The Bat Woman (1968) – Review

By 1968 the Adam West-led Batman television series was already coming to a close, with Batmania fading as fast as it had exploded, but down in Mexico director René Cardona decided to bring to life his own version of “The Caped Crusader” only this offering would have a bit of a twist and some nice Mexican flavour.

As everyone knows, millionaire Bruce Wayne’s parents were murdered when he was a child and he subsequently dedicated himself to fighting crime as Batman, that is not quite the case with hero of The Bat Woman. While this particular Bat Woman does have an alter-ego, a rich socialite named Gloria, she uses her vast fortune to fight against the forces of evil while dressed up in a Batman-type costume, she also uses her masked persona to become a great wrestler.  That last thing isn’t something you could picture Batman doing as a sideline, maybe race car driving but nothing so gauche as wrestling.  This does lead to an obvious question “If Bat Woman’s alter ego Gloria is a rich socialite why does she need a career as a wrestler?” I’m left to assume that beating up the forces of evil doesn’t give her enough of a workout and she uses this to keep in shape.

Do they not have Pilates in Mexico?

As for the plot of this movie, it turns out that someone has been murdering wrestlers and a fifth victim has recently been found floating off the coast of Acapulco – other murders having been committed in Macao and Hong Kong – and the FBI has sent Special Agent Mario Robles (Héctor Godoy) to Acapulco to head the investigation. He quickly informs the local authorities (Crox Alvardo) that he has enlisted the aide of Bat Woman (Maura Monti), who has helped him solve some cases in the past and history as a wrestlers could be useful. Cue the Bat Woman, who parachutes in and is quickly driven over to the coroner’s office to examine the body of the latest victim, where she is told, “Like the other wrestlers, pineal gland fluid has been extracted surgically.” It’s made clear by the coroner that the killer must be a skilled surgeon, as he uses a small siphoning device that hardly leaves a trace in the cranial cavity, but when asked “What is this evil doctor trying to achieve?” the coroner replies “I don’t know. We know less about this gland than any other part of the body.”

“We’re talking mad science, aren’t we?”

But what type of mad science is going on, and who is behind it? Enter Dr. Eric Williams (Roberto Cañedo) a neurosurgeon who operates out of a hidden lab aboard his large yacht – if you’re going to do mad science you may as well do it in style – and his diabolic plan involves taking pineal gland fluid from wrestlers and injecting it into fish in the hopes of transforming them into humanoid aquatic monsters.  He would then release them in great numbers and take over the world’s oceans, presumable step three is “Profit.” This all seems like a totally logical plan, it pretty much checks off all the boxes on a Mad Scientist’s bucket list, or at least for what is required for this type of story. Unfortunately, the experiments aren’t going all that well and he needs more wrestlers, even though his lab assistant Igor (Carlos Suárez) points out that a bunch of murdered wrestlers is starting to arouse suspicion. This does not sit well with Williams, who claims “We need athletes, very strong people so our specimen will be as perfect as I dreamt of.” Now, I don’t want to throw shade on the whole wrestling community, but are they the only examples of “strong athletes” in the world?

“We must hunt down Dwayne Johnson and John Cena.”

What follows is a lot of running around, with Bat Woman, her friend Mario and international agent Tony Roca (Armando Silvestre) – the third wheel to this party – trying to figure out who is the evil mastermind behind these nefarious murders.  Once the name “Dr. Eric Williams” pops up and he is revealed to be a neurosurgeon ,whose boat just so happen to be in both Macao and Hong Kong when they had their murder spree, it’s pretty obvious he’s their man, they just have to prove it. But we still have some time fill up so we’ll get Bat Woman sneaking aboard the villain’s boat, discovering the lab and what she believes to some sort of fish-man, then the mad doctor will send a legion of henchman to capture her – something about wanting to turn her into a fish-woman – until, eventually, the movie reaches its explosive ending. Mind you, I can think of many things to do with Maura Monti but turning her into a fish is not one of them.

“I’m not just mad, I’m completely fucking nuts.”

Stray Observations:

• Unlike her American counterpart, the Bat Woman has no aversion to guns and is a crack shot with firearms, as well as horseback riding and scuba diving. She also looks better in a bikini than Adam West.
• Bat Woman drives a 1957 Ford Thunderbird and while it’s not as cool as the 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car used in the Adam West Batman series it does have a nice black paint job and those classic fins.
• The mad doctor’s lab is aboard a boat called “Reptilicus” which I hope is a nod to the Danish-American monster movie of the same name.
• The assistant to the mad doctor is named Igor, which is a name synonymous with the Universal Monster Universe, unfortunately, this Igor couldn’t manage a hunched back.
• Bat Woman tosses a beaker of acid into the mad doctor’s face, burning one side of it, and I found it quite surprising that he didn’t develop a dual personality and start calling himself Two-Face.

“Next, I’ll rob the Bicentennial Yacht Regatta.”

Directed by Rene Cardona, this Mexican”classic” presents a unique interpretation of the superhero genre, blending elements of the spy genre, science fiction and a bit of campy charm to create a captivating narrative, and while goofy, it does manage to add a little thrill and suspense along the way. The film’s low-budget production certainly helps with the charmingly campy quality, its practical effects and makeup design may seem quaint by today’s standards but do add to its nostalgic appeal – Maura Monti running around in a Bat-Bikini will never lose its charm – but the movie does have a very odd script and the whole wrestling aspect doesn’t make a lot of sense, well, unless Cardona was trying to make this film fall into the very popular luchador genre and not a superhero movie. Perish the thought. But it’s when one tries to force two genres together, in inorganic ways, that you can often run into problems.

Note: Bat Woman doesn’t have a utility belt but she has a make-up compact that can be transformed into a gun, making her more Bond than Batman.

This is the only real issue I have with The Bat Woman; the film stops cold and the plot put on hold so that Bat Woman can have those wrestling scenes, and not only are they unnecessary, despite some hand-waving about her going undercover due to the murder victims being wrestlers, but there is simply no need for her to take a break from tracking down a murdering mad scientist so that she can wrestle. It’s the love of Lucha Libre films that causes these divergent movements. Now, as that genre was famous for masked luchadores battling a variety of crazy threats, with the likes of El Santo fighting robots, zombies and vampires, it’s fair to say that this movie does have our heroine finding herself up against a monster worthy of an El Santo Lucra Libra films. That the creature looks like a cross between The Creature of the Black Lagoon and the Sleestaks from the Land of the Lost I also put in this movie’s favour.

“Have any of you guys seen Julie Adams swim by?”

Of course, the biggest question is “How did this get made without DC Comics and Warner Brothers not suing them into oblivion?”  It’s not as if those guys hadn’t already tackled several Superman knock-offs in court and won, so one must assume that they were somehow unaware of its existence, possibly due to the fact that actual title was “La mujer murcielago” and not “Bat Woman.”  There’s also the fact that it was more a James Bond rip-off than a superhero movie. That said, even though she’s mostly seen in a Bat Woman bikini – sporting just the cowl and the cape and a two-piece – but when wrestling she’s wearing a full-on Adam West Batman costume that is only missing the Batman logo. How this flew under their radar remains a mystery.

“This is a cease-and-desist order from DC Comics.”

Overall, René Cardona’s The Bat Woman is a fun and exciting little science-fiction superhero spy thriller and actress Maura Monti makes for a strong lead – even if she gets easily captured, faints when the creature finds her in bed and is afraid of mice – and I liked the fact that the two ostensible male leads were fairly useless and her treatment of them was more as friends than possible sexual conquests. This is a low-budget film and thus the action sequences and sets aren’t going to be the greatest – though the movie does work great as a travelogue for beautiful Acapulco – it also has a fun jazzy score and a villain who is a lot of fun and their version of the Gill-Man was surprisingly good, so this is a genre outing that I can recommend to fans of these kinds of weird foreign offerings.