During the prologue, Mike deals all of Crow's cards face-down. If I recall Blackjack correctly, only the first card is dealt face-down.
Great stuff (the summary, that is, not the blackjack). More, please...with one caveat: it's 's-u-m-m-A-r-y', as above. A lawyer (especially a funny one) should know these things.
Pardon, but it's the infallible Moderator that spells summary that way.
Hmmm...so he does. Okay, you're off the hook (especially given my own duplication goof above.) Any plans for more whatever-they're-called anytime soon?
Does anyone have any idea, when Frank removed the hair dryer, why he started screaming "DEMON!!!!! DEMON!!!!! STAY AWAY FROM ME!!!!!"
The film is either a spoof of the whole spy/Batman craze, or a very, very bad film.
Great bits
*"We're vampires. But only in a synthetic way." This scene was added to throw DC Comics off the track from this obvious rip-off of Batman.
*The beginning scene when Macho Tough Guy Whistler is shot dead by two punks. Batgirls do nothing.
*The hypnotic bad dancing at the club.
*Professor Neon (Apu), Heathcliff (Ygor on steroids), Bruno (thug), Tiger (He's "greaaaat!"), and Batwoman all enjoying chocolate milk while listening to Rat Fink. Then, Neon does the frug!
*The whole premise of the atomic hearing aid. The odd scene when J.B. and Flanagan talk about it, despite the fact we have no idea who they are.
*Bruno, Tiger, and Neon in their Yiddish disguises, causing the Batgirls, Flanagan, and Batwoman to do the frug! "Hey, Hitler, we want to order!" "This is how the NRA wants the world to be like!" "Simpson, eh?"
*The seance, one of the worst scenes on celluloid. Tubby Guy and Nerdy Guy (with no voice) show up too for fun.
*"The Mole People." Hee hee.
*Rat Fink kidnapping the Batgirls.
*The end scene, one of the funniest scenes of all time. There's all the bad guys congratulating Tiger on falling in love. There's Flanagan drunkenly introducing himself. There's Rat Fink freaking out and doing the multi-person thang. There's that insane chase around the table (which must be seen to be believed). There's the unmasking of Rat Fink, who has the worst villain motive ever. There's Neon kissing Heathcliff (nooooooo!).
*Heathcliff's return to sanity, a.k.a. turning into Paul Lynde.
*"Oh, Donald! Oh, Donald!"
Then there's the cheating short, which contains one of the scariest attempts at film noir in an educational short. There's also that ridiculously-accented kid (the Jack Palance lookalike) that informs Johnny of his fate.
Plot Summary
We begin with three women. One apparently is becoming a new Batgirl. She gets a wrist watch (like Dick Tracy had), the three announce they are "synthetic vampires" (ya got me, folks), and they make inane jokes.
After the credits, we find an average joe walking down a waterfront slum area. He is mugged by two thugs, but tries to fight back (badly) and gets shot. He dies, one of the thugs grabs his wallet, and two Batgirls do nothing but report it to Batwoman. This has nothing to do with the film.
We cut to a go-go bar. A sleazy-looking "British advertising man"-lookalike leaves his dour, grumpy companion to chat with a pretty girl. The ad man dude offers to buy the girl a drink, he gets a special drug from the dour grump, and the girl collapses and is dragged away by the men. Andy Capp watches.
In a car, the two men--the British ad man dude speaks like he's trying to sell the girl a car and the grump dude looks like he didn't want to be in this movie drive while the girl wakes up. She is apparently a Batgirl, and she tries to use her wristwatch to record where her destination is. The grump spots it, and talks into it, but the Batgirl bites his finger. We then briefly see what appears to be a Mexican wrestler before we cut to Batwoman (an older woman that plays her role straight without any emotion) who taunts the thugs and seems to have the situation in hand. I guess.
The thugs take the girl to a laboratory where we have introductions. The British ad man is "Tiger," the grump is Bruno, and in the lab there is a scientist that vaguely resembles Dr. Forrester but talks like Apu. He is Professor Neon. His assistant is a Ygor type named Heathcliff. The girl is put in a cage. The Mexican wrestler dude, named Rat Fink (yep), calls up his goons, and laughs nastily.
In a secret compound, Batwoman and her scantily dressed Batgirls recite an annoying oath, and then they go inside to a room where Batwoman is contacted by Rat Fink to arrange a set-up. For the girl's safety, Batwoman must enter a certain building to retrieve a certain object for Mr. Fink. She goes to meet him in the lab. The Batgirl is given a special pill to make her happy and frug. While the goons and Batwoman drink milk chocolate and eat macaroons (I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP), Neon slips a happy pill in Batwoman's chocolate. She switches it with Neon, he drinks it, and begins to frug. Batwoman then beats up on the thugs, frees the girl, and they leave.
We then cut to Ayjax Development Firm where a Larry Tate/Mr. Drysdale type and an annoying assistant guy chat. They prattle on about some device (an atomic hearing aid) that should have been destroyed, is in danger of being stolen, blah blah blah. The assistant goes out to meet Batwoman, gets her help to protect the hearing aid, and makes the world save for private conversations.
After a long, dull scene in which Neon tries to make Heathcliff take a happy pill, we cut to Ayjax where Batwoman has put young girls with rifles on duty, guarding the atomic hearing aid. But Tiger, Bruno, and Neon, in the disguise of two Jews and Adolf Hitler, have snuck in already. They give the idiotic girls soup containing happy pills, and they frug. Similarly, Batwoman and the assistant (Flanagan) drink soup containing happy pills, and they frug. In the melee, the hearing aid is stolen.
Two government men from the patent office (a tubby guy and Goober from "The Andy Griffith Show") drop by Batwoman's house, looking for the hearing aid. Batwoman is holding a seance to find information--she contacts a ghost or something, but the process is interrupted by a Chinese ghost or something for absolutely no reason. Never mind. Lots of racist humor, and we move on.
The bad guys experiment with the hearing aid. They visit the underground mines where "The Mole People" (stock footage from that film) work. The Batgirls after rocking and kissing on a beach go looking for Rat Fink's headquarters, but get abducted by Mr. Fink.
In Fink's lab, he laughs dumbly for a while, but suddenly Batwoman and Flanagan show up. Tiger has betrayed the gang because he has fallen in love with the captive Batgirl (she got snatched again during the robbery). This is where the movie heats up. All the other crooks cheer Tiger for falling in love, Flanagan (drunk, I guess) introduces himself, and Rat Fink gets ticked. He is about to be unmasked when he suddenly clones himself. There are now about five Rat Finks, and they, the Batgirls, and the thugs all begin chasing each other around a table to a '60s craaazy tune. Batwoman manages to "unsplit" Rat Fink or whatever, and he is revealed as the President of Ayjax who wanted the hearing aid for himself because he has a terrible habit of listening in on phone conversations. Heathcliff suddenly spills something on the hearing aid, which will cause it to explode. Neon gives it to Heathcliff, kisses him, and everyone runs off.
The explosion sends everyone flying into the beach. Heathcliff is now a normal human again, and we discover that he was the accidental victim of Neon's experiments. He leads Neon off. At Batwoman's compound, Tiger has joined the Batgirls, and they all frug. Heathcliff is now Paul Lynde for some reason, but Neon accidentally smacks him in the head, turning him back into Ygor. The movie frugs some more, and finally ends.
In the Cheating short, other than the wishy-washy bit at the end, did the narrator make anyone else think of the Whistler?
I gotta admit that with a slightly cleaned up script, this film could be a first-rate Zucker brothers film. I mean, the scene when they all gather around over milk and cookies is hard to be delivered by anyone this side of Leslie Nielsen, but the whole cast accomplishes it masterfully. The ending, by the way, is much, much funnier (even on its own) than numerous other "comedies."
Cheating short
“A Centron Production – although we got the idea from a different company – cos we’re cheating!”
(The phone keeps ringing after the kid has picked it up) “Oh, the foley guy must be calling.”
“This contract arrived for you from a Mr Elzebub.”
“Maybe he’d do better if he had parents!”
“By the way, have you seen my ribcage?”
Narrator: “Was it fair for John to use Mary as he did?”
Mike: “Yeah, she was there!”
Somewhat surprisingly, the guys kept quiet after the line “You were exposed in front of the class”!
The movie
I never thought I’d say it, but I think this film was even worse than Manos! At least that was funny in its awfulness but this had no redeeming features AT ALL! The riffing was a delight but the film itself … oh, man. It didn’t seem to know whether it was a comedy or not – and if it was a comedy, why did the heroines (I use the word extremely advisedly) take it all so seriously?
What the hell was the séance scene all about?! And what was the point of the Patent Office guys, especially the one who’d lost his voice?! And WHY did the Batgirls stop for a dancing and snogging session when they were looking for Ratfink’s lab?!
Ick. But lots of great lines:
“Holy cow! That’s 40 pounds of butt and 30 pounds butt capacity pants.”
“Folks, take our word for it – something happened here.”
“They just put a bunch of movies in a blender and pushed the ‘Mix’ button.”
“There’s a peeping Zorro out there!”
“She’s got a frontal bike rack!”
“It’s like a Warhol movie, except it’s kinda weird!”
“Well, we’ve discovered Batwoman’s secret powers – she can open unlocked doors!”
“So there’s a sub-plot about a horseshoe, then?!”
“Just when I thought the movie couldn’t get any worse, Ringo’s in it!”
“She’s wearing a gownless evening strap!”
“Please, God, cut away to anything, please!!”
“To every Asian and every human being, we apologise.”
Tiger: “You ain’t seen nothin’ like it!”
Crow: “Ain’t seen anythin’ like it.”
Neon: “… but I want to ask you …”
Tom (as Neon): “Where in Europe am I from?”
Ratfink: “Never mind the monsters, Neon.”
Crow: “Here’s the Sex Pistols.”
Batwoman: “Free the others. Use your magnetic electron device.”
Crow (as Batgirl): “Or why don’t I just unhook ‘em?”
“What, is this some kind of a weird-ass Hootenanny all of a sudden?”
“You know a movie is bad, bad, bad if it makes The Monkees look good!”
“I wish I was hanging by that rope.”
Flanagan: “Batwoman, can you do something? Somebody’s gonna get killed!”
Crow: “Definitely acceptable losses.”
“Well, the music’s terrible but at least it’s drowning out the dialogue!”
Tom absolutely summed it up: “END! END!!”
(as Heathcliff is jumping around madly) "He had King Vitamin for breakfast. What can I tell you?"