THE DOLL SQUAD (1973)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

THE DOLL SQUAD is definitely the best movie from the directorial chair of Ted V. Mikels. Of course, even the best Mikels is primarily enjoyable for its absurd cheesiness, though I give him sociological points for jumping on to the bandwagon of feminist heroism at the height of its seventies manifestations.

Everyone with an interest in cult film has probably heard the theory that SQUAD may have some marginal influence upon Aaron Spelling's CHARLIE'S ANGELS, which debuted three years after SQUAD hit theaters and which, like SQUAD, featured a heroine named Sabrina. If it's true that Spelling saw SQUAD, though, he probably saw it only as one of many grindhouse flicks that focused on kick-butt heroines, and so encouraged the producer to put forth his own take on the subgenre.

Anyway, SQUAD is very much a cheapjack "female James Bond" film, and the aforementioned Sabrina (Francine York) is the central heroine, while the other members of the Squad are really just her subordinates, distinguished only by their specialties-- sometimes combat-oriented, which others are of more questionable application to spy-missions, like psychiatry. The girls make use of a few spy-gimmicks, such as a lighter that spews flame, but most of them are unimpressive due to the budget. Of the other five Squad-sisters, only Tura (FASTER PUSSYCAT KILL KILL) Satana has garnered any grindhouse fame, though Lisa (HEE HAW) Todd shows up for a brief role as the villain's moll.

Said villain is former espionage agent Eamon O'Reilly (Michael Ansara). He starts off his campaign of evil by blowing up a US space rocket, and a government official (Anthony Eisley, third-billed despite a very brief presence on-camera) calls on Sabrina and her Doll Squad to investigate. However, O'Reilly anticipates the Squad's response and goes proactive, knocking off some of the group's ancillary members. This does nothing to stop Sabrina from figuring out his identity, whereon she reveals that she and O'Reilly were once lovers when he was on the side of right. In jig time Sabrina and her aides figure out where O'Reilly makes his base, and they plan to assault his island home. When Sabrina does invade and question her former squeeze, she learns that he plans to dominate the world with a plague of rats with bubonic plague-- apparently distributed from satellites, though Mikels had no budget for spacecraft models.

Given that Mikels films are notorious for their poor pacing, in which characters either stand around talking or walking around on low-energy errands, he actually gives SQUAD a little visual oomph. He gets a lot of health from the jazzy score of Nicholas Carras, whose tunes make the on-screen action more compelling than it would have been sans music. The first half of the film is still slow for all that, but at least it doesn't put you to sleep while waiting for the main set-pieces of the last half, the invasion of the base. This consists of Sabrina and her five subordinates, all clad in polyester leotards, infiltrating the poorly guarded island and taking out numerous guards with gunshots, high kicks and karate chops. The girls are clearly not real martial artists, but they look OK, though Mikels missed a bet by not allowing former PUSSYCAT Satana, the only one with a history of cinematic fighting, to strut her stuff. 

Mikels even delivers moderately well on the frustrated romance trope, having Sabrina captured by O'Reilly. They talk over old times, he tries to talk her into becoming his queen when he rules the world, and when she refuses, he claims he planned to kill her anyway. She gets the upper hand, albeit more through trickery than combat, and then the Squad gets away after blowing up the installation for a big finish (though I think they pretty much shot up all the guards). The ladies do lose one of their own in the conflict, but they show about as much reaction to the loss as if they'd smudged their mascara. 

Only once does the script, partly credited to the director, move into Ed Wood territory. Out of nowhere, the psychiatrist member claims that she thinks O'Reilly wants to conquer the world because he suffers from a castration complex brought on his mother not loving him. I hypothesize that whoever wrote this speech was imitating the sort of pop-Freudianism used by Ian Fleming to motivate his villains. But not only does the script not give the assertion even minor logic, there's no follow-up to the idea-- unless we're supposed to think that the Squad's assault on the villain's base mirrors the villain's fear of being destroyed by rampaging femininity...