BATMAN: THE BLACK WIDOW STRIKES AGAIN

Tallulah Bankhead faces down Batman

 THE BLACK WIDOW STRIKES AGAIN on Batman. ABC TV. 1967.

"You may be caped and you may be dynamic, but I find you a crashing bore!" -- Black Widow

When the campy Batman TV series hit the airwaves in the late sixties, a number of well-known actors were signed to play guest villains. Definitely the most memorable was talented stage [and screen] actress Tallulah Bankhead, with her trademark gravelly voice and withering, highly amusing delivery. Bankhead had already shown how good she could be in TV comedy when she guest-starred on what was probably the best Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour episode. On this two-part second season episode of Batman, she plays the comically sinister Black Widow, who apparently rode roughshod over Gotham City in the past (but never appeared previously on the show) and now is robbing banks with the aid of several confederates and a machine that saps men's wills. Therefore she sort of hypnotizes the bank officers into simply handing her oodles of cash. The cliffhanger has Bankhead unleashing cat-sized black widow spiders on Batman and Robin ("Batman! They're getting closer!"/ "I know, Robin!"). Arguably the funniest sequence has the Widow dressing up as Robin and growling at police officers, with her voice coming out of Burt Ward's body as the actor does a funny parody of Bankhead. Bolstering the proceedings -- along with Adam West as Batman and Ward as Robin, both excellent as usual (not to mention wonderful Neil Hamilton and Stafford Repp as the police and Alan Napier as Alfred) -- are the appearances of Grady Sutton (The Bank Dick) as a nervous bank teller and Len Felber as the bank manager. The campy approach to Batman is now passe, but I must say this was a very, very funny and clever episode of the often dopey series. Bankhead's most famous movie is Hitchcock's Lifeboat; she starred in Die, Die My Darling two years before doing Batman.

Verdict: Bankhead and Batman are an unbeatable combination. ***.

THE OUTER LIMITS: THE INVISIBLE ENEMY

Adam West watches Martian monster approach

THE OUTER LIMITS: The Invisible Enemy. Season 2, episode 7/1964. Director: Byron Haskin. Colorized. 

When the two astronauts sent on the first expedition to Mars vanish without a trace, a second expedition is sent, with strict instructions that the members must remain in sight at all times. Unfortunately, when one man ducks down to inspect a piece of wreckage, he screams and disappears! Another man vanishes, and crew member Buckley (Rudy Solari) figures out that there's something out there in the Martian sand. That something is a huge, flesh-eating reptilian creature that swims through sand like a shark swims through water. Eventually Major Merritt (Adam West) winds up cornered on a small piece of rock as one of the creatures tries to make a meal out of him. 

Rudy Solari and Adam West

The Invisible Enemy has a great and creepy idea going for it, although the execution isn't entirely satisfactory. Buckley is a stupid character, and he lowers the whole tone of the enterprise. At least Solari's performance is acceptable, which is not the case for Adam West. The future Batman shows his obvious contempt for the material by barely working up a sweat. An implausible aspect of the script is that none of the astronauts have the slightest reaction when their colleagues are gobbled up, as if they barely knew them when they've obviously been working together for months. It almost doesn't make sense that the second expedition finds the first rocket ship in pieces as if it crashed on landing, when the prologue makes it clear that this is not the case.

Joe Maross and Ted Knight at Earth Control

However, The Invisible Enemy, directed by sci fi specialist Byron Haskin (The War of the Worlds; The Power; Robinson Crusoe on Mars), is still quite eerie, with an effective musical score. While the creature itself -- it turns out to be only one of many, of course -- may not have the greatest design, it is still a fearsome-looking thing with rather large teeth and claws. (Decades later, more than one low-budget filmmaker has stolen the premise and come up with actual "sand sharks" to bedevil people on Earth's beaches.) Joe Maross and Ted Knight play worried people waiting miles away in "Earth Control" -- Maross, in particular, plays with far more passion than West. His character has to make a difficult decision to possibly leave the surviving astronauts behind on Mars. Byron Haskin also directed Captain Sindbad. This episode may have influenced the Tremors movies even as it may have been influenced by the sand monsters in Dune. 

Verdict: Although nearly done in by dumb elements, Invisible Enemy is a noteworthy episode of the series. ***.