With the much anticipated The Dark Knight Rises coming out this Friday, there has been a ton of PR hype for the film, and naturally, many articles and media segments about Anne Hathaway, who plays the role of Catwoman in the film.

Of course, she’s not the first actress to play the role. There was Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns, and former Miss America winner Lee Meriwether, who played the role in the 1966 film version of the ABC TV series. 

And oh yes there was Halle…whatshername in that unspeakable Catwoman film travesty, which one could argue she has yet to recover from, career-wise; the film that the originally-cast Ashley Judd bailed out on, when she saw that the project was headed off a ciliff.

But there was, perhaps most memorably, Eartha Kitt, who played Catwoman several times during the final season of the Batman TV show, from 1967-68. She replaced the previous Catwoman, the Amazon-built, 1960s sex bomb, Julie Newmar, who played the role during the first two seasons of the show, but decided not to continue.

Needless to say, when Kitt was cast in the role, it was a big deal. I mean a HUGE deal. It got a lot of publicity, and there was a lot of anticipation.

First of all, there weren’t many black actresses on TV back then with regular TV roles, with the exception of Diahann Carroll and her NBC show Julia, which premiered in the fall of 1968 (I have previously written about it on S A). You would have a black actress in an occasional guest role here and there, but having a black woman playing Catwoman, and, no less than Eartha Kitt, was a major event.

And being the great performer that she was, Kitt made the role uniquely hers, with her own special charisma. To this day, she is, to me, the definite Catwoman. I don’t care what Anne Hathaway does, or what special Bat Bike she rides on in the film. All I’ll be thinking is, she doesn’t quite measure up to Kitt. Yes, you can say her performance was campy, but that was the point. The TV show was a campy comedy, and Kitt went into it with everything she had.

Unfortunately for Kitt, it was a short-lived triumph. First of all, as I mentioned earlier, the Batman TV series ended its run in late spring of 1968. But, to make matters worse, Kitt’s carrer was seriously set back when she got caught up in a political controversy.

That same year, she was invited to a luncheon at the White House and used the opportuniity to openly criticize then President Lyndon Johnson’s Vietman war policy, and practically overnight, became a persona non grata in the business. It took her years to recover.

But still, to this day, when I think of Catwoman, I think of Ms. Kitt.

Anybody want to disagree?

Article source: http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/eartha-kitt-the-greatest-catwoman-of-them-all

It is exactly one year and a week since the passing of media maestro Dwayne McDuffie, known more widely for his writing on the various Justice League cartoon series of the past decade as well as for Ben 10: Alien Force/Ultimate Alien, but more prominent as a comic book writer, enthusiast and advocate for better Black representation in that medium which he backed up in 1993 by being the co-founder of Milestone Media which along with other Black creators established a universe within a universe at DC Comics (home to Superman, Batman, etc) populated by mostly Black and ‘minority’ heroes such as Hardware, Icon, the Blood Syndicate, and their most continual popular character, Static. 

The cartoon movie McDuffie was working on before he passed comes out on DVD today, BluRay and the like today – Justice League: Doom.  Based on the pre-existing ‘Tower of Babel’ story from the Justice League of America comics, the entire league is taken down by super-villains led by the immortal Vandal Savage who learns their greatest weaknesses after he steals them from the always-ready Batman who compiled the files should the heroes ever become compromised. 

I saw an early-released copy of Doom last week and its…well, it’s okay.   I will begin with the positives.  It’s voiced by the trinity of Justice League actors:  Kevin Conroy, who immortalized the Batman voice in ‘Batman: The Animated Series’ (and any seriously-taken animation appearance by the bat since the early 90’s, save a few exceptions), Tim Daly – who is better known visually from various movies and tv shows but also has the most famous Superman voice since that characters 1990’s animated show, and Susan Eisenberg – the tough yet still sexy voice of Wonder Woman since the previously-stated Justice League cartoons, That’s a huge positive.  Fill it with Nathan Fillion (Castle, Firefly) who already has voiced Green Lantern in the past and does again and Michael Rosenbaum (Smallville) who voiced The Flash throughout the many previous cartoons and you’ve got a fantastic lineup. 

Of equal prominence to me (and maybe to SA audiences as well) is the return of Carl Lumbly (To Sleep With Anger, ‘Cagney Lacey”, ‘Alias’) as the Martian Manhunter, who actually gets a lot to do in this movie, and the surprise addition of Cyborg, a character best known to the masses from the recent ‘Teen Titans” but a prominent character in the DC Comics Universe who recently was admitted to the Justice League in the present day comic book. Voiced quite well by Bumper Robinson, who to me has always been better at voiceover than actual acting in shows like ‘A Different World’ and ‘The Game’ as well as his own series like the insipid ‘Guys Like Us’, Cyborg isn’t just a background character, he’s brought in with something to really add to the story, which in the original version he wasn’t actually involved.  Phil Morris (‘Seinfeld’ and so many other shows) also reprises the voice of ultimate bad guy Vandal Savage and is quite menacing and believable in the part. 

Seeing all these cool characters on screen in the best part of this movie.   Them fighting for their survival against the toughest odds imaginable makes a great story, though it feels like it could have been executed better.   With the exception of Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter, it just feels like it is just another fight for most of them – like you know that they’re going to beat the odds.  In other Justice League animated movies, you’re just now sure what the heck is gonna happen – some can die, some may not.   I want to feel like it can actually happen, but I don’t.  Doom is among the weakest of the Lauren Montgomery directed vehicles, which include Wonder Woman (the best one yet) as well as Green Lantern: First Flight and Superman/Batman: Apocalypse.  

McDuffie’s previous cartoon movie All-Star Superman, released last year right after his death, does a better job of being heart-warming to the audience.  Yes, it is based on a stronger story, but having read/seen both versions, McDuffie added something to that which doesn’t exist in Doom.  I wonder if it stayed truer to the original story where Ra’s Al Ghul was the villian instead of Vandal Savage, making it more personal to Batman (he’s Bat’s greatest villain, also featured in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins), if the movie would have been stronger.  Guess we won’t ever really know. 

Don’t get me wrong though, this movie is good, but as Dwayne McDuffie’s last hurrah, I just wished it were better.

Article source: http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/dwayne-mcduffies-final-movie-justice-league-doom-out-today-on-dvd

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