Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975) – Review

From the jungle adventures of Tarzan to the dark city streets of The Shadow, heroes from the pages of pulp fiction have provided plenty of fuel for Hollywood, though with varying degrees of success, and today we will be looking at one of the least successful of these attempts, one Warner Brothers had hoped would spawn a long-running franchise such as MGM’s Tarzan films, alas it died on the vine.

This film kicks off when Doc Savage (Ron Ely) learns that his father has died under mysterious circumstances while exploring the remote interior of the Central American Republic of Hidalgo and after an assassination attempt, by someone sporting a tattoo of the Mayan serpent god Kukulkan, he takes his team of experts, known as the “Fabulous Five,” consisting of Major Thomas J. “Long Tom” Roberts (Paul Gleason), Colonel John “Renny” Renwick (William Lucking), Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett “Monk” Mayfair (Michael Miller), Professor William Harper “Johnny” Littlejohn (Eldon Quick) and Brigadier General Theodore Marley “Ham” Brooks (Darrell Zwerling), on a journey where they must face dangerous enemies and obstacles, all while trying to uncover the secrets of Hidalgo and its legendary treasures.

Note: Fans of W.D. Richter’s movie The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension will notice that the multi-talented Buckaroo Banzai and his “The Hong Kong Cavaliers” was an obvious homage to Doc Savage and his “Fabulous Five.”

The plot of this particular adventure surrounds a lost Mayan tribe which Doc Savage’s father had recently aided and for his kind deeds had been awarded by the inhabitants the village’s pool of molten gold, not surprisingly, this led to the man’s murder at the hands of the international criminal and smuggler Captain Seas (Paul Wexler) who, along with a corrupt local official Don Rubio Gorro (Bob Corso) they have destroyed all records of this transaction and now plan to exploit the villagers as slave labour and make off with all the gold. Needless to say, Doc Savage and his friends are a definite hindrance to this plan and so the bulk of the film consists of various attempts to kill Doc Savage and the Fabulous Five, unfortunately, none of these attempts are all that credible and none of the various henchman come across as even remotely threatening. Case in point, in two scenes we find Don Rubio sleeping in a giant baby crib but no reason given for this, it’s just weird and certainly doesn’t instill fear.

There is strange, and then there is stuff like this.

This film was produced by George Pal, the man behind such science fiction classics as Destination Moon and War of the Worlds, but where those movies took their subject matter seriously this take on pulp hero Doc Savage was more on the campier side of things and was closer to something akin the Adam West Batman television series rather than the pulp adventure hero created back in 1933 by Henry W. Walston and Lester Dent. While director Michael Anderson, working from a script co-written by George Pal himself, seemed to be attempting to capture the pulp flair it was a struggle he failed at as the overall tone never quite gels. The movie takes place in the 1930s and I’ll give the filmmakers credit for managing to capture the essence of the era with its stylish costumes, set design, and music, but the campy humour leaned a little too far towards the bizarre for it to completely work.  This was certainly not helped by the goofy use John Philip Sousa’s military marches as part of the film’s score and the overall end product became an easy target for movie critics and cinema-goers alike.

Is that gleam in his eye from the fear of critical reception of this film?

Stray Observations:

• This is Ron Ely’s second time bringing a pulp action hero to life, he played Tarzan on an NBC series for two seasons in the late 1960s.
• Doc Savage has his name embossed on all of his vehicles, which makes him one of the earliest examples of branding. I wonder if Donald Trump was a fan.
• Captain Seas breaks out into a maniacal laugh that is so cartoonishly over-the-top that you have to wonder if George Pal was trying for a parody of the genre.
• Actor Michael Berryman makes his screen debut in Doc Savage: Man of Bronze, but unlike his often-villainous roles in films like The Hills Have Eyes, he plays a rather erudite coroner.
• As gold boils at close to 4,000 degrees there is no way a pool of gold, as depicted in this movie could exist next to a jungle village, as everything in its proximity would burst into flames.
• This movie takes the title “Man of Bronze” a bit too literally, in the pulp stories Doc Savage is a man of peak physical shape, with his trademark bronze-haired and bronze-skinned, but with no actual superpowers, while in this movie, he’s more a “Man of Steel” as bullets bounce of his chest as if he were from Krypton.
• After defeating Captain Seas in one of the most one-sided fights in cinema history, Doc Savage performs brain surgery on Seas to rid him of his evil tendencies, which I must say is morally and ethically dubious at best.
• Both Doc Savage and Superman have a secret Arctic lair called “The Fortress of Solitude” and while Doc Savage was the first to have such a structure, going by this movie his was not all that comparable.

Unlike Superman, Doc Savage never brings girls here for sex.

As a fan of the original Doc Savage stories, I was excited to see this film adaptation and while the movie does capture some of the excitement and adventure of the source material it falls short in several areas. One of the main issues with the film is its pacing because even though there are plenty of action scenes and thrilling set pieces, the plot often feels rushed and disjointed. It jumps from one scene to the next without giving us enough time to fully absorb what’s happening on screen. Another issue is the film’s special effects and I do mean special. While the practical effects are decent for the period, the visual effects are often clunky and unconvincing to the point of being rather goofy-looking.

Tremble at the sight of magical cartoon snakes.

Despite these flaws, there are still some things to appreciate about Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze, Ron Ely delivers a solid performance as the titular hero, capturing his intelligence, physical prowess and sense of adventure, all while somehow managing to keep a straight face in a plot that became more ridiculous and bizarre at every turn. The supporting cast, including a love interest played by the beautiful Pamela Hensley, all did their best with their respective roles made all the more impressive as this involved delivering some of the worst dialogue ever penned. Overall, this film was hindered by a pathetic budget, a sluggish script and some truly painful attempts at camp, with ninety percent of the humour falling flatter than a pancake in a gravity well, so its chance of success was minimal at best. That the film ended with a promised sequel is probably the funniest moment in the movie.

It’s clear that Hollywood will continue to mine these classic pulp stories because if comic book superheroes can bring in billions of dollars at the box office why not these pulp heroes as well? Sadly, aside from Tarzan and Zorro, there isn’t a great track record of cinematic success, with Billy Zane as The Phantom and Alec Baldwin as The Shadow having dismal box office returns, but who knows, maybe someday the likes of Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve will take a crack at these adventure tales of old and the Man of Bronze may live again.