Memorable, crazy movie

hyped garbage

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Michael Anderson, the director, did some fine movies, but stumbled badly here, and the sometimes cliché-ridden script didn't help matters. The huge problem with this movie is that a lack of respect was shown for the character of Doc Savage and his chums. No movie about a superhero can succeed if the filmmakers seem to snicker and jeer at their own lead character! The approach to Doc was much like the approach to "Batman" in the 1960's TV series--making the hero appear silly, not heroic. Amazingly, Ron Ely nearly makes the film work, despite the wrongheaded direction.It's similar to how filmmakers, trying to cash in on James Bond, didn't understand that the magic of Bond movies was, they took themselves seriously. The humor was not aimed at the story being told. The Matt Helm movies didn't take themselves seriously, and neither could audiences. Doc Savage could have been a classic! Making it a farce is an example of what not to do with a superhero!

I dug this out and watched it tonight. I honestly think it must be 20 years since the last time I saw it. I remember it being a seriously flawed film. I don't remember it being THIS bad!!!!!I am absolutely aghast that a project with this much potential should have been mistreated so reprehensibly. Who am I to blame for this? The 2 guys who wrote (and I use that word loosely) the script? The casting directors who so terribly miscast at least 3 major characters in the story? (Only 2 of them are among "the amazing 5".) The director, who clearly refused to take it seriously, and kept shoving awful music on top of bad writing & bad acting everywhere? (I LIKED the theme song-- but it should never have been used all the way throughout the entire film!) Don Black, who should be ASHAMED at some of the lyrics he wrote for that music?It figures that I should pull this out, less than a week after re-reading the comic-book adaptation. The first 15-20 minutes of the film more-or-less (really, LESS) parallel the first issue of the comic. As I watched it tonight, I kept wondering-- why was ALMOST every single detail changed? Doc showing up, then using his wrist-watch remote-control to open the safe, and the sniper's bullet missing him by 5 inches because the refractive glass, were just about the only things left the same. I mean, if you're gonna do an "adaptation", WHY in God's name change EVERYTHING???Once they leave Doc's HQ, virtually NOTHING is as it was in the comic (which, given Roy Thomas, I figure probably follows the book). I read somewhere they actually combined elements of 2 different novels into one movie. Again-- WHY? I've heard it was changed because they weren't able to secure the kind of budget they wanted. I look at the film, and think... LACK OF MONEY in NO WAY explains what I saw on the screen!!You know, when people complain about Joel Schumacher, they should really take a look at this thing. The best thing I can say is, I think it would make a great double-feature with the 1966 BATMAN feature-- and probably a great triple-bill with that and the 1980 FLASH GORDON. All 3 films are "silly". Maybe we can "blame" the 1966 film (and TV series) for this. Some fans have complained over the years that Adam West's BATMAN ruined the image of comic-books in the minds of generations of non-comics fans. I think the same could be said for Hollywood. I'm reminded of how many really, really BAD films based on "classic" characters have been made over the years, especially (it seems to me) in the late 70's & early 80's. Charlie Chan, Fu Manchu, Tarzan, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, The Lone Ranger-- all "murdered" by Hollywood types who think, "OH, comic-books! So you know it's supposed to be STUPID!" More like they're the "stupid" ones. What a waste of potential.Let me say some good things... Despite the script and the directing, Ron Ely is GREAT. When I read a DOC SAVAGE story, I don't think of the James Bama paintings, I think of Ely. Bill Lucking (who later was a regular on THE A-TEAM) is terrific. Eldon Quick (who I've seen somewhere else, but can't recall where) is terrific. Paul Gleason-- who I absolutely HATED with a passion and a vengeance in THE BREAKFAST CLUB ("teachers" like the one he played should be banned from ever teaching anywhere), may be the best of the "amazing 5" in the film. Pamela Hensley-- though her part was almost unrecognizable from the original story-- is terrific. Before she let her hair down, I also realized she looked a HELL of a lot like "Ardala Valmar" from those awful John Calkins BUCK ROGERS strips I just read the other day. She's got a big nose like Ardala-- only not quite as pronounced. The comics Ardala actually looked more like the 1936 movie Princess Aura-- or Cher. Or maybe Streisand. Take yer pick. (Ardala actually got plastic surgery in the George Tuska strips-- after, she was stunning!)Paul Wexler, funny enough, I saw just last week in a GET SMART episode. I wonder if he was anything like the character he was supposed to be playing? I don't know, because that character sure wasn't in the movie the film takes its title from.

I saw this film in its premier week in 1975. I was 13 years old and at that time I found it adequate and somewhat fun. I then came to discover the WORLD of Doc Savage through the Bantam novels of the old pulp magazine stories. I had no idea before any of this of the realm of Doc, but I fast became one of the most avid Doc Savage fans you could ever meet. I read (and still own) all of the Bantam books, I started going to comic book cons (along with Star Trek and Doctor Who and all manner of geeky fat kid events) and had a wonderful time with each adventure I took with Doc and the ORIGINAL Fab 5. Philip Jose Farmer's Book - The Apocalyptic Life of Doc Savage became a bit of a bible for me and to this day I have very fond feelings regarding my Doc phase. In so saying I have to admit now years later that this film really missed the boat. It is a film that did not know what it wanted to be when it grew up. The screenplay was infantile and bore little resemblance to the pulp story. These stories from the 30's were short and if one looked at Lester Dent's (AKA Kenneth Robeson) outline for writing them, they broke down into PERFECT 3 act dramas that screamed for screen treatment. One would have thought that with George Pal and Michael Anderson at the helm, it would have turned out better. The spoof elements miss the target and the more serious moments almost get there, but then fall short. It is interesting to watch though in that they hired second-string character actors (guys that had really been only bit players and extras before this film) who all acquit themselves very well. Paul Gleason of course has gone on to be a fine utility player in all facets of entertainment and Bill Lucking is a television perennial. All the rest have fallen off the map sadly. I do wish to own a copy of this film as it is the only movie version of my hero, but I fear I will not watch it much as it is too painful. I would say 0 but I give it 2 out of 10 instead for some of the period art direction (Doc's answering machine at the end was a nice touch) and the cast of 3rd stingers getting a moment in the sun.

I was fourteen years old when Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze opened in the theaters back in 1975, and I couldn't have been more excited about it. I had been reading the paperback reprints of Kenneth Robeson's 1930's pulp action stories for years by that point, and was anxious to see the fantastic visions they had produced in my young head splashed across the big screen.When my Dad took me to see the movie, I was practically frothing at the mouth like a mad dog. We bought our tickets, bought our popcorn and took our seats. The lights went dim, and the music of John Phillips Souza filled the theater as the film began. The opening scene was set in a frozen wilderness, perhaps the North Pole. Ron Ely, as the title character, appeared at the peak of a snow dune, riding a snowmobile bearing the "Doc Savage" logo from the books. Ron didn't have the widow's peak that the heavily-muscled guy on the paperback covers did, but.well, maybe that would look stupid on a real person anyway. And I came to this conclusion without having seen even one Jack Nicholson movie. "This is ok so far," I told myself.Then a Gary Owens-ish voice-over boomed from the screen, announcing: "This is Doc Savage: the Man of Bronze." Ron Ely smiled, and his perfectly white, perfectly straight teeth glistened with a goofy, animated glint just like the effeminate pretty-boy Tony Curtis had played in The Great Race. Before my young mind could even come to terms with this blasphemous incongruity, the soundtrack broke into a male chorus right out of a Dudley Do Right cartoon:Peace will come to all who find, Doc Savage! Doc Savage! He's a friend to all mankind, pure of heart and mind! Who will make crime, Disappear? Doc Savage! Doc Savage! Conqueror and Pioneer, Thank the Lord he's here! Doc made a vow, that helps us all! Our hero has come! Let's all join in the big parade! Go bang your drum, and raise your flag, 'cause history is being made!" When that song was over, I felt sick. What had they done? Oh my god, my Dad is going to think I'm a homo for making him take me to this! Once the story actually began, however, I was able to breathe a bit easier. The action of the first few scenes was great. The period look was right. The apelike Monk, natty attorney Ham, and the rest of Doc Savage's adventurous crew had been perfectly brought to life by a superb cast of character actors.But after that first sequence, involving Doc and his crew chasing after a mysterious Indian assassin (taken almost verbatim from the original novel), the whole movie took a huge nosedive into painful TV-quality mediocrity. Then, about halfway through, I cringed in my theater seat as "Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze" got even worse. What had been a mere disappointment quickly devolved into a painfully campy comedy that made the goofy opening seem like Eugene O'Neal. At one point, one of Doc's foes, an evil assassin, is shown sleeping in a gigantic rocking baby's crib and sucking his thumb.Since the 1930s pulp adventure "Raiders of the Lost Ark" was such a huge hit only five years after "Savage" was released, it's popular to for film buffs to say that "The Man of Bronze" was simply ahead of its time. Well, for the most part, that's simply bulls***. George Pal and company had a chance to beat Steven Spielberg to the punch, it's true. Unfortunately, neither Pal nor Director Michael Anderson had access to the resources (or talent) that the post-Close Encounters of the Third KindSpielberg would enjoy five years later. As a result, Pal and Anderson cranked out a half-assed, mixed up piece of junk that couldn't decide whether it was trying to be a revival the adventure serials of the 30s, or of the "Batman" TV series of the 60s.Still, as bad as it is, the film does hold a bizarre kind of fascination for me now as an adult. I always catch it when it's on TV. I've seen it many more times than I have any of the Indiana Jones movies. When people ask me why I love bad movies so much, I explain the phenomenon this way: you can only watch a train chug by without incident so many times before you get bored, no matter how powerful the locomotive pulling it is or how cool the cars look. But how many times could you watch one derail, crash, burn, and explode into a million useless pieces?Exactly!