The author of this review in one of his earlier texts described the first encounter with the concept of supply and demand. It was the consequence of my home town’s cinemas' inability to satisfy the film-viewing needs of the local population, a problem which was made worse by well-organised ticket scalpers. In the days before home video, when the only ways to watch films were either the cinema or national television, such activity was quite lucrative. One of the first occasions when my friends and I had to resort to ticket scalpers in order to watch a film was Spider-Man Strikes Back, a 1978 superhero film directed by Ran Satlof.
From today’s perspective it is very difficult to imagine that anyone would have to pay extra money to watch such a film. Spider-Man Strikes Back is not a feature film per se, but a theatrical release of "Deadly Dust", a two-part episode of The Amazing Spider-Man, a television series in which Nicholas Hammond played the first live-action incarnation of the famous Marvel superhero. The plot deals with Peter Parker working as a photographer for The Daily Bugle newspaper in order to finance his studies at New York State University. He, like his fellow students, becomes concerned with his professor conducting a potentially dangerous experiment with plutonium. Unlike Parker, three of his colleagues decide to do something about it and actually steal the plutonium in order to show how dangerous storing this radioactive material might be. When their actions fail to create a proper response, they decide to go even further and use the plutonium to build an atomic bomb. Their actions, however, catch the attention of music tycoon and arms dealer Mr. White (played by Robert Alda), whose goons steal the bomb. Parker must now locate the bomb and prevent White from using it for blackmailing purposes, while at the same time he must deal with Gale Hoffman (played by Joanna Cameron), an attractive reporter for a weekly magazine that has been tasked with interviewing Spider-Man.
Just like the pilot episode (which was also released theatrically on international markets), this film shows the serious limitations of 1970s US television in terms of budget and technology. Special effects are quite primitive and rather unconvincing, but unlike in the previous film, the producers didn’t resort to recycling scenes and instead relied more on unusual camera angles and stunt work, which at times has good results, as in the opening scene in which Spider-Man rescues a suicidal woman, or near the end when Spider-Man is left dangling from a helicopter. The script by Robert Janes is unburdened by the origin story and allows the plot to develop more naturally, even having time for some political discussions between Parker and The Daily Bugle secretary Rita Conway (played by Chip Field). The actual plot deals with serious and intriguing concepts of nuclear safety and concerns of terrorism, but the connection with the real world is compromised by the introduction of Mr. White, portrayed as a Bondian villain who likes to be surrounded by bikini-clad women while employing two henchmen whose main tool of intimidation is martial arts. Spider-Man actually appears relatively little in the film, which allows more opportunity for Hammond to show rather decent acting ability as Parker, constantly forced to make excuses as to why he and his friend Spider-Man can’t be seen together. A great asset of the film is Joanna Cameron, a former model who starred in a superhero show of her own called The Secret of Isis. She plays a very convincing Lois Lane-like reporter and has good chemistry with Hammond. Her presence is even more memorable due to scenes near the end when she appears in a bikini and when such fan service, unlike many similar examples of 1970s television, was actually given some sort of justification in the script. As a result, Spider-Man Strikes Back is better than the pilot episode and can provide a sufficient hour and a half of entertainment to a less demanding audience, although it is hard to imagine that anyone other than the most devout Spider-Man fans would pay extra to see it now.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
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