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Charlie's Angels - The Pilot (1976) |
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“Once upon a time, there
were three little girls who went to the police academy…”
They were assigned such hazardous duties as writing
traffic tickets, typewriting and playing crossing guard. When
enterprising tycoon Charlie Townsend realized their
talents were being utterly wasted, he hired them as
private detectives. The only catch: because Charlie
insisted on never being seen, the "Angels" as he called
them, never knew what their benefactor/employer looked
like.
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| Directed by |
John Llewellyn Moxey |
| Produced by |
Aaron Spelling
Leonard Goldberg |
| Written by |
Ben Roberts,
Ivan Goff
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| Starring |
Kate Jackson
Farrah Fawcett
Jaclyn Smith
David Ogden Stiers
David Doyle
Tommy Lee Jones
Bo Hopkins
Diana Muldaur
John Forsythe |
| Music |
Jack Elliott, Allyn Ferguson
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| Network |
ABC Channel |
| Airdate |
March 21, 1976 |
| Running Time |
72 minutes |
| Followed by |
Charlie's Angels
Series |
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In the series pilot that
launched one of the biggest hits of the 1970s, a wine
heiress asks the angels to help her prove her father was
murdered by the man who now runs the family business. The wealthy Vincent Le Mer
has been missing for seven years, and is about to be
declared legally dead. His daughter, Janet, has not been
in contact with the family for some time; so his second
wife will inherit the estate. Kelly shows up at the
house, posing as Janet Le Mer. Mrs. Le Mer and her
associates accept her story, but try to poison her.
Kelly is exposed as a fraud when the family receives
word that the "real" Janet (actually Sabrina) is on her
way to town. Kelly claims to have inside information
about the Le Mer fortune, and promises to keep quiet
about the attempt on her life in exchange for a share of
the estate. Sabrina shows no interest in the
inheritance, save for a portion of swampland that she
would like to convert into a bird sanctuary. Bosley
snoops around the swamp and allows one of Mrs. Le Mer's
cohorts to capture him. He claims that there is oil on
the property. Panicked, the man tries to dig up Mr. Le
Mer's body and remove it before the property transfer
can take place. The Angels, with some help from the
police and a friend of Janet's, catch him in the act and
apprehend him. The Angels learn that their client was
Janet Le Mer, who had hoped to expose the truth about
her father's murder.
This 72-minute pilot film
of the Charlie's Angels series originally aired as a
movie-of-the-week in 1976 and stars the three original
"Angels": Sabrina (Kate Jackson), Jill (Farrah
Fawcett-Majors), and Kelly (Jaclyn Smith). Also appearing in the pilot episode were
David Doyle (as the loyal officer manager John Bosley) and David Ogden Steirs
(as
the
companies lawyer Scott
Woodville). Many of the scenes used in the opening
credits of the series are from the pilot film
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The guest cast in the pilot
film consisted of familiar faces including Bo Hopkins,
Diana Muldaur and a very young Tommy Lee Jones. John
Llewellyn Moxey, a veteran of British horror films,
directed the pilot film.
Filming began in July of 1975. Due to the length of the program,
the pilot has rarely been shown. A ratings powerhouse
when it premiered on March 21, 1976 (got a 54.8 viewing
share), Charlie's Angels resulted in the long-running
(and frequently recast) weekly series, which aired from
September 22, 1976, through August 19, 1981.
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The
pilot was set up a bit differently that the series. The
Angels were private detectives and they did not use guns. They
used their wits and brains and were masters of disguise.
It was not until the series that the Angels had guns in
their hands and had martial arts skills. The Angels also
worked beside two men, one was John Bosley (David Doyle)
and Scott Woodville which was played by David Ogden
Stiers.
This is the
only Charlie's Angels episode in which David Ogden Stiers appears. When
the series was picked up later that year, his character
of Scott Woodville was cut. Upon its
initial airing, the pilot drew a 54 share in the Nielsen
ratings, which translates into over half of all
television sets in the country in use that night were
tuned in. The pilot ranked 3rd among all tele films for
the year and when it was re-aired on September 14, 1976,
it ranked 4th.
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After
finally finishing production on the pilot, the series
was again rejected, this time by ABC's New York head,
Fred Pierce, who didn't like the concept of the Angels
working for a boss they knew only via telephone. So, on
the spot, Spelling devised the scenario that there would
be a main title that would feature Charlie saying: "Once
upon a time, there were three young ladies who graduated
from the police academy and were given outstanding jobs.
One is a traffic cop helping kids across the street. One
is a girl typing in the office and one is a meter maid.
I took them away from all that. Now they work for me. My
name is Charlie." Tinkering ensued, but the idea stuck,
and the show was greenlighted - again.
Originally, the producers of Charlie's Angels wanted a
blonde, a redhead and a brunette for the angelic trio
but they wanted both Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith so
bad that they gave up the idea. Initially, Kate Jackson
was intended to play Kelly Garrett, but at the last
minute she decided to switch to the more challenging
role of Sabrina Duncan as outlined in the pilot script
by legendary Hollywood screenwriters Ivan Goff and Ben
Roberts.
As a result of
Kate Jackson's last-minute decision to play Sabrina
instead of Kelly, Jaclyn Smith is prominently featured
in the first third of the pilot as she establishes her
cover as the phony heiress, Janet Le Mer to the Samarra
Vineyard.
Charlie's Angels pilot is pure entertainment. It plays
mostly like the TV movie it is, and is never more than
fluffy, warm-hearted entertainment at best. It's
somewhat interesting to note the presence of David Ogden
Stiers as another of Charlie's henchmen, a role later
dropped for the actual series, where Bosley was deemed
sufficient for all normal purposes. However, the biggest
shock is perhaps an unknown Tommy Lee Jones, playing a
childhood friend of the heiress, who threatens to expose
the Angels' plot. He probably gets more screen time than
Fawcett-Majors, who is barely used at all in this
episode: she gets one real scene of note, an
entertaining performance as a backwoods bimbo luring the
bad guys into buying her land, on the basis they think
it's loaded with oil.
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