Gold Gems

This is my first entry in the Vincent Price Blogathon hosted by Realweegiemidget Reviews and Cinematic Catharsis

From the TV cartoon series Pinky and the Brain:

Pinky:  "What are we going to do tonight, Brain?"
The Brain: "Same thing we do every night, Pinky...try to take over the world!"
























Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965)
Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966):


The essence of American International's Dr. Goldfoot movies is parody.  The hit movie series of the 60's was Sean Connery and his James Bond films.  The most recent one of these had been Goldfinger (1964).  Dr. Goldfoot was an evil scientist, who like many of Bond's nemeses, had a goal to try to take over the world.

In the first outlet for the series, Dr. Goldfoot's nefarious plan is creating girl robots who entice rich men, marry them and then drain them dry financially, to the benefit, of course, of Dr. Goldfoot.

In the second entry, Dr. Goldfoot, in cahoots with the Chinese, endeavors to start World War II between the Russians and the Americans, the ultimate goal being to destroy the two superpowers and divide the spoils between the Chinese and our "hero", Dr. Goldfoot.  To enable this, first Dr. Goldfoot sends his newly developed girl robots, accompanied with bombs, to blow up the NATO generals.  Then he hijacks an American plane with a hydrogen bomb, to blow up Moscow.

The agent, if you can call him that, is from Security Intelligence Command (S.I.C., which is pronounced "sick", leading to a couple of snickering moments when the agent says he is a "S.I.C. agent").  In the first film, the agent is played by Frankie Avalon and in the second the agent is played by Fabian, both heralding back to American International's popular "beach movies".  (In fact, in one scene in Bikini Machine, Annette Funicello makes a guest cameo.)

Both movies are highlighted by an elaborate slapstick chase.  In the first movie it is Dr. Goldfoot chasing the agents and in the second it is the agents chasing Dr. Goldfoot and his cohorts.  In both the chase is just a ploy to extend the length of the movie with numerous sight gags, regardless of the plausibility.  (i.e. a streetcar that leaves its rails and rolls down the highway or a hot air balloon that manages to keep pace with a jet airliner.)

In between you get Vincent Price at his campy best.  Sure, Price made a great evil villain, but he could pull off comedy pretty damn decently, too.  Neither of the Goldfoot entries are anywhere close to classics in the comedy realm.  And there are some flaws in the second entry.  For one thing the Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs film serves not only as a sequel to the first movie, but it was also made as a sequel to a favorite Italian series.  Hence the appearance of Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrrassia as a pair of Italian dolts who help our secret agent in his quest to stop Goldfoot.

For those Mario Bava fans in the crowd, it may disconcert you to know that Bava was the director of the second feature.  Definitely not up to the standards of Black Sabbath or Kill, Baby, Kill, and maybe Bava fans have a right to be disappointed.  It would be the only time that classic horror actor Price teamed up with classic horror director Bava and that's a shame.

These movies are fun, but I highly doubt they are re-watchable, even for Price fans.  But since you are probably qurantined at least for part of the day right now, it can make for a somewhat enjoyable break from all that housekeeping or whatever it is you are doing to keep active.

Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy

 

Little Green Men

This is my second entry in the Great Villain Blogathon hosted by Silver Screenings, Speakeasy and Shadows and Satin.

It's no wonder Martians are always trying to invade the Earth.  We Earthlings have a greener more hospitable planet conducive to life.  We have resources out the wazoo for making life more comfortable.  And we are definitely in a warmer space zone.  Which everyone and their brother seems to want.

But also it might be because they have an inferiority complex.  Most of them are as ugly as sin, which probably makes date night at the local Martian singles bar a pain in the ass.

Even I could get a date compared to those mugs.

Tim Burton must have had a long list of "favors" in order to garner the cast he got for this movie.  The long list of names above the title include such luminaries as Jack Nicholson, Rod Steiger, Glenn Close, Annette Benning, Pierce Brosnan, Michael J. Fox, Martin Short and Danny DeVito.  It also includes Natalie Portman, Sarah Jessica Parker, Lukas Haas, Jim Brown, Pam Grier and, believe it or not, Tom Jones.

Mars Attacks! (1996):

When the Martians finally decide to come to Earth (although God only knows why they would really WANT to), I only hope we are more prepared to meet them than the Earthlings of this movie.   An indecisive President James Dale (Jack Nicholson in one of two roles) can't decide whether to approach the oncoming entourage of Martians with trepidation or with enthusiasm.

Even with advisers like the renowned scientist, Professor Kessler (Pierce Brosnan) urging that they must be coming in peace because, after all, truly intelligent races are not warlike (...are we, Earthlings?  Earthlings...?  Anybody there?  Is this thing on?).

Or General Decker (Rod Steiger) who urges to be wary of them because they are coming in droves and must therefore have nefarious purposes in mind.

Dale's Press Secretary, Jerry Ross (Martin Short) has only the President's popularity in mind, so he can't be counted on to give an opinion that doesn't involve the bottom line of how the President will appear to the people.

And Dale's wife, First Lady Marsha Dale (Glenn Close) is only concerned with how it will look if she is seen with such ugly specimens of interstellar life forms.  Especially if she has to serve them on the Van Buren china.

Meanwhile in the real world (or as real as it gets in Tim Burton's reality), the common people deal with the inevitable realization that we are not the only life in the universe.  In Las Vegas, Art Land (Jack Nicholson again) deals with how he can make a profit off of the coming Martians, while his wife, Barbara (Annette Benning), a new age recovering alcoholic is ecstatic with the idea of how life will improve with the coming of an enlightened race.

In a remote BFE part of the country, Billy-Ray (Jack Black) prepares to be a part of the armed forces who will be present to greet the aliens in Nevada. While his little brother, Richie (Lukas Haas) and the rest of the family send him off.  Billy-Ray and Richie's grandmother, Florence (Sylvia Sidney) is only concerned with getting back to the nursing home and her collection of Slim Whitman records.

Back in Las Vegas, Nathalie Lake (Sarah Jessica Parker), the host of a cable fashion show, finds herself at the front of the pack when she lands an interview with Professor Kessler, despite her boyfriend Jason Stone's (Michael J. Fox) insistence that he and his legitimate news network should be given this plum job.

And former boxing superstar, (now just a glorified bouncer and attraction at one of the gambling casinos), Byron Williams (Jim Brown) is dealing with a less than accommodating boss as well as his estranged wife, Louise (Pam Grier) who is having problems of her own trying to raise their two boys.

Into this mix, bring on the Martians.  When the Martians declare they "come in peace", the hippies in the crowd release a dove, which the Martians incinerate.  And then lay waste to the assembled crowd.  Giving lie, it would seem, that they came in peace...don'tcha think?

But the ever positive crowd behind President Dale insist that the Martians may have just misread the dove factor, that maybe to the Martians a dove meant war.  So what does Dale do?  He invites the Martian ambassador and his coterie to appear before Congress.  Which the Martians waste with gusto.

President Dale: "I want the people to know they still have 2 out of 3 branches of the government working for them, and that ain't bad."

The Martians have everything going for them.  If you've seen War of the Worlds or Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, you know that alien technology almost always trumps whatever feeble attempts the earthlings can pull out of their proverbial pockets.  (Can't we all just get along...?)

But just when it seems like we might all have to die (or at least learn how to say "Yassuh, Massa!" in Martian), the bizarre wit of Tim Burton comes into play.  How the Martians are defeated is well worth sitting through this film. If that sounds as a bit like the film is a drag before the ending comes, it's not.  This is one of Burton's funniest films and is cool on so many levels.  The CGI Martians not the least of them.

But just when you think the nightmare is over, along comes Tom Jones, crawling out of a cave to sing "It's Not Unusual"...  (Hey, I warned you Tom Jones was in this thing at the beginning...)

Well, folks, time to head home.  The world is safe once again from those disgusting Martians.  Now if someone could just do something about all those politicians...  Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy

Road Rage

This is my first entry in the Great Villain Blogathon hosted by Speakeasy, Silver Screenings and Shadows and Satin

Here he comes!  Machine Gun Joe!  Loved by thousands, hated by millions!

Yessiree!  They don't come any badder!  Darth Vader eat your heart out.  Machine Gun Joe Viterbo could run rings around your black-caped ass and have time to eat a stromboli or two in between acts.

Machine Gun Joe, who has the second best record in the annual Death Race runs has a deep and abiding hatred of his rival Frankenstein, the only other two-time winner of the Death Race and the only one who has a better record than Viterbo.  But Viterbo hates being second best in anything.  (Which is why I won't even put him below Darth Vader on the bad guy list.  Strangulation I can deal with.  But a couple hundred machine gun bullets?  That'd hurt...)

Death Race 2000 (1975):

In the year 2000, the world is a vision of dystopia that seems somewhat familiar today.  Albeit one in which America has somehow garnered a President-for-life dictator. The President, in all his magnanimous glory, has established an annual race in which all of the racers are given the task of racing across the United States from New York to Los Angeles.  The first one to arrive in Los Angeles is not necessarily the winner, however.

Because in the violence loving future, the racers have an added goal of running over any civilians they can find in their path.  Points are given based on the age of the victim and these are accrued to their score.  So technically, a racer could arrive in LA first, but still be second in the winner's bracket because he or she didn't kill enough people en route.

The racers are a hodgepodge of tropes, much like the WWF of today.  And each racer has their own navigator/sidekick who helps the driver achieve his or her goal.  .You have Matilda the Hun ( Roberta Collins) and her second, "Herman the German" (Fred Grandy; Gopher from "The Love Boat") who are a Nazi-themed duo.

You have Nero the Hero (Martin Kove) and Cleopatra (Leslie McRay), who are Roman gladiators.

You have Calamity Jane (Mary Woronov) and Pete (William Shephard) who are Western heroes.

You have the favorite star Frankenstein (David Carradine), who in the tradition of all Frankenstein's is supposedly pieced together with spare parts after numerous accidents in previous races, along with his navigator, Annie Smith (Simone Griffith).

And then you have Machine Gun Joe Viterbo (Sylvester Stallone), a gangster with his moll, Myra (Louisa Moritz).

Frankenstein, for his part, is just another driver, although he has been saddled with a new navigator.  Unbeknownst to him, Annie is the granddaughter of Thomasina Paine (Harriet Medin), the leader of a resistance group determined to bring down the Death Race and to overthrow the rule of the President.

The race begins with a real bang as Viterbo shows up, and hearing the cheers for Frankenstein and boos for him opens up fire on the stadium.  Those kills don't count, Joe.  You gotta run them over, not shoot them...  Joe does have some sense of the rules though.  And at one point he takes out his own pit crew.  Which the judges determine counts in the total of his "kills".

The race takes off, and Joe scores first.  But the fly in the ointment is the resistance group who aren't above setting up traps to kill the drivers in order to achieve their goals.  They lure the drivers into apparently easy kills only to have them blown up or drive off a cliff (through a fake detour tunnel, shades of Coyote/Roadrunner cartoons!)

Eventually, of course, it comes down to our two "heroes"; Frankenstein and Viterbo.  And with Frankenstein apparently swayed over to the side of the resistance by Annie, that leaves only Viterbo to fight for for the good old American Way of violence at all costs.

Some of the better side scenes come from the trio of commentators who give the play by play action.  Harold (Carle Bensen), a Howard Cosell knockoff, gives a straight forward no-nonsense account.

Grace Pander (Joyce Jameson) is the on the scenes girl, with a penchant for calling all the riders "a dear dear friend of mine".

And Junior Bruce (played by disc jockey "The Real Don Steele") is a riot as an over the top play-by play guy.

The dark comic aspect of the film may be missed by some due to the bloodshed on screen, but Paul Bartel, the director of the film, as an eye for real black comedy.  You should check out Eating Raoul, another of Bartel's genius black comedies, for a true look at his bizarre wit. Lust in the Dust is also worth a look.  Bartel only directed a handful of films, and may be more recognizable as a character actor.  (he has 91 credits as an actor).  But among Roger Corman's impressive list of "discoveries" in the field of directorship, Bartel stands out as one of the best in  my opinion.

Stallone was still a year away from true stardom with his role in Rocky, but this movie  represents an excellent window into the kind of character with which he would make a name for himself, as a gung-ho don't give a rat's ass about the rules type of guy.

Well, folks, that revving sound you hear is me firing up the old Plymouth.  Drive safely, folks.  (After all, this is only a movie.  We don't actually have  a Death Race...yet...)


Quiggy

 

Martian Menace

This is my entry in the Made in 1938 Blogathon hosted by Pop Culture Reverie and In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood. 




Back in the 30's and 40's, a trip to the movies was like an all-day sucker.  You got more than just one film (and I don't mean an interminable series of coming attractions).  You got a newsreel (this being before television nightly newscasts), a cartoon, maybe even a second feature, but you also sometimes got what were referred to as serials.  Usually these would be a 15 part series that continued weekly, and you had to go back every week to see how the serial hero (or heroine) got out of the last cliffhanger predicament.

Hank Davis in his excellent two part book series Classic Cliffhangers describes the serials as as "classic examples of early low-budget filmmaking."  He even credits the bad ones as "silly and stilted, but always charming and sometimes bizarre."  The serial actually got it's start in the silent film days, mainly with a 1914 series called "The Perils of Pauline", but it really took off in the early 30's.  You could go see many of the action stars of the day in a weekly recounting of an adventure, which almost always ended with the hero in some predicament that left the audience anticipating how he or she would get out of it, thus insuring a return next week.

The serials weren't always well-acted, which explains why a lot of the serial stars never made the transition from serials to major motion picture star status.  (John Wayne being one of the exceptions, who got his start in three serials from the 30's; The Shadow of the Eagle, The Hurricane Express,  and The Three Musketeers.)  Serials are something that I think could improve the movie experience today  I find them enjoyable, and although I tend to watch them all in their entirety in one sitting, I think I could enjoy a weekly ongoing adventure if one were done right.

Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (1938):

Firstly, one of the neatest things about this serial is the opening.  If you are familiar with serials, each episode, after the credits, usually included an encapsulation of what has gone on before.  In some serials this was a voice over and in others it was just a text on screen.  In this serial they added a twist that I hadn't seen in other serials I watched.  A Martian guard appears before a screen and adjusts the screen which segments through four visuals on the screen.  It looks like a comic strip panel from the Flash Gordon comic strip, and to my untrained eye, it looks like they might have even been drawn by the artist, Alex Raymond, who actually drew the comic strip at the time.

Flash Gordon (Buster Crabbe), accompanied by Dale Arden (Jean Rogers) and Dr. Zarkov (Frank Shannon) are returning from having defeated the evil megalomaniacal Ming the Merciless (in the 1936 serial Flash Gordon). But the Earth is in serious danger.

A series of devastating earthquakes and floods and other natural disaster is wreaking havoc on the planet.  Initially it is thought that the planet Mongo, which is still in proximity of the Earth, is the source of the havoc.  Flash, along with Dale and Dr. Zarkov head off to find out what's going on.  Unfortunately they have a stowaway in the persona of Happy Hapgood (Donald Kerr), a reporter who has managed to insinuate himself on to the ship.

 But it soon becomes clear that Mars is the actual culprit, emitting a beam that is sucking all the nitron (which I think may be movie-ese for nitrogen) from the Earth's atmosphere. And while the Queen of Mars,  Azura (Beatrice Roberts), is behind the evil plan, Ming (Charles B. Middleton) is also helping.  Which becomes a surprise to Flash (and anyone who watched the first serial), because at the end of the last adventure it seemed apparent that Ming had perished.  But as anyone can tell you, you can't keep a bad man down.

 The reason behind the nefarious plan to steal the Earth's nitron is Azura needs it to defeat the Clay People, a race on Mars that refuses to bow down to Azura's rule.  Azura is an expert of magic, which allows her to change recalcitrant subjects into Clay People and also to disappear at will.  (You would think if she had that kind of magic she could just eliminate the threat of the Clay People with a wave of her hand, but if she could, there would be no adventure...)  Azura's magic derives from a white sapphire which she is never without.

Flash and company land on Mars, but not without consequence.  The rocketship they used to get there is destroyed, so there is apparently no going back.  But Flash is unperturbed, as is usual for a hero.  His only goal is to save the Earth, and nothing is going to stop him from completing his mission.  That is unless Ming and Azura can prevent him from doing so.

Over the course of the 15 episode serial, Flash and friends continually find themselves gaining the upper hand, only to find the advantage disappear with alarming regularity.  Of course, as was necessary with the cliffhanger theme, each episode ends with Flash apparently finally defeated, only to have some twist of fate (or deus ex machina) appear to save him from his imminent demise.

Some things that appeal to me are:  One, the Clay People, although initially distrusting of Flash, eventually become his ally when they realize that he really intends to try to help them.  (The Clay People are, for some reason, not able to do much against Azura on their own because part of their curse is they cannot leave the cave in which they dwell.)  Montague Shaw as the king of the Clay People and his tribe eventually do come around to Flash's way of thinking, however.  And Prince Barin (Richard Alexander, who looks like he could have been a professional wrestler), who had allied with Flash on Mongo in the previous serial appears on the scene to help Flash in his quest.

Eventually it becomes evident that Ming is working at cross-purposes.  He is supposed to be helping Azura in her quest to defeat the Clay people, but what Ming really wants is to take over Azura's throne.  (you didn't really expect a guy like Ming to be a supportive ally, did you?) 

The fight scenes are the only down-side to this serial.  They look entirely fake, and some look like those fake moves they pull in the WWF.  Which makes Alexander all the more possible as a pro-wrestler in a previous life. Even the special effects look positively new age by comparison.

 Of course, I don't need to tell you that Flash and company are victorious in the end.  And I probably don't have to tell you that Ming is once again vanquished, apparently for good.  (But since he is once again the villain in the third serial, Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, that should come as no surprise either.)

Flash Gordon not only became an icon in the 30's serials and in comic strips, he became, briefly, a hero on the radio, and when television was in its infancy, a television star.  He was also the star of a series of novels back in the 70's.  A feature film in 1980 reintroduced Flash Gordon to a new generation.  And recently the SYFY channel tried its hand ant producing a new TV series.  It certainly appears that Flash is still an attractive commodity, even if he doesn't quite become the franchise that a Superman or a Batman might have become.  But he does have some appeal.  Primarily, at least for me, that he relies on his athletics and wits, rather than his extraterrestrial strength or his cache of rich man's toys.  And as long there is an evil megalomaniac from Mongo around, he won't be without a foe to pit them against.

Well, folks, time to fire up the retro rockets on the Plymouth (I wish).  Drive home safely.

Quiggy

Let it Blow! Let it Blow! Let it Blow!

This is my entry in the Winter in July Blogathon hosted by Moon in Gemini.

Christmas Eve in Los Angeles.  No snow.  Probably not even below 60.  (Although Sgt. Powell [Reginald VelJohnson] does sport a heavy jacket..)  Without the obligatory cold weather, the movie could easily have been mistaken as taking place in the summer (it was a summer release, after all, when it hit the theaters).  That plus Bruce Willis spends most of the movie in a tank top, even when he goes up on the roof, and there are no visible signs he is cold.

Die Hard has an interesting background with lots of tidbits that the average person does not know.  For one thing, it was meant to be a sequel.  The original novel, The Detective, had been filmed in 1968 with Frank Sinatra.  A sequel to the novel, Nothing Lasts Forever, was inspired by the movie The Towering Inferno, and believe it or not, Sinatra was given first shot at playing McClane, but since he was 73 at the time, he turned it down.  (Thank God!)

Bruce Willis only came on board after several other actors, including Sylvester Stallone, Harrison Ford, Charles Bronson and Nick Nolte had already turned it down.  Even Clint Eastwood, the man who actually owned the rights to the movie, was considered, but by the time the movie was actually in production, Eastwood was pushing 60 and also a bit old for the part.  Willis got the job, his first starring role in an action movie (and only his third movie overall, but the first two were comedies), only because there was a hiatus from his Moonlighting TV show (due to Cybill Shepard's pregnancy).

Also this was Alan Rickman's first big role in a movie.  (He had a career in TV in the UK prior to this, but it was the first role he had in a major motion picture).  Other familiar faces in the movie are the aforementioned Reginald VelJohnson who went on the greater fame as Steve Urkel's foil on Family Matters; Paul Gleason, who has been the bad guy several movies; William Atherton who made a career out of playing obnoxious jerks; Bonnie Bedelia, whom I first noticed in the TV version of Stephen King's Salem's Lot.  You might also recognize a few others:  Al Leong has appeared  as Asian bad guys in many movies;  Robert Davi, who was the drug kingpin in the James Bond film,   License to Kill; and maybe even Grand L. Bush (among other roles he was one of the four Sorels in the film Streets of Fire).

If you're looking for a movie to make you feel cool and comfy by the fireplace, this not one to get.  But if you want action and a few bon mots that imply a Christmas feel, it is a good choice.

Die Hard (1988):

The plane lands in Los Angeles, where New York cop, John McClane (Bruce Willis) has come to see his wife and kids.  Holly (Bonnie Bedlia) and John are deeply entrenched in their own respective careers.  Holly has taken the kids and moved out to California because she has a good job as an executive for the Nakatomi Corporation.  (The two aren't divorced, but it is implied that they are separated.  John is as deeply devoted to his career as a New York police detective as Holly is to her career as an executive.)

Waiting for John at the airport is a limo driver, Argyle (De'voreaux White), who has been hired by Holly's boss to bring John to the office where a Christmas party is in progress.   Meanwhile, a mysterious truck is making its way across the city, and of course, it's destination is the same building.  Upon arriving at the building John discovers that Holly is using her maiden name, which doesn't set well with him and causes immediate friction upon their meeting.

The mysterious truck arrives and disembarking are a crew of well dressed men, not exactly terrorists, although their actions are easily construed as such.  The cast of bad men is led by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) and a cast of 11 associates, mostly Germans, albeit with a token couple of non-Germans, including Al Leong and Clarence Gilyard, Jr (who often showed up on TV's Matlock).  While John is relaxing in the executive washroom, the hoodlums take the Christmas party hostage.

Insisting that they are not terrorists, but just a bunch of high-class robbers, Gruber demands that Holly's boss, Mr. Takagi (James Shigeta) give him the codes to open the vaults, but Takagi claims he doesn't know them.  So Gruber shoots him and they have to go to plan B; break into the security systems.  While the computer expert of the clan works on trying to bypass he security system, Gruber and clan have to focus on the fly in the ointment, John, who has killed one of the terrorists and now has a machine gun (Ho! Ho! Ho!) and a radio.

John tries various tactics to try to get the authorities attention.  He sets off the fire alarm, but one of Gruber's associates manages to convince the fire department it was a false alarm.  John also tries to get the police to show up, but as is typical of these kinds of movies, the police think its just a crank call.  But they do manage to send one lone patrolman, Officer Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson) to the scene.  Powell is also convinced that the emergency is a crank and starts to drive away, but John sends the body of another terrorist he has killed crashing down on top of the patrolman's car.

Finally, the authorities start to arrive, but the men in charge are just as ignorant and self-obsessed as any movie authorities usually are.  Deputy Chief Dwayne Robinson (Paul Gleason) even reprimands Powell for falling for a ruse because he thinks John is just another one of the terrorists.  And to top things off, the power-hungry FBI show up, and if you watch these kinds of movies, you know exactly what you get when the FBI shows up.

After several failed attempts by the less than competent bigwigs, including a failed attempt to rescue the hostages (which were going to be blown up anyway as part of the escape plan of the terrorists, it is up to John to save the day (and maybe his marriage).

That's it from the back seat this time, folks.  Personally I'm going to take John McClane's advice and stay out of tall buildings.

Quiggy 

Sing a Song of Villainy

This is my first entry in the Van Johnson Blogathon hosted by Love Letters to Old Hollywood

Everybody, and I mean everybody, wants to jump on the bandwagon when its on its way up the hill.  And Batman was not an exception.  The show was hot in it's first season, and even through most of it's second season.  As such, with its potential for "guest villains", many of Hollywood's elite sought to be one of the premiere guest villains on the show.  Besides the recurrent quartet of The Joker (Caesar Romero), The Riddler (Frank Gorshin), The Penguin (Burgess Meredith) and Catwoman (variously played by Julie Newmar, Lee Meriweather and Eartha Kitt), there were occasions when other Hollywood stars were able to play their own versions of Batman's storehouse of nemeses.

Among these were Vincent Price (as Egghead),  Maurice Evans (as The Puzzler), Michael Rennie (as The Sandman) and Joan Collins (as The Siren).  Van Johnson, a prolific actor from about 1940 until cancer laid him low in the early 90's, was a guest villain early in the second season, playing The Minstrel, a charismatic and virtuoso singing talent who used his electronic genius to play havoc with the Dynamic Duo.  Johnson died just a few years ago, but he left behind a legacy of his own.  I am particularly fond of his appearances in some of my favorite WWII movies such as Thirty Seconds over Tokyo and Battleground.

Batman:  Episodes "The Minstrel's Shakedown" and "Barbecued Batman?"

There is something fishy going on at the Gotham Stock Exchange.  Some members are flat busted while others become multi-zillionaires due to the freaky way the stocks are being sold.  But wait, is it really stocks being bought and sold at unprecidented levels?  No, actually it is super-villain-of-the-week, The Minstrel (Van Johnson), a musical genius and an electronics wizard, who has manipulated the stock quotes.  And he has plans to make the most out of it.

Batman and Robin are called in to investigate, and they find that The Minstrel has been planting microchips in the computer system that allows him to manipulate the system.  Of course, Batman being the resourceful character that he is, he plans to catch The Minstrel retrieving his chip.  But he is thwarted, first by a washer woman (Phyllis Diller), who may  or may not be in The Minstrel's employ. (Note:  I don't know for sure whether she is or not, but its highly suspicious that she is whistling the minstrel's tune...)

Then The Minstrel himself shows up and through electronic wizardry stuns Batman and Robin and makes his escape.

The Dynamic Duo manage to create a Bat Drone that will locate from where The Minstrel's television signal is coming.  And, as usual they end up at a warehouse, and as usual they decide to use the Batarang and Bat rope to climb up the side of the building , and, as usual (again), they are captured and put to an elaborate death sequence, this time roasting over an electronic radar grill.

Side note:  Just out of curiosity why don't these lame-brained villains do what I would do first if I captured Batman and Robin?  That is, unmask them to reveal who they really are...  Anyway we tune in "tomorrow" same Bat-time same Bat-channel as our narrator exhorts, to find that our heroes find a way to escape, as they always do.

The Minstrel and his henchman manage to make their escape, but leave behind The Mimstrel's main squeeze, Amanda (Leslie Perkins) to delay them.  She expects to be arrested, however,  Batman lets her go, but unbeknownst to her, has planted a bug in her purse.

When The Minstrel finds the bug, he informs Batman that he plans to use his electronic genius to bring the stock exchange bulding down via vibrations attuned to the frequency of the stones in the building, much akin to the way a singer can hit a high note and shatter glass.  Bat man and Robin go to the building, and the building does indeed shake, despite and attempt by the duo to shut off the power in the building that The Minstrel needs to accomplish his task.  The climatic battle at the end results in, as expected, The Minstrel's capture, but The Minstrel delivers a warning as he is taken away that a jailbreak is imminent and he will return to do in the Dynamic Duo.  (Which may have happened, eventually, but the character never returned during the series' run.)


The Minstrel is a bit of a dilettante.  He remains on the sidelines and watches his cohorts try to take out Batman because he "abhors violence".  Personally, I think it's just because he is a wimp.  Hey, even Catwoman gets her knocks in once in a while.  Is The Minstrel the most ridiculous concept of a villain ever to face the Dynamic Duo in the series?  I wouldn't go so far as to say that.  (I think that honor would probably go to "Shame", a parody of western outlaws, played by Cliff Robertson. )

Van Johnson is charismatic as usual in this episode.  And he can sing pretty good.  The Minstrel was a villain created specifically for the TV series and was not in the original Batman comics.

Well, folks, that wraps up today's entry.  Tune in tomorrow, same Van Johnson time, same Van Johnson channel for a review of one of his dramatic roles in Go For Broke!.

Quiggy