REEL RETRO CINEMA | 13th Dimension, Comics, Creators, Culture

May15

Dig This INSIDE LOOK at the 1977 SPIDER-MAN TV Pilot

Posted by Dan Greenfield on May 15, 2022

Dig This INSIDE LOOK at the 1977 SPIDER-MAN TV Pilot

REEL RETRO CINEMA: Nicholas Hammond turns 72! — UPDATED 5/15/22: Hey, guess what! Nicholas Hammond turns 72! Perfect time to re-present Rob Kelly’s REEL RETRO CINEMA column from our 2017 SPIDER-MAN WEEK! For the complete index of features, click here. — Dan — — By ROB KELLY For those who have never seen the original 1978-79 Spider-Man TV show (and that’s most of you, since it has never been released on Blu-ray, DVD or streaming), it was commissioned as a TV movie that would serve as a “backdoor pilot” to an ongoing series. The movie, which debuted in September 1977, was a ratings success, and after some post-pilot tinkering (cast changes, mostly) the series launched in April 1978. For some reason, instead of giving it a regular time slot, though, CBS used it as a heat-seeking missile, airing episodes in clumps to run against other networks’ hit shows, hopefully draining some of their audience away. In an age where you had to actually sit in front of your TV and watch a program lest you miss it forever, this was an insane, maddening strategy, and it couldn’t have done Spider-Man any favors. Anyway, Spider-Man tells the story you’re all familiar with, but with some major changes: Peter Parker (Nicholas Hammond) works as a photographer for the Daily Bugle, where he is on the receiving end of blustery abuse from publisher J. Jonah Jameson (David White). He is also a grad student, and one day while working on some experiments involving radiation, he sees an unwanted visitor. Peter gets bit, you know the rest. Except here, there is no Uncle Ben, so our hero’s decision to become Spider-Man is mostly done on a whim. Not too long after the spider bite, he notices he can climb walls, crawling all over the outside of the townhouse he shares with his Aunt May (Jeff–yes, Jeff–Donnell). After stopping a mugging by scaring the bejeezus out of the crook by scampering up an alleyway wall, he attracts the attention of random passersby — and then the Daily Bugle. Jameson wants pictures of this “Spider-Man” of course, so Peter goes home and makes himself a snazzy suit. For the most part, Hammond is fine in the part, if bland. He’s not given a lot of character stuff to work with, so the blame can’t really...

May07

The 1978 DR. STRANGE TV Movie Deserves a Good Second Look

Posted by Dan Greenfield on May 7, 2022

The 1978 DR. STRANGE TV Movie Deserves a Good Second Look

REEL RETRO CINEMA: New looks at old flicks — and their comic-book adaptations. Or at least old flicks with comics connections … — UPDATED 5/7/22: Hey, have you seen Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness yet? No spoilers here! Either way, dig this piece from 2016. Oh, and Shout! Factory is releasing this bad boy on Blu-ray. Right on. — Dan — By ROB KELLY With Dr. Stephen Strange joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s worth revisiting the first time the good doctor was attempted in live-action (though not in multi-media; you’d have to consult the late-’60s Dr. Strange radio show for that). So let’s grab our Eye of Agamotto and travel back to September 6, 1978. Dr. Strange was part of a wave of live-action superhero adaptations airing on CBS that included The Incredible Hulk, Captain America and Spider-Man. Each of those projects met with varying degrees of success, so I guess Marvel and/or Hollywood was feeling ambitious, and tried to adapt one of the company’s lesser-known, more fantastical properties. Dr. Strange has a fairly intense opening — over still shots of various Satan-y looking places, people and drawings is some heavy music that would have fit perfectly in a 1970s Italian horror film. If you didn’t already know Dr. Strange was based on a comic book, you’d have no idea from the opening crawl. We meet Morgan Le Fay (Arrested Development’s Mrs. Bluth herself, Jessica Walter) talking to some vague, sinister-sounding demon-y cloud thing about the fight between good and evil. Morgan is given her mission, one that involves destroying their mortal enemy –whom comic fans probably assumed was The Ancient One, the lord of mystic arts. Instead, in this movie it’s an old wizard named Lindmer (Oscar-winning actor John Mills) who is looking to pass his magic powers on to a successor. Morgan has three days to stop this, at all costs! We are then introduced to Wong (Clyde Kusatsu) in the Sanctum Santorum, who is caring for the old man. Lindmer seems to know trouble’s a-brewin’, so he instructs Wong to track down Dr. Stephen Strange, who is the son of the man who was potentially the next Sorcerer Supreme (ah, nepotism). When we first meet Dr. Strange (Peter Hooten), he is working at a psychiatric hospital, as well as working on some other...

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