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Bionic Review: Wine, Woman and War (1973)

Posted in Bionic Man, movies, pop culture, Six Million Dollar Man, TV shows with tags Bionic Man, Bionic Review, movies, pop culture, Six Million Dollar Man, SMDM Movie, TV shows on January 28, 2013 by Paxton

After the original Six Million Dollar Man TV movie, there were two more produced and both of them aired in 1973. The first was called Wine, Women and War and aired on Oct 20, 1973. Here’s an ad from a 1973 newspaper featuring the TV listing for this movie. Lee Majors’ picture is on the right, the blub about the movie is in bold in the far left column.

SMDM - Wine Women War

Wine, Women and War doesn’t go directly to the action, it actually has an opening title sequence. And it’s an awesomely 70s opening sequence with an awesomely 70s theme song by Dusty Springfield. Check it out.

“Catch him if you can, feed him if you can, love if you CAAAAAAAAAAAN! He’s the Six Million Dollar MAAAAAAAN!” Amazing, isn’t it?

So, right off the bat we see a few things that are new. Richard Anderson debuts as Oscar Goldman and Alan Oppenheimer debuts as Rudy Wells taking the place of Martin Balsam. You also notice the absence of Darren McGavin as Oliver Spenser. This movie was sort of an overhaul of the Six Million Dollar Man as far as the cast goes. Only Lee majors would remain. The weekly television series would have been in production at this point as its debut was only months away in Jan 1974. I assume the player pieces were falling into place. The story concepts were still being worked out, though, as the story for this movie is essentially, “What if James Bond were bionic?”. This movie is a complete rip-off of the Bond franchise. Austin is treated as the debonair super-spy.

smdm_www_title2

So the story begins with Austin on assignment in Egypt to steal an arms dealer’s catalog. In classic Bond fashion we see Austin pull off his wet suit to reveal a fully dry tux underneath. Later, during the action, Austin’s female companion is killed. Afterwards Steve is reluctant to go out on another assignment so Oscar arranges for a vacation. However Oscar doesn’t tell Steve that the vacation is actually his next assignment, just manipulated by OSI agents that are following along to look like a vacation. Oscar can be kind of a dick. Although we do get to see Steve mistake a lady who is flirting with him on his plane for a prostitute. That was pretty funny. And plenty of other Bond-like double entendres ensue throughout the movie.

So Steve discovers Oscar’s ruse and stumbles upon the trail of the previously mentioned arms dealer and Steve goes after him hoping to get revenge for his companion’s death. Like I said, all very Bond-like.

Honestly, on one level it totally works. It’s just so absurd and contrary to the Austin we come to know in the TV series that it’s almost fun to watch.

I can recommend this, but honestly, you can’t really watch it as a Six Million Dollar Man movie/episode. It’s a spy movie that just happens to have Steve Austin, the bionic man.

Bionic Review: The Six Million Dollar Man TV movie (1973)

Posted in pop culture, Six Million Dollar Man, TV shows with tags Bionic Review, movies, pop culture, Six Million Dollar Man, SMDM Movie, television, TV shows on December 21, 2012 by Paxton

Steve Austin first appeared on TV in the made-for-television movie The Six Million Dollar Man which was broadcast in March 1973. It appeared as the ABC Wednesday Movie of the Week. Here’s an item from the TV section of a 1973 newspaper announcing the airing of the movie. You can see Lee Majors’ picture in the upper left and the mention of the movie is in the upper right. Majors is sporting a pretty hardcore 70s mustache in that picture which he does NOT have in the movie.

Unlike the other bionic TV movies (and TV show), there really is no “title sequence” per se in this special. This particular movie starts with a computer screen telling the viewer the definition of the word cyborg and then cuts directly to a desert airfield and the movie title over Lee Majors walking towards camera. smdm_pilot1 The very first scene is the airplane crash that will create the future bionic man. We then get all the setup with the OSO, or Office of Special Operations (changed to OSI, Office of Scientific Investigation, in the subsequent movies and TV show). A man named Oliver Spencer, Oscar Goldman won’t appear until the second movie, is petitioning for money to create a “cyborg” for use in special ops. Oliver Spencer is played very cold and calculating by Darren McGavin who would famously play the Old Man in A Christmas Story. Spencer approaches Dr Rudy Wells, played by Martin Balsam, to convince Steve to volunteer to become their cyborg.

Most of the TV movie follows the original book, Cyborg, fairly closely. The movie focuses on Steve coming to grips with his bionic limbs and being trained to go out on missions. Majors plays Austin as very reluctant to accept the limbs and even when he does accept them, he still has a lot of problems understanding why they would want to do that to him and what is eventually going to be the cost to him. After all of the psychological drama, Spencer sends Austin on his first mission and we find out that it’s essentially a suicide mission. One that Spencer wants to see if Austin can complete. He remarks to Rudy that they can always build another bionic man. Totally cold and hardcore, that Spencer.

This was a pretty good beginning. It wasn’t great, but it was good. A little slow in parts, but overall, I enjoyed it. It should be noted that the bionic sound effect most identified with the show is not present here. It had yet to become a staple in these early adventures. It’s honestly weird to see Austin perform bionic feats and not have the bionic sound. It just doesn’t sound “right”. Other than that, I like Lee in this role and I look forward to the two other TV movies.

It’s interesting to note, though, that years later this TV movie was subsequently re-edited for syndication as a two-part episode called The Moon and the Desert. This newer edit puts a later season intro on the episodes which is confusing considering the episodes’ content. Also, Martin Balsam returned to do some voice over work to help bridge some of the disjointed scenes. That in and of itself is off putting since Balsam never played Rudy Wells on the TV show, it was Allen Oppenheimer. Also, since this syndicated cut was created after the show had gone off the air, there were several other scenes that were added from later season Six Million Dollar Man and even Bionic Woman episodes. It’s a pretty crazy and baffling amalgamation of footage. Surprisingly, the syndicated “Moon and Desert” episodes are included as a bonus feature on the complete series box set. However, they are really only good to watch as a curiosity and not very entertaining.

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Bionic Reviews: Cyborg #3 – High Crystal by Martin Caidin (1974)

Posted in Bionic Man, books, pop culture, Six Million Dollar Man, TV shows with tags Bionic Review, Book Report, books, pop culture, reviews, Six Million Dollar Man, SMDM Book, TV shows on September 27, 2012 by Paxton

The third book in Martin Caidin’s Cyborg series starring Steve Austin is Cyborg #3: High Crystal. It was published in hardback in 1974.

High Crystal hardback High Crystal US pb

The story for this book has it’s origins in another popular book from the early 70s called Chariots of the Gods, which I read many years ago. Essentially, Chariots involves an investigation of ancient civilizations that display a certain “technology” they had no way of obtaining. And the theory of how these early civilizations got that technology was…aliens. Yes, that book is a little ridiculous. The situations it investigates are very real, but the theories used to explain the situations are “out there”. But High Crystal takes the ancient civilization and their access to “high technology” and uses it to form an interesting mystery. Honestly, based on the fact that this book had it’s roots in Chariots of the Gods and revolved around what seemed to be a “magic energy crystal”, I was not looking forward to reading this book. It sounded straight up 70s and Bohemian. Not exactly what I was looking for in a Six Million Dollar Man book. But due to my current obsession with all things bionic, I read the book anyway.

High Crystal UK pb

The story begins with a spy plane being downed in the mountains of Peru. The one surviving member of the crew discovers a man-made roadway traveling through the mountains where no civilization currently exists, or any civilization has existed in thousands of years. So, when he returns to his superiors, they are obviously interested in what’s going on. Steve joins a group of scientists and soldiers on a mission to discover the road and find out where it came from and where it leads. Along the way they discover that a criminal organization will do anything to keep the discovery to themselves.

I was surprised how much better this book is than Operation Nuke. There are still some problems with Caidin’s overly descriptive writing, which is odd considering his books are usually sub-200 pages. But the feel of this book was fun and much more energetic than the last book. This book’s events had the historical roadtrip feel of something like Matthew Reilly’s 7 Deadly Wonders or even Raiders of the Lost Ark. And there is lots of bionic action by Steve Austin. Since they are trudging through the Peruvian jungles, there are plenty of places for Steve to methodically chop through underbrush or stare down a cougar (yes, that actually happened). And it helped that Steve and his group were being chased by the criminal organization throughout their trip which gives you the “ticking clock” suspense that was lacking in the second book. Once they discover what is at the end of the road, it isn’t disappointing. And the group seems to barely escape whatever happens to them. The book even leaves a sort of “not quite finished” ending you expect from a story like this. So this was a MUCH better read than the last book and it felt like it could have been a later season episode of the series. However, unfortunately, this book was not adapted into an episode of the TV series. There were some elements like the ancient civilizations that made it into the third Six Million Dollar Man TV movie, Solid Gold Kidnapping, but it was just one small element and none of the rest of the story made it. It’s a shame, this would have been a good episode (or TV movie).

There’s only one more book left in the original Caidin Cyborg novels, Cyborg IV. I look forward to reading it. It sounds like it could be amazing.

Bionic Reviews: Cyborg #2 – Operation Nuke by Martin Caidin (1973)

Posted in Bionic Man, books, Six Million Dollar Man, TV shows with tags Bionic Review, Book Report, books, pop culture, reviews, Six Million Dollar Man, SMDM Book, TV shows on August 27, 2012 by Paxton

This is an ongoing feature where I read, watch and review books, comics and TV shows featuring The Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman. Click the Bionic Review banner to see the Bionic Review archive page. Click the smaller banner to see only those specific reviews.

One year after Cyborg, in 1973, Caidin released his followup Steve Austin novel, Operation Nuke.

Cyborg 2

The original hardcover release is on the left. At this point, the original book was being adapted into the first The Six Million Dollar Man TV movie. As you can see, the paperback cover for this book on the right follows the same design as the later cover for Cyborg with Lee Major’s face and the mention of the TV show at the top. By the time this book hit paperback, The Six Million Dollar Man had three TV movies and was beginning its regular season run.

Cyborg 2 Operation Nuke

This is a good 70s “spy novel” but it’s not a great Bionic Man (or Cyborg) novel. Literally, Steve Austin doesn’t use any of his superhuman bionic abilities until like page 135 (of 175 pages). And he doesn’t use them again after that either. Also, at the beginning of the novel, when he’s getting his assignment, he is asked how much he knows about nuclear devices. Steve says that he had to actually build a nuclear device for one of his instructional classes with the military. This is very convenient considering the plot. And for something he did so long ago, the book makes Steve out to be a nuclear physicist with intimate knowledge of the inner workings of all nuclear bombs. That got old after a while.

Steve Austin spends most of this book infiltrating a criminal military organization in order to find out who is the leader and where they are getting their nuclear weapons. A task that doesn’t require the use of any bionic limbs. He finally uses his bionics at the end of the book when he has to carry a nuclear device from one room to another and he manages to disarm that device despite not ever seeing the insides or how it was built.

So, this was a less than satisfactory story if you are coming in expecting bionic action like the first novel. Even for a regular 70s spy novel it leaves a little something to be desired. Another thing that makes it tough to read is Caidin’s writing style. Caidin tends to describe things a lot. He may start off a chapter or section of a chapter by talking about certain objects or the surrounding environment and it’ll take a page and a half before people start talking or some action pertaining to the story happens. It causes the reader to “skip ahead” a bit to get things moving. So, all in all, this was a very disappointing book. Hopefully the next book will deliver more bionic goodness.

Bionic Reviews: Cyborg by Martin Caidin (1972)

Posted in Bionic Man, books, pop culture, reviews, Six Million Dollar Man, TV shows with tags Bionic Review, Book Report, books, pop culture, reviews, Six Million Dollar Man, SMDM Book, TV shows on June 21, 2012 by Paxton

This is the first of an ongoing feature where I read, watch and review books, comics and TV shows featuring The Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman. Click the Bionic Review banner to see the Bionic Review archive page. Click the smaller banner to see only those specific reviews.

The Six Million Dollar Man began as a 1972 super-spy novel called Cyborg by Martin Caidin. It was a classic 70s spy book but with the added fantastical elements of human biological enhancements (called bionics).

Above are two paperback covers for the book. I own both. On the left is one of the original paperback covers with no mention of The Six Million Dollar Man on the cover. On the right is a later paperback edition with not only a bolded and underlined mention of the show at the very top, but Lee Majors’ face in the lower right. The cover on the right would actually be modified and used again for the sequel novel, Cyborg 2: Operation Nuke when it hit paperback.

Cyborg would not be the first time Caidin wrote about bionics. In 1968 Caidin wrote The God Machine which dealt with the topic of bionics and artificial intelligence. Caidin would incorporate those aspects into this novel. Caidin wrote Cyborg as the first in a series. The book was picked up and adapted into the first Six Million Dollar Man TV movie in 1973. The studio made a few small changes to the character of Steve Austin for the TV show. The biggest change would be to Austin’s bionic eye. In the novel the eye is blind for Austin. However it is outfitted with a microfilm camera and a laser. Yes, he can shoot lasers out of his bionic eye, which is crazy-awesome and I wonder why they didn’t incorporate that in the show (well they did, but only in Austin’s son during one of the reunion movies). Also, the TV version of Austin is much more powerful and can run faster than the book version. They also toned down the hardcore grittyness of the spy novel for the TV series.

Cyborg UK cover Cyborg novel

So, how is the book? It’s actually a pretty good 70s spy novel. It sets up the origin of Steve Austin and his accident in much the same way the TV show did. It spends a believable amount of time on the bionic surgeries as well as his rehabilitation both physically and mentally to his new bionic parts. If anything is different than the TV show it’s that you don’t get the awesome “bionic sound” whenever Steve uses his abilities and, like I said, the performance of his “bionic parts” is slightly different. Steve gets the same bionic parts in the book that he does in the show (right eye, left arm, both legs) but he also gets a steel plate in his head and a radio transmitter in one of his ribs.

There are two good missions Steve goes on in this novel. One is a “water mission” so we see Austin’s bionic enhancements helping him in the ocean. He gets to use his “critical mission” limbs that let him swim faster and and breathe underwater by hooking up his scuba breather to his leg. Pretty awesome. Steve also goes on a desert mission where he’s stranded for what seems like days. Many good uses of his bionics in this book.

So, yes, this book is pretty good. Typical 70s spy novel. It’s a bit slow in parts (as 70s novels tend to be), but intersting enough for me to keep reading. I definitely look forward to reading more about the literary Steve Austin.

Caidin wrote three sequel novels to Cyborg. All of Caidin’s Austin novels stay true to the original and do not incorporate the character elements of the TV show.

Check out other Bionic Reviews on the Bionic reviews archive page.

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