Marvel Mondays #2 - Dr Strange (1978)

A year on from the first Spiderman film and Marvel were starting to get a foothold in the world of TV and cinema. As well as Spidey's TV series being commissioned, the Incredible Hulk would also make his small screen debut later in the year (although it's gonna be another decade before we see him on the big screen). So, plenty of scope for a third Marvel TV series given that the first two were doing well...who would it be? Iron Man? Captain America? The X-Men? The Fantastic Four?

Nope, Dr Strange.

Of course, thanks to the recent MCU film starring Benedict Cumberbatch, most fans now know who Dr Strange is but this must've seemed like a bit of a leftfield turn at the time as he wasn't exactly one of the better known Marvel characters. Nevertheless, fresh off picking up a hit with the Hulk series, Universal commissioned a pilot for a potential Dr Strange TV series. Unfortunately, unlike the big green dude, this one bombed and the series was quietly shelved. As with Spidey the year before though, the film was given a limited theatrical release internationally and as such it qualifies for this list.

I have to be honest, with the exception of the Incredible Hulk film (which is very much an "is it or isn't it?" affair in any case due to Edward Norton being in it instead of Mark Ruffalo), the recent "Dr Strange" is probably my least favourite of the modern day MCU films. Don't get me wrong, it's still a good film but as good an actor as ol' Benny C is, he feels a bit miscast in the role while the plot definitely had a few noticeable holes in it. Minor gripes in the big scheme of things but when you're in such high quality company as the other MCU films, it does end up being a bit noticeable if you're not quite as good. So how does this one compare?

Well, one change from the modern film, the villain in this one is female - Morgan La Fey the sorceress who has been sent to earth by some evil hell demon type thing to kill the Sorcerer Supreme Thomas Lindmer (played by John "him from Kula Shaker's grandad" Mills, kind of the replacement character for the comic books' Ancient One as played by Tilda Swinton in the more recent Dr Strange film) and stop him appointing a successor before his power runs out. Jessica Walter who plays La Fey is probably the highlight of the film as she nails the whole femme fatale thing pretty well.

La Fey possesses a woman called Clea Lake and sends her to kill Lindmer which she tries to do by throwing him off a pedestrian bridge on to a busy road below. Being a sorcerer though, Lindmer survives and deduces that La Fey is after him. After chatting things through with his right hand man Wong, he decides he'd probably better get on with appointing a successor sharpish and tells Wong to contact a Dr Stephen Strange who works as a psychiatrist (not a surgeon in this version) at the local hospital. As it turns out, Lake (now freed from La Fey's possession) has been checked into the hospital after a cab driver found her wandering dazed in the street in the early hours of the morning so Lindmer's basically got both the people he was looking for in one place which is handy.

The next half hour is a bit of a slowburn to be honest with a lot of dream sequences and people at the hospital trying to work out what's wrong with Clea. If I'm gonna be really cruel here, I could say that it gets a bit reminiscent of the awesome spoof '80s horror show "Garth Marenghi's Darkplace" at times but hey, let's give it a chance eh? Plus you can always marvel at Strange's impressive white man afro to while away the time if you get bored...

After a bit of persuading, Lindmer persuades Strange that Clea has slipped into a coma due to La Fey's spell and that in order to rescue her he's going to have to do a dimension jump type thing and enter a demon realm. Lindmer gives him a safe word to use if he needs to be recalled and we promptly get the most hilarious "Austin Powers on acid" style dimension jump sequence you ever did see.

Morgan attempts to stop Strange by sending some sort of evil demon knight after him (which is meant to be scary but...um, really isn't) but in a battle which looks like they did it in a warehouse with some glow in the dark scenery, Strange shouts the safe word, banishes the knight and rescues Clea.

Demon dude is not happy with Morgan who admits she's been taking it easy on Strange because she's attracted to him. Because, as we know, girls all used to go crazy over guys who looked like a grown up version of Screech from "Saved By The Bell" back in 1978. Possibly. Anyway, back on earth, Lindmer asks Strange if he wants to be his successor as per the prophecy. Strange says thanks but no way EVER am I doing any kind of dimension jump again. On his way out of Lindmer's house, he sees a black cat sheltering from the rain and, figuring it must belong to Lindmer, brings it in.

Schoolboy error - obviously it's La Fey who promptly battles and beats both Wong and Lindmer using some '70s laser special effects. This probably looked dead cool at the time but, as with a lot of '70s Marvel stuff, it hasn't exactly aged well.

Meanwhile, Clea has been discharged from hospital and asks Strange if he'd like to go out on a date with her. Because, as we've already established, white guys with afros were irresistible in 1978. However, on arriving at her flat, La Fey reappears and sends Clea into a trance ordering Strange to come with her if he wants to see her again.

La Fey and Strange arrive on the demon plane (which basically looks like a platform with skulls on it hanging in midair) where she tries to seduce him into joining her. She almost succeeds until he sees Lindmer crucified just behind their bed...yeah, I'd imagine that'd be a bit of a passion killer. Strange uses the thunderbolt from his sorcerer ring to burn away the thorns and makes his escape with Lindmer back to earth. Fire demon is so angry at this that he turns Morgan into an ancient hag as punishment.

Wong is there to meet them and after reviving Lindmer, they complete the ritual to transfer the power over to Strange (who gets a natty new set of robes in the process). Next day, Strange is back at the hospital and finally gets to go on his date with Clea although as they pass a television shop, they see Morgan back on earth and back to her old self now running a self-help class. This was obviously supposed to set her up as the main villain for a TV series that never happened.

While it isn't a classic and it definitely drags in places (though nowhere near as bad as the Spiderman film last week did), this film isn't anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be. True, it hasn't aged well and the action sequences look just a bit silly but if you're prepared to accept it for what it is (a late '70s straight to video movie essentially) then it it's a passable enough use of your time once you get to the halfway point or so. As mentioned earlier, Jessica Walter very much steals the show as Morgan La Fey and gives the film the main thing the Spiderman movie last week was lacking in a genuinely threatening main villain (though the whole subplot about her being attracted to Strange should've been ditched as it kind of detracts from her general bad-assness a bit). If they do make a follow-up to the recent Dr Strange film then I think there's certainly potential for a more modern version of the character to be reintroduced. Peter Hooten is decent enough as Dr Strange and the other characters are reasonably well-rounded. Overall, it's a bit daft and low budget but it could've been a lot worse...

FINAL RATING: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 (5/10)

CURRENT MARVEL LEAGUE TABLE

1. Dr Strange (1978) (5/10)
2. Spiderman (1977) (4/10)

NEXT WEEK: Spiderman goes to LA and fights the same two blokes for an hour and a half after some CND people build a nuclear bomb. I so wish I was making this up...