“You better leave the crime fighting to the men!”
There is, of course, no doubt that the much-missed Julie Newmar is the definitive Catwoman. Bt that isn't to say I can't admire other portrayals, and Eartha Kitt's more aggressive version of the character here is excellent. If we can't have Julie, it's good to have an actress who has put her own stamp on the role. Sadly, though, I suspect the dropping of the sexual tension between Catwoman and batman is due to the pthetic racial politics of the time. Black lives, in 1967, were seen to matter very little.
Once again, though, a Catwoman episode is written by a Stanley Ralph Ross, and this is a good 'un. The programme's splendid high camp flavour is much in evidence, with much gentle skewering of sexist attitudes both within the fashion industry and beyond- the above quote is joined by many other over-the-top lines, and we have a delightful scene in which the Dynamic Duo refuse to enter a ladies' dressing room after Catwoman and her henchmen flee inside, and when forced to enter because Batgirl is in peril they close their eyes- all played dead straight by West and Ward. This is delightful.
We even have the main threat of the episode being Catwoman's plot to steal the priceless relic of a tiny European kingdom which could lead to war, and America therefore having to support said microstate for years; I rather suspect our scribe has seen The Mouse That Roared.
All this, and we get hippie Alfred. One of the finer recent episodes.
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