The Many Faces of Catwoman

This is a nice documentary on the many actresses who portrayed Catwoman on TV and the Big Screen, including Julie Newmar, Lee Meriwether, Eartha Kitt, Adrienne Barbeau, Michelle Pfeiffer and Halle Berry. It's a good piece of light entertainment to see interviews from all the Catwoman actresses, actors and filmmakers, and video clips from the TV series "Batman" and "Batman: The Animated Series," and the movies "Batman Returns" and "Catwoman." Eartha Kitt hosted the documentary and gave her classic purr, at times staying in her "Catwoman" character.

It was great seeing all the actresses being interviewed and give their take on the character, and great seeing the history behind this comic book arch-villain.

Catwoman is indeed my favorite Batman villain - beautiful, unpredictable, villainous, yet an at times sympathetic anti-hero.

Grade A-

This is the kind of documentary they used to have as MTV movie specials. Eartha Kitt, who made a career out of purring, introduces the history of Catwoman as a comic book villain, features interviews with all the women who have played her to date and doesn't spend all that much time on the latest version starring Hale Berry, which really has nothing to do with the character of Selina Kyle anyway.

First up are a whole bunch of comic book creators that are familiar by name to lovers of the genre, but probably not by face, discussing the history of the Catwoman/Selina Kyle, her changing look and her relationship to Batman (archvillian vs vigilante). Super hero painter extraordinaire Alex Ross mentions that Catwoman probably had more costume changes than any other super hero over the years (he's forgetting the Wasp, but that's another publishing house so let's forgive him) and of course this segment of the show is nicely 'illustrated' and 'framed' by comic book art from the last sixty years.

Soon we move on to the good stuff with a Biff, a Kapow and a Bamm (in color!) as all three Catwomen who faced the Batman known as Adam West take a bow. Everyone agrees no Catwoman was sexier than Julie Newmar, Eartha was edgier than the others and Lee Meriwether is, for lack of a better term, described as being the best thespian. Adam West add his two cents, Burt Ward does not. The implications of having a colored person (in color!) take over the role of Catwoman is briefly discussed, since it never seemed to be such a big deal to anyone at the time.

Jumping forward in time to 1992, the next Catwoman we meet is of course... Adrienne Barbeau from Batman, The Animated Series. It's nice to see this version included, even though chronologically, the animated Catwoman made her debut in the fall, after the summer release of "Batman Returns" with Michelle Pfeiffer. Maybe they changed the order around to see the Cat-actresses get progressively younger? When we finally get to Michelle, it's just some old archive interviews from 1992 (same thing goes for Tim Burton). Obviously producer Denise Di Novi still had these snippets lying around somewhere.

Least but not last we meet the Halle, Catwoman of the 21th century who claims there were at least 11 of them in times past, yet only remembers Earta Kitt from the sixties. Later on in her segment she claims to play 3 very different women in this one film alone: Patience Williams, the 'in between character' and the full blown Catwoman. That sort of explains how she got to count of 11 Catwomen in total. Also, pay close attention to the part where she sincerely mentions watching National Geographic in preparation for the role and makes it sound like a real chore.

Lets face it, this is the ultimate Catwoman tribute. We probably wont be seeing any more documentaries on her any time soon, as this first and last Catwoman movie rocketed up (or is that down?) the IMDb worst ever list within seconds of it being released. It reminds you how much colorful fun the Batman TV series was, how streamlined the Animated Series looked, how kinky Michelle Pfeiffer could be, and it also features Halle Berry. Still, it's Eartha who gets the final purrrrrr.

8 out of 10