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DOC
SAVAGE:
THE MAN OF BRONZE
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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
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2
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10
= Highest Rating |
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I
was bitterly let down by this pic — to date the only attempt
at a film version — as a young preteen fan. By treating the
classic pulp hero as fodder for camp a la the Batman
TV show of the '60s, the filmmakers completely bungled it. Nearly
35 years later I was able to again see just how badly.
A potent combination
of Hercules, Thomas Edison, James Bond and Indiana Jones, Clark
"Doc" Savage Jr. — crimefighter, scientific genius
and adventurer supreme — was the first true superhero to emerge
in American pop culture. The debut issue of Doc Savage Magazine
was published in March 1933; the series ran until 1949 and at
the peak of its popularity was selling 250,000 copies a month.
Pulp master Lester Dent, ghostwriting as "Kenneth Robeson",
co-created Doc Savage and wrote most of the stories. The various
costumed superheroes who followed in Doc's wake, especially
Superman, owe a good deal of their own mythos to Dent's "Man
of Bronze" (even though he didn't wear a mask or a cape).
Doc and his fantastic, action-packed adventures were introduced
to a new generation when Bantam Books began reprinting the stories
in paperback form in the mid-1960s. Yours truly stumbled across
his first Doc novel at the age of ten, in 1972, and has been
enjoying them ever since. For awhile now I've been blogging
about Doc Savage at Curt Purcell's Groovy Age of Horror
site; you can check out my book reviews and learn more about
Doc and his crew of two-fisted assistants here.
The film adheres
only to the basic outline of the first Doc Savage novel. Doc
(Ron Ely) returns to New York City from his secretive arctic
retreat — the Fortress of Solitude*
— to learn that his father, a renowned explorer and philanthropist,
has died. Assembled in Doc's penthouse to break the bad news
are his five closest friends, all comrades from the Great War:
civil engineer Renny Renwick (Bill Lucking), archeologist/geologist
Johnny Littlejohn (Eldon Quick), lawyer Ham Brooks (Darrell
Zwerling), electronics expert Long Tom Roberts (Paul Gleason
- The Breakfast Club, Die
Hard), and chemist Monk Mayfair (Michael Miller). They
explain that the elder Savage succumbed to a rare tropical disease
while in the Central American republic of Hidalgo. The dying
man wrote a final testament to his son, which has been kept
sealed in Doc's safe awaiting his return. Before he can read
it, however, a weirdly-garbed sniper takes a shot at Doc from
a high-rise building across the street. Doc and pals leap into
action, racing for the sniper's perch and blocking his escape,
but their quarry evades capture by plunging to his death. All
that can be determined from the dead gunman is that he appears
to be of Central American origin and apparently belonged to
some kind of barbaric cult — a tattoo of a green serpent adorns
his chest, while his fingertips are dyed red, as if dipped in
blood.
Returning to his skyscraper
abode, Doc finds that someone has broken into the place and
burned his father's letter. He theorizes that Savage Sr. was
actually murdered; now he himself is next on the killer's list.
Hidalgo is the place to ferret out the who and why behind it
all, so Doc and company mount an expedition. They soon tangle
with nefarious criminal boss Captain Seas (Paul Wexler), who'll
stop at nothing to impede their progress... Can the Man of Bronze
and his loyal crew evade the terrible "Green Death" and discover
the fabulous secret that lies within Hidalgo's mysterious Valley
of the Vanished?
Doc Savage fan or
not, you're highly unlikely to give a damn. This film is embarrassingly
bad.
A bit sad, too, given
that it was the final feature of producer George Pal, one of
the great 'imagineers' of Golden Age sci-fi cinema (When
Worlds Collide, the original War
of the Worlds and Time Machine).
Pal also co-wrote the script, so he must share some of the blame
— on paper at least — for the terrible dialog and positively
cringeworthy attempts at humor. (Just one example: a secondary
villain sleeps in a giant-sized baby crib for no discernible
reason, and since he's Latino, a goofy rendition of "La Cucaracha"
sometimes accompanies his antics.) Ratcheting up the failed
camp factor is Frank DeVol's music score, mostly adapted from
the patriotic marches of John Philip Sousa, complete with men's
glee club singing about the prowess and virtues of Doc Savage.
Instead of being cleverly corny — wink, wink — it's just depressingly
awful, one of the worst film soundtracks EVER. Acting ranges
from dismal to children's TV show-quality, with some of the
performers carrying on like they're in The Three Stooges
Meet Doc Savage. Poor casting choices, exacerbated by the
crappy dialog, reduce Doc's fearless, hard-fighting crew to
a near-useless gaggle of buffoons. (Ape-like, tough-as-nails
Monk often serves as comic relief in the books but he can also
be extremely intimidating and bloodthirsty. Here he's just a
dumpy, annoying fat guy.) Bland, uninspired direction by Michael
Anderson (Operation Crossbow),
flat cinematography and conspicuously cheap production design
make the movie look like a rejected TV pilot lensed on the Burbank
backlot. (Exactly where most of it was shot, by the way.)
The only thing that
saves Doc Savage from the ignominy
of EC's 1-point "Pure Dookie" rating is the presence
of Ron Ely in the title role. Best known for his terrific portrayal
of Tarzan in the 1966-69 TV series, the handsome, athletic Ely
ended his show business career as a game show/beauty pageant
host before retiring to become a novelist. He may not quite
match the physical descriptions of the 'über-Man' of Bronze
from the original stories (it'd be nigh on impossible to find
any decent actor who could, really), but he 'gets it' — even
when operating with a horrible script, Ely plays Doc as Lester
Dent created him: the ultimate All-American Boy Scout on a mission
to destroy evil.
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*
Blatantly ripped off by the writers of DC's Superman comics
five years after its appearance in the Doc Savage stories.
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Doc
Savage: The Man of Bronze
is among the first 150 films in Warner Home Video's Archive
Collection,
catalog titles that are 'burned on demand' when ordered via the
company's website. (This service was officially launched on March
22, 2009.) The discs are supposedly higher quality DVD-Rs of titles
that Warner is unlikely to ever give a market-wide release. Thus
they are available at WBshop.com (eBay and Amazon Third Party
sellers as well) and are not to be found at brick & mortar
stores. Each DVD comes in standard keepcase packaging (albeit
not shrinkwrapped; there's no security tape to mess with) and
is given professional looking cover/disc art. It will be interesting
to see if this business model pans out —
for both Warner
and the consumer.
As
for the Doc Savage DVD, quality is
comparable with the Horror Double Feature titles Warner
released in 2008 such as The
Brides of Fu Manchu and The
Ultimate Warrior. No restoration was done; the first few minutes
are exceptionally grainy and the print source exhibits numerous
small dings and speckles but this clears up considerably as the
film goes on. Color balance looks fine. Happily the 1.85:1 transfer
is anamorphic and offers a solid mono audio track. The tongue-in-cheek
theatrical trailer (narrated by Star Trek's Mark Lenard)
is the only extra. 4/09/09 |
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