Wonder Women (1973)

I first saw Wonder Women (1973) decades ago, in either the late seventies or early eighties, when it was shown on late night TV, probably as part of one of BBC2's 'Horror Double Bill' seasons on a Saturday night.  To be honest, I remembered next to nothing about it, other than it was a fuzzily shot low-budget effort involving a lady mad scientist creating an army of super women via organ transplants.  Significantly, it served as my introduction to the world of Philippines shot horror and  science fiction B-movies - they are a sub-genre in themselves, often featuring the same, very recognisable, local character actors in support.  Even the locations become familiar - from the jungle interiors of the islands, with their isolated villages, to the dog-eared 'glamour' of big city Manila.  I rewatched Wonder Women over the weekend and was pleasantly surprised - it actually was nowhere near as bad as my vague recollections had led me to fear it would be.  Which isn't to say that it is some kind of lost minor classic - it still had all the hallmarks of a seventies Philippines shot programmer: the scuzzy looking location photography, shaky production values, slightly tinny sound quality and highly variable performances, for instance. Moreover, Vic Diaz and Sid Haig (with hair), without whom, it often seemed, no seventies Philippines exploitation movie would be complete, both play significant roles. It also featured that other essential characteristic of the genre: the B-grade American star whose career was on a downward trajectory.  For once, it wasn't John Ashley, but rather Ross Hagen, who spent the better part of his career bouncing between various low budget movie projects, mainly westerns and biker movies, and TV guest spots.  Though Hagen wasn't the biggest name involved in Wonder Women - starring as the villain was Nancy Kwan who, only a few years before, had been co-starring with the likes of William Holden, Dick Van Dyke and Dean Martin.

Hagen plays an international insurance investigator who, with is expensive tastes and flamboyant wardrobe, comes on like a low rent James Bond, toting a sawn off shotgun instead of a Walther PPK.  He's hired to look into the disappearance of a top athlete who, along with many others, has been kidnapped by Nancy Kwan's Dr Tsu to her island and cryogenically frozen until she can harvest their organs.  A brilliant scientist as well as a super villain, she is offering the world's wealthy the chance of rejuvenation using the stolen organs.  She is also carrying out other experiments on the side, aimed at creating a race of super-beings which have resulted, on the one hand, in a cellar full of human-animal hybrid mutants and, on the other, her gang of super-babes, the 'Wonder Women' of the title, who carry out the abductions for her.  Aside from this combination of ideas lifted from various other sources, loosely melded together into a ramshackle plot, Wonder Women is notable for including a number of surprisingly well staged action sequences.  These range from the opening scenes of the 'Wonder Women' kidnapping various victims to a lengthy chase through the backstreets involving Hagen, a pedal taxi and various henchmen.  Inevitably, the climax sees one of the 'Wonder Women' falling for Hagen's shop worn charms and changing sides, the mutants escaping from the cellar and a huge conflagration involving guards, 'Wonder Women' and mutants slugging it out, while Hagen mows down numerous people with a machine gun.  Director Robert Vincent O'Neil, (who had previously worked with low-budget legend David L Hewlett and would later write and direct the first two 'Angel' films), moves it all along at a frantic pace and, while it's on, Wonder Women is hugely entertaining.