"Wine, Women, & War" is the second of three TV-movies serving as precursors, if you will, to The Six Million Dollar Man becoming a regular series, which, as we have discussed before, began in the winter of 1974.
After a mission ends rather badly, Steve Austin (Lee Majors) talks his boss, Oscar Goldman (Richard Anderson, ex-Dan August), into letting him take a vacation. Ah, but Oscar wants Steve to finish the mission. In order to facilitate it, two other agents (Earl Holliman & Michelle Carey) are dispatched to the Bahamas. Convienently, they're joined by a Russian friend of Austin's (David McCallum, ex-The Man From U.N.C.L.E.). Eric Braeden (The Young & The Restless) and Britt Ekland also star. For Braeden, the former Hans Gudegast (Rat Patrol), this was a rare return to primetime.
Unfortunately, all we have is the open & close, complete with a cheesy theme song composed by producer Glen A. Larson (who was replaced by Harve Bennett when the series officially started), and sung by Dusty Springfield.
Each of the movies were later re-edited into two-part episodes of the series, which made them easier to include in syndication packages. If you get past the lame theme song, and Larson wrote better music than this, trust me, and get deep into the story, it isn't as bad as you might've been led to believe. Alan Oppenheimer replaced Martin Balsam as Dr. Rudy Wells, and appeared in a few series episodes before he was, in turn, replaced by Martin E. Brooks. Oppenheimer would then move on to voice work in cartoons, which, I think, he's still doing today.
Rating: B.
2 comments:
Oh lordy that theme song!
It sounds like a spoof of a Bond theme!
I hope the movies are shown in syndication. The Six Million Dollar Man series is currently running in marathons on Esquire Network.
As noted, the movies were re-edited into two-part episodes of the series, so Dusty Springfield's song likely has been edited out. Just as well.
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