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Nabaza.net-The MarketPlace - Doc Savage: Man of Bronze
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List Price: $14.98
Our Price: $46.00
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Starring: Ron Ely, Paul Gleason, William Lucking, Michael Miller, Eldon Quick
Directed By: Michael Anderson
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786302877915
Format: Color
ISBN: 6302877911
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Release Date: 1994-01-14
Running Time: 101
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1975-06
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Editorial Reviews:
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The superhuman crimefighter hero of pulp fiction, played by Ron (Tarzan) Ely, hits the screen in a rip-roaring, wild-and-wooly adventure from Oscar(R) winning fantasy filmaker George Pal. Year: 1975 Director: Michael Anderson Starring: Ron Ely, Darrell Zwerling, Michael Miller
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Bronzed but buffoonish.
Comment: The 1930's was the heyday of Tarzan, the Lone Ranger, the Shadow, the Spider, the Green Hornet, Captain Midnight, Gene Autry, Flash Gordon, and eventually Superman and Batman. A great pantheon of pop culture heroes flourished in pulp magazines, comic strips, radio shows, and movie serials.
The 1960's gave us Adam West as Batman, Derek Flint, Maxwell Smart, 007, and many other hero spoofs(not to mention the theater then unfolding in the socio-political realms); the concept of the hero emerged from this period battered and shaken.
The early 1970's saw the emergence of a new type of rather angry anti-hero: Dirty Harry, Shaft, Billy Jack, Superfly, etc.
George Pal had accurately predicted the sci-fi craze of the 1950's, and so he produced the first picture of that cycle as well as producing the classic and best versions of `War of the Worlds' and `The Time Machine'. George Pal correctly understood that by the mid-1970's the collective unconscious of America was hungry for a return of the old school hero, 1930's style.
George Pal knew that to make an adventure of this sort with a hero like Doc Savage that you had to somehow acknowledge the absurdity of it all. Unfortunately, while Indiana Jones and the Rocketeer gave the audience the equivalent of a knowing wink, Doc Savage's director stopped just an inch short of having Doc Savage slip on a banana peel. This film, then, is an uneasy mix of authentic 1930's style pulp magazine adventure and ham-fisted attempts at camp.
The single worst thing in this film is the soundtrack, a creative but ultimately dreadful batch of John Phillip Sousa marches, including a custom Doc Savage lyric, which is especially loathsome. It is indeed fortunate that a good many parts of this film managed to escape this score.
Negatives aside, this film will be mildly enjoyable to fans of pulp magazines, old comics, radio and serial heroes, etc. Fans of Doc Savage should be mollified by the many elements of the source material which were faithfully realized, and that compared to more recent super-hero flicks, the writers took relatively few liberties. Overall, the cast is pretty good, and Ron Ely looks exactly like the vision of Doc Savage on the covers of the original pulps. I think he pulls off the role pretty well. And there are old style cars, airplanes, clothes, and fight scenes, so it's a pretty fun ride.
George Pal might have missed the mark here, but not by much. Just a year after this film came `Star Wars,' which was basically a retooling of the old Flash Gordon serials. In 1978 came `Superman, the Movie.' Two years after that came the 1st Indiana Jones flick, set smack dab in the 1930's, just like Doc Savage. All of these latter productions, however, benefited by taking their source material or inspiration just a little bit more seriously than Pal did.
But since `Doc Savage,' more1930's throwback films have flopped than succeeded, at least commercially: `The Legend of the Lone Ranger,' `The Phantom,' `The Rocketeer,' `The Shadow,' and `Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.' All of these were big budget affairs. For some reason, certain persons amongst us are irresistibly drawn to that long lost decade, when imagination populated the world with mythic heroes. Too bad these heroes usually remain one step beyond our reach.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Poor Doc
Comment: Terrible...in concept and in execution and in casting (well, Ely was OK); Cutsey-poo here and there. No hint of what the Doc of the books was all about; no suspense; no elan; nothing. But, this is the usual outcome when Hollywood tries to bring superheroes to the screen...The Shadow (all special effects and a mish-mosh of themes and stories); The Phantom (Billy Zane good; Devil and Hero great, Treat Williams over-the -to "performance" ruins the picture along with the cutsey-poo asides and wisecracks not to mention the Ghost Dad to help out his often benighted son...The Phantom needs his dead dad to help him out with Diana? Evidently the writers never read the Phantom strips.)Superman I looks like they changed directors 1/2 way thru; The rest degenerated to the point that IV was a social message film; Batman I was decent, if you could accept Keaton..but, the next 2 were abominable, showing no one understood what made the first one decent. I could go on,but why bother??
Customer Rating:
Summary: Doc Savage... The Man Of Bronze
Comment: this is clearly the greatest film ever made. im pretty sure the plot must come directly from an as yet undiscovered shakespeare masterpiece, and the acting abilitys of Ron 'teh don' Ely are simply uncomparible to any other actor dead or alive. for a film made in 1975 the special affects are of far superior quality of anything seen in today's films. 5 stars
Customer Rating:
Summary: The View From the 86th Floor
Comment: From his headquarters atop the highest skyscraper in New York City, Doc Savage serves the right, and wrongs no man. Trained from birth mentally, physically, and morally, Doc is a protector of the innocent and righter-of-wrongs by profession. With his five assistants at his side, he will go anywhere in the world to accomplish his goal.Set in the 1930s, and based upon the best-selling pulp magazine of the era, this is fine, G-rated action/adventure for the entire family.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The first 10 minutes...
Comment: ...are pretty decent. After they leave New York it goes rapidly downhill. I would give anything to be able to have all the footage and be able to re-edit that film. It could even be salvagable. I give it 3 stars for the opening, and 1 for the rest of it.
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