The Skydivers

I was cruising IMDb and was checking out the Bottom 100 because I wanted to see if "Manos" was given a boost after the Entertainment Weekly story. What a pleasant surprise to see that "The Skydivers," the movie that I said was the worst I'd ever seen when I rubbernecked it twenty five years ago, has taken its rightful place at the top…I mean, the bottom.

For a while, I thought perhaps the WOAT tag should have gone to a woeful idea for a teen comedy called "Nice Girls Don't Explode," starring archetypal pretty-girl-trapped-by-a-nerd's-psyche Michelle Meyrink, but then I found my Beta cassette of "Skydivers" and came to my senses.

You've heard of "shoestring budgets" – this movie had a dental floss budget. Everything you need to know about the lack of cash Coleman Francis suffered is in an early scene in which a car – a junker with what looks like latex paint strokes across it – pulls up at the airport. As the car stops, the passenger door flies open. The driver gets out, there is dialogue I can't remember (but I'm sure it was as inane as the infamous coffee line), and the driver and another person get into the car. The driver gets in the driver's seat, the other person gets in the passenger's seat, closes the door, and sticks his arm out the open window to hold the door closed! Francis didn't have a friend who could lend him a car with properly operating doors?

Even the centerpiece of the movie – the skydiving footage – is ridiculously inept. And "Skydivers" has the most unconvincing love scene on celluloid – there's even less chemistry between those two than there was between Hayden Christiansen and Natalie Portman in "Revenge of the Sith." At least "Manos" made a lame attempt at titillation with the ladies wrestling in lingerie.

It's a shame I have to give "Skydivers" one star in order to vote (especially when there are apparent "Manos" anti-fans who are giving "Skydivers" 10 stars). When it comes to bad movies, "Skydivers" is back where it belongs: Number One with an ICBM.

When I was a kid I used to watch the the parachuters do their thing from the back yard of my grandma's house in Lake Elsinore. I often thought that I would make a movie about skydivers. Who wouldn't want to see footage of skydivers floating gracefully through the air over and over again. It turns out that Coleman Francis beat me to it. I mean this is the definitive skydiver movie. No other movie gets into the heart and soul of what it means to be a skydiver. The triumph, the tragedy, the love triangles, the wild parties. My heart was pounding when Beth's plane had engine trouble while she was taxiing down the runway. Would she be able to simply not take off? Pure drama! Then there is the sinister plot of the acid in the parachute! This movie is a must see for all skydivers who own a small airport and are cheating on their wives. Only the drunken haze of Francis' vision could bring us all of this. Coleman Francis' bio says he died of heart disease. Why am I not surprised?

It isn't fair to call "Skydivers" a train-wreck of a film, when the motif revolves around skydiving...so I'll have to call it a "plane crash" of a movie.

Technically speaking, this is actually the "best" of the Coleman Francis trilogy. "Beast Of Yucca Flats" has a plot that makes even less sense than this and has even more non-sequiteurs. "Red Zone Cuba" features far too much of Francis himself to be even remotely watchable. So if you HAD to watch a Coleman Francis movie, you should choose "Skydivers". Which is like saying that if you had to jump off a building, you should jump off the top floor of The "Stratosphere" tower instead of the Sears Tower or the Empire State building because the weather in Las Vegas is better.

Where "Beast" was a failed science fiction/horror film and "Red Zone Cuba" was a Bizarro World combination of a "Road" flick and a "Buddy" flick, the central concern of "Skydivers" seems to be sexual politics. I think. I can't really explain why else the two morons who want the airstrip owner dead put acid on his chute, so I'm pretty sure that sexual politics was involved. Highlights of "Skydivers" include...oh wait, don't tell me...um...uhhh, well parts of "Skydivers" that don't actually shut your cerebral cortex down include: the skydiving footage (because no one has to act), the impromptu party that breaks out on the airstrip for no apparent reason, (it brings the movie to a screeching halt, and that's a good thing), the guitar driven songs contributed by Dwane Eddy tribute band "the Night Jumpers", and the scene where everyone hunts down the killers and shoots them dead without benefit of a trial. (After all, they were fleeing the scene, so they HAD to be the killers, right???) Oh, and the scene where the jilted lover "Suzy" trades sex for the acid to put on the chute. And the long fistfight scene that tries to go "The Quiet Man" one better. And the repeated references to drinking coffee. ("Coffee?? Gee, that's better than SEX!!!")

Wait, those aren't highlights (well, the Dwayne Eddy songs are good). So this movie doesn't actually have anything to recommend it. Except for the fact that it is so unintentionally hilarious in its ineptness that it makes a fascinating example of what happens when people without talent insist on trying to make movies.

The MST coverage of "Skydivers" is one of their best episodes - it is just so ripe for the picking (and the kicking) that Mike and the Bots have a field day with it. So if you have some morbid urge to see this film, seek out the MST3000 version.

This film tells the turgid tale of a man named Harry who is cheating on his wife (who is played by an actress named Kevin), who is cheating on him with his ol' war buddy Joe. At one point Harry dies, I think. The film-makers were a bit ambivalent on this point.

Anyway, this is a total movie-going experience. For one thing, Tony Cardoza, in the role of Harry, cannot act. Well, make that "DOESN'T" act. He says every line in the same monotone voice. It doesn't matter if his Skydiving Center is being shut down or he suspects his wife & best friend are making out on ladder or it's his turn to pick a song at the jukebox: HE NEVER CHANGES HIS EXPRESSION! It's pretty entertaining.

Don't worry, the supporting cast more than makes up for Cardoza's lack of a screen presence. Apparently director Coleman Francis stuck in all his odd, lumpy friends in the background of this epic. There's the excited Scotsman in his kilt, a manly woman who beats up a scrawny, Iggy Pop-esque fellow while dancing, a noodly retarded photographer, a bland guy holding a guitar for no apparant reason, a beatnik holding a rooster, a gal who wears Roller Skates and an Ice skating outfit no matter where she is (including a bar), a perky gal in a polka-dot bikini dancing at the airfield (the camera focuses on her buttocks for 75% of the dance sequence), the confused millionaire, the weasly lawyer (wonderfully played by Harold Saunders from Francis' Red Zone Cuba), the confused old lady in a straw hat, the excited immigrant girl, and Steve, the creepy, stubbly Skydiver who falls to his death after yelling that skydiving is "FUN"!

Personally, I love all of Coleman Francis' unique films. Each chapter in his trilogy paints a portrait of a dark, plane-obsessed man who drank a lot.

And that's just fine with me.

Wow! Was this movie _action packed_ or what! You've got skydiving, mate swapping, skydiving, meaningful glances, skydiving, intrigue, skydiving, coffee (or broad hints thereof leading to an exciting scene where coffee actually is consumed), skydiving, sexual tension, skydiving, painful deaths, skydiving, curious onlookers, skydiving, a cool jazz guitarist playing his Rickenbacker archtop with Mel Bay-like aplomb, skydiving, butt shaking, and (of course) skydiving!

Among the cast of hundreds of thousands,the truly lovely Kevin Casey is a standout as Beth (she just gets prettier every day, doesn't she?).

After suffering through "Red Zone Cuba", I approached this Coleman Francis ouevre with some trepidation, but found myself genuinely entertained. Don't let my seemingly flippant tone fool you. I really did like this movie.