‘Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze’ or — A Man In His Element?
“Have no fear! Doc Savage is here!” Okay, maybe there’s no need to panic but considering the quality of ‘Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze’ (1975) a little bit of trepidation might be required before diving into it. So let’s have two hours of daily exercise, take a deep breath and jump right in.
Look, I’m not going to waste your time or mine attempting to convince you that ‘Doc Savage’ is a good movie because it isn’t. You’ll have more important things to do and even I’m not THAT deluded. It’s riddled with issues, creaks when it should soar plus most of all, it might be the most truly meaningless film ever made (but more on that later). Not that any of that matters if you grew up with this film like I did which felt like a kid-friendly mash-up of Superman, Indiana Jones and James Bond, the only difference being Doc Savage got there before any of them. Doc got there first. The movie was made in ’75 but all this goes back to Doc’s origin in the 30’s.
The film starts with Doc Savage, man of high intelligence and physical perfection, enjoying some me-time in his Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic Circle (I told you Doc, or Clark to give him his proper name, got there before Superman) when he picks up the mind frequencies of his brain-trust, The Fabulous Five, and immediately senses there is trouble back home. On returning to New York Doc is informed by the Five that his father has died deep in the jungles of the Central American Republic of Hildalgo. However, before he can examine his father’s papers there is an attempt on Doc’s life. Fortunately Doc had special double-glazing installed, possibly by Ted Molt, which saves Doc by refracting everything to the left by two inches. A frantic chase up the Empire State building then ensues resulting in the would-be assassin falling to his death, the only clue being a green serpent painted on his chest and a solid, golden dagger. This guy obvious ain’t from New York.
Determined to uncover the circumstances surrounding his father’s death (or was it murder?!) Doc, accompanied by The Fabulous Five, travels to Hildalgo where he meets the sinister Captain Seas, corrupt local officials and the legend of the edge of the World. Danger is everywhere as spectral snakes attack at night, biplanes prowl the skies and the big bad guy knows countless martial art fighting styles. Thank goodness for The Fabulous Five and Doc Savage who counter these perils with superior intelligence, remote control airplanes, cigarette lighters fitted with lasers, bullet-proof vests, unconscious homoeroticism, a baby pig and some extinguisher globes. What will happen? Watch ‘Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze’ and find out!
‘Doc Savage’ was produced by George Pal, who had a penchant for bringing big-budget escapist fantasy to the screen with films such as ‘The World of The Worlds’ (1953) and ‘The Time Machine’ (1960). Except something seems out of whack in terms of ‘Doc Savage’ looking as good as it could or should, often having the veneer of a TV movie. I don’t know if this was because Ron Ely, who plays Doc, was a television as opposed to movie star or down to Michael Anderson’s lacklustre directing but even as a kid I could never figure out if ‘Doc Savage’ was an expensive movie that sometimes looked cheap or cheap movie that sometimes looked expensive. This is a film which veers violently between the extremes of looking mediocre all the way to mildly mediocre.
Other issues arise in the form of The Fabulous Five themselves, the chemistry between the group often feeling clunky and forced despite the fact all of them are perfectly likable and distinct. There is one thing they all have in common, however, and that’s a penis because Doc and his group are ALL male. In fact, everyone in this film is male, including the spectral snakes and I wouldn’t be surprised if even the extinguisher globes had little dicks of their own. The one woman to appear in the film (with the exception of Captain Seas’ girlfriend who delivers the best performance in the film) has possibly the most underwritten, thankless role ever to be given to a female. She’s called Mona. Not only does Mona not properly appear until an hour into proceedings but, when she does so, she immediately falls in love/lust with Doc who then spurns her both emotionally AND sexually, raps her on the chin with his fist and then calls her a prick (he actually calls her a “brick” but it sounds like “prick”) and tells her, in so many words, to fuck off. Not only does she fuck off but she then comes back having led the bad guys directly to Doc’s location. And that’s it. Mona serves no other function in the story other than to be rejected then inadvertently screw-up the ‘good guy’s’ plans.
And talking of ‘good guys’… what is Doc’s plan?
This is what I meant about this film being meaningless as despite the soundtrack patriotically declaring at every chance that Doc fights for us all, has got our back and that he is our protector he never does any real protecting during the movie. Everything Doc does, every single thing, is utterly self-serving and nothing to do with the public interest at all. It’s all about him and his legacy with Doc not lifting a finger at any point to help anyone else other than himself. I mean he talks the talk, has he code and monologues about assisting every citizen in society, but his actual behaviour follows none of this. What an insincere asshole!
There’s also a lot of needless and pointless action. At one point The Fabulous Five run all the way up a building only to discover Doc has dealt with the threat and so have to run AAAALLLLLL the way down again, accomplishing nothing. Likewise with the remote control airplane designed to throw any malevolent force off their scent by thinking them all dead in the crash. A decent enough plan if it wasn’t rendered completely irrelevant by Doc and his team turning up at Hildalgo anyway, bold as shining brass and noising everybody up. Don’t complain if you get bitten by spectral green snakes, dickheads.
So that’s a lot of negativity about a film most people have either never heard of or forgotten about. But here’s the thing — ‘Doc Savage’ might not be good but it most certainly isn’t bad. In fact, it’s rather enjoyable. So now it’s time to look at the positives, and there are positives in ‘Doc Savage’. But what, exactly, are they?
I like the use of Sousa’s music as the soundtrack which, along with the tongue in cheek/wink in the eye humour, almost gives the film a satirical edge; tipped a little more in that direction and this could’ve been a cute little dig at American exceptionalism. The gadgets are fun and plentiful (the Bond films being the main touchstone here), the effects are fairly decent (I still can’t quite figure out how they make the snake bites appear on the flesh, but I have a hunch), the editing and choreography during the fight on Captain Seas’ yacht is nicely done but, best of all, is the pacing and sense of escapist fun, both of which remain fairly consistent throughout the compact 100 minute run-time. This wasn’t the hugely successful franchise kicker-offer Pal was expecting it to be but it still remains an enjoyable little movie.
‘Doc Savage; Man of Bronze’ is ripe, and I mean perfectly, ripe for remaking. It’s like Bond, superhero movies, Indiana Jones and more all rolled into one. The only problem many audiences might have is thinking the move was utterly derivative, not quite realising this is where so many of the tropes started and originated.
I was worried about revisiting ‘Doc Savage’ as it is a film I loved as a kid but even back then I was aware of its deficiencies so knew that, potentially, no amount of nostalgic scaffolding could support it if it a dud. It was a surprise (one more of relief) that I still had a lot of fun with the movie. I loved revisiting the characters, the world and the silliness, so much so that I watched it again the following night and that’s never a bad sign if a movie can do that to me. ‘Doc Savage’ might not win over any new converts but if you grew up loving this movie like I did then that magic, even just a little bit of it, is still there.
