During the inauguration of a bridge Commissioner Gordon is murdered, everything indicates that the person in charge is The Bookworm, but in reality the crime turns out to be false and part of a literary plan of the villain, who later captures Robin and ties him to the clapper of a Bell with the intention that it dies when it rings at midnight. Btaman arrives in time to save him but then they are both trapped inside a gigantic book where they will be literally cooked. Roddy McDowall plays the Bookworm very well, the problem is that he is not a colorful villain like others, perhaps that is why he never starred in another episode again.
3 Reviews
The camp REALLY starts to set in ...
tforbes-24 November 2011
Warning: Spoilers
This one-time-only outing of The Bookworm is fundamentally a decent one. The suspense level is very good and Roddy McDowell is absolutely superb in his role as Batman's villain of the week. Not surprising, considering that he'd been in the entertainment industry for at least 25 year by the time of this performance.
What mars this is Adam West's performance. He is a good actor and has done well with the character of Batman. However, especially in this second part, his overacting, especially at the beginning of the episode, is annoying.
And the sad part is that this is a harbinger of things to come in the Second Season, when the show's quality began declining. It's too bad, because the first season of this series is clearly the best.
The episode deserves kudos for its literary references, and it is also fun to see henchmen dressed as pressmen. A rather rare breed today, they were more prevalent during the Sixties, a time LONG before tablets, IPods and other hand-held devices, as well as computers.
Had it not been for the overacting that began setting in, I would give this outing a higher rating. It is too bad, because I feel the late Mr. McDowell gave a memorable performance here, and should have had his character reprised for another episode. His weird, wormy ways work here!
What mars this is Adam West's performance. He is a good actor and has done well with the character of Batman. However, especially in this second part, his overacting, especially at the beginning of the episode, is annoying.
And the sad part is that this is a harbinger of things to come in the Second Season, when the show's quality began declining. It's too bad, because the first season of this series is clearly the best.
The episode deserves kudos for its literary references, and it is also fun to see henchmen dressed as pressmen. A rather rare breed today, they were more prevalent during the Sixties, a time LONG before tablets, IPods and other hand-held devices, as well as computers.
Had it not been for the overacting that began setting in, I would give this outing a higher rating. It is too bad, because I feel the late Mr. McDowell gave a memorable performance here, and should have had his character reprised for another episode. His weird, wormy ways work here!
The Worm squirms
kevinolzak14 May 2016
"While Gotham City Burns" begins with Batman tipped off by Chief O'Hara (Stafford Repp) about Robin's potential fate, racing toward Big Benjamin to use positive charges of electricity to make the clapper and bell repel each other and halt the midnight toll. This doesn't sit well with The Bookworm (Roddy McDowall), whose frustrated screams again leave his fellow worms in a squirm, resorting to a new chapter to eliminate the Dynamic Duo. Overplotting as usual, he invades Wayne Manor to steal a priceless cookbook, then leaves a gigantic cookbook in the middle of downtown traffic, an open invitation for the curious bats to enter: "curiosity killed the bat!" The book closes on Batman and Robin, as steam enters and proceeds to literally cook their gooses, until Batman finds the solution in communications with Alfred in the Batcave. The Bookworm's ultimate goal required the demise of the Caped Crusaders so that he could use the powerful Batbeam in the Batmobile to bore a hole in the back wall of the Morganbilt Library, home to thousands of priceless literary treasures, but when Batman and Robin step through the opening the twisty worms realize the jig is up. The final scene has Bruce Wayne allowing Dick Grayson a look at the captured Bookworm, who believes himself to be 'so much cleverer' than everyone else, until corrected on a quote by know it all Wayne: "this fellow, he is almost as obnoxious as Batman!" Roddy McDowall is such a joy to watch, the script as deliciously serious as the show could be, that it's a shame that the actor was too busy to reprise a successful character, his Bookworm a 'frustrated author' forced to plagiarize his plots from others.
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