cult film freak: pilot

Showing posts with label pilot. Show all posts

Written by James M. Tate / 11/09/2021 / No comments / action , andrew prine , anitra ford , cathy lee crosby , espionage , pilot , ricardo montalban , robert porter , seventies , spy , superhero , tv movie

CATHY LEE CROSBY AS THE FIRST/ORIGINAL 'WONDER WOMAN'

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhoaKP950bDWjis9zDA-gGSQWrrxLPk2Um_Y5lJAcK8U2NsQCdC3zz2y8hDF_c3mtPFdtFZcC3NQyGtmgF3EDLjeTjMlDWcywqk7KyBdBerykLBWPOcRFSF2IxllPmhsL1_7TbKwebgAcBIXZQvjVwBy0vejDlLF0CtKovaUcJlth0NUDW1na-kqZrEeQ=s988" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="723" data-original-width="988" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhoaKP950bDWjis9zDA-gGSQWrrxLPk2Um_Y5lJAcK8U2NsQCdC3zz2y8hDF_c3mtPFdtFZcC3NQyGtmgF3EDLjeTjMlDWcywqk7KyBdBerykLBWPOcRFSF2IxllPmhsL1_7TbKwebgAcBIXZQvjVwBy0vejDlLF0CtKovaUcJlth0NUDW1na-kqZrEeQ=w400-h293" width="400"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Year: 1973 Rating: ***</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Young Gal Gadot fans don't want to know anyone else played WONDER WOMAN and older Lynda Carter fans are no different...</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Even Google, if you type "the very first Wonder Woman" will provide Carter's name... but it's Cathy Lee Crosby, an athletic BLONDE, who was the first Diana "Supposed to be Dark-Haired" Prince and donned the outfit albeit resembling patriotic Olympics garb instead of the DC Comics suit Carter wore in the following years' series... </p><p></p><p>A shame because this TV-movie isn't too shabby; but it's no Superhero story... Instead, during the Spy Genre/James Bond era, this WONDER WOMAN seems as if a resilient Bond girl took over the 007 mantle. And instead of powers she has karate skills and can catch a high flying spear... thrown by one of her former island dames played by Anitra Ford, a leggy model who, gorgeous and BRUNETTE, while killing it as an underused nemesis (exceeding a slow-speaking money-stealing Ricardo Montalbán or a flirtatiously lethal Andrew Prine) would've aesthetically made a better WONDER WOMAN. But Crosby does a pretty decent job for a decent-enough time-filling/action-packed curio: So she alone deserves credit for initially laying out the iconic character's groundwork... even if what ended up working went completely against her portrayal. <br></p><p><span></span></p>

action, andrew prine, anitra ford, cathy lee crosby, espionage, pilot, ricardo montalban, robert porter, seventies, spy, superhero, tv movie

CATHY LEE CROSBY AS THE FIRST/ORIGINAL 'WONDER WOMAN'

Year: 1973 Rating: *** Young Gal Gadot fans don't want to know anyone else played WONDER WOMAN and older Lynda Carter fans are no differ...

MARK HAMILL AS DAVID IN THE 'EIGHT IS ENOUGH' PILOT EPISODE

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Diana Hyland with Mark Hamill in the series pilot of EIGHT IS ENOUGH Season One from 1977-1978</u></td></tr>
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The tragic death of actress Diana Hyland aside (she was John Travolta's real life May/December fiance and his BOY IN THE PLASTIC BUBBLE mother)... her character Joan Brandford's exit four episodes into EIGHT IS ENOUGH ironically worked for the best, story-wise...<br>
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Especially since the hour-long suburban dramedy's pilot centered mostly on everyman Dick Van Patten's Tom Bradford and wife Joan struggling to raise those eight titular kids that remain somewhat peripheral during this rather bland kickoff: strange since the youngsters wound up meaning pretty much everything...<br>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Defunct Photobucket effect w/ Dick Van Patten & Mark Hamill on EIGHT IS ENOUGH with Adam Rich and Laurie Walters</u></td></tr>
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Tommy and Nancy are played by different people (semi-cute cult-starlet Kimberly Beck and droopy eyed Oscar Wilde lookalike Chris English) while Mark Hamill, the same year his Luke Skywalker conquered George Lucas's blockbuster STAR WARS, is the eldest son, David Bradford, who, fed up with the full house, moves out and into a bachelor pad.<br>
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The next episode — and the rest of the series — wisely cast the likeable Willie Aames as Tommy, and who doesn't remember bowl-cut fan-favorite Nicholas: the youngest son played by Adam Rich, who was around from the very start unlike another sublime replacement in Dianne Kay's blonde bombshell Nancy. <br>

adam rich, betty buckley, diana hyland, dianne kay, dick van patten, family, grant goodeve, mark hamill, pilot, seventies, TV, willie aames

MARK HAMILL AS DAVID IN THE 'EIGHT IS ENOUGH' PILOT EPISODE

Diana Hyland with Mark Hamill in the series pilot of EIGHT IS ENOUGH Season One from 1977-1978 The tragic death of actress Diana Hyland ...

SUNDAY PILOT OF BETTER CALL SAUL TITLED UNO

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">year: 2015 Grade: C</td></tr>
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After the death of THE WALKING DEAD moral compass we get an origin of the BREAKING BAD lawyer who had no morals, and his compass aimed in one direction – and that classically crooked name wasn’t even his real one: Bob Odenkirk’s Saul Goodman is actually Jimmy McGill...<br />
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We begin much like the last stretch of BAD when Walter White was hiding out, incognito, dead to himself and the world… Yet Saul has a menial job leading to a bland apartment with a mixed drink to save his own pathetic life... And while little happens to the character within the first five minutes, the direction is sparsely artistic with the right touch of purgatory Noir – then we zoom out of the present and into the pulse of the matter at hand…<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk16dD06pvxLtYhFarVfxASJl44V2wwL_4zRDSELJrNpmszY7D5lKPupzJH931LPaenn2zkgYvio1MN4lcStWjIa5vZ93EI211GkkmxMRAuYgO_N1jGKWfRKvxJnfVvsySewcB8UGriak/s1600/tv-better-call-saul.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk16dD06pvxLtYhFarVfxASJl44V2wwL_4zRDSELJrNpmszY7D5lKPupzJH931LPaenn2zkgYvio1MN4lcStWjIa5vZ93EI211GkkmxMRAuYgO_N1jGKWfRKvxJnfVvsySewcB8UGriak/s1600/tv-better-call-saul.jpg" width="167" /></a>Only catching a rudimentary glimpse of fan-favorite, Mike, played by Jonathan Banks, as a security guard at the courthouse, a desperate Saul is working out a cryptic deal with a tableful of uptight suits – and what's occurring, like in the usual Vince Gilligan fashion, isn’t quite clear until it’s just clear enough to be intriguing and suspenseful… Much like Quentin Tarantino's explanation of what others have said about his style, “You don’t know what’s going on until you know what’s going on.” <br />
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While on paper the ingredients are all intact, there’s very little edgy dynamic… Saul spent so much time and energy selling himself to Walter White that now, as the man of the hour, it’s his task to successfully present others for the audience to embrace like we already did him – including Michael McKean as Saul’s… or rather… Jimmy’s lawyer brother, stricken with some kind of fatal disease (sound familiar?) and two skateboard riding accident-fakers resembling hipster versions of Napoleon Dynamite, filling in the same punchy pocket as any of Jesse Pinkman's banal tweaker pals, only athletic.  <br />
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And so, in phase one, the stuff just isn’t there, yet… Perhaps because “Jimmy” hasn’t come into the deliciously shifty style that would make him a good/bad lawyer, which explains the lethargic courtroom scene that had potential but, like everything else, fell flat, lacking our hero's pizazz and charm while the cliffhanger is more like balancing off the side of a gutter with very little to lose until, hopefully, the next episode, the true start of the series, will make things right as wrong again… Fingers crossed, and toes too. <b>OVERALL RANK: Jedi, Rebel, <u>Droid, Sith</u>...</b>

2015, bob odenkirk, pilot, TV