After some opening credits – the actors all charmingly receive the title of either ‘Mr.’ or ‘Miss’ – we open on our first miniature. It represents a clock face set in a tall tower. The city backgrounds are obviously painted, in a fashion familiar to fans of the German Impressionist films. The clock tolls eleven P.M. As the chimes finish, the camera suddenly swoops down the front of the building to the street far below. Cars and pedestrians are initially represented by models on motorized tracks. A cut transitions us to actual actors on a set.

A cop jumps into a car and we’re soon speeding down crowded city streets. A radio broadcast explains the reason for their haste. The mysterious masked criminal the Bat has threatened to steal a famous diamond necklace from its owner Mr. Bell at exactly twelve midnight. The police are heavily manning the scene, and civilian traffic in the area has been curtailed. They are determined to arrest the Bat and end the crime spree panicking the city.

We arrive at Bell’s house, where another swooping camera glide takes us up and through an open window into Bell’s study. The necklace is in the room’s safe. He’s reading the note foretelling of the robbery, in which the Bat dares him to wait for his arrival. At Bell’s hand is a revolver; his desk clock nears midnight. The scene is almost totally silent, especially given the film’s lack of a musical score. The silence and the editing contribute to a palatable sense of tension. As twelve o’clock passes without incident, Bell crosses to the office door and opens it. Outside a veritable squad of policemen are clustered about the hall radio. A second broadcast announces the Bat’s failure to keep his boast. Satisfied the danger is over, Bell closes the door and reenters the room.

Realizing that he hasn’t checked on the necklace since the time the Bat threatened to steal it, Bell opens the safe. At the window, we watch a clawed hand come over the sill and stealthily gather up the long window shade cord. Hearing a noise, Bell turns towards the window and sees the shade flapping in the wind. As he makes to adjust it, we first see a number of policemen standing guard below. Then we see an outside figure hanging upside down, silhouetted against the upper half of the window. As Bell leans forward the figure drops upon him and strangles him. The necklace is removed from Bell’s dead hand and a calling card featuring the figure of a bat is flicked into the room. The Bat has struck again.

When Bell’s servant gets no response at the door, the police break their way inside. They find Bell’s body, the open safe and the card. On it the Bat reveals that he had tricked Bell into complaisance by turning his clock forward. As this message is read, the city clock tower begin chiming twelve…

A train leaves the City. We see it traveling to the town of Oakdale, then the camera continues gliding forth towards the town’s bank. The shadow of a bat-like figure is cast against it’s wall, then seen inside the building itself. As the figure looks on, a heavily-muffled man is seen opening the bank’s vault. The man removes a satchel and takes his leave, unaware he’s being observed by the mysterious Bat. As the man drives off, we see silhouetted form of the Bat gliding down a rope to his own vehicle. The Bat means to follow the man, but a lever in the lead car produces a smokescreen, and the man makes good his escape.

The man with the satchel is next seen entering the ground of Fleming manor. The Bat then drives up, noting the first car’s license number. He then leaves his vehicle to continue the pursuit. His cast shadow is scarcely human, and he moves with a horrible limp, dragging one leg along the ground as he moves forward. As the first man furtively lurks around the grounds, we cut inside to meet the manor’s occupants.

The house has been rented for the summer by Cornelia Van Gorder, a tough old matron of a bird who’s a writer of mystery novels by trade. Unfortunately, we also meet here ‘comic’ relief maid, Lizzie Allen. Lizzie is the sort who frights at the drop of a hat, and she’s constantly complaining about staying in the Fleming House. Seems the place has an ominous reputation with the locales. Van Gorder, of course, thinks the whole thing is poppycock.

As you might have gathered, Lizzie’s whining spells and crying and constant shrieking quickly become tiresome. On the other hand, Van Gorder is an authentically interesting and prototypically feminist character. (It’s even mentioned that she was a suffragette.) Her sex is never made an issue of and she’s smart, brave and nobody’s sucker. Her main fault, aside from a distinct lack of interest in suffering fools, is putting up with Lizzie’s antics. Presumably she does so because of their long association.

She also maintains an interest in occultism – a fashionable diversion at the time – and is seen consulting a Oujia board. (Told to fetch it, Lizzie aims a thumb towards the stairs. "It’s up there with a Bible on it to keep it quiet," she observes.) Daringly, Van Gorder is more admirable than likeable, and it’s difficult to imagine a film being centered around such a character today. I can see Lyz over at And You Call Yourself a Scientist getting a kick out of her.

The film’s greatest problem, to the extent it has one, is in its origin as a stage play. There’s a lot of dialog here, although luckily the pace never really slows down much. Meanwhile, the house itself, in which the remainder of the film takes place, is obviously a series of sets, albeit pretty elaborate ones. On the other hand, some of the dialog still seems sharp:

Lizzie: I guess I’ve got a right to speak my mind.
Van Gorder, dismissively: "You haven’t got a mind."
Lizzie, mumbling: "If I had one you wouldn’t let me use it."

The two strangers skulk around the grounds, with Lizzie occasionally catching a glimpse of one or the other so as to provide further excuses for her purportedly humorous fits of terror. When the man with the satchel breaks into the darkened cellar, he loudly knocks over some stuff. While Lizzie shrinks in fear, Van Gorder unhesitatingly grabs a revolver from a nearby desk and heads towards the basement, meaning to see what’s what.

Such an air of competence in a woman character is rare even today, and the idea of such a female owning a gun and employing to it so nonchalantly is a rarer sight still. I also like the scene where another character examines a broken pane in an outside window. As he turns from it, Van Gorder brusquely observes that he’s left he latch undone and orders him to secure it. A moment later she walks over to make sure he’s done so. If only more characters in genre movies were this sharp.

The rest is about what you’d expect. The man with the satchel has robbed the bank. He secretes the bag, containing $500,000 – it must be in rather large bills, given the size of the case -- in the Fleming house. The Bat is after the loot, too, and we often cut to his monstrous shadow being cast against some wall or other. This set-up is handy, since it provides the film with two separate villains to unmask, as well as the question of what happened to the money. Needless to say, the film proceeds to provide a sizeable number of suspects and red herrings, as well as a pair of young lovers to provide the mandatory romantic element.

There’s frequent resort to secret panels and rooms, bolts of atmospheric lightning and phones and electricity that keep going out. Finally, there’s Detective Anderson, played by the film’s main star, Chester Morris. Morris was a leading man type who soon would find himself regulated to B pictures. He probably remains most famous for an amusing series of fourteen programmers as Boston Blackie. Blackie was a reformed bank robber who constantly found himself having to solve crimes to keep from being arrested for them. Meanwhile, genre buffs will remember his role as the iniquitous hypnotist who calls forth his assistant’s monstrous primordial form in 1957’s The She Creature.

You might be wondering why the film is included in our Batman related Video Cheese issue. And yes, there’s more to it than just the Bat. Bob Kane, the cartoonist who co-created Batman along with writer Bill Finger, often credited The Bat Whispers as one of his inspirations. Not that this is a surprise, as even the novice comic book aficionado would undoubtedly notice some key similarities: The cape, the skulking in the dark of night as he watches his prey, the use of a grotesque bat-like visage to "strike fear" in his opponents, the use of ropes to swiftly clamber up and done building fronts. There’s also a clear tie, appropriately, to Batman’s primary nemesis the Joker. Generally, there’s the Bat’s murderous ways, his bursts of maniacal laughter and his climatic display of fevered insanity. Specifically, the Joker’s first appearance centered on his warning certain men that he intended to kill them at the stroke of midnight on a named date. He does so, despite hoards of policemen vainly attempting to protect his designated victims. This is, of course, a replay of this movie’s first scene.

I suppose the ability to enjoy The Bat Whispers depends on one’s tolerance levels for old movies. Personally, I think one of the advantages of loving film is that its relatively short history allows one, with a bit of diligence, the ability to attain a pretty solid overview of its development as an art form. Cinema and television are probably the closest things the world has come to a genuine universal language (sorry, Esperanto). Being able to see the works in which pioneers like Chaplin, Keaton, Eisenstein and Griffith invented that language, with pans, dolly shots, zooms, intercutting between events, montage and the like, would be reading a book that was the first to introduce the words ‘and’ and ‘the’ to the English vocabulary.

Even those generally unimpressed with older movies, however, might get a kick out of this one. Despite being made almost moments after the advent of sound (hence The Bat Whispers, as opposed to the 1926 silent version which was merely The Bat), the picture utterly lacks the static quality associated with silent-era films. Director Roland West, who had in fact directed the ’26 version – which I’d rather like to see at this point – went hog wild with experimentation on this one.

The nods to German expressionistic cinema, the use of violent camera movements and long, frenetic camera dollies, and some extremely adept blocking of the numerous characters help keep this movie hopping. That’s a rare quality for films of the day, especially those adapted from stage plays. Compare this film with Tod Browning’s legendarily stolid Dracula, made the next year, and you’ll see what I mean. In fact, compare it with the limply staged The Bat from 1959, an often horrendously dull and much dumber take on the same source play by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood. The only saving graces of that version are the presence of cult icon Vincent Price and, to a much lesser extent, Agnes "Bewitched" Moorehead in the Cornelia Van Gorder part. It’s odd to watch a film made with thirty extra years of movie-moving technology at its disposal that exhibits so much less scope its predecessor.

The acting is quite generally quite good. Morris is an old favorite or mine, and he acquits himself well, despite the melodramatic acting style seemingly encouraged by West. I was also especially taken the Austrian actor Gustav Von Seyffertits, who plays the villainous Dr. Venrees. The actor is an uncanny precursor to Bela Lugosi, who the year after this was released would become an instant star in Tod Browning’s Dracula. Both share strong faces dominated by a hawk-like nose, and Von Seyffertits’ thick Germanic accent inevitably brings Lugosi’s Hungarian one to mind.

As noted, there’s a lot of miniature work here, especially in the film’s prolog. (Perhaps the ’59 The Bat’s most likable moment is an explicit nod to West’s version, when the Fleming house is again introduced by using the same miniature model employed in West’s version.) This work is never convincing, especially to modern viewers used to more advanced techniques. Even so, the effects are neat. The fact that Roland is stretching the then primitive state of effects to see what he can squeeze out of them is palpable. Moreover, just as the cinematic monsters of the ’40s and ‘50s seem less realistic yet somehow more alive than present day CGI beasties, the effects here have a weird integrity to them. Another fitting analogy would be to the early Batman artwork of the aforementioned Mr. Kane. The work is definitely stiffer and cruder than what comic books fan of today are used to, to some, woefully so. Yet it possesses a raw vitality seldom found in the more clinically adept work put out today. It’s not so much a poor representation of this world, but rather seems a look at another, somehow simpler but more fanciful at the same time.

Undoubted the most experimental aspect of the film was that it was released in two versions. The ‘flat’ one was in the then standard 35 mm, pretty much the dimensions of a standard TV set. However, there was also a version put out in 65 mm, probably one of the first commercial films available in widescreen. What’s really interesting is that the 35 mm prints weren’t just cropped prints taken from the 65 mm version. Instead, West actually shot the film twice, once in widescreen, once ‘flat.’ Thus watching the two of them back to back provides the viewer with an occasionally weird yet very interesting experience, most similar, perhaps, to attending the same play two nights in a row. Both versions are available on the DVD release, making the disc an essential buy for those interested in the history of film. (Now if it only came in a two-disc set, along with West’s 1926 silent The Bat, you’d really have something. Meanwhile, the ‘59 The Bat is available on any number of DVDs, although you should presumably beware the cheapie public domain ones. I’m sure the Anchor Bay disc is good, but a better bargain is the still available Roan Group DVD that teams the film with star Vincent Price’s House on Haunted Hill.)

As for the two versions, as presented on the DVD, the 35 mm version has significantly better sound, and the larger image emphasizes the actors and props more. For instance, the Bat’s final insane tirade, with the actor’s spookily lit face filling the TV screen, is more effective than it’s letterboxed counterpart. However, the 65 mm version has far superior compositions; the wider length of the image allows West to position his numerous characters in extremely expert ways. Another scene that works much better in the wide version is the film’s expertly humorous coda, where tuxedoed star Chester Morris appears to ask the audience not to reveal the secret of the Bat’s identity. Of the two versions, I’m going with the widescreen as the better one, although each has its own strengths.

What Happens: Stock footage from old Warner Brothers gangster movies, including, if I’m not mistaken, Scarface, indicates the occurrence of a gangster crime wave. As usual with these things, there’s a hooded mystery villain, The Wizard, whose henchman are after the components needed to create a superweapon. Batman has a paunch, has the old tunic with the bat emblem not set in an oval, and sports a cloth hood with sharply pointed ears and nose. Robin the Boy Wonder is played by a guy well into his twenties and looks it. Both exhibit heavily pomaded curly coifs in their civilian identities. Actor Robert Lowery, the guy playing Batman, has a definite Victor Mature thing happening. His Bruce Wayne, however, has obviously been modeled on Tyrone Power’s foppish Don Diego from The Mark of Zorro.

The Wizard’s after industrialist William’s Remote Control Machine. This is one of those broadcast power dealies, which per usual can control and direct and moving vehicle and act as a death ray to boot. After the machine is stolen, its eccentric inventor, the sourpussed Prof. Hammil, rolls into William’s office in his wheelchair. He insults Williams, the police and Batman as a group for upwards of ten whole seconds and then tells his manservant to "take me home!" Frankly, I wouldn’t have thought that worth the effort of coming in. Batman, being a master detective, is the only one to question how Hammil learned so quickly that the RC Machine had been stolen. "I’ll look into that," Commissioner Gordon replies. (Gordon is played by Lyle Talbot, a regular presence in the films of Ed Wood Jr.)

The machine requires diamonds, which will act as the MacGuffin for a while. Meanwhile, we see that the invalid Hammil has a sort of electric chair – actually a wooden chair with neon tubing attached (!) that charges him up so he can *gasp* walk. Unsurprisingly, he has a secret lab behind the fireplace in his den. Hammil’s probably a red herring, however. Williams might be the Wizard, and there a radio announcer guy, Brown, who’s a possible suspect. Then there’s Dunne, the private eye that gets Brown tips, and the guy who pushes Hammil’s wheelchair…hey, we’ve fifteen chapters to fill here.

Anyway, the henchmen enter the Wizard’s secret hideout via the following route: Drive into the hinterlands, move bush blocking secret tunnel in some rocks, climb down a ladder to an underground river and enter the waiting submarine (!), Wizard hits a button and the sub sails through the ocean shoreline, then finally they arrive at another cave and go through a secret panel in an interior rock face.

Knowing the Wizard plans to steal a planeload of diamonds, the Dynamic Duo takes the place of the pilots. Amazing what Commissioner Gordon can set up at a moment’s notice. The Wizard’s henchmen are chasing the plane in one of their own, and the Wizard control of Batman’s plane and forces it to land. They are forced to surrender the diamonds, which are contained in a small cloth bag. (!) They needed a whole plane to transport that?!

Suddenly, the crimefighters find themselves face to face with Death!

Batman Mythos Watch:

• No Batmobile here. Instead, the Dynamic Duo drive an ordinary sedan.
• No stately Wayne Manor, either. Instead, Bruce and Dick live in a standard duplex house in "the suburbs of Gotham." Despite this, Bruce is known to his neighbors as "a wealthy playboy," and yes, still employs Alfred the Butler, who remains English.
• Bruce accesses the Batcave through the false façade of a grandfather clock. This idea was first employed here, and has since become standard Batman lore.
• The ‘Batcave’ is a surprisingly tidy ‘cave’ containing some early Radio Shack devices and tables bearing high school science lab gear (microscope, mortar and pestle, etc.). Humorously, a few rubber bats on a string is waved around above camera range to provide ‘bat’ shadows on the walls.
• Bruce’s old comic book girlfriend and hardnosed reporter Vicki Vale is on hand.
• Gordon has a Bat Signal spotlight, but keeps it in his office rather than on the roof of the police department.
• The Batman and Robin uniforms are kept folded in the drawer of a file cabinet in the Batcave.
• High on the amusement scale is watching how Batman and Robin’s capes get in the way during fistfights. At one point a thug tugs on Robin’s and chokes him!

General Notes:

• You’ve got to like the name of the fake newspaper we see: The Daily Record Post. What, was The Daily Record Post Tribune Bugle already taken? Other imaginative papers we see? The Star Dispatch, The Daily Mercury and The Post-Independent.
• Guess back in the good old days the authorities didn’t have to warn suspects before opening fire on them.
• The serial’s producer was none other than perennial schlock king Sam Katzman.

Fights:

• Gunfight between security guards and Wizard Henchmen. Result: One guard wounded, henchmen escape with Remote Control Machine.
• Fistfight between the DD (Dynamic Duo) and two Henchmen. Result: DD wins. One henchman ‘comically’ ends up in garbage can.

Ignored Easy Opportunity To Just Shoot Batman and Robin: Yes.

Vicki Endangered? No.

Cliffhanger Ending: Batman and Robin are in a landed plane. The Wizard hits a switch on the RC Machine and the plane explodes.

Cliffhanger Resolution: The plane explodes, but this time the DD are outside of it when it does.
Cheat Level: About a four. We do cut away from the plane for a moment before it blew up in the first chapter, so it’s conceivable, if none too likely, that Our Heroes could have gotten out in time.

What Happens: Having survived the explosion, the DD manage to sneak into the bad guys’ plane without being seen. (In fact, the henchmen assume they are dead.) In a not-overly suspenseful bit, Batman manages to sneak up from the rear compartment and exchange a packet of fake diamonds for the real ones sticking out of a Bad Guy’s pocket. (!) Our Heroes escape, but lose the henchmen’s trail. The Wizard, needless to say, are displeased with the fake diamonds, not to mention the fact that his foe’s are still alive.

Batman and Robin just happen to be driving past Hammil’s estate (!) when they hear a woman scream and stop to investigate. How do these two keep their secret identities when they drive around in broad daylight all the time? Anyhoo, they find the screamer is none other than Vicki Vale, who’s fallen prey to a foot trap while snooping around outside Hammil’s manor. Later, the Wizard’s men are sent to steal a train shipment of explosives. Luckily, the Bat Sedan is a convertible, allowing Robin to lower the roof so that Batman can leap onto the train. It’s ragtop openin’ excitement!! Batman takes to the top of the locomotive, where the henchmen are.

Batman fights bravely, but suddenly finds himself face to face with Death!

Fights:

• Batman and two henchmen. Result: Batman wins.
• Batman and two henchmen on train. Result: Batman on points.

Ignored Easy Opportunity To Just Shoot Batman and Robin: Nothing obvious.

Vicki Endangered? No.

Cliffhanger Ending: Batman stands exposed on top of train as it approaches a tunnel.

(And no, Mr. Toad is nowhere to be found.)

Cliffhanger Resolution: Batman jumps to side of train.
Cheat Level: Zero. Instead, it’s boring.

What Happens: Batman leaps and ends up clinging to the side of the train. This makes him look pretty stupid, since the henchmen he left lying prone on the train’s top remain unharmed. All they have to do is stand, he has to haul himself back up. Maybe he just did it to show off. The Wizard, hearing of Batman’s presence, stops the train with the RC Machine. His henchmen tussle with the Caped Crusader but escape with the explosives. The DD follow in the Bat Sedan but the Wizard screws up their car with the RC Machine. How does he aim that thing from his cave, anyway?

The Wizard gets the box of explosives, but they are useless without the other box containing the "special detonators." He yells at his number one henchguy for failing to procure this, but it seems to me that’s the sort of detail you should stress in your pre-robbery action memos. As a fallback, they decide to kidnap Mr. Morton, the inventor of the special explosives. Cripes, how special can these explosives be? Just get some TNT, Mr. Fancypants. The Wizard uses his flashing electric eyes (??) to hypnotize his captive and learns of the detonators location.

The Bat Signal is employed. (In broad daylight!! How would that work?!) Meanwhile, the henchmen intercept a truck making a shipment to William’s plant, where the detonators are kept. They quickly procure the devices. However, their truck is intercepted by the DD’s restored Bat Sedan as they leave and a chase ensues. They all stop for little apparent reason and another brawl breaks out.

Suddenly Batman finds himself face to face with Death!!

Fights:

• Batman and a luggage clerk fight three henchmen. Result: The clerk goes down and Batman, now fighting three guys, is knocked unconscious.
• Robin fights a henchman. Result: Robin loses.
• Batman jumps three henchmen. Result: Batman beats them up and another to boot, but falls to the RC machine.

Ignored Easy Opportunity To Just Shoot Batman and Robin: Yes.

Vicki Endangered? Well, she’s menaced a little.

Cliffhanger Ending: Batman grabs a crowbar being swung at him and the Wizard, from far away in his cave and with no notice, uses the RC Machine to levitate it (with cartoon energy bolts, yet) and Batman off the side of a cliff. Really.

Cliffhanger Resolution: Batman lands safely in a tree.
Cheat Level: A two. The tree landing should have at least broken an arm or leg.

What Happens: The henchmen escape, taking Robin with them as a prisoner. Robin contrives to leave a trail for Batman to follow. Later Robin gets away, running into some woods as the henchman search for him. Losing them, Robin makes his way to the cabin where they’re holding Morton. The Wizard now wants the formula that would allow Morton to harness the energy from it explosive and use it to run machinery. My head hurts. The electric eyes trick is used again, and Morton begins to fall under the Wizard’s spell. However, Robin’s presence is discovered and the chase is back on.

Batman shows up and chases the henchman off. They save the injured Morton and head home to the Stately Wayne Duplex. The henchmen try to re-kidnap Morton from his hospital bed. Morton regains consciousness, but the henchmen manage to plant a bug in the room. When Morton tells Gordon where the formula is, they learn too. The DD intercept them and Batman knocks out two of them with a gambit that wouldn’t have fooled the Three Stooges.

Suddenly, Batman finds himself face to face with Death!!

Fights:

• Robin fights three henchmen. Result: Robin’s knocked unconscious.
• Batman fights three guys. Result: Batman incapacitated.

Ignored Easy Opportunity To Just Shoot Batman and Robin: Yes, separate ones for each.

Vicki Endangered? No.

Cliffhanger Ending: Batman knocked into electrical something-or-other. Sparks shoot out. Is this the end of the Caped Crusader? (By the way, despite the chapter title, Batman is never actually trapped anywhere.)

Cliffhanger Resolution: Batman doesn’t take a fatal charge.
Cheat Level: Zero. Boy, are these lame cliffhangers!!

What Happens: The bad guys escape with the formula. (Batman and Robin aren’t exactly polishing their reputations here.) However, Vicki takes a picture of them as they flee. By coincidence, though, Vicki’s brother is Jimmy, unknown to her, one of the gang members. (!!!) Vicki gets a call from her brother, who she saw in the photo. He wants the prints and negative. Vicki stops to confer with Bruce, for no apparent reason other than so Batman will learn what’s up.

Vicki goes off for the meeting, not knowing that Batman and Robin are tailing her. Batman and Robin end up fighting the crooks. Because they’re totally useless, the bad guys manage to destroy the evidence. Not that I see what good a picture of them is anyway. Surely the DD could identify them by now; they’re already fought them like twenty times. Later Bruce uses Bat Technology to "restore the molecular structure to the charred film." (!!) He does some other stuff, and they soon end up with a perfect copy of the picture. It’s photo restoring action at its very finest!! Finding a match for one henchman in their files, they open another drawer and get their uniforms out. I don’t know, that still seems wrong somehow.

The DD track the guy down and capture him. Jimmy has split town, though, and the crooks grab Vicki to hold as hostage for his return. As they carry her off, she screams, alerting the nearby Batman.

Suddenly, Batman and Vicki find themselves face to face with Death!!

Fights:

• Batman and Robin fight three guys. Result: Our Heroes are thrashed.
• Batman fights three guys. Score: Hmm. We’ll call it a tie.

Ignored Easy Opportunity To Just Shoot Batman and Robin: Yes for Batman, no for Robin.

Vicki Endangered? Yes.

Cliffhanger Ending: Batman and Vicki end up in gasoline tainted waters. A lantern is thrown at them, setting the gasoline alight and causing a blazing inferno.

Cliffhanger Resolution: The two climb out of the water.
Cheat Level: Zero. It’s the lamest resolution yet!!

What Happens: Batman sends Vicki off in a cab, which stops for him despite his dripping wet Batman suit. (No wonder black people get mad when taxis drive past them.) After this, Batman declares his intention to take the captured henchguy to police headquarters and get an "enlarged photograph" of him taken. Bruce takes the photo and uses it to disguise himself as the guy, aided by a large swathe of bandages over part of his face. "[You look] like his twin brother," Robin says, and assuming the guy looks exactly like Bruce Wayne with a big bandage over half his face, he’s right. Bruce intends to check out the Harbor Club, to which the henchman had a membership card in his wallet. (Kind of an obvious ‘clue,’ but there you go.)

Flashing his card – good thing they’re not on a password system, but then, Bruce wouldn’t have found out about the club – Bruce is admitted and taken for the errant henchman. Bruce doesn’t exactly prove the world’s greatest actor, and he at times practically announces that he isn’t who he’s pretending to be, but he continues to pull off the charade. Anyway, his ploy is successful, and he’s taken to one of the Wizard’s hideouts, which Dick following behind in the Bat Sedan. Once there – and it looks like the cabin where Morton was kept, some ‘secret’ hideout – Dick changes into his Robin togs.

The henchmen listen to announcer’s Brown’s radio broadcast, learning that the guy Bruce is playing was captured. (Brown keeps giving out classified info on his show which aids the crooks, and the good guys keep saying, "I wonder how he knew that," but then they sort of shrug it off.) The crooks pull the bandage off Bruce face. "You look like [him]," they admit, even though Bruce looks exactly like Bruce. Robin distracts them by flashing a pocket Bat Signal, but he ends up captured himself.

To make Bruce prove he is who he says he is, the bad guys ask him to perform a little test. They give him a gun with two bullets to shoot Robin with. Why two? So he can pretend to shoot Robin with one -- we’re later told he fired the bullet into Robin’s think belt buckle!! -- and then shoot out the light with the other when the gang is distracted. Bruce and Robin escape during the confusion. Having disabled the bad guy’s car, the two drive back to the city. Meanwhile, the captured thug gives the police false information, meant to lure Batman and Robin into a trap. Of course, Gordon passes the info on without bothering to send any cops or anything.

Suddenly, Batman and Robin find themselves face to face with Death!!

Fights:

• Some tussling, but nothing that really amounts to a fight.

Ignored Easy Opportunity To Just Shoot Batman and Robin: No.

Vicki Endangered? No.

Cliffhanger Ending: The Dynamic Duo are trapped in room flooding with unbreathable gas.

Cliffhanger Resolution: Batman provides small breathing/filter gizmos from his utility belt. He’s also carrying a full-sized acetylene torch (!!!) under his cape, which he uses to cut their way out.
Cheat Level: Ten. Give a break! I’m buying the breathing devices, but the torch?! Still, it’s not boring. Kudos.

What Happens: The case against Brown seems to be growing stronger, meaning he’s probably a red herring. The Wizard blackmails the train industry, threatening to use the RC Machine to halt all rail shipments entering or leaving Gotham. This would have been a rather bigger deal back in the ‘40s. Hammil is seen using the energizer machine and walking through his fireplace again. Is he the Wizard? (Who cares?) Meanwhile, the Wizard pulls a Day the Earth Stood Still and stops all trains for five minutes as a warning. It’s amazing how the RC Machine does exactly what he wants whenever he turns the same switch.

Harrison, a railroad bigwig comes into town, vowing not to give into the Wizard’s demands. Figuring the bad guys will try to kidnap him, Batman and Robin drive out…somewhere. A car follows them. It’s Vicki. She asks about Batman driving Bruce Wayne’s car. (!!!) (Dude, you’re a wealthy playboy, remember? Buy Batman his own car, ya putz). She even asks, in a mildly suspicious fashion, about whether Bruce could be himself Batman. Well, duh. Put the pieces together, woman! This isn’t brain surgery, especially with the Dick/Robin thing. And doesn’t she find Batman’s voice just a little familiar? Anyway, Batman takes her keys (!), stranding her in the desert. (!!) Except that she has a spare set in her purse. Yikes, Batman can’t even lose a snoopy reporter!

The henchman, stationed in the latest of their generic series of hideouts, intercepts Harrison’s car after the Wizard puts the kibosh on it. Batman and Robin interrupt the kidnapping, and Batman and Harrison seek safety in *gasp* the cabin that’s the gang’s hideout. Seeing them approach, the lone remaining hood leaves a bomb in the cabin and exits via the back door. Batman and Harrison hide in the cabin, although I still don’t get why Batman thinks this is a good idea. Seeking to leave, the two find themselves pinned down on either side by gun wielding crooks. Why don’t they just pour bullets through the flimsy slat walls of the cabin (we even see bullets going through the boards) and mow down their quarries? Got me. Then as the occasional bullet flies around and with mortality staring them in the face, Harrison stops and points at a malfunctioning clock, asking what’s the matter with it. Then he notices the same thing happening to his watch. Dude, you’ve got serious prioritization issues. Then a curtain goes up in flames. I especially liked the way Batman looked upon with apparent boredom all over his face.

Suddenly, Batman and Harrison find themselves face to face with Death!!

Fights:

• Batman, Robin and Harrison’s chauffer fight a number of henchguys. You know, this is getting a little repetitive. Anyway, Batman wins, the chauffer loses and it’s a tie for Robin.

Ignored Easy Opportunity To Just Shoot Batman and Robin: Not so much.

Vicki Endangered? Well, Batman would have left her stranded in the desert is she didn’t have spare keys.

Cliffhanger Ending: The bomb in the cabin goes off, blowing the structure to bits.

Cliffhanger Resolution: After the crooks leave, a coughing Batman and Harrison emerge from the wreck, having hidden at the last minute in a rather convenient cellar.
Cheat Level: A one. Not really cheating, although the convenient cellar strains credulity.

What Happens: For about the tenth time, the crooks assume that Batman died in some explosion or other and leave to report his demise to the Wizard. (The whole time-wasting through-the-cave-to-the-submarine-to-the-hideout thing is trotted out for about the tenth time.) Back at the cabin, Vicki shows up and takes everyone’s picture. Batman then drives Harrison into town. They meet with Gordon, and Batman helpfully suggest that the only way to stop the Wizard "is through strategy." Yes, I can see why the police rely on you so much, Caped Crusader. Anyway, since it seems that the Wizard’s gang gets all their info from Brown’s radio broadcasts, Batman suggests giving the announcer a false story.

They pretend they’re ready to pay the Wizard. However, the money is, as Bruce informs Dick, "painted with a radioactive substance. We’ll use a Geiger counter and track them down." (Yes, or you could follow the trail of fallen-out hair and teeth the Wizard’s men will leave behind.) Even better, Bruce explain, "substance" will make the money, once it’s exposed to air, "will immediately burst into flame." (!!) By the way, how did they package this stuff after tainting it if air would then make it explode? Oh, well.

So the strongbox of money is thrown from a train. The hoods drive over to pick it up, unaware they’re being tailed from high above by Batman and Robin, flying over them in a plane. Robin, watching with binoculars, reports that they’re nearing the box. "They’re after the money," Batman trenchantly observes. Yeah, thanks, I think we got that part. Batman parachutes downs (!), as Robin lands the plane. Wouldn’t it have been easier to station Batman on land and have Robin radio him or something? Miraculously, Batman is able to get to the crooks car before they return, and hide in the unsecured truck. You might think that that’s where they’d most logically stow the strongbox, but you’re wrong. They heave it instead into the back seat and drive off.

The crooks switch the box into another car, then run the first one off a steep incline. (??) This is ‘exciting,’ because Batman must leap from the trunk before it goes over. The car is so traumatized, meanwhile, that before it flies over the cliff it changes into a completely different make of automobile. The second car drives away. Robin, having gotten to the Bat Sedan, drives up seconds later. The DD use the Geiger counter to track the strongbox. Man, that stuff must be really radioactive for this to work. Bad guys or not, you’ve got to feel sorry for the poor bastards.

The henchguys end up at a warehouse hideout. The Wizard tells them that he’ll arrive shortly to pick up the money. Batman, meanwhile, locates the warehouse and enters it. The Wizard, however -- and how the heck did he get here so quick -- sees Robin in the parking lot and knocks him out. Meanwhile, a fight starts in the warehouse.

Suddenly, Batman finds himself face to face with Death!!

Fights:

• Batman fights four hoods. Result: Batman puts up a good fight, but loses on a TKO.

Ignored Easy Opportunity To Just Shoot Batman and Robin: Yes.

Vicki Endangered? No.

Cliffhanger Ending: During the brawl, the radioactive notes are exposed to air and set fire to the warehouse. Batman lies unconscious as the fire burns out of control.

Cliffhanger Resolution: Batman wakes up, escapes through door.
Cheat Level: Zero, but again, boooring.

What Happens:  Batman makes it outside, where he finds Robin prostrate on the ground. (By the way, since the radioactive money thing was his idea, isn’t Batman responsible for the warehouse fire?) He helps Robin up, whereupon they see Dunne, the private eye, and announcer Brown. For his part, the Wizard is pissed about the money thing, and stops all automobile traffic in Gotham. However, his machine overheats and the "diamond bearings" burn out. This means, groan, we’re back to him having to steal diamonds again. You can see why this thing last fifteen chapters. There’s not an ounce of fat that they could trim.

Bruce and Dick leave Vicki’s apartment, but hear her pick up the phone and talk to her brother as they do so. Jimmy pleads for help, and she leaves out the back. Our heroes sneak in and find a clue to where she’s going. Vicki reaches the hideout, where her brother is tied up but unguarded. She unties him and they leave, planning to go to police headquarters. A hood shows up and threatens them, but Batman and Robin arrive in the Bat Sedan. In a wacky stunt, Batman knocks the guy over with a convenient empty barrel. Saved, the two siblings join the DD in Gordon’s office. Jimmy tells them about the planned diamond theft, after which he’s released into his sister’s custody. Vicki drops him at her apartment and leaves. To my complete lack of amazement, however, Jimmy is still working for the Wizard and calls in to report Gordon’s security plans for the diamonds.

Bruce gets a call from Gordon, telling him that the guard chasing Vicki and Jimmy had blanks in his gun. Why the police commissioner would can Bruce Wayne with this info is left unexplored. Of course, only Bruce figures out that this means Jimmy’s escape was staged. Jumping in the Bat Sedan, Batman and Robin make to intercept the car carrying the diamonds. However, the hoods get there first and abscond with them. They pick up trail and are soon following the crooks. Calling the Wizard, they succeed in disabling the Bat Sedan. Again. Gee, I guess his machine was totally broke after all.

The DD commandeer a civilian’s car and the chase resumes. The hoods call into the Wizard again. Irked at Batman’s continued interference, as inept as it is, the Wizard assumes remote control of the car.

Suddenly, Batman and Robin find themselves face to face with Death!!

Fights:

• None to speak of.

Ignored Easy Opportunity To Just Shoot Batman and Robin: No.

Vicki Endangered? No.

Cliffhanger Ending: Batman and Robin’s car drives off cliff.

Cliffhanger Resolution: Duh. Batman and Robin, unseen, had leapt from the car before it went over.
Cheat Level: A seven. We saw them in the car right before it crashed in the last chapter. Given the way the sequence was edited, there would have been no time for our heroes to do what we are now shown.

What Happens:  The Wizard assumes the DD are dead. Again. The two hike back to town, or something. Meanwhile, Vicki returns to her apartment, but Jimmy sneaks out when she steps into the other room. She notices quickly, though, and manages to follow him when he drives off in a taxi. Jimmy reaches his destination and regroups with the Wizard’s henchmen. Vicki, seeing where he entered, stops to phone Bruce. Of course he’s not home and she hangs up. Needless to say, she doesn’t decide to call the police or anything. Instead, she heads into the building to do some snooping and is quickly captured.

Vicki is upset to see her brother’s still working for the Wizard, he’s upset that she’s been captured. Jimmy tries to interfere but is knocked out. Vicki’s locked in a room. Luckily there’s a phone in there (!) and she calls Alfred before being caught, although she doesn’t have time to explain exactly where she is. Hearing of her straights, Bruce decides it’s Batman time. Staging a fake jailbreak for the last hood they captured, they trick him into showing them where the henchmen’s current hideout is. This involves hiding in the back of the truck they provide the guy as a getaway vehicle. For superheroes, Batman and Robin seem to spend a lot of time hiding in trucks and planes and cars and stuff.

The henchmen figure out that something weird is going on and booby trap the door. Batman grabs it and is knocked out by an electrical charge. Jimmy finds him and takes a look under his mask (!!), reacting rather calmly to the fact that his sister’s boyfriend is Batman. One second we see Jimmy hiding the unconscious crimefighter, then seconds later we again see Batman running through the hallways. Huh? He frees Vicki and she runs off as another brawl begins. By the way, where’s Robin during all this. Oh, he’s waiting outside. (??) Anyway, Batman runs into even more crooks out in the hall.

Suddenly, Batman finds himself face to face with Death!!

Fights:

• Batman fights two hoods. Result: Batman wins.
• Batman fights three other hoods. Result: Batman knocked out high window.

Ignored Easy Opportunity To Just Shoot Batman and Robin: No. Well, Jimmy could have shot Batman, but he’s reforming. Or not. Whatever.

Vicki Endangered? Yes.

Cliffhanger Ending: During a struggle, Batman is knocked out of a window, plummeting many stories and smashing into the ground behind a truck.

Cliffhanger Resolution: It wasn’t Bruce in the suit, it was Jimmy. He’s dead. (Well, you knew he was done for when he learned Our Hero’s secret identity.)
Cheat Level: Zero. This is easily the best cliffhanger resolution, although how Jimmy got into Bruce’s costume so fast is a bit of cheating. Still, it’s better than having the real Batman saved by falling on a convenient mattress or something.

What Happens: Robin, having witnessed ‘Batman’s’ death, is relieved when Bruce shows up in Jimmy’s clothes. (Notice how Robin takes his mask off, despite the fact that he’s pretty much out in the open!) Acting in a rather cavalier fashion to Jimmy’s death – "There’s nothing we can do for him now," Bruce nonchalantly notes – the two drive away. On the way, Bruce explains that Jimmy died trying to make up for his evil work. Meanwhile, one of the Wizard’s henchmen reports that he saw Bruce Wayne climb into a truck with Robin and drive away. Oops. (Also, hasn’t anyone else but Vicki noticed that Batman and Robin are always driving Bruce’s car?)

Bruce finally decides to do some detective – after all, there are only four more chapters left – and drops by Hamil’s house to interview him. This he does for about twenty seconds and leaves, although he dropped a tantalizing piece of information, to wit where he’ll be dining with Vicki that evening. After he leaves, Hammil is seen heading to the neon chair room. Then we see the Wizard, radioing his men with Bruce’s plans. They’re obviously trying to suggest that Hammil’s the Wizard. However, a mask doesn’t hide that fact that the two have completely different voices.

Two hoods kidnap Bruce at gunpoint. As they drive off Vicki appears. Seeing the abduction, she follows in her car. This results in a rather desultory car chase, in which they manage to lose her in about five seconds. Luckily, when they kidnapped Bruce they took his car and made him drive. This proves quite providential, because there’s an emergency foot button in the sedan that activates an alarm in the Batcave. It also results in a radio transmission from the car. (Luckily, the crooks don’t find it odd that Bruce verbalizes their route as they drive.) Dick, in the cave, is able to hear where they’re going.

Soon, Robin is able to signal Bruce through a window. Good thing he’s the only one of the six guys in the small room who’s facing the right way. Also, good thing nobody’s looking at Bruce, who they think is Batman, since he visibly starts upon seeing Robin and then smiles and nods at him. Good subterfuge skills, oh Caped Crusader. Robin flashes a pocket version of the Bat Signal into the room. The crooks assume that means that Batman is outside (??) and thus that he’s can’t be Bruce. (!!) I guess that’s the ‘ruse’ of the chapter’s title. Oh, wait, it’s that Robin allows himself to be seen in Batman’s uniform when most of the men pile out of the room. Amazing how well the suit fits, considering that Dick is about a foot shorter and rather less beefy than the real Batman.

Oh, wait, it must be Alfred in the suit, because we see Robin helping Bruce to escape. Say, Alfred’s pretty spry for a butler in his sixties. The Wizard drives up – mask and all, yeah, that’s inconspicuous – and a henchman reports that Batman and Bruce were seen at the same time. The Wizard asks if he’s sure it was Batman. "Yeah," the hood avers. "He knocked Ives [another henchman] down." Well, that clinches it. Then the Wizard learns that Wayne escaped. Man, why doesn’t he bump all these boobs off and start over. Instead, he calls for a strategic retreat and drives off.

Alfred is seen driving off as well, and then Bruce and Robin jump in the Bat Sedan. They lift up the convertible roof so that Bruce can change into his costume. OK, it’s not a phone booth, but you do what you can. Soon they are car chasing the Wizard. He pulls a smokescreen button and the Bat Sedan is engulfed in fog. Unable to see, Robin loses control of the car.

Suddenly, Batman and Robin find themselves face to face with Death!!

Fights: Not really.

Ignored Easy Opportunity To Just Shoot Batman and Robin: No.

Vicki Endangered? No.

Cliffhanger Ending: The Bat Sedan appears about to smash into a stone cliff face, and then we hear a smashing sound.

Cliffhanger Resolution: The crash wasn’t a fatal one.
Cheat Level: Zero, but lamer than ever.

What Happens: The Bat Sedan’s still drivable, and they resume their pursuit. They lose the Wizard’s car. Since they’re close to Hammil’s house, Batman suggests they pay him a visit. However, Hammil’s manservant sees them skulking about and takes a shot at them. Seeing who they are, the servant apologizes; he had been searching for a prowler that broke into the house. Robin spots the guy and he and Batman run after him. They catch him, and he proves to be Dunne.

Dunne rather stupidly calls attention to his cigar case when Batman searches him. Breaking open one of the stogies, he finds it has microfilm in it. Dunne reveals that he took it from Hammil, who has it without permission. (How did he manage to secrete it inside a cigar is what I want to know.) The microfilm contains plans for a machine to neutralize the Remote Control device. What, this is only coming up now?

The next day Bruce returns the microfilm to the industrialist Williams. Meanwhile, he’s arranged to have the story disseminated that the Neutralizer has already been assembled. (Basically, he and Gordon allow Brown to steal the purportedly information. Sure enough, Brown immediately broadcasts the story, making it public knowledge.) The Wizard takes the bait, ordering his men to intercept the truck supposedly bearing the device. Inside, Robin is hiding in the back of the vehicle. Again with the hiding. The men seize the truck, and Robin radios Batman to fill him in. Then he sneaks out of the back and drives off with it. The henchman follow both in a car and with a plane. Soon the pilot is dropping bombs onto the road.

Suddenly, Robin finds himself face to face with Death!!

Fights: None.

Ignored Easy Opportunity To Just Shoot Batman and Robin: No.

Vicki Endangered? No.

Cliffhanger Ending: Avoiding the bomb, Robin – that’s right – drives the truck off a cliff.

Cliffhanger Resolution: It turns out – surprise – that Robin had leapt out of the truck before it drove off the cliff.
Cheat Level: A four. The timing wouldn’t have easily allowed for this, if at all. And jeez, they’ve used this one like ten times already.

What Happens: Hammil tells Carter, his manservant, that he’s got a working model of the Neutralizer. He plans to present it to the authorities, and gives it to Carter to deliver it. However, the Wizard’s men intercept him and steal the device. Then Batman and Robin drive up – busy neighborhood – and chase down the men. A brawl ensues. The hoods escape but leave the machine behind, despite the fact that they clearly had an opportunity to take it with them.

However, the box, when returned to Hammil, proves to be empty anyway. The Wizard ends up with it, and explains a way the Remote Control machine and the Neutralizer can be used in tandem. "The ray from [the Remote Control] machine causes disintegration," he explains. (Huh?) "The beam from the Neutralizer meets and throws back the disintegrating ray. Now, if the beam and the ray meet at a point where disintegration is checked, what happens?" That’s right. The result is an invisibility field. (!!) The Wizard proves this be stepping between the machines and disappearing. Oh, and being invisible causes your voice to reverberate.

Soon Brown is passing on the Wizard’s taunting boast that he’ll appear at William’s plant to steal the "super jet plane" that very afternoon. The plant is soon heavily guarded. Batman and Robin stake out the safe holding the plans. The Wizard appears outside the plant, but turns himself invisible before leaving his car. (Luckily, the gate is in any way secured. It’s not even latched!) Hearing that strange things are afoot, Batman’s first instinct is to, that’s right, hide in the safe. The Wizard knocks Robin out and uses a block of explosives, one thats just sitting in Williams’ office, to blow the safe. Isn’t there a rule about keeping explosives in the same room as your vault?

Suddenly, Batman finds himself face to face with Death!!

Fights:

• Batman and Robin against three guys. Result: Batman takes out two, but the third knocks down Robin.

Ignored Easy Opportunity To Just Shoot Batman and Robin: No.

Vicki Endangered? No.

Cliffhanger Ending: Batman hiding in safe when explosives go boom.

Cliffhanger Resolution: Get this: The security vault has an interior door leading into an "inner chamber," which Batman stepped into before the bomb went off!
Cheat Level: An eight. "Inner chamber." Please.

What Happens: The vault door, although strangely unmarked, pops open following the blast. The DD run off to investigate. Meanwhile, the Wizard’s machine burns out and he turns visible. Luckily, none of the guards firing at him can shoot worth a damn. Oh, wait, his hand is wounded so that Batman can prove who the villain is later. They find Dunne on the grounds (?!), and he proves to have a wound on his hand, but he protests his innocence. Meanwhile, the Wizard has made it back to his hideout. How would that work?

Batman, meanwhile, has figured out the basis for the invisibility effect. We go over the goofy science again:

Batman: "The RC Machine, at full power, can cause disintegration, is that right?"
Williams: "Yes, molecular disintegration."
Batman: "And the Neutralizer, with its electromagnetic force, can check a disintegrating ray, right?"
Williams: "That’s correct."
Batman: "Now, if the beams from each machine crossed each other, what would happen to an object they focused on?"
Williams: "Disintegration would be checked. The object would become invisible to the human eye!"

By George, I think he’s got it!

Batman, having found one of the Wizard’s dropped gloves, takes it to examine it for clues. Meanwhile, Gordon learns that Brown also has a wound on his hand. (Gee, what a coincidence.) Brown also manages to place a bug in Gordon’s office. Meanwhile, Bruce has discovered Carter’s fingerprints in the glove. He calls Gordon to relay the news, then the three join in the Bat Sedan to head to Hammil’s house. However, Brown announces the story on the radio. Soon Carter is shot by the real Wizard, who stays off-camera, of course. Finding the body, Batman notices that Hammil also has a wound on his hand (!!!), but fails to mention the fact that the supposedly crippled scientist is nonchalantly walking around. Neither Robin or Gordon notice this either.

Brown’s latest announcement warns that the Wizard plans to murder Gordon at two that afternoon. Then Brown reveals that he knows the Wizard’s identity. However, he keels over before he can utter it. Apparently he was strangled by the invisible villain. Soon Gordon and the DD are at Brown’s studio, where they find Brown in a coma or some damn thing. Then it’s back to Gordon’s office, to wait out the Wizard’s threat. Vicki shows up, and Batman provides her with an infra-red bulb for her camera. It might allow her to photograph their invisible foe.

Outside, the Wizard drives up, and we see him go invisible. We see a rope lower alongside Gordon’s office window, and a floating revolver appears next to it. Suddenly, a shot rings out!

Suddenly, Batman and Gordon and Vicki find themselves face to face with Death!!

Fights: None.

Ignored Easy Opportunity To Just Shoot Batman and Robin: No.

Vicki Endangered? Yes.

Cliffhanger Ending: Somebody might have been shot in Gordon’s office. Not very spectacular for the last cliffhanger.

Cliffhanger Resolution: Vicki’s camera went off, presumably blinding the Wizard and causing him to miss.
Cheat Level: Zero. Not extraordinarily dramatic, though.

What Happens: The Wizard flees, and Vicki takes her camera to the police lab to develop her film. Meanwhile, the cops notice the henchman guarding the Wizard’s car and arrest him. Now the Wizard has no transport, and he doesn’t know when the machines will overheat, causing him to because visible. He phones another lackey and orders another car sent over.

Vicki comes in with the photo. It’s of Carter, despite the fact that he’s dead. (This better not be any of that lame ‘twin brother’ garbage.) Getting an idea, Batman tells Robin to go stake out the area by Hammil’s house. Meanwhile, the Wizard manages to steal a police car. (!!) Out in the country the car smashes up, but the Wizard runs off. Just then, though, the machines burn out and he becomes visible. Since he’s dressed in a long, flowing cape and hood, he’s not exactly inconspicuous.

Nonetheless, he alludes the police. Meanwhile, the Wizard’s thugs find and capture Vicki. The Wizard orders her killed. Of course, they could just shoot her, but instead they decide, that’s right, put her in her car and push it off a cliff. Robin, somewhat nearby, is staked out where Batman told him. From hiding, he sees the Wizard uncover the secret entrance to the submarine cove. He radios this to Batman, who’s soon to arrive on the scene. Of course, he manages to get there just in time to save Vicki at the very last second. Then he goes and meets up with Robin.

The two enter the submarine bay, where they capture one of the Wizard’s men and force him to take them to the Wizard’s cave. Something, and this is cheating big time, they know about the Wizard’s holographic security cameras and hide out of sight. When the Wizard opens the secret entrance to admit his henchman, the two heroes rush forward. They fight down a couple of hoods, but the Wizard escapes.

Cut to Hammil’s house, where the Professor is confessing to being the Wizard. Carter’s also there, or wait, it’s not Carter but instead his twin brother! Ingenious! Batman, however, knows that Carter, the one still alive, is the real Wizard. "Commissioner Gordon wants to see you!" he says as he grabs the guy. What a dramatic end to our tale!

There’s an epilog at Gordon’s office. The big thing is that Vicki tries to prove whether Batman is Bruce Wayne by inviting the Caped Crusader to have dinner with the two of them that night. To her bafflement, Batman agrees. Then she gets a call. It’s Bruce, breaking their date. How, you ask? We see Alfred playing Bruce’s recorded message on a phonograph record. Yeah, like that would work. But, of course, it does. He, Robin and Vicki all share a laugh over the idea that Bruce Wayne could be Batman. The End.

Fights: 

• One last brawl, between two thugs and Our Heroes. Result: This is the last chapter. What do you think.

Ignored Easy Opportunity To Just Shoot Batman and Robin: No.

Vicki Endangered? Yes.

Cliffhanger Ending: None. Finally!

Rene Cardona is the king of the Mexican Wrestler movie. Aside from the Santo and Wrestling Women movies he also directed the 1959 Santa Claus, Brainiac, numerous gory horror flicks and much more, racking up in total over 130 movies. Here he attempted to add a new heroine to the fold. Unlike the more successful Wrestling Women, Batwoman had, as far as I know, but this one adventure. (Although I’d love to think there’s more stuff like this out there.) Which is sort of odd, since Batwoman is much closer to El Santo than the more prosaic Wrestling Women were. Like the Man in the Silver Mask, Batwoman has a secret identity, a fancy sports car and other such accoutrements. In fact, and this is pretty funny, she acts as sort of a ‘60s-ish secret agent masked wrestler.

We open the film with credits accompanied by a swingin’ jazz/pop score. (For those interested, I’m working off a cassette purchased from the fine folks at Video Search of Miami, who also provided the subtitles for this Spanish language print.) These play over the sort of seascape oil painting you’d buy for forty dollars at an art warehouse sale.

We open on two brothers fishing on a beautifully scenic shore. The color photography is really a plus here, and I can only imagine how good this film would look on DVD. (Hint, hint, somebody.) They spot a body in the water. A newscaster announces a terrible crime wave affecting the city of Acapulco. It turns out that on five occasions wrestlers have been found drowned in the surrounding waters. The crimes remain a mystery.

Cut to the offices of the Servicio Secreto. (How secreto is it when that’s stenciled on the door?) Two officials, the Inspector and a flunky, are discussing the case. There have been similar deaths, we learn, in Hong Kong and Moscow. Luckily, the World Intelligence Center (!) has assigned a team to investigate. They are en route to Acapulco. In fact, Mario Robles, a leading man-esque member of the team, right then makes his appearance. Robles informs them that he’s bringing Batwoman in on the case.

The Flunky is ignorant of her history, allowing for some exposition. "She is a beautiful woman, very rich, who lives in the capitol," Robles explains. We are shown a ‘60s-ish beauty donning a white mink stole over a fashionable dress. "With he fortune she helps the community fight evil in any form." We then cut to her wearing Capri pants, a lime green short sleeve pullover and a black leather Batman-type mask, such as Thora Birch wore in Ghost World. Her identity, needless to say, is a closely guarded secreto.

"She is also the queen of all sports," Robles continues, as we watch her demonstrate her marksmanship and equestrian skills. Next we see her underwater prowess, allowing for a sequence of her swimming through the clear ocean waters in a black bikini. This is all accompanied by cool jazz music. I don’t want to overstate things, but this is probably the greatest movie ever.

"She wears a mask," Robles yaks on, "and, known as Batwoman, has become a great wrestler." This is great stuff here. After dwelling on the woman’s athletic form in a bikini for a couple of minutes, we now cut to an obviously, in fact, downright hilariously beefier double for the wrestling clip. Batwoman’s costume, meanwhile, is gray with a yellow belt and black trunks and mask with pointed years. In other words, it’s a patent steal of Batman’s tights.

Batwoman arrives by plane, albeit in an atypical way. Instead of landing with it, she parachutes from it to a white sandy beach. She alights in her non-wrestling Batwoman suit: Cowl, blue half cape, black boots and a very skimpy black leather bikini. (!) It’s a good thing she’s a crimefighter in Mexico; she’d freeze her ass off up here. She’s driven to the morgue to join Robles and the Inspector as they receive the autopsy report on the latest victim.

Once there she’s swarmed by a crowd of reporters, apparently the ones assigned to the prestigious morgue beat. Inside, the doctor reports his findings to the crimefighters. "Blood was secreted from this pituitary gland, surgically," he announces. Hmm, there’s some hard science for you. These results match those of the earlier victims. "That means the killer must be a doctor," Batwoman deduces. "An amazing doctor," the pathologist agrees.

We cut to a large, ominous boat – we know it’s ominous because of the music – named the Reptilicus. (!!) This contains the laboratory of the evil Dr. Williams – there’s a name to strike fear into one’s very soul -- and his assistant Igor. (!!) Igor calls Williams "Master," although amazingly he’s not hunchbacked. Williams’ lab boasts an aquarium with a large goldfish in it. He opens the top and drops in a Barbie-sized male doll. "Accelerate the pressure to twenty decibels," he orders (Wow!), and the water starts to churn.

"We need another wrestler," Williams avers. "For his brain tissues." There’s something you don’t hear very often. Igor wonders why it has to be a wrestler. Apparently he doesn’t see many Mexican movies. I probably seen less than a dozen, and even I know the answer. "[Non-wrestlers] don’t have the quality of strength we need. We need athletes, men of superior strength." You know, that exactly the kind of thinking that got Argo and his Martian crew killed.

We cut to…No. Not a wrestling match. Boy, I hate people who stereotype Mexican cinema. Look, buddy, not every scene in every Mexican movie takes place at a wrestling match. Got it? OK.

Anyway, we cut to a gym where wrestlers are practicing. Two beefy dudes are sparring, others are doing calisthenics. Jose, a blind man comes in, selling lottery tickets. Jose has chartered a fishing boat – uh, oh – for one of the wrestlers. Meanwhile, Batwoman is now sparring with another femme wrestler. The person currently wearing the Batwoman wrestling outfit – again, it’s exactly like Batman’s uniform, minus the cape and chestal bat insignia -- appears to actually be our star, since she’s not as huge as the stand-in we saw earlier.

Batwoman quickly wins and hits the showers, allowing for all the other wrestlers to chatter about how great she is. Inside the locker room, Batwoman takes off her mask, which doesn’t seem too bright given the whole "secret identity" thing. You never saw El Santo doing this. Hell, he wore his mask at home when he was reading in bed. Using a small radio unit, she contacts Mario. He’s patrolling the beaches; she’s at the gym because the missing wrestlers worked out there.

Down in the gym’s basement, Jorge is on phone tap duty. Batwoman is down there when Jose makes a call to Dr. Williams. She runs upstairs but Jose is gone, so she doesn’t know who was making the call. Meanwhile, the wrestler we saw earlier is assaulted by frogmen – the regular kind, with scuba tanks – as Williams watches from the Reptilicus. I’m not sure this wrestler has the sort of brain tissues required, though. Not only does he fail to sense the four frogmen approaching, but he also doesn’t notice the small boat patently shifting weight when one guy climbs up behind him.

Later, the operation is complete. We can tell, because the wrestler has a bandage on his head. Williams has an electric lead or some damn thing attached to the goldfish, and Igor is ordered to get the water in the tank all agitated again. In a not terribly effective ‘special effect,’ they matte the image of something with legs now swimming in the tank. Williams declares the experiment a success. "Behold the ultimate, the greatest creature alive," he rants. "The amphibian man!" What, all the way from Russia? He ends with, what else, a burst of maniacal laughter.

Mario and Gloria, that being Batwoman’s real name, are having a working lunch at a swank spot. They must be on duty, because she orders lemonade and he gets an orange juice. Hilariously, Mario’s agency has identified the "Dr. Williams" Jose addressed on the tapped – but not traced -- phone call as an Eric Williams. (I mean, how many Dr. Williamses could there possibly be?) He lives in seclusion, he’s a retired neurosurgeon, and *gasp* he "collects fish, it’s his hobby." Hey, that’s the guy!!

Later, Mario brings Tony Rocco to Gloria’s hotel room. Tony and Mario are the only two people entrusted with her secret identity, as well as being friendly rivals for her affections. Williams, we learn, had earlier been in Hong Kong and Moscow. (Hmm, that sounds familiar.) Mario thinks they should just raid Williams’ boat, but Tony demurs. "[On] What charges? We must follow the letter of the law very carefully," he warns. Which is presumably why they invited a masked wrestler in on the case.

The threesome learns that the Reptilicus is due to leave port the net day. Batwoman is next seen swimming underwater in scuba gear and her Batwoman Spy Outfit – blue cowl, black bikini, boots, gauntlets and, get this, her half cape! Coming to the ladder leading up to the boat’s deck, she makes her way aboard. Three seconds later and wha la, she’s completely dry, even her cape. Somehow I knew that would happen.

She wanders around the boat for a while. Like many of his breed, Williams is surprisingly lax on security issues. Soon she makes her way into his (unlocked) office. Two seconds of rifling his desk uncovers a file folder bearing, in handwritten calligraphy, the title "La Glandula Pineal." Zoinks! I think it’s a clue! She assumes a Significant Look, returns the file, and continues wandering around the boat’s passageways. Finally, she spots Williams and Igor through the keyhole in the laboratory hatchway. Good thing they were standing in the one part of the room where they could be seen this way.

As she spies, Jose – who isn’t really blind, of course -- and a Miscellaneous Henchman appear and stealthily approach. They capture her at gunpoint and hustle her into the lab. However, they look away for a second and Batwoman disables them with a pair of karate chops. Williams rushes her with a scalpel, but she tosses some a convenient beaker of acid into his face and escapes.

Oh. When I said the acid was convenient, I meant convenient for Batwoman. Because it wasn’t really all that convenient for Williams.

It was here I realized that this movie is largely a remake of Cardona’s earlier Doctor of Doom, as the dubbed K. Gordon Murray version is known here in the States. There, a hooded mad scientist is kidnapping athletes and wrestlers and using them for his evil experiments. This is the movie that introduces the Wrestling Women, including one named Gloria. (!!) Her sister falls prey to the madman. The villain eventually decides that the WW themselves must be his. They are captured, but escape halfway through the film. As this occurs, the scientist has acid thrown on him. He’s assumed dead, but later turns out to be alive with some rather lackluster facial scarring. Also, the scientist has a gorilla-man monster, the counterpoint of the Gill Man here.

Oh, and did I mention the acid-burned villains in both pieces were played with vigorous eye-popping by actor Roberto Canedo? That kind of ties things together too.

Up on the deck, we finally get some wrasslin’ action, Mexico style. By which I mean body slams intermixed with karate chops. Batwoman engages numerous henchguys and proceeds to kick their asses. This is made possible by the fact that they don’t try shooting her with their guns. She also uses a tear gas pellet, although where she keeps it I’m sure I don’t know. I mean, she’s wearing a bikini and her ‘utility belt’ is painted on. Anyway, she dives off the ships and swims off, despite the dozens of shots fired at her by the two guys with revolvers. Williams, who sports even less severe scarring than his predecessor, declares that he will have his revenge upon her.

Back to the gym. ‘Blind’ Jose, recognizes Batwoman as the chick from the boat, despite the somewhat different outfit. Batwoman leaves, and we see her car. I don’t know automobiles, but it’s a black convertible that’s about a 90% match for the Batmobile from the Adam West Batman TV show. However, I’m sure that this is entirely *cough, cough* a coincidence.

As she very slowly drives off, we see Jose and his men. One aims a revolver at her as she glides right past them but Jose slaps his arm down. "You can’t kill her in broad daylight!" he exclaims. It’s amazing how hard the bad guys search for reasons not to kill the hero or heroine in these things. Instead, they get into their own cars and follow her. Tailing a masked woman in a Batmobile proves pretty easy, but they end up outside a spa with numerous bikinied women. Their quarry could be any one of them. Although stymied for the moment, Jose orders them to hang around and wait for Batwoman to reappear in her car.

In a scene that, I swear, looks ripped right out of The Wild, Wild World of Batwoman, we cut to a dozen or more bikini-clad women frugging away on a beach to generic Go-Go music. Nearby, Gloria is lounging on the sands with Tony and Mario. Tony reveals that he’s gotten new orders. Oh, right, like the World Intelligence Center has something more important to investigate than a string of murdered Mexican wrestlers. In any case, he takes his leave of the picture. The impact his presence had on the movie? Zip. So why the hell was he even written in? Maybe they assumed there’d be sequels and they’d do more with him later. Alas, it was not to be. Farewell, Tony, we hardly knew ye.

Later Batwoman, having bothered to change from her Batwoman Wrestling Costume to civilian beachwear to her Batwoman Spy Costume, drives off again. (I think it’s kind of funny that her Batwoman Spy Costume is skimpier than what she was wearing on the beach.) Jose and the men follow. Well, that whole beach sequence was pretty key, wasn’t it? The henchmen don domino masks, even though Batwoman already saw their faces earlier. There’s a desultory sort of car chase, accompanied by further cool jazz. Which isn’t necessarily the best car chase music. Anyway, after a minute or two of this pulse-pounding action – the highlight of which is a dog that walks into shot and almost gets run down -- Batwoman is forced off the road and captured.

Rather then taking her in one of their cars, Jose climbs into hers. That way she’ll have the car available when she makes her dash for freedom. Oops, sorry. They drive to a secluded spot that looks about as secluded as where they pulled her over. As she leaves the car, she opens her huge ‘compact’ to check her makeup. It’s a clever ruse, though, as the compact turns into a very awkward looking gun. It’s like something James Bond would be issued if he were a woman and equipped with bulky Soviet secret weapons.

She gets the drop on the bad guys, twice shooting guns out of one of their hands (!), but then she lets another fellow get close enough to kick her pistol. (Ken’s Rule of Guns, people, how many times must we go over this stuff?) They start to haul her off, but she breaks free. That’s right, it’s karate chop and body slam time. She manages to hold off her six (!) opponents until a police car siren is heard. The bad guys take off.

Later, Williams conducts the *cough, cough* scientific procedures necessary to turn his fish-with-legs into a full-sized Gill Man. "How are the reactors set for radiation?" he asks at one point. ("Maximum potential," Igor answers.) The fish – clearly a painted doll -- is taken into the ocean waters by divers and releases. This is watched by Williams and Igor on an underwater camera set-up. "Have [the divers] stand back while we radiate him," Williams prudently cautions. Seconds of bubbling water produces a man-sized Gill Man. To be fair, it’s pretty cool in a goofy sort of way.

The divers make to throw a net over the Gill Man. However, he mauls them up for a while -- oddly, no real injuries result from being repeatedly raked by his claws -- as we watch one of the most boring of all thing: A pantomimed underwater struggle. After some minutes of this, Williams tells Igor to "accelerate the radiation." A high-pitched sound is heard and the Gill Man grabs its head. With it so distracted, the men manage to net the creature and bring it aboard. Williams, meanwhile, is leaving nothing to chance. "Igor," he orders, "tie him with belts to the mattress. And guard the entrance to the room." Then he announces the second phase of his plan: The creation of a Gill Woman. (Bum bum bum.) "I don’t need to tell you who we will use," he sneers. That’s right, Wonder Woman, your days are numbered.

Jose and a henchguy enter the holding room to examine the Gill Man – is that ever a good idea? – who’s bound with straps to a table. The monster rouses and breaks free, tearing into the men. It might have helped if they’d used more than four straps, used thicker ones, and oh, yeah, secured them so they didn’t fly off at the slightest movement. Igor rushes in and grabs the, uh, radiation accelerator switchbox. "You killed them, you bastard fish!" Igor shouts, which sounds a bit mammalist to me. "Die! Die! You’ll die now!" he continues as he activates the device. When are mad scientists going to learn that assistants named Igor always have uncontrollable urges to torment their masters’ unnatural creations? Anyway, Williams enters the room before Igor can actually kill the creature.

Gloria and Mario take a boat close to the Reptilicus. Gloria plans to dive down and sneak back onto the boat for another looksie. Unfortunately, Williams notices the two, perhaps because this occurs in broad daylight. "That can’t be anyone else than Batwoman," he concludes. This is just the chance he’s been waiting for! He watches her on the underwater camera, but she sees the large boxy object and turns back.

Annoyed no end, Williams decides to unleash the Gill Man. "He’ll bring her back," he avers, despite the fact that the creature hasn’t shown many signs of being domesticated so far. I guess it’s because he promises to make Batwoman into a Fishwoman. (Please note that I’ve been a good boy and not used any of the myriad fish puns I could be employing here.) Good thing the Gill Man understands Spanish; otherwise he might not know what the Doctor is telling him.

The Gill Man is released and begins stalking Gloria, who’s examining the gear Williams has around his boat. Gloria hears his snort and she’s off. A less than enthralling slow-motion underwater pursuit begins. Suddenly, the creature corners her. We then cut to an aghast looking Williams. "She’s lit a sea-flare!" Igor expositories. Amazing how these heroes are always carrying the one item they need. Gloria drives the creature away, lays down the flare to cover her retreat (!!), and swims off. "Pisces [the Gill Man] is afraid of fire," Igor helpfully announces. Well, duh. So am I, for that matter.

Anyway, Pisces doesn’t figure out that he can just swim around the flare. Why do mad scientist always create such moronic beings and then so acidulously proclaim them humanity’s superior? "The torch went out!" Igor breathlessly continues. This is a movie, you know, you could show us stuff rather than describe it verbally. However, the delay allows Gloria to make it back to Mario’s boat. Mario stands there like an idiot as Gloria tries to explain the situation – "What monster?" he asks in confusion, as if that matters – until the creature begins hauling itself into the vessel. "There it is!" Gloria exclaims, indicating the large orange-colored monster two feet in front of them.

Luckily, Mario has a large plastic container of gasoline sitting on the deck, sans lid yet (!) and pours a bunch of it on the creature. (Not to be picky, but wouldn’t he maybe have a gun, being a spy and all?) Then he tosses a cigarette lighter into the water. "Bastard!" Williams exclaims. "He ignited gasoline!" Again, show, don’t tell. Of course, if we were to actually see this we’d notice that you can’t gush gasoline all over a monster clinging to your boat and ignite it without setting your craft alight as well. Anyway, Pisces is driven off and Our Heroes escape.

By now you’d think Mario, as an accredited agent of the World Intelligence Center, could get the police to raid the Reptilicus. However, Gloria asserts that no one will believe their monster story, and he reluctantly agrees. They conclude that they will have to save the day themselves.

Meanwhile, Williams shows Igor his latest gadget, albeit a teeny one. "This device, when connected to a battery," Williams explains, "will emit a sound wave that Pisces will hear through a microscopic wire we install in his brain. I will put this into the cape of that woman and we’ll be able to follow her every move." He then -- three guesses -- laughs manically, adding "my vengeance will be terrible!" Much, I guess, like the rest of the movie. After that they’ll leave the country as planned and continue his evil work. "We’ll make a dozen, a hundred of those gill men," he rants. "And that will give us complete controls of the oceans." (Unless they meet a hundred guys with gas cans.) Yes, a hundred gill men should definitely do it. Why, that’d be twenty-five gill men for each and every ocean! My gosh, can he be stopped?!

Finally, finally, we get the scene all the men in the audience has been waiting for. No, not a Batwoman shower scene. A wrestling match. What kind of movie is this anyway? An entire hour goes by without one wrestling match? El Santo would have wrestled three Mexican guys, a Nazi agent and a vampire by now. Batwoman has more impressive superpowers, however. For instance, she’s able to change from Regular Batwoman in the close-ups to Chunky Batwoman in the medium and far shots. Anyhoo, Batwoman and her partner handily defeat a tag team of two of those beefy Mexican women who are almost, but not quite, midgets.

Outside, "Blind Jose," who I thought was killed by Pisces, but I guess not, manages to attach the tracing module to Batwoman’s cape. Then we catch up with Gloria, who’s headed home to meet up with Mario. They share a drink, and Mario declares his intention to stay the night, on the sofa, of course, in case there’s trouble. Later, to the licks of some cool jazz, Gloria is seen wearing one of those elaborate little nightgowns. She notices the tracking device as she makes to put her cape away. Nor knowing what to make of it, she pins it to her nightgown. (!!)

We next see Pisces emerging from the ocean and heading to shore. Luckily, Gloria’s house is right on the beach, which is pretty convenient when you think about it. I mean, not convenient for Gloria in terms of being kidnapped by a sea monster. I mean…am I over explaining this?

Pisces sneaks past the sleeping Mario – good watchman – and enters Gloria’s bedroom. Amazingly, he now knows how to use doorknobs. Our Heroine’s loud and continual shrieking serve to finally rouse her putative guardian, and Mario springs up the stairs. If only he had thought to bring his gas can! He does have a gun, which he uses not to shoot the creature but to smack into his huge, bony, oversized head. Good choice, Mario. Maybe you should consider why secret agents are issued pistols and not bludgeons. Pisces lays into his opponent pretty good but again manages to avoid actually tearing up Mario’s skin with his huge clawed hands. Don’t strangle him, stupid. Rend him up. Hmm, maybe if his claws weren’t made of rubber.

With Mario defeated, Pisces carries off the unconscious Gloria. Mario recovers and chases the beast out onto the beach. However, Pisces makes it there first, and begins carrying Gloria into the ocean. As he does so, Gloria tears off the tracer and tosses it in the sand. OK. Whatever. Meanwhile, Mario finally risks a shot. In the dark, from about thirty yards, snub-nosed revolver held down at chest level, at the monster holding Gloria in his arms. Pisces roars, so I guess Mario somehow hit him. The creature drops Gloria in the surf and starts lunging towards his assailant. Now, this is a pretty slow-moving beastie. So you might think Mario would allow Pisces to lumber forward, emptying his gun into him at his leisure. Hell, he’d have time to reload and pump another six bullets into it. Instead, Mario rushes forward to meet the monster half way, dropping his gun so as to grapple with it!! Must be that hot Latin blood.

Mario, unsurprisingly, doesn’t fare well. Water hits the tracer unit, however, causing it to stop transmitting. Assuming that Pisces has carried Gloria in the water, Williams orders Igor to activate the signal that will cause his creation to return to the boat. (By the way, how was Pisces supposed to transport the unconscious Gloria through the ocean without her drowning?) The signal is sent, and Pisces leaves off attacking our leads to obey the summons. Meanwhile, Gloria apologizes. She donned the transmitter because she thought it would ‘help’ if their enemies knew where they were. "I never expected it to bring that monster," she admits. OK, if your plan was to draw in the enemy, why go to sleep? And why wouldn’t you mention this to Mario, dozing down on your couch? Not a strategic genius, our Batwoman.

Williams is irate that Gloria has again evaded his clutches. He formulates a new plan. If they can’t capture Batwoman, capture Mario. Batwoman would surely show up to rescue him. And so Mario and the Inspector, who are shown driving around the next day, stop to aid an injured man lying in the street. It’s a ruse, of course, and they are soon taken prisoner. Batwoman finds a note in her gym locker explaining the situation. It includes the standard ‘don’t tell the cops’ boilerplate. Follow these instructions, she’s warned, or "your friends will be destroyed beyond recognition."

Williams and Igor are waiting in his lab in surgical gear, presumably so they can begin converting Batwoman into a Gill Woman without delay. Up on deck, Batwoman is seen running around the boat. Unsurprisingly, she’s quickly captured. The men, meanwhile, will have their own use. "Your spinal fluid from your bodies will create two new gill men." Spinal fluid? What happened to the pituitary gland?

A struggling Batwoman is brought in. "You filthy bitch, you turned me into a monster," exclaims Williams. (The acid thing, remember?) Now he intends to return the favor. Batwoman manages to break free momentarily, surreptitiously placing the abandoned tracer unit on Williams’ surgical tunic and turning it on. I guess. Williams rants a bit more, Mario calls him insane, Williams observes that the line between genius and insanity in thin, etc. Then he turns to the bound Batwoman. "I’m afraid I’ll learn all your intimate secrets," he leers. "I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t mind knowing you better." At this he leans over his bikini-clad captive and *gasp*…orders Igor to remove her mask. The fiend!

Just then, at the very last moment, Pisces comes smashing through the laboratory door. The henchmen try to stop it but prove to die rather easier than Mario did. Of course, this is a monster on a rampage in his creator’s lab, so Williams quickly falls prey to the creature, a table full of Beakers Containing Mysteriously Colored Fluids is overturned, resulting in a raging fire. Well, actually, about one percent of the room is ablaze. Still, it’s enough to confuse Pisces, who just remains there waving his arms around. Mario rather conveniently slips out of his ropes and frees his companions. Soon a toy boat – a stock footage one at that, lest I miss my guess -- explodes and the menace is ended.

We end at Gloria’s house, as she explains the transmitter thing for those that failed to get it. Then we finish with a gag. Suddenly, Gloria shrieks with horror. Why? She saw a rat. "It’s horrible! Kill it!" she screams. The men have a good laugh over her panic. Ha, ha, even superwomen hate rats. What are you going to do?

• In America, movies have "Special Guest Stars." In Mexico, you’re an "Artista Invitado."