BATMAN bat-arrived in 1966 theaters two months after the last episode of the first season of the surprise hit TV show. The $1,378,000 silliness grossed $4,200,000, notching 60th for the year, out-earning a bat-load of better movies. As an eleven-year-old I saw it on a matinee double-bill with something or other (on a typed list in a box somewhere, I know it wasn’t A Man For All Seasons). A present-day peek reveals it’s actually charming in a daft way, and Holy Replacement Actress!—Lee Meriwether as ‘Catwoman’ is really beautiful. And she clearly has fun with it. *

It looks like everyone had a good time, overacting up a bat-storm. The show’s iconic stars (Adam West and Burt Ward) and supporting regulars (Neil Hamilton, Alan Napier, Stafford Repp and Madge Blake) join face off against Meriwether’s purring vixen and classic villains the ‘Joker’ (Cesar Romero), the ‘Penguin’ (Burgess Meredith) and the ‘Riddler’ (Frank Gorshin). Nelson Riddle did the energetic scoring, making sure Neal Hefti’s immediately identifiable theme from the series gets in some licks. Leslie H. Martinson (tons of TV plus The Atomic Kid, PT-109 and Fathom) directed, Lorenzo Semple Jr. (Pretty Poison) wrote the script, which has the forces-joined quartet of supervillains wreaking comic-book havoc with a dehydrator that can turn people to dust. In addition to the Batmobile, the Dynamic Duo deploy the Batcycle, Batboat and Batcopter. “Bam! Kapow! Thwonk!” Harmless, nostalgic camp smiles for 104 minutes, with Reginald Denny, Milton Frome, Teru Shimada, Ivan Triesault and Harry Lauter.

* Lee Meriwether, 31 in this romp, replaced Julie Newmar who had been the first TV Catwoman (they were followed by Eartha Kitt). Miss America of 1955, she’s also pretty much a dead ringer for my sister Patti, one year older.