L'Incroyable Homme puma

A bunch of Aztec aliens make a tremendous navigation error in a giant flying humbug, in a deep north American accent, deposit a mind-controlling mask on what appears to be Stonehenge, England, now with a nice coastal view. To look after this, the fabled "Puma man" (constantly miss-pronounced, rather aptly, as "poo-ma man" ) is entrusted to prevent it from falling into evil hands. Alas, a team of archaeologists in bondage gear find the mask and set off on world domination.

Need I go on? Nothing in this movie makes sense. Who cares if the hero's sidekick pushed a bunch of Americans to their deaths for no obvious reason! Poo-ma man's powers include dangling in front of London's skyline, posing like a squirrel and leaping around with 80's synthesized "boing" noises, and walking through walls - all the abilities you would expect from your average south-American feral wildcat.

Oh what's the point of going on. This movie is so bad, it bounces off the bottom depths of the chasm of suckness back up into the realms of inadvertent hysteria. Cue 80's disco music and, "Poo- ma man, he flies like a mor-on!"

As I've said before, you've just got to love those wacky Italians and some of their wacky cinematic "achievements". The Puma Man (or The Pumaman as the title card indicates) tells the story of Professor Tony Farms (Walter George Alton) who reluctantly accepts his superhero birthright. A direct descendant of extraterrestrials, he is given the power of the puma (Until I watched this movie, I had no idea that pumas could fly? Who knew?) so that he might defend the secrets of the Aztecs. One of those secrets, a golden mask that grants its possessor the power of mind control, has been stolen by the evil Kobras (Donald Pleasance). With his Aztec guide Vadinho (Miguel Angel Fuentes), The Puma Man must put a stop to Kobras' plans of world domination.

It might be screwy, but I can't help but enjoy parts of The Puma Man. The movie comes across like a twisted, no-budget mix of Superman and the U.S. television series "The Greatest American Hero". From the superhero costume that includes brown slacks straight off the rack at Sears to the poorly done rear projection special effects to the repetitive (but admittedly catchy) Casio keyboard soundtrack to the Christmas ornament-like space ship, it's obvious that the budget on The Puma Man was less that what I spent on dinner last night. But the odd thing is, regardless of how cheap looking most of the movie is, it's got a charm to it that money can't buy. And while that doesn't necessarily make The Puma Man a great movie or anything, on occasion the movie overcomes its many faults (or it might be because of these faults) and is often quite fun. The acting isn't much to write home about. Pleasance proves he could be a scene-chewer without equal. His insistence on pronouncing "puma" as "pyuma" is hysterical. Our would-be hero, Alton, is generally ineffectual. The female lead, played by Sydne Rome, while reasonably attractive, doesn't display much in the way of acting skills either. Still, given the material they're given to work with, the entire cast is serviceable. But probably the best thing I can say about The Puma Man is that it's not dull. In fact, it's well paced and generally entertaining throughout its runtime. And as I've argued so many times, entertainment is the single most important thing to me when watching movies.

Compared with most everyone else on IMDb, my rating for The Puma Man sticks out like a sore thumb. Maybe I enjoy it for all the wrong reasons, but whatever it is, I do enjoy it.

Puma

man, when he finally gets around to being Pumaman, looks like he got his outfit from Primark's 'Sensible Gentleman' section and attached a cape to it. He also displays the natural talents of a Puma. You know, like seeing in infra-red, passing through walls, and flying. If you start thinking about why aliens and pumas are linked and why Donald Pleasance can somehow take over people's minds using a gold mask from South America attached to what looks like a tricycle, you are going to end up having a stroke.

"It looks bad, and not good bad," my wife remarked while heading to our indoor pool manned by Joe Dallesandro look-a-likes. After watching it, I tend to agree to a certain extent. Pumaman has a reputation as a bad movie. Donald Pleasence said it was the worst film he starred in. Alberto De Martino says it was the worst film he ever made. Are there laughs to be had? Let's see.

After a demented introduction about how aliens contacted the Aztecs and made the first Pumaman, we switch to Donald Pleasence who has this gold mask that he's using to take over people's mind. He won't to control the world and only Pumaman can stop him, if only he knew who he was. This leads to various Americans in London being thrown out of windows before some mystic good guy tracks down the real Pumaman. I can't be bothered looking up what his character's name was.

New Pumaman has to learn to be Pumaman and is reluctant to fly about the place looking like a complete moron but eventually he does, and the effects really do look like someone hung Pumaman from a hook attached to his arse, then used the worst blue-screen effects in the world. And they use it in about 50% of the film. He can also go in and out of walls, something he seems to forget when chasing Donald Pleasence later in the film.

Donald's gold mask/mind control set up is pretty crap too. Once he grabs someone's mind, a rubber head of theirs appear on a shelf and then Donald commands it through the gold mask. This looks worse that it sounds, as the visual effect for communication seems to be wobbling a bit of sheet metal with the rubber head reflected on it. Truly dire. There are some laughs to be had by this, but apart from amatuer fist fights, Pumaman arguing with his mentor, really bad romantic scenes with Sydne Rome, and the constant nose-bleed inducing flying sequences, the best bit for me was when I realised that ten minutes of the film had begun to repeat itself, leading to a blissful moment where I fast forwarded the film, therefore reducing the running time.

I pride myself in my knowledge and appreciation of bad films. Back in the late 1970s, Harry Medved wrote an amazingly funny and brilliant book called "The 50 Worst Movies of All Time" and it kicked off the craze to see and appreciate bad films. I actually found and watched all fifty of the films from the book and then went in search for more awful films and decided to try watching IMDb's infamous Bottom 100 list. Not all of them are available and several have no subtitles or dubbing, so I cannot possibly see them all. However, I've seen a huge number of them and have noticed an annoying trend--nearly all the American films on the list were skewered on "Mystery Science Theater 3000" and MANY really bad films were never on this show--mostly because they couldn't get the royalties for all the films. Plus, other bad films have come out since the show ended. As a result, many absolutely horrid films NEVER appear on the list even though they are much worse than those featured on "MST 3000"...such as "Plan 9 From Outer Space", "They Saved Hitler's Brain", "Robot Monster", "The Room" and ALL of the films of Larry Buchanan, William Grefe and Ted Mikels! Clearly this list is NOT even close to being the 100 worst films...just the lowest rated and apparently the TV show's fans vote!

So is "Pumaman" worthy of being on this infamous list? Well, not...not at all. Sure, it's bad...but not THAT bad. While the story is silly and the special effects god-awful, there is a certain fun kitschy quality that made it much easier to watch than most bad films.

When the film begins, you hear about some weird Aztec-like cult that has great power--and some baddies want to destroy them and their emissary of goodness, Pumaman. But who is Pumaman? Well, no one really knows as he's soon to be revealed. Unfortunately, the dopey guy in England seems a very unlikely candidate to be a superhero...but he cannot help but believe something is up when he falls out a window yet lands safely on his feet! Soon, an American- Indian believer arrives and announces to the guy that he is Pumaman...and at around same time, so do the baddies who want to destroy him.

The plot is very much like the TV show "Americas Greatest Hero" (which it pre-dated)--with a naive new hero who has a hard time believing and then controlling his super powers...so the idea COULD have worked. Unfortunately, the film appeared to have a budget of about $64.38 when it came to special effects!! The scene where the guy falls out the window is just sad to see...as it is when he is supposedly flying. Heck, back in the 1950s "The Adventures of Superman" had MUCH better superhero effects...so why does it look so terrible in the 1980s?! And why does the musical budget appear to be even smaller--with really cheap and craptastic electronic keyboard effects that become VERY repetitious?! And, why does Donald Pleasance agree again and again to be in crappy films?! After all, he once was a respected actor!

The bottom line is that although this is a crappy and ugly looking film and the writing is occasionally very goofy, there is a grain of something NOT miserable or awful in it as well. No way would I put this in any Bottom 100 or possibly even Bottom 1000 list!

Vadinho, Aztec High Priest, should be the Pumaman, not that idiot Tony Farms. Throughout the movie, Vadinho proves himself worthy of the title of hero. He is the one who knows what is going on most of the time. The only thing Tony (aka Pumaman) does is bounce around and distract the villains. As far as I'm concerned, Tony is as good alive as dead. The only time Tony was ever effective at confusing the villains was when he WAS dead!

Secondly, Vadinho's character is much better than Tony's. Tony is a whiner, crying and sobbing about every little problem. Vadinho, on the other hand, takes each difficulty with pride and grace. Never once does he lose his temper.

Another reason Vadinho should be the Pumaman? He actually believes the religion. I'm surprised Tony even knew of Aztec religion. Vadinho, the HIGH FREAKIN' PRIEST, is not worthy of the title Pumaman, but Mr. Sarcastic American gets it handed to him? I don't think so! I think Mr. Alberto De Martino needs to get a nasty letter for this movie. What does he have against the Aztec?!