Holy Habitual Viewing, Batman, He'll Have Square Eyes!

With this morning's screening of Minerva, Mayhem and Millionaires, I have now watched every episode of the classic Batman serial from '60s in the order they were originally transmitted.

Thanks to the great Talking Pictures TV channel here in the UK, this has been my Saturday morning ritual for the last 28 months or so.

While the idea was to simply ensure I saw all the episodes of this magnificently camp crimefighting show, I can't help but pass comment on the third - and last - season, when the show's makers swapped out Aunt Harriet (Madge Blake) for Batgirl/Barbara Gordon (Yvonne Craig).

Clearly, they felt a '60s audience of (mainly) young boys couldn't cope with two lead female characters at once. It's a pity because as much as I welcome Craig's take on Batgirl, I did miss Aunt Harriet's obliviousness to the Bat-centric shenanigans going on under her nose in stately Wayne Manor.

It was also a bit sad - but emblematic of episodic TV at the time - that Dick Grayson/Robin's  (Burt Ward) aunt wasn't even mentioned this season.

Then again, perhaps she left Gotham at just the right time as the storytelling took a massive nosedive, thanks to attempts to mix things up.

The show largely abandoned its winning two-part story formula (thus eliminating the highly entertaining cliffhangers at the end of part one of every tale) as well as bringing in a host of bland new villains instead of relying on the iconic comic book antagonists (Joker, Riddler, Penguin, Catwoman etc).

The many, wildly popular, comic book continuations of the show have shown that with the right writers and characters, Batman '66 could have run and run.

Batman '66 #1 from 2013

This isn't to say, however, that the TV show was ever less than perfect Saturday morning entertainment.

No matter what silliness was unfolding onscreen, you could always guarantee that Adam West's Batman would take their circumstances seriously... and always have exactly the right Bat-doohickey in his utility belt to help him, Robin, Batgirl, and Alfred (Alan Napier) out of any sticky situation.

But Batman isn't the only vintage show I've watched from start-to-finish in the last couple of years.

I started with all the available episodes of Dad's Army, being shown on U&Gold.

This has always been a very special show to me (and warranted its own article here), because of its connections to my dad.

Then, thanks to Legend, showing four episodes each weekend, I saw every episode of the original Twilight Zone.

Most recently, thanks to the BBC, I watched the entirely of the sublime I, Claudius from the 1970s. I remember watching some of the episodes when I was a child and some, much later, when I was in hospital recovering from my aneurysm. But I'd never seen the entire show from start-to-finish before.

The thing is I have Blu-Rays of the complete runs of both Batman and the Twilight Zone, but it felt somehow more 'authentic' to watch them weekly as new episodes were released on standard definition channels.

I'm also a great believer in the concept of "appointment television". I've a ton of shows on Netflix (where all the episodes drop at once) that I've started, but then felt no incentive to push on with.

However, knowing I'll have to wait a week for a new episode keeps the flame of enthusiasm lit.

Of course, I do binge shows. I'm not a luddite. But weekly shows are still my preferred form of delivery. Because I'm that old.

It did strike me that there was possibly something a tad morbid about this particular project of mine: ensuring I'd seen every episode of select great shows before I pop my clogs.

But I can assure you my motives are a lot more positive. There's so much great television being made all the time that it's easy to overlook the classics of old in the rush to embrace the new.

This is especially true for shows that - over the years - I've dipped in and out of, rather than watching religiously.

With my increasingly unreliable memory, I want to make sure I'm not missing great television from earlier decades while consuming the current crop of high calibre entertainment.

I'm now contemplating what show I might tackle next.

The original run of Star Trek is definitely a contender, although that will be a binge rather than appointment viewing as it's on Paramount Plus these days.

It's actually being shown on Legend as well, but that channel is in the middle of the second season and I don't want to have to wait for them to get round to the start of season one again if I'm going to go "where no man has gone before" as soon as possible.

Will I be boldly going from start to finish on the Final Frontier next?

Night of the Eagle (1962)

Night of The Eagle will air in the UK on Talking Pictures TV, on July 25 at 9.05pm and July 28 at 9pm

The other year, one of my oldest online friends, John, announced he was having a clear-out and wanted to dispose of some of his old horror-themed Blu-Rays.

Never one to turn down a free movie, I offered to take a few off his hands and soon a package arrived with four discs in.

Among them was one I confess I'd never heard of: Night Of The Eagle (aka Burn Witch Burn).

So, naturally, that was the first to be taken for a spin in the Blu-Ray player.

Charming and charismatic psychology professor Norman Taylor (Peter Wyngarde aka Jason King of Department S) has it all: a great house, a career on the fast-track to success, and a beautiful wife, Tansy (Janet Blair).

Therefore, Norman is shocked to discover that his wife has been secretly practising witchcraft, she says to protect him from dangerous and jealous forces that would otherwise seek to derail his career or even harm him.

Angrily, he makes her destroy all her charms, fetishes, and witchy paraphernalia.

However, no sooner does she do this than their lives take a dramatic turn for the worse.

First, Norman is accused of sexually assaulting Margaret Abbott (Judith Stott), one of his students, at Hempnell Medical College, then some 'force' seemingly attacks his home.

The rational professor tries to deal with all these things logically, but Tansy starts to take increasingly wild, and potentially dangerous, steps to thwart this with - what she believes is - magic.

Night Of The Eagle is a fantastic, little, horror film, in a similar vein to 1957's Night Of The Demon and 1963's The Haunting.

It's oozing with atmosphere, relying on limited special effects and a strong amount of suggestion, so, like Norman, we're never 100 per cent sure if what's happening is co-incidence, feverish hallucinations, hypnosis or genuine black magic.

The ending is a bit sudden, given all the furore that has just unfurled, and certainly comes from the "karma is a bitch" playbook.

But, then, that was the style of films back in the day - they knew not to hang around and outstay their welcome. They had a story to tell, got in, told it, and got out. A trait seemingly lost on some filmmakers and their more recent overlong snorefests.

Based on Fritz Leiber's Conjure Wife (which first appeared in 1943 in Unknown magazine and then as novel in 1953), Night Of The Eagle's original New England setting was changed for 'old' England, instead.

This adaptation (there have been several) was penned by horror legend Richard Matheson with Twilight Zone writer Charles Beaumont, and some tweaking by George Baxt, at the behest of producer Albert Fennell.

A smart, tight, script, buoyed up by cracking performances from all concerned, Night Of The Eagle is definitely one for those who are happy to take their horror served without dollops of gore and jump scares.

"We're Going To Make A Person!"

The 1970 Hammer film, The Horror of Frankenstein is coming to Talking Pictures TV in the UK on Sunday, July 19, at 9.25pm, with a repeat showing on August 6 at 9.20pm.

Brilliant but arrogant scientist Victor Frankenstein (Ralph Bates) builds a man from spare body parts, only for the monster to come alive and wreak havoc.

The Monster Rises On Talking Pictures TV

Horror movie icon Peter Cushing stars in 1974's Frankenstein and The Monster from Hell, which airs in the UK on Talking Pictures TV on Thursday, June 18, at 9.20pm.

The Price Will Be High If You Don't Pay The Piper

The 1957 musical, cautionary, fairy tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin comes to Talking Pictures TV in the UK on Sunday, June 14, at 9.30am.

Putting The Fun Back in Defunding The Rich, To Give To The Poor

The trailer for the new "gritty" Death of Robin Hood movie led to a brief conversation with author Phillip Reeve about the paucity of "fun" Robin Hood films that hove closer to the original legends.

This got me thinking about the wonderful vintage TV serial, The Adventures of Robin Hood, which is still a fixture of Talking Pictures TV's Saturday morning line-up years after I first found it on their schedule.

Starring Richard Greene as Robin, this is the show whose theme music became an the immortal earworm:

One of the other reasons I love this rollickin', rebellious, series from the mid-1950s is that I soon realised every episode could supply me with either a top-notch story hook or an interesting non-player-character (often both) for whatever pseudo-Medieval roleplaying game I was noodling with at the time.

After loyally watching the half-hour show, week-in, week-out, for months on Talking Pictures, I eventually invested in the 18-dsic box set, containing all 143 episodes.

My discs

The Adventures of Robin Hood is most definitely a "fun", Boy's Own Adventure take on the legends of Robin and his Lincoln Green-sporting band of Merry Men, and one of my favourite iterations of the outlaws of Sherwood Forest.

The best is, of course, the mid-80's Saturday evening TV show Robin of Sherwood, where Michael Praed and then Jason Connery (after a mystical bit of Time Lord-style regeneration) took the title role in a show that blended arcane magic and myth with traditional tropes to create a truly unique and memorable programme.

This was another show oozing with very British ideas for a particular take on Dungeons and Dragons-kind of gaming.

Robin of Sherwood

The Return of Dracula (1958)

Evading the European police, Count Dracula (Francis Lederer) kills Czech artist Bellac Gordal who is on his way to America to stay with his extended family.

Dracula assumes the artist's identity and turns up in the small, whitebread community of Carleton, California, to be met by Bellac's widowed cousin Cora Mayberry (Greta Granstedt), and her children, aspiring dress designer Rachel (Norma Eberhardt) and young Mickey (Jimmy Baird).

Their neighbour Rachel's boyfriend, the ill-mannered Tim (Ray Stricklyn), is also at the station to greet Bellac, and takes an instant to dislike to the charming European visitor.

You know with a manly heroic name like that, Tim's going to be Rachel's knight in shining armour, right?

Tim and Rachel... need I say more?

After he is moved into their spare room, the Mayberry's quickly learn that their European cousin is quite eccentric, keeping to himself, sleeping in, slipping out of the house unnoticed etc

When Mickey discovers his "beloved" kitten Nugget mutilated in an abandoned mineshaft in the hills, it becomes clear that Dracula is here to feed!

However, I'm not exactly sure how we're supposed to feel about the tearful Mickey at this point because he'd seen earlier that Nugget had fallen into a spike-filled pit trap in the mine... and just left him there, promising to come back the next day.

He did try to go back that evening, but was told it was getting too dark to be playing in an abandoned mineshaft. He never mentioned to anyone that that's where he'd seen Nugget!

So, I reckon Mickey is just as guilty as Dracula for the fate of his cat.

Bellac learns of a sickly blind girl, Jennie Blake (Virginia Vincent), that Rachel has been reading to at the parish house, where she helps out.

So Dracula pays Jennie a midnight call and gives her his trademark love bite.

The next day, Jennie is at death's door, and asking for Rachel.

Jennie just manages to rasp out a vague warning before dying.

Around the time of Jennie's funeral, the European police show up, initially in the form of private detective Mack Bryant (Charles Tannen), posing as an agent of the Department of Immigration.

He "wants to check Bellac's immigration paperwork" and manages to snap a sneaky picture of the Undercover Count with a spy-camera in his cigarette lighter.

Outside, he hands-off the film to professional Dracula hunter John Merriman (John Wengraf).

But Bryant's days are numbered. Heading to the train station, to wait for a train out of this kooky place, Bryant spots the supposedly dead Jennie on the other side of the railway tracks.

Lured over there, he is killed by a white German Shepherd dog (was this Dracula... or even Jennie, transformed into a killer dog?).

Undercover Dracula aka Cousin Bellac

Rachel is getting worried about Bellac, after having a nightmare in which he tried to hypnotise her into removing her crucifix (which she got from Jennie).

Then, while trying to find her cousin to convince him to come to a Halloween party at the parish house, she discovers a painting in his room, depicting her lying in a coffin. Why? Who knows, really?

Rachel telephones Tim, but is surprised by Bellac ... because he casts no reflection in the hall mirror and she didn't see him sneaking up behind her.

Tim turns up and whisks a slightly befuddled Rachel away to the Halloween party.

Meanwhile, in the graveyard, Merriman, a couple of random police officers, and local vicar Rev Dr Whitfield (Gage Clarke), discover that Jennie's coffin is empty, so wait for her return (I'm trying to resist using the term "stakeout", for reasons...).

She returns, they paralyse her in her coffin by placing a cross on her chest, there's a bit of a debate over whether she was actually buried alive, then Merriman drives an enormous stake through her heart.

Meanwhile, Rachel slips away from the Halloween party - before the winner of the costume contest is announced - and Tim follows her out to the abandoned mineshaft, where Dracula has set up camp.

Dracula tries to hypnotise Rachel into becoming his bride, but the staking of Jennie makes him weak at the knees and so Tim heroically (well, with a bit of effort) uses Rachel's crucifix to drive Dracula back into the spikey pit (see, foreshadowing!)

With a running time of 77-minutes, The Return of Dracula aka The Fantastic Disappearing Man is the very definition of a B-movie.

Clearly an unofficial sequel to both Bram Stoker's original book and Universal's Dracula franchise, it's not great (but also it's not that bad either), but it vanished from the public consciousness once Hammer's Horror of Dracula aka Dracula was released later the same year, and the iconic Christopher Lee became synonymous with The Count.

It's kind of a shame really because, despite the complete absence of any special effects, beyond the odd cloud of mist when a vampire manifests, Francis Lederer is quite a charismatic Dracula.

While fangless, he compensates with his Teddy Boy quiff.

As this was made in the 1950s, during The Cold War, there's a strong "beware outsiders" vibe to this piece, with All-American, rough-and-ready, Tim's instant distrust of the suave "foreigner" being proven right in the end.

The script, by Pat Fielder and directed by Paul Landres, is paper-thin, but still manages to wander all over the place, with the two - almost simultaneous - climatic showdowns happening with no established correlation, beyond Dracula's reaction to Jennie being staked miles away.

There was an odd moment in this black and white film, when Jennie was staked, a short, colour, shot of bright red blood bubbling up from an impaled corpse had been spliced into the action.

Checking IMDB, this was a deliberate tactic for the theatrical release of the movie, and was restored for cable TV when it was shown on Turner Classic Movies.

While there, I also learned while Lederer hated this making this film, he reprised the role of Count Dracula in a 1971 episode of Night Gallery, A Question of Fear/The Devil Is Not Mocked.

Had Christopher Lee not swept onto the scene, with his big swooshing cape, there's a possibility (albeit remote) that The Return of Dracula might have had a bigger impact on vampire culture, as - for all its shortcomings - there's a certain simple charm about it.