The 31 Days of Cheese - The Reboot - Day 4 Batwoman
Okay this took longer to get going than I wanted. I’ve
got something like 8 projects all asking me for my time and things get
sidetracked. Anyway I changed the name since reboots are all the rage yes.
Anyway – onward:
Continuing our masked wrestler sidebar – well there’s
something never in a million years did I ever dream that I would typing the
phrase Masked Wrestler sidebar – it is a funny old world really.
Anyway continuing with our sidebar today’s film is
Batwoman made in 1967 in Mexico at the height of the Adam West Batman craze and
apparently taking advantage of the rather muddled international property rights
to names like “Batwoman” a US film “The Wild World of Batwoman” found
themselves looking down the barrel of more than one nasty lawsuit by lawyers
for DC comics but either this one passed completely under the radar or they
thought it’s more trouble than it’s worth.
Anyway the film starring the lovely Maura Monti features Batwoman as a crime fighter and a
masked wrestler in the Santo mode – she is aided by two plainclothes police
officers who are the only ones who know Batwoman’s true identity.
The film takes her to Acapulco where a there has been a
series of murders of wrestlers. What happens is that the Wrestlers disappear
and later are found later dead with their Pineal gland removed.
Why Wrestlers? Why the Penial Gland? What is going on?
Well we find out pretty quickly that the Mad Doctor
Williams (they could have worked a bit on the name) along with his assistant
Igor (yes Igor) are taking the glands out of Wrestlers (because they are the
best physical specimens available – really? Okay) and injecting the gland into
a fish.
Why? SCIENCE THAT’S WHY?
Actually Dr. Williams wants to create a human fish
hybrid, why is not really spelled out, I guess a mad scientists ideas are going
to be a bit off so asking Dr. Williams why he wants to make a man fish is going
to be a waste of time.
Following the disappearance of yet another wrestler (known
as The Swede) Batwoman and her team decide to investigate Dr. Williams who has
made his headquarters on rather large Yhatch
named REPTICLUS – seriously he might as well have run up a flag with the
phrase “I am a mad scientist” with that name on his boat.
Anyway Batwoman then gets aboard the boat discovers that
Williams has partially succeeded he’s got a fish man but it’s about the size of doll so what’s point.
In the course of this Batwoman is captured and Williams is about to have her
put under so he can make a fish woman! (Nobody ever tries to make a fish dog or
cat in these films) Batwoman spoils the plan by tossing acid on Williams face burning
half of it and then she escapes.
The rest of the film involves Batwoman
being menaced by the various underlings of the mad doctor including the
fish man now grown to full size by radiation (of course it does) a lot of tooing and froing follows but in the
end both Batwoman and her assistants end up back on the yacht but the monster
itself spoils the Doctors Plans and then the ship blows up.
There is a lot of silliness in this film – not quite as
silly as the Batman Adam West series and Muara is very good looking and is
in a bikini a lot – like when she’s Batwoman – she wears a grey undergarment
when wrestling and it looks (as several reviewers have noted) like the
wrestling scenes were done using a body double.
My last note is that while I’ll never quibble about how a
masked superhero goes about their business, I’m not sure that wearing false
eyelashes as in really really big false eyelashes is the best idea.
posted by Unknown at 6:02 PM
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