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.

I saw this movie when I was a kid and was very disappointed that Cathy Lee Crosby looked nothing like Diana Prince, not even the costume! But I did like her portrayal of the Amazon Princess. She was strong, warm and really endearing. And I really liked the rivalry storyline between Diana and her "corrupted" sister who was lured by the things she could get for herself now that she was away from Paradise Island. That was very interesting because it wasn't resolved, her sister denounced how she was raised and Diana kept firm to her own beliefs. They agreed to disagree and there was still a mutual sisterly respect in the end. A little bit of depth in an otherwise shallow attempt at a pilot with a charming lead actress.

This failed TV movie pilot is a pop-cultural oddity: An adaptation of Wonder Woman based partly on the brief five-year period of the comic when the character temporarily lost her super powers, as well as her classic costume and she was re-imagined as a non-super-powered, mod-dressing Emma Peel-esque adventurer. This pilot is also partly a precursor of the direction that the Lynda Carter series would eventually take in seasons two and three: Diana Prince being revamped into a James Bond-like ace operative of an UNCLE-esque top secret spy organization.

When this pilot TV movie was in pre-production development, Wonder Woman in the comic books was still in her "mod girl adventurer" phase at the time and the producers seemed unsure which direction to take with the character in the pilot, ("Classic" or "Mod"?) so they tried to split the difference and try to give us a little bit of both worlds! For the purposes of this patchwork pilot, the producers transformed & transitioned Wonder Woman from being a "Girl Adventurer" to being a "Spy Girl". A blonde-haired (!) Cathy Lee Crosby tries her level best to make this awkward composite characterization of Diana Prince seem almost plausible. (The problem is with the script, not with the actress!) She even has a couple of witty Bond-esque exchanges; one where she coolly rebuffs the smarmy sexual flirtations of the villain's chief henchman (a wonderfully oily Andrew Prine) and one where she playfully mentions in passing her invisible plane to the main villain (a masterfully silky-smooth Ricardo Montalbán) in a flirty exchange!

Instead of either her traditional classic costume or one of her mod new outfits from the current-at-the-time comic books, the producers once again decided to "split the difference" by outfitting Crosby in a re-imagined costume that looks more like a mod track suit, than a superhero costume. It's functional, plausible, and mundane. It doesn't look awful, just dull. Just imagine if Superman instead of wearing his classic costume, was wearing a blue & red sweat suit with a small red "S" shield on the side of the chest and you'll get the general idea!

In another odd & awkward blending of the "classic" and "mod" directions, there is a new character, Diana's feisty sister, Ahnjayla, (played by Anitra Ford) who seems to be loosely based upon Diana's feisty sister from the comic books, Nubia, who was then-recently introduced into the comic's continuity when Wonder Woman was re-revamped back into her classic costumed super-powered super-heroine persona in the comic books once more. The pilot tries it's best to blend both the classical and modern directions, but never entirely succeeding with either direction. The pilot producers should have chosen either one direction or the other, instead of hedging their bets and trying to blend both, ending-up in giving us neither! One year later, ABC & Warner Brothers tried again with a second Wonder Woman pilot, this time starring a super-powered & a much more traditionally-costumed Lynda Carter. This new "back-to-basics" pilot was a hit and the Lynda Carter series ran for three successful seasons.

So, perhaps this failed pilot's longest lasting legacy is the "Spy Girl" motif: When ABC later cancelled Wonder Woman after it's first season for being a far-too expensive World War Two era period piece, CBS picked-up the show for seasons two and three, with the proviso that the timeline of the show be moved-up to modern day, to keep costs down and so, Diana was re-imagined as an ace secret agent, once again! This cost-effective secret agent makeover saved the series, so at least that aspect of this failed pilot was proven to be right in retrospect. Just put Cathy Lee Crosby in a traditional Wonder Woman costume and a brunette wig, (Or simply re-cast Crosby with Lynda Carter!) and you would have a typical Wonder Woman episode from seasons two and three of the Lynda Carter series!

While this is not vintage classic Wonder Woman by a long shot, it is an interesting time capsule of Wonder Woman in a flux state of transition and of a long-forgotten failed pilot, valiantly trying and ultimately failing to capture the best of both worlds of Wonder Woman.

As the previous reviewer has commented, fans of the "Wonder Woman" comic and the later effort by Lynda Carter will overall be very disappointed. Indeed, this is not the Wonder Woman we are used to (different 70's style "no cleavage" costume, blond hair) but Cathy Lee Crosby is indeed a wonder to behold. Having moved on from semi-pro tennis player with little acting experience, she holds her own well against foe Ricardo Montalban (although this "foe" has to be one of the most charming, non-threatening villains ever portrayed in a Super Hero film). Notable appearance by original "Price Is Right" gal Anitra Ford as a fellow Paradise Island "lady gone bad." Quirky highlights include a "James Bond" type arsenal of bracelets, a "hidden" not-so-magic lasso, and, low and behold, Wonder Woman actually checking in to a hotel (perhaps someone would notice she's really Diana Price?). And who could ever forget Artie Butler's catchy theme that sounds like it uses a Dentist's drill as the main instrument. Believe it or not, I do enjoy this TV Movie as an "alternative" Wonder Woman, but I'm just glad that ABC gave the Super Heroine another chance after this failed Pilot. The world may have never met Lynda Carter.