Friday, April 12, 2024

Ross Hagen in Wonder Women

(This post is part of the 2nd Annual Favorite Stars in B Movies Blogathon hosted by Films From Beyond The Time Barrier)

In the early days of cable, Wonder Women (1973) was a Saturday afternoon staple, an amazingly entertaining movie that crossed Dr. No with The Brain That Wouldn’t Die.

Ross Hagen plays Mike Harber, ex-CIA and LAPD, hired to locate a missing jai-alai player kidnapped by resident evil genius Dr. Tsu (Nancy Kwan), who is harvesting athlete’s body parts as transplants for her aging, wealthy patients. Doing Tsu’s dirty work is a crew of leggy Amazons outfitted in the shortest nighties possible (imagine Bambi and Thumper from Diamonds Are Forever as members of The Pussycat Dolls).

Dr. Tsu sends her minions to stop Harber, including Linda (Maria de Aragon) whom he picks up in a bar with some lame come-on lines. She tries to kill him the next morning, leading to a furniture-smashing, door-splintering knockdown battle and the film’s centerpiece, a seven-minute chase on foot and jeepney through the streets of Manila. Words cannot do it justice (although it does contain scenes that might be upsetting to some viewers).


But there’s more: a raid on Dr. Tsu’s heavily guarded island lair, Harber and the doctor participating in clothed “brain sex” and a facedown with Tsu’s lurching, grunting failed experiments before she escapes and Harber rescues the kidnapped jai-alai player.

Your brain sex headband or mine?

Hagen’s performance at times is low-key enough that he comes off like a sleepwalking James Bond, but maybe he played it exactly right. An experienced actor whose career began in 1966 with minor roles in seemingly every western and adventures TV series of the era (including a regular stint on Daktari) would know to not hit the pedal too hard while navigating through a careening, over-the-top movie like this.  

Or maybe he was drowsy from the heat. Wonder Women was filmed in the Philippines, apparently during typhoon season, and some outdoor shots seem to just drip humidity. As the film’s producer, Hagen arranged for a local hotel ballroom to be converted to a soundstage for some interior shooting.

Hagen returned to the Philippines in 1975 to star, again with Nancy Kwan, in Supercock, which despite its title is a PG-rated romantic/adventure story about championship cockfighting, legal then and now in the Philippines. The title is just the start of an endless barrage of double-entendres; Kwan – surpassing the brain sex scene in Wonder Women as a possible low point of her career – says of Hagen’s character after meeting him and his world-class fighting rooster, “He has the biggest cock I’ve ever seen.”

With his aviator shades and safari-jacket wardrobe, Hagen is nearly cosplaying Lee Majors in Wonder Women, but he’s a solid presence throughout this silly, totally entertaining movie. In a nearly five-decade career, Hagen was a B Movie triple threat as actor, director (1979’s The Glove with John Saxon and Rosey Grier) and producer. To my mind, he’s a first-ballot B Movie Hall of Famer.

 

 

14 comments:

  1. Frank, thanks so much for this fun review of Wonder Women -- love your description of Hagen as a "sleep-walking James Bond"! I am more familiar with Hagen's later career in the films of Fred Olen Ray and Jim Wynorski, but now I see I will have to check into this stage of his career as well!

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    1. Thanks Brian. You may want to avoid some of the motorcycle gang flicks Hagen made, they're pretty terrible.

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  2. This movie is new to me, but it sounds like a lot of fun. I looked up Ross Hagen on Wikipedia and he had quite a prolific career. Nancy Kwan was gorgeous.

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  3. The World of Suzie Wong was well behind her at this point, but she was always a lovely woman.

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  4. Sounds like exactly the kind of lowbrow trash that is my meat and potatoes. I'll have to see if i can find it.
    Quiggy

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    1. If you're looking for lowbrow trash, this will fit the bill nicely.

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  5. I had heard of this film but never knew much about it. If it is a hybrid of DR. NO and THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE, it covers the entire respectability range of genre filmmaking. This sounds like it still manages to be both lively and disreputable enough to get my twisted attention.

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    1. Yup, "lively and disreputable" certainly covers it.

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  6. OMG I've never heard of Wonder women and you're awesome review makes it sound like my kind of crazy! I have a soft spot for low budget 60s and 70s films so thank you for putting it on my radar!

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  7. You're welcome. It's worth tracking down.

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  8. This film may not be my thing, but I was intrigued by the clip you posted. That woman ran incredibly far in those shoes. A wonder woman indeed!

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  9. So when this aired on Saturday afternoons did the brain sex machine make the cut?

    Somehow I've never heard of Wonder Women. Sounds like some grade A cheese I need to check out.

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    1. The brain sex scene was left in; everyone was clothed and there was just a lot of squirming and funny smiles.

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