Harockerce What a beautiful movie!

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Cristal The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Scott LeBrun Initially conceived as a "backdoor pilot" to a potential TV series, this adaptation of the Marvel Comics character does suffer from the limitations of a television level budget. Some people can look at this almost 40 year old telefilm and just see it as hopelessly cheesy. But it provides fairly good entertainment for any lover of fantasy. Written, directed, and executive produced by Philip DeGuere Jr., a TV veteran, it has its heart in the right place, and certainly conjures up some appropriately weird atmosphere.Playing his role with wit and charm, Sir John Mills ("Great Expectations" '46, "The Quatermass Conclusion") is an all-powerful Good sorcerer named Lindmer, who realizes that the passing of his baton is at hand. His successor will be a psychiatrist named Stephen Strange (Peter Hooten, "Orca", "The Inglorious Bastards"), whom he will have to convince to accept his destiny. Their nemesis is a beautiful witch named Morgan LeFay (Jessica Walter, "Play Misty for Me", 'Arrested Development'), sent from an alternate dimension to Earth to do battle with Lindmer once again.The lovely Anne-Marie Martin ("Prom Night" '80, 'Sledge Hammer') co-stars as Clea Lake, the young student with whom Strange becomes understandably enchanted. Top character actor Clyde Kusatsu ("Midway", "The Interpreter") is rock solid as Wong, Lindmers' loyal associate. Hooten is good as a skeptic and man of science who will have his consciousness raised. Walter delivers an appropriately campy (but not TOO over the top) performance as the villainess. Michael Ansara, Ted Cassidy, and David Hooks all provide voices, uncredited. But the real treat in watching 'Dr. Strange' '78 is savoring the performance of the legendary Mills.The music by Paul Chihara is fun, alternating between soaring orchestral music and creepy electronica. The sets are done well, and some of these visuals create a wonderfully trippy, psychedelic quality. This may further help to date the movie, but it does lend it some 70s charm.A nice diversion that might be just a little too spooky for the youngest of viewers, especially the character of The Nameless One.Seven out of 10.

kapelusznik18 ****SPOILERS**** Never making it beyond being a pilot for an upcoming TV series on the CBS TV network "Doctor Strange"-If you didn't know about him from "Marvel Comics -first comes across as a "Ben Casey" Doctor Kildare" 1960's TV medical series until the doctor on call Doctor Stephen Strange, Peter Hooten, realizes that he's here on earth not only to save lives but the entire planet from the red eyed and creepy looking "Nameless One",David Hooks. It's that "Nameless One" who sent out one of his or its flunkies Morgan Le Fay, Jessica Walters, from the depths of Hell to do in the old "Wizard of Good & Plenty" whom the handsome and youthful Doctor Strange , after he checks out for good, is to replace.Of course Doctor Strange has no ideas of what's going on in the movie until one of his patients Clea Lake, Eddie Benton, whom Morgan used to try to kill the Old Wizard, by pushing him over a highway overpass, spills the beans of what Morgan and her master the "Nameless One" are really up to. Which he at first foolishly dismisses as just pure hokum & hallucinations. It's when Doctor Strange meets the Old Wizaed and his faithful manservant Wong, Clyde Kusatsu, that he finally finds out what its all about and goes along with the program or script. That of him eventually taking over the Old Wizard's work by replacing him. As the one who'll keep the "Nameless One" from conquering the world and making it a living hell for everyone, man woman child as well as animal and plant life, living in it!***SPOILERS*** Strange as it sounds the film ends on a down note with the defeated Morgan Le Fay coming back from the dead or was it Hell hawking herself as some kind of self help Guru on TV with Doctor Strange and the by now totally cured Clea not at all recognizing her. Were soon given the impression that there's more to come with a TV series "The Amazing and Strange adventures of Doctor Strange" soon to hit the small tube. That of course didn't happen and now some 38 years later-in 2016-we can all gratefully assume that it never will!

Linda_S I absolutely adore this made for TV film. Frankly having just re-watched a VHS I have I would so love to have this on DVD. It gets NO AIRINGS on TV to my knowledge. Shame. I loved Peter Hooten and John Mills and Clyde Kusatsu. What a HOME Lindmer had!!! The vivacious Jessica Walter at her absolute sexiest! There is something very special about this film; a compassion, a humanity that can sometimes appear cheesy and forced in the medium however, despite what some may think, there is a genuineness about Hooten and Mills performances that I found so refreshing.Keeping in mind that this is made for TV and with a background that lends itself to formulaic triteness I think the crew did a heck of a job.The set for Lindmer's house is well done for a film with a rock bottom budget.Good versus Evil, as old as man, and this is a special entry in that genre.

balkaster ---SPOILERS, NOT PLOT RELATED---Comics fans will probably be disappointed with the number of liberties taken with the characters and their motivations (Strange gains his powers after being mutated by an alien machine, instead of through years of study and discipline; his mentor is an English dandy who just happens to live in Manhattan, instead of an ancient reclusive sage who lives in Tibet; Wong is a westernized valet instead of an Oriental mystical disciple; Clea is a ditzy grad student at NYU instead of an extra-dimensional sorceress-in-training; etc.), but the production values are surprisingly good for a low-budget TV production. Most of the supporting cast do their jobs credibly, but Peter Hooten is a cypher. He plays Strange as a somewhat vapid, self-absorbed disco-era playboy and projects no real sense of personality. Instead of being shocked or horrified by the mystical horizons revealed by the other characters, he just seems lost and maybe disinterested. As an example of failed 1970's Marvel Comics TV adaptations (the others that come to mind are "Amazing Spider-Man" with Nicholas Hammond, and "Captain America" with Reb Brown), this is the best of a very bad lot. A marginally better "Strange" derivative is "Doctor Mordrid" with Jeffrey Combs and Brian Thompson.