A film I have been meaning to look up for sometime now is Spectre (1977). This film was produced by Gene Roddenberry, the man who brought us Star Trek, aka The Great Bird of the Galaxy, and intended to be the pilot for a TV series about an occult detective and his sidekick. All I could remember of this film from when it was broadcast, in addition to it being a Roddenberry series pilot and dealt with the occult and paranormal, is that it starred Robert Culp. I am also pretty sure I had some film clips from it that I bought from Lincoln Enterprises way back in the day, and the clips must never have been mounted on slides as they aren’t with my boxes of slides. Darn shame there. Oh, yeah, and I remember that I really liked it, so I was disappointed it did not get picked up as a series.
Spectre (1977) - IMDB
The brief story line is that William Sebastian (Culp) and “Ham” Hamilton (Gig Young) travel to London to unravel a mystery surrounding Cyon (James Villiers) a high profile British financier, at the request of of Cyon’s sister, Anitra (Ann Bell). The plot thickens as they prepare to travel to England, during their flight, and shortly after their arrival, with many complications and a murder. Coupled with occult, paranormal, and a demon or two, it proves to be an interesting film. I don’t want to give away too much in case anyone reading this post takes an interest in watching the film.
Robert Culp and Gig Young - IMDB
Also, I didn’t remember that Majel Barrett (Nurse Chapel of Star Trek fame) also had a role in the film.
It is a hard film to track down, especially for watching here in the USA, but I did find a couple of complete film versions on youtube. If you search for it, you’ll find it, however the version that I found seems to be a decent grade copy, either recorded from a TV broadcast, or ripped from VHS or other media. It does not appear to be readily available except from aftermarket people selling print on demand copies in PAL format. I think it is a film that deserves a proper DVD release from the original production company. Also, you can tell it is the UK theatrical release as opposed to the US TV broadcast by the, um, revealing costumes shall we say.
Gig Young and Robert Culp in underground scene - IMDB
The pacing of the film is good, with the action progressing as Sebastian and Ham work towards unraveling the mystery, and how they solve the current dilemma with the demon at hand. There is also a fair amount of planning in the story as the heroes find a journal written in Coptic, which provides them some of the information they needed.
All in all I found it to be a darn good film, with a good cast, and production values, although the film is a bit dated by modern standards. The monster make-up, which reminded me of the Gorn from the Star Trek episode "Arena", was also a bit dated in comparison to current standards, but we are talking about a film that was originally made for television back in the mid ‘70s, and film making technology has changed immensely since then. However, the story itself holds up fairly well.
And yes, if there is ever a proper US DVD release of it, I’ll pick it up, but not a DVD-R made on demand version, though.
Thanks for stopping by, and if you take an interest to check out Spectre (1977), then I hope you enjoy it. And I still think it is a darn shame the series wasn’t picked up.
