Crime is escalating in the city. Batwoman (Katherine Victor) and her female posse of crime fighters known as “Batgirls” combat evil wherever they find it. One of the batgirls (Suzanne Lodge) is kidnapped by two henchmen, Tiger (Mel Oshins) and Bruno (Steve Conte), and brought to the laboratory of the evil Professor G. Octavius Neon (George Mitchell) and his pet Heathcliff (Lloyd Nelson). Professor Neon does the bidding of Batwoman’s archenemy Rat Fink (Richard Banks).
Batwoman is contacted by Rat Fink using the wrist radio of the kidnapped batgirl. Rat Fink says he will return the girl if Batwoman performs a task for him. Batwoman agrees to a meeting and is brought to the laboratory of Professor Neon where she is served chocolate milk and macaroons. Neon spikes Batwoman’s chocolate milk with one of his happy pills. Batwoman switches the glasses. Neon drinks the doctored milk, gets happy and starts dancing.
Rat Fink wants Batwoman to infiltrate the Ayjax Development Corporation and steal a devise they are working on called the “Atomic Hearing Aid”. The machine was created using plutonium as a fuel source. With it Rat Fink can eavesdrop on any conversation. The device, however, is unstable and the U.S. ordered them to destroy it. The president of Ayjax, J.B. Christians (Richard Banks) refused the demand. Christians is aware that Rat Fink wants the invention. The Vice President of Ayjax, Jim Flanagan (Steve Brodie), convinces him to hire Batwoman to protect the device until they can come up with a way to make it less volatile.
Rat Fink’s minions disguise themselves and sneak into Ayjax. They drug soup with happy pills and incapacitate Batwoman and the batgirls. They then steal the Hearing Aid. Now Batwoman needs to retrieve the device and save the day.
“The Wild World of Batwoman” was released in 1966 and was directed, produced, written and edited by Jerry Warren. Jerry managed to pull out all the stops on this one. Not only do you have a superhero and a masked archenemy you also get a mad scientist, a séance (unfortunately the Chinese racism ruins that scene) and monsters (Mole people).
The budget is basically non-existent. Katherine Victor made her own costume. Stock footage used in the film is from other movies such as “The Mole People” 1956 and the Swedish film “No Time to Kill” 1959. Most of the actresses were strippers. The casting director happened to be in front of a strip club when it was being raided. Since the club was closed down he hired them for the film.
There are two stories concerning the title of the movie. The first one says that, due to the similar title, DC comics sued the production company, Associated Distributors Productions, for copyright infringement. Jerry lost and re-titled the movie “She was a Hippy Vampire” and released it.
The second story is that somehow Jerry won the lawsuit and released the movie as “The Wild World of Batwoman”. Later, after the Batman TV series craze died down, Jerry re-released the film under the title “She Was a Hippy Vampire”.
The film starts out with three women drinking a strawberry yogurt concoction in a mock blood drinking ritual. I suspect this was added later perhaps to justify Jerry’s decision to change the title of the film. The scene has nothing to do with the movie and the three women never show up again. Either Jerry did this to try to disguise the Batwoman situation or there must have been a vampire craze going on when Jerry re-released the film, depending on which version of the story you believe.
Yes, the movie is basically crap on a cracker but there are a couple things that keep it from being the worst movie ever. First, it’s not a boring as “The Petrified World” 1960. Second, there’s cleavage for those that are interested. Three, any plot devise not used in “Frankenstein’s Island” 1981 was used here. Fourth, it’s got a superhero.
I believe Warren intended the film to be a superhero comedy. The problem is that the parts that Warren intended to be funny aren’t and the parts that Warren intended to be serious are the funny parts. The unintentional humor is the saving grace of the movie… Kinda, sorta.