THE WILD WORLD OF BATWOMAN (1966)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

I once commented to someone that WILD WORLD OF BATWOMAN might be the closest thing to an original work by producer and director (and sometimes writer) Jerry Warren. However, I was probably giving BATWOMAN too much credit simply for not being among the four films wherein Warren was paid to add new footage to other directors' films to make them more marketable, beginning with his 1964 re-working of the Mexican horror-flick THE AZTEC MUMMY. But the truth is that Warren did produce and direct four low-budget films first, and while they were both dull and derivative, at least there was some minor linear logic to all of them. My recent re-screening of BATWOMAN had me missing the subtleties of THE INCREDIBLE PETRIFIED WORLD.

BATWOMAN appeared right after the last of Warren's re-workings, and it was the last full feature he worked on until fifteen years later, when he summoned one last old-school effort for 1981's FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND, which these days I consider the best of his bad repertoire. (Before his quasi-retirement Warren served as one of three directors on HOUSE OF THE BLACK DEATH, but I'd consider that to be another "hired gun" job.)

Given that Warren had never directed a professionally released comedy movie in his life, he must have convinced himself that the success of the BATMAN teleseries arose from shoveling any old kind of absurd crap onto the screen, as long as the crap included a handful of sexy women. A disproportionate amount of the film is spent with the heroine Batwoman (Katherine Victor, a veteran of previous Warren efforts) consulting with or dancing alongside her troop of scantily clad "Bat Girls," so at the very least he must have thought he could sell the film on sex appeal. (How he thought he would avoid a suit from DC Comics is anyone's guess.) One story has it that Warren's casting director happened to be on the site of a strip club just as the police closed the place down, and since a bunch of the girls were put out of work, the guy hired them to play "the Bat Girls"-- who do almost nothing in the film but dance around.

The sex appeal angle is the only consistent thing in the script, solely credited to Warren. The titular heroine has no alter ego and there's no suggestion as to how she became a crimefighter, or why she surrounds herself with a bunch of hot-girl aides (and no, there's not even a viable lesbian angle there). The Bat Girls carry out a few duties on behalf of Batwoman, but they show no evidence of having been trained to fight or to use weapons. Apparently Warren didn't want to bother with fight-choreography either, since there's only one "fight scene" as such. Warren suggests that Batwoman has had earlier encounters with a master villain named "Rat Fink," who, when he finally appears, looks like a cross between The Shadow and the masked wrestler Santo. 

Rat Fink isn't seen as often as his chief servant, Professor Neon, who's invented a pill that can make its victims deliriously happy. Used in some strategic manner, this might serve for some world-conquering plot. But Rat Fink has a more convoluted plan. He has Neon kidnap one of the Bat Girls and feed her a happy pill, so that she dances around even more than usual in her cell. Neon then tries to extort Batwoman into stealing a listening-device from a tech company. Batwoman refuses to do so unless she can see that the captive Bat Girl is in good health. The kidnappers, instead of just letting the heroine talk on the phone with her minion, allow Batwoman to come to their hideout for verification. To be sure, Neon tries to gain the upper hand by slipping Batwoman a happy-pill mickey, but she switches cups, tosses a smoke bomb and punches out one hood. (Yes, that's the fight scene.) Batwoman escapes with her aide but somehow can't find the hideout later when she tries to locate Neon's lab.

There's a near pointless interview with the head of the tech company, followed by some Bat Girls dancing on the beach. Rat Fink appears and abducts more of the helpless femmes, taking them back to his lair. Batwoman finally tracks the evildoer to his hideout, and she and the remaining Bat Girls make the scene. Rat Fink somehow conjures up clones of himself and everyone runs around the room in a blatant imitation of the MONKEES TV show. Rat Fink is unmasked, proving to be the only suspect even made available, and he justifies himself by saying he wanted the listening-device because he loves hearing other people's conversations. I guess that counts as some sort of psychological tic, which is more than we get from the heroine and her dancing fools.

Unlike the actors playing the villains, who mug ferociously, Victor tries to play her role straight, though the ghastliness of her outfit undermines any sangfroid on her part. I doubt that Warren made any money from this dull farrago. But of all his films, this one is probably the one best known to collectors of curious ephemera, so I guess BATWOMAN paid off for the director in terms of fame--or at least infamy.