Since exploding onto the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2016’s Doctor Strange, the eponymous hero--also known as the Sorcerer Supreme--has been a trusted ally in the fight against evil in several of the MCU films. But the 2016 movie was not the very first time that the mystical adventures of Doctor Strange was caught on film. Forty five years ago this year, a TV movie starring Peter Hooten as the heroic sorcerer was released. In the 1978 TV movie, Hooten’s Stephen Strange was a psychiatrist on staff at a hospital in NYC, when he comes across an interesting case.
A young woman (Eddie Benton) shows up in bad shape. Suffering from amnesia, she’s very disoriented and unsure of who or where she is. Yet the viewer has already seen what has happened to this woman, who turns out to be a college student named Clea Lake. Clea had been used as a pawn in a battle between sorcerers Lindmer (John Mills) and Morgan le Fay (Jessica Walter). The evil Morgan le Fay had used Clea--temporarily possessing her--into pushing Lindmer off of a pedestrian bridge. Although badly injured, Lindmer survives this attempted murder through his magic.
But as Dr. Strange soon discovers, Clea has been left seriously debilitated since she had been used as a puppet, and in this weakened state, she’s left highly susceptible to whatever dark magic is out there. And rest assured, there’s plenty more dark magic to come. The TV film version of Dr. Strange was meant to be a backdoor pilot for a TV series, which was never picked up, sadly. This TV movie was not only my very first exposure to this character as a boy, but also to a fascinating concept that the film proposed.
Up until that point in my young life, I was always intimidated by horror movies, and even horror stories and books. They often had these overwhelming threats--almost always supernatural in nature--that seemed just too big, too powerful, for any normal person to overcome. And if they did overcome them, it was usually at a great cost. But Dr. Strange posited that while there were indeed scary things that went bump in the night, there were also good sorcerers of equal power--like Strange--who actively fought against the darkness and all of its denizens.
This very same idea, of a super-powered human battling the forces of evil, would later be repeated with the marvelous Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series. Being originally introduced to this notion by the Dr. Strange TV movie was very empowering for me, and because of this, I was no longer intimidated by horror. Instead I embraced it by reading the Doctor Strange comics (since I was denied a TV series) and soon went on to read the works of Stephen King (and others) and started watching and enjoying horror movies.
Screen and stage star Sir John Mills, the father of actresses Juliet Mills (Nanny and the Professor) and Haley Mills (Pollyanna), lends the perfect air of legitimacy with his stately performance as Lindmer. Jessica Walter, who previously starred in Clint Eastwood’s Play Misty For Me, and would be better known for her later work on Arrested Development, easily holds her own as a malevolent villain who’s set upon her evil deeds. And Lindmer’s assistant, Wong, is well-played by veteran actor Clyde Kusatsu.
Forty five years on, the TV movie surprisingly holds up pretty well. Granted, the effects here may seem cheesy--especially compared to the VFX seen in the 2016 Doctor Strange, and its equally fun 2022 sequel--but they serve their purpose in the telling of this entertaining tale, which is basically an origin story for Strange, who inherits the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme from Lindmer. It’s a more subtle, less flashy take on Dr. Strange that I think still works. And with the MCU’s recent foray into the concept of multi-universes, I like to think that Peter Hooten’s Dr. Strange is still out there, somewhere, perhaps now recruiting a new apprentice to follow him as the Sorcerer Supreme. --SF
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