The Secret War of Jackie's Girls | |
---|---|
Genre | Action Drama |
Written by | Ann Donahue D. Guthrie Theodore Jonas Jean Ross Kondek |
Directed by | Gordon Hessler |
Starring | Lee Purcell Mariette Hartley Dee Wallace |
Music by | Fred Karlin |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
Production | |
Executive producers | Florence Small Jon Surgal |
Producer | Dorothy J. Bailey |
Cinematography | William Cronjager |
Editors | Beryl Gelfond Larry Lester Michael S. Murphy Larry Strong Jean-Marc Vasseur |
Running time | 100 min. |
Production companies | Penthouse Productions Public Art Films Universal Television |
Original release | |
Network | NBC |
Release | November 29, 1980 |
The Secret War of Jackie's Girls is a 1980 American TV movie that was conceived as a pilot but never went to series. It is about female pilots who undertake secret missions in World War II. The pilot was directed by Gordon Hessler. [1]
The success of Charlie's Angels in the 1976-77 ratings season prompted all the American TV networks to feature more sexy young women in action-orientated roles, either adding them to existing programs or introducing new shows that focused on them. NBC picked up The Bionic Woman from ABC and also added young female characters to the 1977-78 seasons of Baa Baa Black Sheep and BJ and the Bear . They introduced several new shows with female sex symbol leads such as Quark , The Roller Girls and Who's Watching the Kids? , as well as commissioning pilots for several series which were direct imitations of Charlie's Angels: The Secret War of Jackie's Girls, The Hunted Lady and Cover Girls . [2]
The Los Angeles Times said "the aerial photography... is quite marvellous." [3]
Charlie's Angels is an American crime drama television series that aired on ABC from September 22, 1976, to June 24, 1981, producing five seasons and 115 episodes. The series was created by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts and was produced by Aaron Spelling. It follows the crime-fighting adventures of three women working at a private detective agency in Los Angeles, California, and originally starred Kate Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, and Jaclyn Smith in the leading roles and John Forsythe providing the voice of their boss, the unseen Charlie Townsend, who directed the crime-fighting operations of the "Angels" over a speakerphone. There were a few casting changes: after the departure of Fawcett, Cheryl Ladd joined; after Jackson departed, Shelley Hack joined, who was subsequently replaced by Tanya Roberts.
Lucy Kate Jackson is an American actress and television producer, known for her television roles as Sabrina Duncan in the series Charlie's Angels (1976–1979) and Amanda King in the series Scarecrow and Mrs. King (1983–1987). Her film roles include Making Love (1982) and Loverboy (1989). She is a three-time Emmy Award nominee and four-time Golden Globe Award nominee, and Photoplay (magazine) award winner for "Favorite TV Actress" 1978.
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A television pilot in United Kingdom and United States television, is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell a show to a television network or other distributor. A pilot is created to be a testing ground to gauge whether a series will be successful. It is, therefore, a test episode for the intended television series, an early step in the series development, much like pilot studies serve as precursors to the start of larger activity.
Robert Alba Keith, known professionally as Brian Keith, was an American film, television, and stage actor who in his six-decade career gained recognition for his work in films such as the Disney family film The Parent Trap (1961); Johnny Shiloh (1963); the comedy The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966); and the adventure saga The Wind and the Lion (1975), in which he portrayed President Theodore Roosevelt.
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James Allen Whitmore Jr., is an American actor and director, best known for his roles as Captain Jim Gutterman on the television program Baa Baa Black Sheep, Freddie Beamer in The Rockford Files (1977–1979), and Sgt Bernie Terwilliger in Hunter (1984–1986), and since the 1980s as a prolific television director. He is the son of actor James Whitmore.
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Lin Bolen was an American television executive and producer. She was most noted for her role at NBC daytime television programming as the first female vice president of a TV network, a position she held from 1972 until 1976. In this role, Bolen was responsible for commissioning the long-running game show Wheel of Fortune and is credited with bringing successful long form to network soap operas. Bolen was mentioned in Who's Who in America as a trailblazer for women in television.
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Harold "Hal" Cooper was an American television director and executive producer who worked primarily on sitcoms. After establishing himself as a pioneer of the Golden Age of Television, Cooper became a regular director on many of the popular and enduring shows of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
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The Hunted Lady is a 1977 American TV movie starring Donna Mills as a woman who goes on the run. It was a pilot for a TV series that never eventuated but screened as a stand-alone film.