends and dies alone in a crack den with Herpes, (I may have made the last bit up). All in all it does seem a bit harsh for cheating on a worthless Maths test!

The riffing is solid in this episode and good throughout both short and main features although I think it’s during ‘Cheating’ that some of the best gags come out. It’s on YouTube and I recommend you check it out.

Anyway, back to our main feature, The Wild World of Batwoman…..

As the opening credits role, we are now told that this movie is called The Wild Wild World of Batwoman. Less than a minute in and the movie is promising us 1 more ‘wild’ than originally advertised. Surely this is a good omen and we are about to enjoy an action packed thriller of a movie?

Supervillian Rat Fink, (Richard Banks), has decided to steal a hearing aid. This is no ordinary hearing aid however, as it is atomic powered and can listen in on any conversation in the world! The device is made by global idiots ‘Ayjak’ and Rat Fink obviously did not do his research because the device is incredibly unstable due to it’s power source, (Plutonium), (is eavesdropping on someone’s mundane chatterings about The Great British Bake Of really worth slowly frying to death?)

Rat Fink decides to force his arch nemesis and ‘hero’ of the movie, Batwoman, (Katherine Victor), to do the dirty deed for him and so promptly kidnaps one of her crew, (known as Batgirls). Batwoman is in a right old pickle when Ayjak then ask hers to protect their hearing device and to stop Rat Fink in his tracks! (what is a girl who is ripped of from a successful comic book franchise to do?).

There’s also apparently a love story between kidnapped Batgirl, (Suzanne Lodge) and one of Rat Fink’s henchmen, Tiger, (Mel Oshins) and a background story about mad Professor Octavius, (George Mitchell) creating a cave full of monsters. But they appear to be glued into the movie as an afterthought when Warren realised the main story was not up to much…….

Will Batwoman help Rat Fink? Can she save the kidnapped Batgirl? Does Warren rip off anyone else’s work in this movie? Watch The Wild (Wild) World of Batwoman to find out!

In answer to the last question, yes he does. The beginning of the movie is lifted directly from another movie, which explains why you never see those characters again and why the incident is never mentioned, (it doesn’t explain why it’s in the movie, however!). Shots of Professor Octavius’s cave full of monsters are actually scenes from The Mole People (1956). Whilst the ending is a mixture of The Monkees and Scooby-Doo.

It seems Warren is a habitual ideas thief, but he has no idea how to bring other people’s ideas together to make one coherent unit. What we end up with is a poorly made confused mess.

It should come as no surprise to me how bad the acting is, considering how far we are into our list, but I must say I was knocked over by how piss poor the ‘actors’ in this movie were. According to Wikipedia, Batwoman herself, (Victor), said that learning the script was like memorising from a telephone book and her delivery certainly sounded like she was reading one out. I know she had nothing to work with, but at least show some emotion, even if it’s annoyed at being put into such a lame movie!

Prof Octavius is supposed to be from Germany, (I think), but his accent covers Germany, Austria, Eastern Europe, the UK and eventually Pakistan!

IMDb may answer why some of the cast were such bad actors. They claim that the Batgirls were actually recruited from outside a Strip Club which had just burned down. That explains why blonde Batgirl who, to show surprise, opens her mouth, puts her hand in front of her mouth, looks at other Batgirl, closes mouth, then opens her mouth, puts her hand in front of her mouth, looks at other Batgirl, closes mouth and so on about 20 times.

It also explains why the majority of the supporting cast are just asked to wear bikinis and wiggle their bottoms to 60’s surf music, of which there are probably more scenes than our other recent bottom wiggling movie, The Girl in Gold Boots, (see review here).

It doesn’t explain why, during one scene in which an Ayjak representative is chatting to Batwoman, the Batgirls are fighting over a horseshoe! The reason for this is because of crap direction and for that, we can point the blame back at Mr. Idea Thief himself, Warren.

Warren wrote, produced and directed this movie, so he really is the only person who needs to be held accountable. As per the above example, the direction sucked and another example can be found with that same scene. Characters inexplicably move positions between cuts, lighting varies wildly and it’s hard to tell if this is the same day, let alone the same conversation.

There’s also the small matter of the kidnapping at the beginning of the movie, which takes place in a bar, or at least I think it does. One minute one Batgirl is at the bar talking and then the next she is being carried out and the bar behind has been trashed. This may have been a poor edit on the MST3K version, (I don’t think it was), but there appears to be an entire fight scene which was taken out, (and might have made the beginning of the movie at least a little interesting).

As I said earlier, this is a confused mess. Batwoman is actually supposed to be a vampire as well, which was a total surprise to me as I did not clock this during the movie, (I only found out by reading afterwards and learning that the movie would later be re-released as ‘She Was a Hippy Vampire’. Come to think of it, there’s no mention she’s a hippy either!).

If she is a vampire, why on earth does she not just bite Rat Fink and save us the pain of this movie? (Maybe he is just a big clove of garlic under that Balaclava?).

This is a truly awful movie which has no idea of what it is meant to be. It sounds bad, (like it was recorded in a wind tunnel with a sponge), looks bad, (cellotaped scenes from other bad movies) and probably smells bad, (it certainly does stink).

But for all of these faults, I can exclusively reveal that this is not the highest bat-based superhero on our list.

But more on that later……….