Wonder Woman

So this was a different take on the Wonder Woman mythos, opting to go with a blonde version of the Amazonian Goddess. This may have been because Cathy Lee Cosby might not have wanted to die her hair for the part or don a wig. Whatever the case may be she does an amiable job as Diana Prince and I would've watched a series with her as Wonder Woman, it's a shame the script wasn't too brilliant, it was your average fair for '74. Also, gone is the iconic and eye-popping costume to be replaced with a modified track suit.

I like Warner's and McEveety's decision to use Crosby since she was a major athlete at the time she could easily cope with the action scenes... which reduced the need to bring in a stuntman in a wig. She's also a pretty decent actor and fit this version of the character well. It would have been nice to have the fight scenes choreographed a little better and speeded up a tad, a few special effects wouldn't have gone amiss to show her strength, as was the case with the later series.

As for the other actors, there wasn't anything too spectacular about them. Even though I do like Montalban a lot, he is very underused here. In fact, I think that can be said of most, though, Andrew Prime does have a bit more power behind his performance. This could all be down to McEveety's direction, who doesn't give us anything particularly new here,

Though Black sticks to the origin pretty well, things start to get messy once we're off Themyscara. We see Diana Prince working as a Secretary for Steve Trevor, though secretly she's the one they send in to get the job done. So she's undercover in her own business. What I found really great and funny was the fact that Everybody else appeared to know Diana Prince was Wonder Woman; this says a lot for her company - the only spies who didn't know her secret. Even with this unintentional humour, Black does add some intentional humour to the story by incorporating a burro to bring the top secret plans to Abner Smith. This is one well- trained Ass... The other thing wrong with the script is the villains' names. I, for one, do not find either Abner Smith or George Calvin particularly frightening or awe inspiring. Calvin is a psychotic and cold blooded killer so it would have been nice for him to be given a more fearsome name or nick-name. This is based on a comic after all and in the 70's they were filled with evil doers with weird pseudonyms. The Joker wouldn't have been the same if he was called Melvin Phillips...

I think that if this had a better writer and director then the end product could have been so much better than this. It might even have made a decent television series; though I'm glad it didn't as it probably would have meant we would have missed Lynda Carter in the role that is so iconic to her. Though, as it stands it's not too bad and is okay for kids though with what's available today it looks and feels really dated, so they might baulk at watching it. This is worth a watch if you're looking at Wonder Woman throughout the ages, which I'm doing. Or, if you were a kid in the 70's and you want a little nostalgia. Apart from that, I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone.

An early attempt to "modernize" Wonder Woman for the 1970s. Everybody seems to think this was boring or campy. I saw it on TV when I was 12. While I admit it's not a great film it's not THAT bad!

Cathy Lee Crosby was totally miscast but she does the best she can. I loved how before each commercial there was a cliffhanger. Personally I was never bored and I loved the new uniform (the other one I always thought showed WAY too much skin). The movie was also (for its time) pretty violent. I remember being surprised when two characters were shot to death. It was off screen but still... Obviously this movie wasn't the big hit they expected so they went back to the original costume and hired Lynda Carter (who WAS Wonder Woman). So this didn't work but I have a soft spot for it.

When this first aired, I didn't like it. It wasn't the Wonder Woman I had seen in the comics. Not even close. A few more viewings over the years didn't change that opinion. But now, after a long break and forty years after its premiere, I can be a bit more objective and less hard-nosed. It really wasn't as bad as I used to think.

A lot of people preferred the Lynda Carter version, but seriously, aside from being somewhat more faithful to the comic, it wasn't that much better. That was just as campy, if not more. Nor was it completely faithful. The familiar twirling costume change was unique to that show, just a shortcut to avoid showing the character having to find a place to change or stash her clothes and costume. Early episodes didn't even have the "explosion," just a fade between wardrobe. And seriously, how many times can one watch Six Million Dollar Man-style leaps, which were also not from the comic? This Wonder Woman seemed to use her wits to get out of jams more than the better-known one did.

I did get a little bored with the constant parade of perils in this movie. Seems she was under attack every ten minutes. Just in time for a commercial break, of course. These Amazons were also annoying. Every time they spoke to each other, they were spouting stilted fortune cookie platitudes rather than sounding like actual dialog.

Ricardo Montalban as Abner Smith was probably the best part of the movie. Suave, classy, charismatic, charming and quite possibly the most honorable, least violent villain in TV history. Definitely not the clichéd murderous adversary trying to kill the hero by whatever means necessary. He never even lost his temper and yelled at his henchmen no matter how many times they disobeyed orders or failed. This was a proto-Roarke, a wise, imaginative, level-headed boss who was intelligent and anticipated almost every contingency. (The white suit didn't hurt, either, although even Mr. Roarke sometimes displayed a darker side not seen here.) And he never lost his composure even in the face of defeat and incarceration. He would have been splendid as her arch-enemy had this series been ordered, that rarest of animals, the likable villain that one could almost root for. Not to be confused with anti-heroes who were flawed but had good intentions. This was a selfish person who maintained his dignity, civility, principles and manners even toward his foes.

This compact 90 minute unsold pilot caused quite a stir when it premiered on ABC in 1974. Even then comic book fans bemoaned the new interpretation of the character. It's not really Wonder Woman but, a modernized and scrubbed down version of a short lived incarnation of her from then current issues of the Wonder Woman comic book. In this version, after a short origin sequence, Wonder Woman, as Diana Prince, secret government agent, under Steve Trevor, is given the job of recovering a set of code books in the hands of a blackmailer.

The movie is entertaining. It's structured like an old time movie serial, each act has a cliffhanger ending with some new threat to Diana, who only appears in "costume" near the end. Not the traditional uniform, but a rather mod looking red, white and blue outfit, with a hidden golden lasso.

Providing menace is ace henchman, George. As played by Andrew Prine, who appears to be having a lot of fun, George's wish to kill the Amazon Princess is matched only by his desire to make love to her. (Don't worry, it's not a deep as it sounds).

Abner Smith, portrayed by a very charming Ricardo Montalban is George's boss and a great foil for Cathy Lee Crosby, who is over her head in this role, but tries hard.

As a side note, try counting the number of times, someone uses a telephone during the film.

A new drinking game could come out of this film!

I can remember watching this as a 12 year old and being quite exited by seeing Wonder Woman on TV. In fact, this was more like a spy thriller than a Super Heroine film. Cathy Lee's costume certainly was more modest than Lynda Carters. Also, Diana Prince seemed equally as strong as Wonder Woman, despatching the villains with ease, although Wonder Woman only just escaped when trapped in a room with slime dripping down the walls (never quite sure what that was supposed to do). There was added interest with Anitra Ford playing the role of an amazon 'gone bad'. I always thought it might have added a bit to the film when the two fought toward the end of the film if she had defeated Wonder Woman before handing the unconscious Wonder Woman over to the villain. Ricardo Montalban was possibly the most gracious villain of all time and looking back now, the film was a bit 'cheesy'.