★★★★★

You can watch Professor Marston and the Wonder Women for free on Tubi and it is well worth watching multiple times. Luke Evans is good, Bella Heathcote is fantastic, and Rebecca Hall steals the show. Rebecca as “the Class A Bitch” has the perfect look and voice. Even from the early minutes of the film you get the feeling there is a Dominatrix hidden under there.

The Back Story

Must confess I knew almost nothing about this movie. I knew this was the guy who invented Wonder Woman. Had heard he had both a wife and a lover, not so unusual today. There was also this “Wonder Woman not gay” Nazi conversation circulating around the Web. I mean, there was only women on the island, so what did they do for fun?

Could have lived without the Nazi book burning at the beginning of the film, I guess it was homage to Ron Desantis book burning? Having it near the end was necessary because that is really what is going on today. I wish film schools were so adamant about “start with action.”

Psychology was a brand new field

I didn’t know that it used to be taught as part of philosophy. When you see the things online about it becoming a science in 1875 you think it has been around forever. This movie makes a point of stating that the off-shoot of Harvard didn’t have a psychology department until the 1930s.

Academics weren’t greedy

The professor and his wife, with help of there assistant Olive create the lie detector. He insisted on publishing without patenting. After being shit-canned by the university this lead to grave financial situations. Today professors and universities cannot patent things fast enough.

DISC

Dominance, Inducement, Submission, and Compliance. When the professor and his wife developed this theory and published it, the world simply ignored it. Today it is the mantra of reality television and certain political groups. How many times have you heard Donald Trump say “do the right thing?” It’s one of his “I pay you nothing” inducement methods. Given the mounting criminal indictments it won’t work for much longer.

Don’t want to give too much away

I find it really difficult to review this movie without giving too much away. Despite the subject matter, the film most definitely does not devolve into a porn flick. I wish there was a place online where one could see the early editions. I do see them being offered for sale for north of 100K, but no place “free.”

courtesy of Jill Lepore and The New York Times

According to the movie and “moral authority” of the times, Wonder Woman was heavy into bondage, spanking, punishment and working women. They found it all repugnant. Today you might call it “a career oriented woman with a bit of an S&M fetish.”

What is amazing is that girls bought this comic in large quantities. Please don’t miss the hilarious part where Elizabeth (the professor’s wife) tells him nobody will publish this. The professor went straight to the person who discovered Superman, they changed the name to just “Wonder Woman” and no, you don’t really know the rest. If you watch this movie you do.

Not a gay movie

Despite the polygamous relationship at the center of the story, this is not a gay movie. There has been a really ugly trend in movies over the past eight years or so of making a “gay movie” if any piece of the story involves someone gay. I have gay friends, I just don’t like gay movies. You have to handle these things correctly. They are part of the story, not the story. For a movie that got it all the way wrong read my review of The Catcher Was a Spy. For movies that got it right you can watch Bohemian Rhapsody and Wonder Women.

The Barbecue Sauce Explanation

When it comes to gay/non-binary things in movies myself and the bulk of movie going audiences worldwide like Sweet Baby Rays.

We won’t go anywhere near Tobasco.

Yet the people making the movies always want to jump straight to Dave’s Suicide Sauce, which I guess is now called insanity.

Wonder Women Summary

Totally worth watching multiple times. You can watch it for free on Tubi. This is a movie that didn’t skimp. Fantastic writing and amazing acting. Their sets actually fit the period. No glaring gotchas other than the OSF comment. You would have to be a big history buff to catch that though.

For more movie rental ideas please see list one and list two.