Director: Michael Anderson
Tagline: “Have no fear, Doc Savage is here!”
Plot: When people say “pulp hero” these days, they mean Clark “Doc” Savage, Jr. Created in the 1930s by a magazine publisher and editor, Doc Savage is the quintessential pre-Superman adventurer: brilliant, resourceful, multi-talented, and idealistic. With the help of his sidekicks, a group of men at the top of their fields in engineering, law, electrics, awkwardly erudite vocabulary, and owning small pigs, Savage seeks to improve himself in ways that will help him improve the world at large. His name is synonymous with a time when great men were taken at face value, at least in fiction, and when a rich white dude didn’t need personal trauma or a secret identity to spread his wealth for the betterment of mankind. Sure, the strains of white imperialism and sexism may be difficult to ignore today, but Savage represents a kind of storytelling that’s easy to get nostalgic for in concept, when villains were one-note, and brave men were always worth following.
Doc Savage: The Man Of Bronze tries to recapture some of that nostalgia, and fails miserably. The 1975 action-comedy was the final film produced by George Pal, and it demonstrates none of the charm or thrills of Pal classics like The War Of The Worlds (1953) or The Time Machine (1960). Savage is hampered by budget woes, weak acting, a sluggish script, and some painfully forced attempts at camp. It bombed at the box office, opening in June to be buried by Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, and while it’s possible that the Doc’s adventures might be a better fit in today’s comic-book cinema, there’s no denying the movie itself got just what it deserved—which isn’t much.
Still, there are delights here for the bad-movie fan. Check out the introduction to the man himself (Ron Ely, best known for playing the title role in the 1966 TV series Tarzan):
The John Philip Sousa score runs throughout the film; whenever the narration by Paul Frees takes a smoke break, the score rushes to fill the void, often with lyrics even more relentlessly cheery then the ones heard above. Get used to the facial expression Ely displays in his first close-up, as it’s the one he’ll be sticking with throughout the picture.
Savage’s plot largely comes from the source novel that gave the movie its subtitle, The Man Of Bronze. While meditating in his Arctic Fortress Of Solitude (he and Superman presumably time-share), Savage senses trouble and heads back to New York to assemble his crack team of sidekicks, The Fabulous Five. The Five give Savage the sad news that his father has been murdered, but before he died, the old man sent his son an envelope full of important papers. Before Savage can open the envelope, a Native American assassin (stuntman Dar Robinson in a lot of bronzer) disrupts the reunion. Savage and the Five give chase, in a painfully protracted cat-and-mouse sequence that ends with the assassin falling to his death. Back at Savage’s apartment, our heroes find someone has set fire to the precious papers, inspiring Doc to reveal this stunning discovery:
Now it’s time to head to Hidalgo, Mexico, where Dad Savage was murdered—but first, a brief interlude in which Doc uses a radio-controlled decoy plane to draw out another assassin, who shoots down the decoy and leaves, satisfied with a job well done. While Doc and the Five are congratulating themselves on their cleverness, restating their oath (quoted below), and boarding the real plane, the villain of the picture makes himself known: Captain Seas, played by Paul Wexler, a tall man with a deep voice and penchant for jazz-choir vests. Seas learns that Savage and his men are “dead,” then tries to put the moves on a nearby blonde (Robyn Hilton, notable for playing the red-headed object of Mel Brooks’ lust in Blazing Saddles). The blonde’s first line is the first intelligible utterance from any female character in the movie, and it leads, ultimately, to this bizarre bout of Evil Laughter:
In Hidalgo, Doc learns that his father got the deeds to some supposedly worthless land from a tribal group long thought vanished. He also learns that his suspicions about his father’s death were well-founded when a coroner (Michael Berryman) gives him a strange substance that coated Dad Savage’s corpse. One quick check under the microscope reveals the substance is venom from the animated snakes Captain Seas’ native henchmen send after Seas’ enemies. The snakes attack Savage, and he repels them, forcing Seas to get a little more personal—he invites the group to his yacht, where, after some charming dinner conversation and the contractually obligated “Under different circumstances, we might’ve been friends” exchange, Seas’ goons attempt to murder our heroes in a fight scene that can only be described as “ill-advised.”
One quick swim home later, Savage decides it’s time to get to the heart of the mystery. With the help of Mona (Pamela Hensley), a local who serves as Savage’s tepid love interest, Doc and the Five head off into the wilderness, determined to solve the mystery of Dad Savage’s death, and presumably bring Seas and his men to justice.
Meanwhile, a man in a giant crib bed is upset: