"The Yegg Foes in Gotham" begins with Bruce Wayne's secret identity about to be revealed to Egghead (Vincent Price), but not before Dick Grayson manages to short circuit the arch villain's brain draining machine (all he could get out of Bruce was sports trivia!). With Gotham City now owned by Edward Everett Horton's Chief Screaming Chicken ("that's the way the wigwam watusis!"), Egghead leases the city and fires Mayor Linseed (Byron Keith, in the third of his 10 appearances) and Commissioner Gordon, allowing crime to run rampant in the streets, Batman and Robin to be shot on sight if they show their faces within city limits. Bruce Wayne resorts to stealing the Gotham City charter to find a clause that will foil Egghead once and for all, that no criminal may be allowed to lease the property, the climactic egg fight scramble taking place at the chicken farm of Burt Mustin's Old MacDonald. Other surprise cameos abound - the Batclimb features comedian Bill Dana as his famous Jose Jimenez character from Steve Allan's variety shows (he asks, as a jury foreman, if the Dynamic Duo can leave the rope!), actress Mae Clarke, best remembered as the moll who gets half a grapefruit from James Cagney in "The Public Enemy," enjoys one her very last roles as a little old lady arrested for littering by unbilled detective Ben Alexander, a regular as Officer Frank Smith on Jack Webb's DRAGNET, repeating his oft used phrase: "just the facts, ma'am!" Even Groucho's regular announcer from YOU BET YOUR LIFE George Fenneman doesn't escape being robbed on the air in his usual newsman capacity. Elder henchman Foo Yung was played by Superman veteran Ben Welden, his final role after nearly 300 credits over a span of four decades, since working with Bela Lugosi in the British "Phantom Ship." The 82 year old Burt Mustin (the single oldest actor to appear on the show) was such a regular fixture on television for decades that his death at age 93 in 1977 must have been quite a shock. Director George Waggner was another nod to classic Hollywood, a triple threat writer/producer/director, at the helm for Lon Chaney's 1941 "The Wolf Man," after both writing and directing "Man Made Monster" earlier that same year. Vincent Price thoroughly enjoyed his tailor made role of Egghead, but unfortunately when the character returned the third season, he was reduced to a cowering simpleton opposite Anne Baxter's Olga, Queen of the Cossacks. Those unworthy vehicles cannot dim the luster of this egg-cellent example of comic camp.
Review of The Yegg Foes in Gotham
