Wonder Woman

I actually sat through this movie waiting for the real WONDER WOMAN to pop out at any second. She never did?!! At first, I hated this horrible-not-even-close version... But about 3 years later I read how they were trying to market towards the working women's lib instead of the "superhero" fanatics. So, I pondered on that for a while thinking that yes, it was & sometimes still is a male dominated world. On that note, I sat through the movie again... but, again, it wasn't good. It didn't suck! But it's not the Wonder Woman we all know, love, & at one time or another pretended to be. Or pretended to be Superman with Wonder Woman. If I sat through a film called "The Wonder's of a Woman" then I may have given the film a chance...But thats not what it is. This is Diana Price who is from Paradise Island. She is smarter, she is keen, & she is a knockout. But where is the leaps, the strength, the spinning around letting your hair fall gracefully down her back & then changing to the stunning costume (& always hoping she would wear the cape or the swimsuit!) Nope, not in this movie! She changes at the hotel! Sorry, don't think so!(4) Z.

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.

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.

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 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'.