Monday, August 26, 2024

Viewer Log: Batman: Caped Crusader ep 2

 A new phantom stalks the stage.

Last time on Batman; Caped Crusader, we were introduced to an old new Batman. In a mid-1900s Gotham, Batman was investigating a series of bombings on Gotham Mafia kingpin Rupert Thorne. His investigation led him to the Iceberg Lounge and Oswalda “Penguin” Cobblepot. This lounge singing version of the black and white bird was working on muscling in on Thorne’s turf, but her plans were being foiled by a stool pigeon informing Thorne. She’s led to believe it’s one of her sons, a fella named Aaron, whom she executes without remorse. The actual rat, her other son Ronny, is terrified for his life after this and tries to rat her out to Jim Gordon of Gotham PD. Oswalda turns her prized weapon, a long-range cannon, that she’d been bombing the warehouses with on Gotham PD.  Batman arrives at the Iceberg Lounge and the two face off. Batman is able to hold her off long enough for Barbara and Jim Gordon to execute the station, but Penguin is able to fire the cannon on it anyway, destroying it. Penguin is arrested. It’s only after she’s gone that Batman realizes that she was a much bigger played in Gotham’s crime politics and without her, Thorne is easily able to absorb large parts of her territory into his own. Damn. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

Ep 2: …And Be A Villain

 

We open with a young woman named Yvonne Frances (Lacey Chabert) being dropped off at her home. Someone is watching her from the bushes and walks up to her when she’s alone. She gasps in surprise as things go black.

 

We jump forward in time to Bruce Wayne being interrogated by Detective Renee Montoya. Turns out, he’d been seeing Yvonne and he’d been the one dropping her off. Bruce tries to offer Gotham PD and Renee herself a sizeable check in order to keep his name out of the papers, but Montoya tells him that not everything in Gotham is for sale. Montoya also tells him that she’s not interested in smearing him either, she just wants to find Frances. The interview continues, Bruce impressing Montoya with his exact recall of when he dropped Frances off (10:52 pm). Bruce covering his Batman-like slip by saying he was watching the clock carefully because Yvonne had an early call time the next morning and he was watching the clock. They’re interrupted by the arrival of Bruce’s lawyer, Lucius Fox (Bumper Robinson) who chastises Montoya for interrogating Bruce without him present. While Fox is chewing her out and making it clear that any other questions for Bruce go through him, Bruce slips a microphone into Montoya’s coat. He tells her it was nice meeting her and the two men head out.

 

As Alfred drives Bruce home, he comments that Bruce might have better luck conducting his own investigation. Bruce, fiddling with his radio to get his bug’s signal, says that Montoya is a sharp officer, refused his bribe and honest, he thinks she could be an asset. Alfred asks if this means they’ll find Frances that much sooner, and Bruce halfheartedly adds yes to that too. He gets the radio working and hears Montoya talking with Gordon. She says she thought she was getting to Bruce before the Lawyer got there, but Alfred alibis him and she doesn’t see him as suspect. Gordon tells her that they need a crime to have suspects and right now they have a missing person. Montoya says that Frances, a movie star, has been missing for two days without a peep, which gives her a bad feeling. She tells Gordon her next step is to head to the movies.

 

She hits up Monoscope Pictures studio and goes to speak with one of the actors there. We meet Basil Karlo (Dan Donohue), he’s one of Monoscope’s biggest stars. We learn a bit about his working relationship with Yvonne.  They worked opposite each other in several films, her being the damsel in distress, screaming as he, the heavy, stalked/menaced her. He says this picture would be the first time he’d seen her in months, and he’d heard rumors she’d fallen in with a bad crowd since they last worked together. He rushes her out the door a moment later, saying he has a meeting with Edmund Haynes, the director of his new movie. Montoya goes to speak with a secretary that brings her some of the latest headshots of Frances. While looking through the glam shots, she finds a picture of Basil staring at Frances in a crowd and realizes he lied about not seeing her recently. She asks where Basil is meeting with Haynes, and the secretary says that there is no meeting with them today and Montoya storms off. She asks a gate guard if Basil is still on the lot and learns he left an hour ago. She gets his address from the gate guard and heads over, Batman tailing her from the roofs. She reaches Basil’s apartment in time to hear him scream, she opens the door and finds him on the ground with a knife in his back. She calls for an ambulance as a man in a black coat and red scarf watches from a window.  Batman spots him and the two have a chase across the rooftops. Batman catches him by the scarf, causing the man to slice it free with another knife, revealing a ghoulish face. He runs down a fire escape and loses Batman.

 

We cut to Yvonne Francis, who’s being held in a luxury bed by a man in lab coat and glasses. The man, Jack Ellman (Jeff Bennett) applies makeup to her face, telling her to relax to not ruin it. It’s at that point that she realizes she’s chained to the bed. He tells her to stay calm as she’ll need her energy for her big scene.

 

At the police station, Montoya laments what happened to Karlo. She was sure he was a suspect but turns out he was a victim. Gordon points out that Karlo lied, and if she can find out why, maybe that’ll led her to Francis. Montoya says that she let him down, and Gordon says no she hasn’t. Outside in the bullpen, Harvey Dent is chatting with the cops and telling dirty jokes. He breaks away from them when Montoya comes out, wanting to talk to her. He tells her if she can close the Yvonne Francis/Basil Karlo case, he can put on a hell of trial and make them both look good. Montoya isn’t interested, saying she couldn’t care less about his mayoral campaign. He warns her to start caring, as when he wins, she’ll want to be on his good side.

 

We cut back to Monoscope Pictures where the head of the studio, Lew Valentine, is screaming at his casting director that they’ve got thousands of dollars of rented mad scientist gizmos on the lot and they’re being charged by the day. If he doesn’t want that overage to come out of his pocket, he needs to find a replacement for Frances. His secretary comes in to tell him Hayes the director  wants a meeting with him, he asks what could he want now that their movie as of this moment starts a missing person and a corpse,  and his secretary tells him Hayes probably wants to know if there’s a movie to direct. He tells her to set it up. When alone, he  takes a shot from a flask before being attacked by the man in black,. He blinds Valentine with lights, causing him to fall back and break some of the mad science gear, spilling water everywhere. The man in black then knocks over a light into the water, electrocuting him.

 

At the Batcave, Alfred is watching one of Yvonne Francis and Basil Karlo’s movies for clues, I guess. Batman asks if he found anything, and Alfred says that while pretty, Francis is no Gloria Swanson. Batman then asks if he found anything useful, to which Alfred says no. He then sarcastically asks if Batman found anything useful. Batman has found some unusual silicate on the scarf. Which makes sense if you know who our… malleably faced assailant is. He looks over the scarf and finds it has a blank id spot. He uses a mercury vapor lamp to determine that it’s from the Monoscope Pictures Wardrobe. Batman realizes this means that the killer has access to the studio.

 

Batman rushes to the studio, making it in time for Montoya’s next round of questioning. She interviews another actor, Darryl Manning, who sings Basil Karlo’s praises, saying he’d be one of the best actors of today if he had the looks for it. Montoya asked if a rumor about him and Francis dating a few months ago were true but Darryl denies it. Montoya then goes to speak with the costume department. The head designer says that Karlo and Francis worked together a half dozen times, and their last picture was Tower of Fear. She reveals that Karlo had a not too subtle crush on Francis, but didn’t feel confident asking her out because of his face. Side note, they keep talking about this guy like he’s got some Phantom of the Opera (Erik) deformity to his face but he’s no uglier than Peter Cushing or Vincent Price. Not winning any beauty pageants but hardly hideous. Anyway, Karlo had a crush he couldn’t do anything about because not pretty. The costumer didn’t think Francis reciprocated his feelings, but she did have respect for him. She once said that he should be a leading man if it wasn’t for his face. Montoya intuits that meant a lot to him, the costumer confirming and saying that that also made him desperate to fix his face. We cut to Edmund Hayes, the director. He tells Montoya the same stuff, Karlo is a great actor with a face that meant he was exclusively typecast as villains. He thinks that drove Basil Karlo to Jack Ellman, a makeup artist at the studio that promised a miracle treatment for Basil that would ‘remake his career.’ Karlo paid Ellman a lot of money but got no results, leading to a fight on the lot that ended with Ellman being fired. We learn that the fight that got Ellman fired was about two months ago. Batman watches the interview from across the street and listens in on the bug in Montoya’s coat.

 

Sometime later, Batman is still snooping around the lot. He sees Hayes trying to direct a scene and verbally abusing Basil Karlo’s replacement when he can’t follow his directions before storming off. He’s attacked by the man in black, but Batman intervenes, kicking him in the face. He chases the man in black to a soundstage where they have a sword fight on a set. The man in black cuts a line, collapsing the set on Batman. He gives a salute, thinking Batman dead before running off. Batman, as it turns out, escaped through a trapdoor. Under the stage he finds the bodies of Lew Valentine and Darryl Manning. He radios in to Alfred, telling him to call the cops in two minutes and report the deaths. He also realizes that if Manning is here then something weird is happening since he’s been dead for at least a day but just had an interview with Montoya.

 

Montoya heads to Jack Ellman’s apartment in the East End of Gotham. She radios for back up. Flass answers the radio, saying they’re on the way, but he and Bullock turn off their radio and continue to eat their dinners. Montoya waits for them for a bit but then heads in. She meets Jack Ellman who invites her in for an interview. Batman, meanwhile, checks out Basil Karlo in the morgue. He pulls out the body and pokes at his face, discovering it is extremely malleable, like rubber or… clay. Ellman attacks Montoya with a pipe. She shocks him in the face, crumbling it like it was made of clay. He knocks her out with a blow to the head.

 

Montoya wakes up strapped to a chair. The man in black, Clayface, reveals himself and Montoya realizes it’s Basil Karlo. She asked what happened to his face. Basil, the monologist, tells her the story. Basil wanted to fix his face and Ellman offered him a treatment that turned into a miracle, an injection into his face that made it soft and malleable like clay. He reshaped his face into a more conventionally handsome version of his face. He went to Yvonne to show her, thinking his new looks would win her over but she rejected him. Basil snapped, his face melting and deciding that if Yvonne wouldn’t play her part willingly, he’d make her. He brags about his new powers, saying that he has a face to match his talent, and with it he can play any part and fool anyone, including her. Montoya realizes that he was Manning. Clayface flips a switch and reveals Francis strapped to a table, her mouth gagged. Clayface admits that it took losing his original face, career and obsessions (he says love but we all know Francis was a prize to him, not a person) to realize that he was perfect to play the villain.  It’s at this point that Francis, having gotten the gag out of her mouth, says she doesn’t believe him. Clayface is taken aback by this remark, saying that he did kill Valentine and Ellman, to which Francis critiques his performance. She says he’s chewing scenery and relying on makeup to enhance a weak character. This infuriates Clayface, who says he’ll show her what’s real, just as Batman breaks in.

 

He frees one of Montoya’s hands with a batarang as Clayface activates a swinging pendulum to kill Francis. Montoya frees herself as Batman and Clayface fight, and then rushes over to free Francis. She gets her lose just before the pendulum sliced her stomach open. Batman pummels Clayface, knocking him out with a good hook. Montoya pulls her gun on Batman telling him not to move. It’s just then that Flass and Bullock burst in. Batman escapes out the window again. Flass handcuffs Clayface, snidely asking Montoya if the Bat solved her case for her. She says they’re the idiots that let him get away. The others leave, but when Montoya goes to retrieve her hat, the microphone falls from her coat. She realizes who was listening in on this and tell Batman that things aren’t over between them.

 

Ya know, if this time last year you told me I’d see an adaptation of Clayface’s original origin story, I’d have shaken my head in disbelief. But here we are. Clayface first appeared in Detective Comics #40 Batman, with Robin the Boy Wonder: The Murders of Clayface. In it, Basil Karlo is a horror movie actor that uses the guise of one of his most well-known characters, Clayface, to murder anyone involved in a remake of that film. There’s a lot of chasing and punching and he and Batman end up fighting on a set, so I think the sword fight was an homage to that. The biggest change to the story, weirdly, wasn’t adding a woman that spurned him but giving Clayface powers. Yeah, for decades Basil Karlo was the only one of several Clayfaces that had no shapeshifting powers at all. He gained them a decade or two back, but for a good long while he was a wholly human villain. I can see why they decided to add the shapeshifting face to him, once you introduce superpowers to a character it’s just silly to take them away. So, anyway, yeah, the second they named dropped Basil Karlo, I was aware how this was going to go. That said, it was fun seeing Batman and Montoya work through the clues and situation to figure out who the murderer was. Props to Dan Donohue as he did Karlo’s big villain monologue extremely well. He comes across as a complete psycho, I’m not sure what Yvonne was saying. That said, I do love her bit critiquing Basil’s performance. I’m a sucker for the “acts like a ditz but is actually smart” trope. After hearing Alfred and a few others mention that she’s not very good at acting, it was satisfying to hear her give a critique. It implies without outright saying that she puts on the act of being just a pretty faced scream queen to get parts. This was also a good full introduction to Renee Montoya. She had a few appearances last episode but I don’t believe had any lines, so unless you knew who the woman with the broad shoulders was you’d think her a background character. Like Harley Quinn, Montoya was originally introduced in Batman: The Animated Series and had a few episodes devoted to her as being one of the other cops that doesn’t distrust Batman. I believe she’s been rolled into the comics since, but she hasn’t really had any appearances outside there in years. I believe Bruce Timm and his crew have a soft spot for her, though, so she gets a lot of screen time going forward. So yeah, overall, a great follow up. Have a good night, everyone. 

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