Batman--a study in extremes of the past and present...
"Nora Clavicle and the Ladies' Crime Club" was THE low point of the
Batman TV series. In this thread, the clear sexism in the handling of Batgirl has been explored, but William Dozier's agenda reached a fever pitch with this self-launched war on the then-early modern women's movement of the late 1960's.
In the so-called story, Nora Clavice (wasting the talents of the great Barbara Rush), women's rights advocate Nora Clavicle--thanks to the demands of the wife of Gotham City mayor Lindseed--is appointed police commissioner, unjustifiably removing Gordon from the position. O'Hara is also booted (Lindseed's duped wife takes that job) along with all male police officers--replacing them with women...
carrying rolling pins, instead of night-sticks.
Clavicle claims her movement's aim is...
...to prove women can run the city better than men...much better.
...and her view of the Dynamic Duo was pure man-hating propaganda..especially after Clavicle's henchwomen warned of
Batgirl's possible involvement:
with a woman helping them, they might cause trouble.
What follows is a series of idiotic stereotypes about women's world view, fears (fainting at the sight of wind-up, plastic mice), and motivations while Clavicle abuses her office to launch crimes, such as a bank robbery, and her ultimate plan to destroy Gotham (with the explosive, wind-up mice) in order to collect on a disaster insurance policy. Ahh, but along the way, the female police force cannot be bothered to stop crimes,
since they are far too occupied trading recipes, putting on make-up, and not wanting to ruin a new pair of designer shoes.
Adding insult to injury, since the TV
Batgirl (you know, the resident superheroine) was no model of a non-stereotyped woman, it should come as no surprise when
she acts as Greenway Productions' mouthpiece in uttering the eternally shameful line with an air of absolutist belief:
"I might have known--you can't get police women to help you catch mice!"
Let's run through the
Dominoed Dare-Doll's sweeping judgement of all women again:
"I might have known--you can't get police women to help you catch mice!"
Some might think the episode had to be a satire pushed to its limits, but it was not, since all characters accept the situations and dialogue as if there is truth to it all with few challenges to the stereotypes. Others might say,
"but that was the 60s, and it was not as liberating to women," but that's not true, considering how forward thinking producers and writers created landmark female characters in that decade (that i've used as a contrast to the regressive Batgirl). Obviously, the treatment of women in this episode was not common to 1968 TV, but it was very much the way Dozier & writer Stanford Sherman wanted to paint their reaction to the women's movement. Dozier represented one end of an extreme--just as in current times, some producers from the opposite extreme believe beating the target over the head is the remedy to a social issue they hope to snuff out.
No excuse, no defense. A serious, downgrading mark on the series, particularly as it comes well into its run--only
7 episodes away from the finale.
Guest stars:
Actress Ginny Gan (the redhead throwing a tantrum about messing up her make-up) appeared as a woman from the opposite side of the tracks--a biker girl--in
"The Wild Monkees" a 1967 episode of that series, coincidentally written by one of
Batman's most prolific contributors, Stanley Ralph Ross.
Larry Gelman (bank manager) was a three time
Monkees guest, in the episodes
"I've Got A Little Song Here" (a send up of struggling songwriters ripped off by shady agents & movie productions)
, "Captain Crocodile" (the episode with the
Batman parody,
"Frogman & Tadpole"), and
"The Christmas Show" opposite a post-
Munsters Butch "Eddie Munster" Patrick.
Star Trek fans will instantly recognize the twin Gotham policewomen as the late twin sisters Alyce & Rhae Andrece, best known as the androids Alice #1 - 250 & Alice #251 - 500 in
"I, Mudd"--the second appearance of Roger C. Carmel as the sort of lovable Harry Mudd. Of course, in the Bat-verse, Carmel was Colonel Gumm in
Batman's Green Hornet crossover.
Next--
"The Penguin's Clean Sweep" is only distinctive as the final series appearance of Burgess Meredith as The Penguin. All other references to a lifeless Bat-fight, deadly Lygerian Fruit Flies, and one Bat-tool too many will not help describe the muddled, overused "master plan" to clean up (steal) abandoned, allegedly Fruit Fly infected money plot.
As mentioned in this thread some time ago, Bat-fans would have one last,
off-series glimpse at Meredith as a squawking, very Penguin-like character (uncredited) in
The Monkees' the last episode to be produced,
"The Monkees Blow Their Minds," airing on march 11, 1968--three days before
Batman's series finale.
Trivia: the hospital exterior was stock footage of my home city's oft-used Los Angeles County U.S.C. hospital--loosely referred to as "General Hospital" even by locals.
