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The Appropriate Tune: "The Bronze", by Queens of the Stone Age
Years before the world knew the names Superman or Batman, people sought their heroes in the form of the pulps: cheap paperback books packed with all manner of genre stories, from the weird fiction of H.P. Lovecraft to the ham-fisted action of Mickey Spillane, and everything else that struggling authors thought might help pay the rent. Of this forgotten age of literature, there are few characters that were as popular or as successful as Doc Savage, The Man of Bronze. Created by Henry Ralston and John Nanovic and primarily written by Lester Dent under the pseudonym Kenneth Robeson for the Street & Smith publishing company in 1933, Clark ‘Doc’ Savage Jr. was the very model of modern major adventurer; Not only was he a perfect physical specimen thanks a special exercise regiment, but he was also a scientific genius of ust about every discipline you could think of, capable of building technology that surpassed that of your typical 1930s crowd. Along with his five quirky associates -- chemist Andrew ‘Monk’ Mayfair, lawyer Theodore ‘Ham’ Brooks, construction engineer John ‘Renny’ Renwick, electrical engineer Thomas ‘Long Tom’ Roberts, and archeologist/geologist William ‘Johnny’ Littlejohn, Doc would travel across the globe, foiling the plots of wicked men and defending justice wherever it was threatened. Also performing experimental brain surgery on prisoners in order to modify their personalities and behaviors without their consent on multiple occasions, but hey, it was 1933. Give it a few years and it turns out people could do even more heinous shit to each other.
Savage’s star would eventually fade with the rise of superheros and television, but as the 1970’s wore on suddenly there came an interest in reviving The Man of Bronze for then-modern audiences. Award-winning science fiction writer and mythographer par excellence Phillip Josè Farmer wrote a fictional biography of the man, as he would do for Edgar Rice Burroughs’ legendary creation Tarzan, entitled “Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life”. Marvel Comics even gave him two series: A short-lived run with Marvel proper, and then later on an equally short-lived run through their imprint Curtis Magazines, which was the original home of the Savage Sword of Conan. If that had been the end of the matter, a book here and there, some comics, then perhaps Doc would have been okay. Not as big as he once was, but still novel enough that it’d be a treat whenever he finally got that spotlight again. Like a professional wrestler coming out of retirement for one last match.
So they made a movie instead, obviously.
Released in 1975, directed by Michael Anderson (Logan’s Run) and written by Joe Morhaim and George Pal, who was also the producer. The year is 1936 and Doc Savage has returned from his Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic (yes, they literally call it the Fortress of Solitude) to learn that his father, Clark ‘Dad’ Savage Snr., has died in the South American country of Hidalgo from some tropical disease. Which is immediately shown to be suspect when someone tries to put a bullet through Doc’s brain and later destroys Dad Savage’s documents. Doc and the Fabulous Five set out for Hidalgo to learn the truth, which is exactly what resident evil business tycoon Captain Seas didn’t want to happen, although he didn’t exactly try all that hard. What could the secret of Hidalgo be, that Captain Seas is willing to kill for it, and that Dad Savage could die because of it? That’s what The Man of Bronze intends to find out.
...Hoo boy, trying to write this review has been a chore to get through, not only because there was a several hour long power outage at my home during it, but because trying to find the right words to describe my feelings has been an ongoing struggle. I’ll give it my best to explain:
A while back I was reading a collection of film criticism by the late novelist Harlan Ellison, and I recall him giving one of his infamous verbal beatdowns to the Mike Hodges’ 1980 adaptation of Flash Gordon, essentially calling it a besmirchment of a once great character. While I don’t follow Mr. Ellison’s opinion lockstep by any means, he eviscerated several movies back in the day for reasons that still baffle me, but during this particular instance I could see where he was coming from. Flash Gordon is, after all, a silly movie. The characters were dumb, the art design was gaudy, the special effects seem dated even for the era, and the only thing that people actually remember about the movie is the soundtrack by Queen and Brian Blessed. It’s a good thing movies based on comics slowly started to improve after this, otherwise MCU fans would be crying in their Cheerios.
Here’s the thing about Flash Gordon though, and if Ellison were still alive he’d probably rip me a new one over it: It was fun. As silly as it was, it embraced the weirdness of the concept and took it seriously. You might have thought it was stupid, but it never insulted your intelligence as it sucked the life from your soul like Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze. A movie meant to be an origin story, to reintroduce the concept to then-modern audiences, but almost immediately descends into such awful attempts at campy humor that it’s like watching Adam West’s Batman hang himself. ‘Oh look, this minor antagonist sleeps in a giant baby crib for some reason!’ ‘Wowwee, this waiter thought Doc and the Fabulous Five were going to order alcoholic beverages, but they actually ordered nonalcoholic beverages!’ ‘Try to hold the guffaws in when the final battle between Seas and Savage is the same shitty gag repeated five or six times in a row!’ Just remembering the scenes as I write this article is pissing me off a bit, like if you could punch a movie in the mouth I’d take a swing at it. I mean what have I got to lose, right? I’ve already been through 140 minutes of cinematic waterboarding, a fight would be a nice change of pace.
Which isn’t to say that you can’t play around with the source material from time to time, but this movie feels more like a segment from The Kentucky Fried Movie stretched across an hour and a half. Doc Savage is constantly treated as this amazingly charismatic guy, going so far as to add in really obvious eye twinkle effects, despite the fact that he’s got about as much personality as warm mayonnaise. The Fabulous Five come across as less trained soldiers and peers of Savage and more a quintet of bumbling sycophants who can accomplish pretty much nothing on their own except being captured. Captain Seas looks like if your high school music teacher became a Bond villain, and is about as effective an antagonist as that would be too. There’s never a real sense of danger for the protagonists, they spend more time in traveling montages then they do overcoming obstacles, and the ‘mystery’ that kick starts this whole sad affair can be sussed out by the first act. You go into this film wondering just what it was about this character that so fascinated people years before, and what this movie tells you is that Doc Savage is vapid nonsense that looks as cheap as the paper it was printed on, and that it was better off in that bygone era where people were apparently stupid enough to think it was worth reading. Which is not the sentiment you want people to have if you’re planning on a sequel.
Then there’s the music, the fucking music. Soaring outside the bounds of common sense, Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze decides against a traditional orchestra score in favor of the works of John Philip Sousa, complete with a needlessly expository and clunky theme song. An idea that could work once, in order to replicate the feel of an old-time radio show, but then of course it keeps getting shoved in everywhere. Any sense of tension, any sense of emotional depth is crushed under the feet of the least subtle man in music history as he stumbles across the scene like a drunken bull to the tunes, and the movie devolves into total farce. If John Williams’ Superman score evokes feelings of triumphant joy and courage, The Man of Bronze evokes memories of awkward days in the school marching band. Really gets you in the mood for an adventure, huh?
Unsurprisingly, Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (Except He Doesn’t Even Have a Tan) does not get the recommendation. Don’t take my vitriol as a sign that this is some prime rifftrax fodder either, as the work it would take to make fun of it is more attention than it really deserves. If you want to see the concept done better, try Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, another movie which I liked and Harlan Ellison hated (probably because it does rip off Savage a lot). Or perhaps you could read Alan Moore’s Tom Strong series, which also borrows heavily from Doc. Or you could just wait for that new Doc Savage movie that’s in development, the one that’s supposed to have Dwayne Johnson in the title role. Even if it never ends up going into production, you’ll still have more fun waiting for that movie than watching this movie. And if I were saying this live, this is where I would drop the mic.
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