Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975)

The movie is based on Doc's first adventure, The Man of Bronze, with elements from several other stories. It's remarkably faithful to the source material, unlike so many of the 1970's (and even today) adaptions. From Doc's Fabulous Five (Monk, Ham, Renny, Long Tom and Little Johnny), which would go on to inspire superhero teams and the Hong Kong Cavaliers, to his Fortress of Solitude (which inspired Superman's), Mink's pet pig, Doc's gadgets and more, there is so much taken from the original pulp stories.The hard part of the film comes from how campy it gets, from patriotic theme songs dedicated to Doc with lyrics telling us how great he is to him having an animated twinkle in his eye. The TV Batman style died hard in Hollywood. Witness 1979's Legends of the Superheroes TV movies.The movie opens at Doc Savage's (Ron Ely, Tarzan) Fortress of Solitude, where our hero learns his father died under a cloud of mystery. While he looks at his father's papers, a Native American assassin with red fingers and a tattoo of a Mayan god tries to kill him. Doc gives chase, but his would-be murderer falls to his death.When he gets back to his apartment, his father's notes have been destroyed.Throughout the film, Captain Seas tries to kill Doc and his friends. Of note, Long Tom is played by Paul Gleason, Richard Vernon from The Breakfast Club. Meanwhile, Doc finds out that his father received a land grant in the interior of Hidalgo from the Quetzamal, a Mayan tribe that has disappeared. Despite government corruption, Mona Flores offers to lead Doc and his friends to the land.It turns out that Captain Seas is using the Green Death, an airborne plague, to keep the natives under his control (and he also used it to kill Doc's father). Most of the bad guys get covered in molten gold, while the chief of the natives offers the gold and land to Doc, who pledges to use it for the cause of justice.Unlike other pulp heroes, Doc doesn't kill. He rehabilitates with acupuncture and education, a fact that we see in action as Doc finds Captain Seas and his henchwomen ringing the Salvation Army bell for charity.As Doc gets back home, he gets a message that he's needed. He rushes out for his next adventure, which was to be titled Doc Savage: The Arch Enemy of Evil.Oh yeah — Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes) shows up here as a coroner!As helmed by Michael Anderson (Logan's Run, Orca, Around the World in 80 Days), this is a big, bombastic film. It flopped hard when released, though Norma Dent was said to have loved the film. How much you'll enjoy it depends on your love of silliness, John Phillip Sousa and the superheroes of the past. Me? I have a spot in my heart for this film and dreamed of having a shirt like Doc's that would be all ripped and cling to me when I sprung to action. However, I was a chubby six-year-old and had no villains to battle outside of the bullies who routinely kicked my ass. That said, as I grew older, I gave them all acupuncture, forgiveness and education, just like Doc Savage taught me!Read more at http://bit.ly/2i8sPNM

I saw this movie when I was 15 and fell in love with it. Sure, it was campy but so much fun. I was so enthralled by the concept and the characters that I went out and read every one of the novels by Lester Dent (Kenneth Roberson). I am also still upset that they never made a sequel.Now it's time for a new Doc Savage film! But, anyone who makes it needs to consider the following: 1. The 70s film -- while I enjoyed it very much -- was a spoof like the 60s Batman TV show. A new film should ignore it totally and start from scratch. It needs to be fun and excited -- NOT a cartoon like the original.2. Keep it in the same 30's time period of the books like they did with the recent King Kong film. A modern version would be a disgrace.3. MOST IMPORTANT: Do not -- I repeat, do NOT hire a muscle bound, pump freak like the Rock, as some people have suggested, to play Doc. A few years ago Arnold Schwarzenegger was up or the part of Doc Savage and thank God they dropped the project! His participation would have been a joke and an insult to the character -- and us. Remember that the Doc character was NEVER a pumped up balloon like Ah-nold and the Rock. Like Batman (in the comics, not the films), he was in excellent shape, but NOT pumped up. Doc was also a genius, and in no way, shape, or form, would ANYONE accept Arnold, the Rock or any other WWF reject or athletic pseudo-celeb as a genius. Take a look at Ron Ely in the 70's film. He was perfect for the role at that time and an actor today needs to have the same physical look he had -- AND look intelligent.Otherwise don't waste your time -- or ours.JK

This movie is so cheesy and uninteresting, it must've been made for the kiddies. I gave up on the plot early on, but I can tell you it has to do with green animated snakes that can be blown away by using a common electrical fan. I think indians play a role too, but... This 1975 cheeseball doesn't even provide good cheese, its just lame-o from the get go. There is a scene where Doc Savage fights the big villain and they stop at certain points in the fight and text on screen tells you what style of fighting they're using (i.e. sumo, karate, etc.). I sort of laughed at this. I started reading during the movie so I might've missed a few funny parts. Another thing is Doc Savage (played by Ron Ely - Tarzan from the 60s) is supposed to be a big hero and he really isn't that impressive. Why would he need the "fabulous five": a group of characters from different walks of life who are the "top of their fields"? Doc Savage doesn't fight very well either. Also there is one scene where he reaches into a plaster wall to retrieve a bullet. He rips his shirt sleeve because he had to use that much muscle to get it. What kind of hero is that? This is still available on VHS and there was supposed to be a sequel but I don't think it happened. Wonder why. Its going for Batman 1966 humor but doesn't make it - it gets close on occasion. Doc Savage is pretty lame and highly cheesy, but the jokes don't work most of the time and the guy with the pig named Habius Corpus is just weird. I rented it, I suggest you do too, if you have to see it.

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!