User Reviews

MASTER PLAN: blow up rockets, get a microfilm and spread a bubonic plague - whew, the villain is busy in this one. Though a fan of seventies cinema, I've missed seeing this film until now and it really does seem like an earlier version of "Charlie's Angels," beating the TV series to the screen by a few years. But, this is much more violent compared to that safe TV style; in fact, there's also more of that seventies brutality here when comparing this to the James Bond films, the other franchise this movie sort of emulates. Neither side in this film, meaning the good gals and the bad guys, messes around. In an early sequence of scenes, the villain (Ansara) sends some assassins for a preemptive strike against the squad; one assassin shoots a squad member twice in the head at point blank range and still checks to make sure she's dead. Meanwhile, the Dolls deal with the villain's guards by having them swallow pills which literally make them explode. The squad's leader avoids her own assassination in a particularly heated fashion. These babes are brutal, in that cheap thrill sort of way, and terming them as a 'Doll Squad' is actually a bit insulting.

Most of the complaints about this film have to do with it being dull and, yes, there are a few slow spots, but, despite the obviously cheap quality of this Bond-wannabe, it's surprisingly entertaining. Just as in the first Flint film "Our Man Flint," a computer selects the ideal agents for the mission, requested by a senator & intelligence supervisor (Eisley); this also reminded me of the "Mission:Impossible" TV series. There had been other female Bond films, such as "Modesty Blaise;" this one presents a whole team. Most of the plot involves their plans to raid the villain's stronghold where, in the tradition of villains with unlimited funds, he employs his own private army. The last third is the actual attack, and there's much gunplay and karate chopping, not to mention explosions matted in optically (real explosions were probably too expensive, but there's a certain charm to these FX). The squad leader (York) has a personal history with the villain, who delays killing her because of this. York is pretty good in the role, not just a talentless bimbo, while Ansara excelled in these melodramatic larger-than-life roles. This also features a unique film appearance by Satana, who became a cult star in "Faster Pussycat..Kill!Kill!" but appeared in very few movies afterward. The climax even resembled the climactic action of "The Dirty Dozen" - femme fatale style, of course. Heroines:6 Villain:6 Male Fatales:5 Henchmen:5 Fights:5 Stunts/Chases:4 Gadgets:3 Auto:3 Locations:3 Pace:4 overall:4+

The only other Ted V. Mikels film I had seen before this is "Blood Orgy of the She-Devils". And the only thing I remember about it is that it was completely awful. Thankfully, "The Doll Squad" is considerably better. It is crudely directed, with often poor continuity and laughable "special effects" (low points: the fake explosions). But it is also ahead of its time: how many films do you suppose had been made before 1973 featuring female commandos using guns, explosives and martial arts to wipe out small armies of bad men? Not many, that's for sure. Whether dressed in their bikinis or in their tight, form-fitting uniforms, the women in this film look good, and handle their basic action scenes fairly well. So "The Doll Squad" may not be art (far from it, in fact), but from a female action cinema fan's perspective, it delivers where it counts. (**)

Perhaps it would take a trained psychotherapist to figure out why I persist in renting out movies by director/producer Ted V. Mikels, after so many repeated disappointments. From bad ("Blood Orgy of the She Devils") to worse ("The Corpse Grinders"), from rock bottom ("The Astro-Zombies") to repugnant ("The Worm Eaters"), the man has let me down time and again. Yet I had to go take a look at his 1973 offering, "The Doll Squad," despite all that, AND despite the fact that I've never been a fan of the overrated '70s TV phenomenon "Charlie's Angels," which this flick supposedly served as inspiration for. Well, the good news is that this Mikels effort may be marginally better than those others; the bad news is that, well, this is still a Mikels film, to which he brings his patented...what's the opposite of "touch of gold"? Touch of crap? The story here concerns an ex-government agent, played by Michael Ansara, who's been blowing up U.S. rockets and is threatening the world with bubonic plague, and the efforts of Doll Squad leader Sabrina (Kincaid, not Duncan) and her kick-ass babes to stop him cold. Though the film's first 15 minutes or so, featuring the gruesome murders of two of the Dolls, are promising, the picture quickly deteriorates into the typical Mikels mishmash of lousy direction, poor editing and awful FX. Though the Dolls are pretty fierce in action, more than willing to shoot their foes in the back or when they're already unconscious, most of that action is confined to murky, hard-to-follow gunplay. Francine York, it must be allowed, is pretty good as the head Doll, and quite a package to look at, as is everyone's favorite pussycat, Tura Satana. A larger budget and a more accomplished filmmaker might have been able to salvage what on paper must have seemed a pretty reasonable entertainment. As it is, if I ever rent out another Ted V. Mikels movie, someone, please, institutionalize me!!!

Ted V Mikels is a kitsch director whose best work rises above practical efforts at criticism. He produced the films most highly regarded amongst a coterie of fans over just few years: ‘The Astro Zombies' (1969), ‘The Corpse Grinders' (1972), and ‘Blood Orgy of The She Devils' (1972), each have their following and have endured on video. As the last of Mikel's trash favourites to appear, 'The Doll Squad' contains the least horror and fantasy and, in comparison to it's predecessors, adheres more closely to a logical dramatic structure. Since then, although he had remained active - most recently with ‘Dimension of Fear' (1998) - Mikels has produced nothing else regarded by fans with such long-lived affection. Firmly in the realms of so-bad-it's-good, the years have added an enjoyable sheen to ‘The Doll Squad', particularly now that it can be taken with the gloss of post-modern irony.

This is the film whose central premise - Mikels allegedly claimed - was ripped off by producer Aron Spelling to become the television series ‘Charlie's Angels'. No doubt the reissue of ‘Doll Squad' has also been at least in part inspired by the commercial success and marketing of the big screen version of that programme. Comparison of Mikels' film with Spelling's work does reveal similarities. But nothing in the TV ‘Charlie's Angels', or the recent Hollywood outing compares to Mikel's wide-eyed glance at the genre, the cheesy pulchritude on display and his disregard for dramatic standards.

The Doll Squad is selected for assignment by computer, after it picks up 'something in O'Riley's personality which means experienced women should do the job' of stopping him. 'Experience' in this context naturally implies more than just familiarity with tough assignments. The squad of Sabrina, Liz, Sharon, Lavelle and Kim hail from different backgrounds, including a librarian, a scientist, karate instructor and, most noticeably, erotic dancer (played by Tura Satana, the Apache-Japanese better known for her role in Russ Meyer's far more provocative 'Faster Pussy Cat, Kill Kill!' (1965)).

It might be argued that, as a group of strong assertive women, the Doll Squad is a model of feminine self-reliance. After all, they are empowered to find and stop the villainous O'Riley by a senator, and are allowed complete independence and licence for the duration of their mission. But their assertiveness is essentially apolitical and, except for their expected impact on the criminal community, always non-threatening and contained within fantasy. The choice of squad personnel, obviously intended as a cross section of female society, merely emphasises a common voluptuousness. In tandem with the women's physical stamina, Mikel creates through this all-too familiar trash archetypes

Leaving aside its relationship to 'Charlie's Angels', the most striking element of Mikels' film is its flat playfulness. Like most favourite cult trash directors, he is cheerfully oblivious to the handicaps of abilities and material. For the viewer, of course this is part of the fun. It would be pointless here to refer in detail to the fluffed lines, one-dimensional plot and rudimentary cutting and pacing. Instead, a viewer best engages with the film on a naïve level, such (presumably) as the director/producer/co writer did, or by assuming a knowing camp sophistication. There's more than a degree of that to be found in the flame-thrower cigarette lighter, for instance, the lame kung fu, or the exploding poison. These days ‘The Doll Squad' is more likely to leave the knowing viewer with a wink than a grimace, as it plays its simple variation on the espionage thriller. As a z-grade auteur, Mikels, resolutely goes his own way in the film, immune to the strictures of any ‘responsible' judgement, incidentally striking a chord with the modern viewer which he could hardly had anticipated at the time.

However one approaches the film, it still has the distinct straight-faced charm which has kept it a favourite down the years. Helped by a surprisingly strong musical score, and photographed competantly, ‘The Doll Squad', beehive hair cuts and cheesy décor intact, has dated pleasantly and remains a guilty pleasure.

Director Mikels claims this was the inspiration for "Charlie's Angels." Maybe so or maybe not, but this film turns out to be a fairly standard 3 girl/4 girl formula exploitation acioner. Some funny scenes, like the exploding enemy agents. Satana is wasted in a supporting role. This one probably satisfied the drive in crowd in 1973, but it doesn't have too much to recommend it now, even to fans (like me) of this stuff, because it's a bit too clunky.

Being an avid moviegoer and a frequent renter and buyer of DVDs, there's always something intriguing about DVDs of low-budget films made in the 1970's that I've never heard of. Does this film deserve a bigger release? Could this DVD have benefited from more special features? Is it a hidden gem over which the big studios just passed? Above all, though, is the movie worth watching? Sadly, in regards to "The Doll Squad", the answer to all these questions is "No".

The DVD copy of "The Doll Squad" is one I found while browsing through a discount outlet, and it only cost me $0.50 to purchase. It was labeled as a "Cinema Cult Favorite", which is a label that can be unfair to quality cult classics. To me, the term "cult favorite" describes a film that, while underrated at the time of its release, has since developed a following of devoted fans that watch the film again and again, and take real meaning out of it. Unfortunately, to some DVD distributors, the term means a film that just hasn't been seen very many times.

There are some qualities of this film that, at first glance, make it a potential cult favorite. After all, the film has heroines, not heroes, who kick ass and take names. However, women as action stars means nothing if you don't make the characters interesting, and you don't care about the mission they are pursuing.

Such is the case of this movie, which has a plot that is very run-of-the-mill, half-baked characters, horrible actors playing them, and cheap special effects that look cheaper because the foundation of a story makes the house crumble and fall.

Watching this film in 2010, the film will lose you in the opening sequence when Senator Stockwell is watching a space shuttle launch. The space shuttle launches successfully off the ground, but once it reaches the stratosphere, it explodes. When this actually happened to the Challenger in 1986, there was a public outcry. In this movie, Senator Stockwell says in a monotonous voice, "Oh no. All those men."

Sadly, the explosion comes as no surprise because of a threatening recorded message to the Senator from Eamon O'Reilly (Michael Ansara, who is perhaps the most interesting character in this film), an American terrorist whose quest for world domination also includes injecting the rest of the world with a bubonic plague. Only one team of agents can stop them, primarily because the leader of the group, red-headed Sabrina Kincaid (Francine York), had a prior relationship with O'Reilly.

Sabrina works to bring the team together as they work during their day jobs. One woman works as a stripper, another one is a champion swimmer, another works in an amusement park, and there are two more who have different jobs I can't recall. Even though they have different hair colors and occupations, once they put on uniforms and tote guns, they may be a force with which to be reckoned, but their personalities are pretty much all the same. As a result, there's no one about whom you really care.

There is a lot of shooting and a lot of explosions. In fact, it's strange how the fire resulting from the explosions looks perfectly round and doesn't completely cover the person or thing that is exploding. It's almost as if the editor just put a match to a frame and printed it that way. There's also a scene early in the movie where a blond woman gets shot through the head, and when she turns afterwords towards the camera, the wound looks more like a bug bite.

The writer and director Ted Mikels had something here with women who have power and do justice. The problem is that Mikels focused more on the shooting and killing these women did than the reason why they did it. Action is exciting, but action without a story is like horse legs without the horse.

I hate ripping on Mikels for this film because he has made a number of low-budget films up to 2009, and there's something to say about someone being that committed. He's like Russ Meyer with a little less street credibility. If Mikels had collaborated with someone else on this script (perhaps a woman), he would have had something here, and the cheapness of the physical effects would be forgiven. A female writer probably could have told him, for starters, that if you want to make a movie about strong protagonists with two X chromosomes, don't have the men in this movie call them the DOLL squad. It could be why Gloria Steinam stayed away from this film.

Years ago, French film critics/authors (such as Truffaut and Godard) came up with what's called the 'Auteur Theory'. This states that the director's voice or personality comes out through his work. And, they felt that great 'auteurs', such as Howard Hawks, Jean Renoir and Alfred Hitchcock were to admired, studied and celebrated. However, this auteur theory only emphasized GREAT filmmakers. I have my own auteur theory---the 'anti-auteur theory'--and it emphasizes the absolute worst directors--folks who also, incidentally, usually wrote, produced and edited their films. Why? Because the films were so low-budgeted and crappy, no one else would dare do these jobs and they're mostly, unintentionally funny!! Of course, there are the well-known auteurs in my theory--such as Ed Wood Jr.. But there are also many other filmmakers waiting to be discovered by the lovers of horrible films--with a ton of inept and totally stupid films that reflect the personal vision of the likes of Larry Buchanan, William Grefe, Al Adamson and Ted V. Mikels. All these guys managed to carve out a niche for themselves as the absolute worst in their field. And, unlike the rest, Mikels is STILL working and has managed a difficult achievement--the more films he makes, the worst the results!!

In light of my love of the anti-auteur theory, it's not surprising that I'd watch "The Doll Squad". Unfortunately, while it's a god-awful film, it's not as bad as some of his more recent efforts like "Apartheid Slave-Women's Justice" and "Cauldron: Baptism of Blood"--though it's hard to imagine ANY films being as bad as these two! Like any Mikels film, "The Doll Squad" features terrible acting, terrible writing, terrible direction and a laughable plot. But, unlike most of his films, it actually has a couple real actors in the film. Somehow Michael Ansara and John Carter got hooked into this one--and I assume it MUST have been the result of some blackmail scheme!

The film begins with the launch of a Saturn V rocket. While it's approaching the outer atmosphere, the Senator receives a call from an unknown voice telling him that he's about to demonstrate his power--and only seconds later the rocket explodes! What does the Senator do? Yup, he calls for the Doll Squad--a group of women with big hair and attitude! In many ways, it's like a grade-z version of "Charlie's Angels" but with even less impressive martial arts skills! And, surprisingly, the film is a bit slow and dull--even with such a wonderfully cheesy premise. Plus, its soundtrack will make you want to rip off your ears--it's so crappy and repetitive! However, because one or two scenes are actually somewhat watchable (such as the exploding guards), it manages to score a 2--an excellent achievement for a Mikels film.

By the way, Mikels has directed, written and/or produced some other horrible worst films in history such as "The Astro Zombies", "Girl in Gold Boots" (currently in IMDb's Bottom 100 List), "Blood Orgy of the She-Devils", "The Corpse Grinders", "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" and "The Worm Eaters". Many are available from Netflix and you have to see a couple just to understand how bad these films can be! Although, I must admit, the titles of the films are awfully clever and a clear indicator of the sorts of films you can expect!

The Doll Squad was an Americanized spin on the James Bond film series. It could've been a cinematic inspiration for Charlie's Angels. Well received among movie goers in it's day, The Doll Squad was a popular movie. If you are unfamiliar with older films in you should try watching this one. Doll Squad is straight forward and fun. It's not an avant guard art film, it's an action spy movie from the 70's.

Did this film inspire "Charlie's Angels" in 1975? TV producer Aaron Spelling must have caught this on the Late Late Show before doing the series. There are too many similarities: an elite band of beautiful, female crime-fighters (including one named Sabrina) engage in lame karate fights, display lots of cleavage, and wear bikinis as often as possible. And, as in the TV series, cheesy graphics are employed to facilitate quick scene transitions. Reportedly, Mikels sued Spelling for stealing his concept. Unfortunately, thanks to a uniformly lazy and inept execution by all involved, the film is far less entertaining than the iconic 70s TV show.

Gorgeous redhead Francine York is Sabrina Kincaid, leader of a group of five hand-picked "Dolls" employed by the government for covert espionage missions. This includes cult actress Tura Satana, who, sadly, is given nothing to do. Didn't Mikels see "Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!"? It is a crime to waste the dynamic Satana in such a colorless, underwritten role. But this film manages to make every mistake in the book. In fact, it should be screened in film classes to demonstrate how not to make an action flick.

Not-so-super villain Eamon O'Reilly (Michael Ansara) is a poor man's Blofeld with silly, implausible plans for world domination. Instead of a fancy high-tech lair, his nefarious secret base looks like it was shot at Mikels' Palm Springs vacation home. The film's total lack of attention to detail is amusing at times (note Ansara's sweat-soaked shirts) and the no- budget special effects, particularly the explosions, made me laugh.

Everything about this dull, pedestrian movie is bad -- but not bad enough to be enjoyable as a campy catastrophe. The entire film is a wasted opportunity for what could have been a much better (or at least campier or sexier) effort in the hands of a less conservative producer like Roger Corman. This PG-rated snooze-fest aspires to be a hot exploitation action flick, but has nothing exciting or exploitative (no nudity) to offer. A Ted V. Mikels movie is like watching a vintage porno film after all the nudity and sex scenes have been edited out. All that's left is some dreary, soap-opera style acting, an incoherent story, awkwardly staged fight scenes, and the cheapest special effects this side of an Ed Wood movie. Although Mikels would go on to make many more terrible films, there was a time when he actually showed much promise as in "One Shocking Moment" (1965). See that film instead.

This highly entertaining action flick is from the legendary Ted V Mikels, director of The Astro-Zombies and The Corpse Grinders. The Doll Squad is a laugh-a-minute cheese-fest of the first order. Mikels apparently sued Aron Spelling for nicking his idea and creating Charlie's Angels. Well, I don't know about that, but what I do know is that I would've been perfectly happy if there had been a series based on this movie. The basic premise is one that really you cannot go wrong with – a group of sexy action chicks take on an evil genius and his army of boneheads and save the day. It's a perfect recipe. What makes it so much fun is that the cheese-factor is in hyper-drive.

The film is ram-packed with action from start to finish. Lots of machine-gun toting babes, girls high-kicking men in the face, amazingly fake looking explosions and an array of ludicrous gadgetry. We have bad guys who blow up after drinking explosive vodka, an evil character who has his face set on fire by a cigarette lighter flame thrower and an undercover agent with fake face who is unmasked in a hilarious Scooby Doo style fashion. And for some reason the bad guys travel around in cars sitting on the bonnets, while the Doll Squad navigate the rough terrain of the island in high-heeled boots. Everything is accompanied by the most 70's soundtrack ever recorded. The film is just an endless succession of seriously silly events.

The only member of the cast I recognized was Tura Satana from Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! fame. She is strangely subdued it has to be said but it's always nice to see her. The rest of the Dolls are completely unfamiliar to me but they all just get stuck in and kick butt at every opportunity. There is a perhaps surprising lack of nudity but it doesn't really matter. The Doll Squad is a blast from start to finish and I strongly disagree with the view held by some that it is boring at all. It's loads of fun.

It's a fun ride. Pretty 70s girls kicking ass and taking names.

There's plenty of action. At one point in the movie, at least 10 minutes goes by without any dialogue- just girls and guns with a Starsky and Hutch sound track blaring in the background.

Side note: The island scenes were shot at Catalina near the Isthmus and Emerald Bay. Amazing to see the island so uncrowded and with so few boats on the moorings. Wish it was still like that.

One of schlock film master Ted Mikels' best bad films. Not as famous or fun as the Astro Zombies, but certainly worth checking out. Mikels is said to have sued TV Mogul Aron Spelling over Doll Squad, claiming Spelling created "Charlie's Angels" based on this film! That gives Spelling way too much credit. Don't know what ever came of the law suit, but I would like to listen to Mikels' legal arguments! Typical Grade Z government actor types program a big secret super computer to choose the ideal squad of secret agents to save the world, and it comes up with 4 fighting bimbos for the job. They use their sex appeal and unconvincing martial art skills to get the bad guy and titilate the audience. Everything in the movie has a very brown-orange shag carpet 1970's look. I'm sure Mikels was the first on his block to get a leisure suit.

A group of highly trained female special agents, code-named The Doll Squad, embark on a mission to prevent villainous Eamon O'Reilly (Michael Ansara) from unleashing a plague on the world.

Apparently, director Ted V. Mikels sued TV producer Aaron Spelling, claiming that the hit show Charlie's Angels was a rip off of The Doll Squad. I'm inclined to agree with Ted: the basic premise is the same, and Spelling even had the nerve to give one of his Angels the same name as the Doll Squad's leader, Sabrina (played by buxom Francine York). Coincidence? I think not.

Mikels film is a cheap, poorly acted, shoddily directed piece of exploitation with laughable action scenes, but its influence on popular entertainment is undeniable, the film paving the way not only for Charlie's Angels, but any number of movies that feature teams of kick-ass women. Tarantino has said that he's a fan, and I imagine that Mia Wallace's story about Fox Force Five in Pulp Fiction was also inspired by this film.

While the story, performances and plot are basic, to say the least, the enthusiasm of the leading ladies make it a reasonably entertaining affair, and there are plenty of unintentional laughs to be had, from the henchmen who insist on riding on the outside of vehicles to the numerous unconvincing explosions. Unlike Charlie's Angels, The Doll Squad also packs in a reasonable amount of bloody violence, with some juicy blood squibs that wouldn't fly on television.

5/10.

Grade Z clunker from garbageman Ted V. Mikels. It's about a band of female assassins led by Francine York who are supposed to save the world from a madman. Cheap boring movie that's nowhere near as fun as you want it to be. A movie like this should be sexy, exciting, and maybe a little campy. But this is a tired colorless affair directed with less flourish than an episode of Marcus Welby. Much has been said about this movie's influence on Charlie's Angels. Except Aaron Spelling got it right. Tura Satana is also in this. She was also in the much superior "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" See that instead. Oh and I hope Jim Steranko knows they ripped him off with that movie poster.

When a saboteur blackmails the US space program, a squad of female secret agents are mobilized to take him on. I absolutely adore the first half of this film, which pains me to say I really kind of hate the second half. This is not really a "good" film in any conventional sense, but the setup of the plot and assembly of the team entertained the living hell out of me. Then it really descended into one long, badly executed action sequence and my interest in the proceedings plummeted. It's saved quite a bit by the presence of Michael Ansara and Tura Satana, but not enough. Definitely watch the first half if you are fond of Z-grade schlock.

I had never heard about the 1973 movie "The Doll Squad" prior to stumbling upon it by random chance here in 2022. And of course with it being a movie that I hadn't already seen, then I managed to find the time to sit down and watch it. And I will say that I actually found the movie's cover to be interesting enough.

Writers Jack Richesin, Pam Eddy and Ted V. Mikels managed to put together a semi-entertaining enough script and storyline here. I will say that the movie was watchable, but it wasn't a particularly outstanding movie experience. Nor is it a movie that I will ever return to watch again, simply because the storyline was somewhat slow paced and didn't really have enough of interesting and exciting contents to offer.

The storyline just lacked drive and momentum, and that meant that the narrative in "The Doll Squad" felt somewhat like it was running in Neutral gear.

The acting performances in the movie were fair enough. I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie.

I am sure that there is an audience out there for an old movie of this type, perhaps the fans of "Charlie's Angels" will find enjoyment in "The Doll Squad".

My rating of "The Doll Squad" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.

(1973) The Doll Squad ACTION/ ADVENTURE

The low budget variation of "The Mod Squad", "On Her Majesty's Service" and "Goldfinger" starring Francine York as CIA operative, Sabrina Kincaid ordered by Victor Connelly (Anthony Eisley) working for Senator Stockwell (John Carter) to round up a female squad of women who used to work for the Space flight security program after witnessing an explosion from a standard rocket mission. As it turns out, the person who blew up the rocket while on air used to be an ex of Sabrina, by the name of Eamon O'Reilly (Michael Ansara) who now resides on an island near Venezuela with intentions to spread a virus throughout the world with the only people vaccinated are the selected people who're sending it out. I can always tolerate lousy acting if it's supposed to be an action film, but if the action scenes are not executed very well, then there's nothing else to look forward to except to look at the girls standing pretty- even the explosions looked fake which would have looked better if they were in black and white since that was how movies used to do it when they didn't have CGI.

Crappy writing, crappy acting and an overdone theme called world domination... a cast of greaseballs and weirdos including michael ansara and a cast of hundreds of extras that fell dead badly ... if this film had more schlock you would have thought it was secret agent woman ... thank you francine york for making it easy on the eyes while watching it