L'Homme indestructible

I am not really sure why the film has an overall score of 3.2 at this time--it's really NOT a bad film. And, for the budget behind it, the people responsible for INDESTRUCTIBLE MAN should be proud of the final product.

Oddly enough, this is a film that doesn't easily fit in one genre. The best way to categorize it is a "sci-fi/horror film with strong Film Noir overtones". Why sci-fi/horror? Well, the plot involves a scientist accidentally reviving a man who was executed. Upon being revived, the man finds he is practically indestructible and goes on a killing spree--to kill those who framed him as well as any other person who just happens to get in his way. Now as to the Noir aspects, the film is shown in a semi-documentary style like many Film Noir movies and features the usual narration--this time by the detective working on the case. In this sense, it's reminiscent of Noir films such as HE WALKED BY NIGHT and T-MEN.

Despite the merging of these genres, I think the film worked because the acting was decent and the writing showed imagination and a slight Noir edge to it. Considering two of my favorite genres are Noir and 50s horror/sci-fi, it's not at all surprising I liked it. About the only negative was the stupid and needless inter-cutting of closeups of Lon Chaney's rheumy-looking eyes (i.e., watery and perhaps looking like he was drunk--a distinct possibility in Chaney's case). This just looked cheap and seeing the same pointless closeup shot again and again was sloppy.

Low budget; simple dialogue; filmed in shades of black and white; this is a great example of those early Sci-fi/horror flicks that entertained our imaginations. The body of a violent criminal, 'Butcher' Benton(Lon Chaney Jr), is accidentally brought back to life and the speechless bad man is determined to kill the three people responsible for his ride in the electric chair. Many close ups of Chaney's raised eyebrows and grimacing face. Marion Carr plays the killer's love interest. Three well traveled character actors(Max Showalter, Ross Elliott and Joe Flynn) provide support. This is really fun to watch.

I cherish a great deal of respect for the late Lon Chaney Jr. His acting career must not have been easy, since he's the son of his father (Lon Chaney Sr.; the father of silent cinema) and since he always somewhat stood in the shadows of fellow horror icons Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. Chaney Jr. starred in several really good horror gems ("Spider Baby", "House of Dracula") but also in many overlooked B-movies like this "Indestructible Man". The plot is more ambitious than you'd think Chaney fits into his role perfectly. He plays the murderous gangster Charles "Butcher" Benton, sentenced to death and taking the secret of a hidden loot (worth over 600.000$) with him in his grave. He swears vengeance on his attorney who double-crossed him and he's offered the opportunity when an experimenting scientist accidentally brings the Butcher back from the dead. Even though filmed on a minuscule budget, "Indestructible Man" is a very entertaining crime/horror movie with fairly good acting and a couple of nice special effects. The plotting is rather incompetent (for example: though the shock, Butcher loses his vocal cords but his memory stays intact...) but you're not supposed to take it too seriously, anyway. Chaney's eerie madman-charisma is more than enough to make "Indestructible Man" a worthwhile effort, if you ask me. This is just one of those many well-intended 50's films that got wrongfully ridiculed by MST3K.

Lon Chaney, Jr. stars in this most low budget science fiction/noir thriller about a man who comes back from the dead with no voice and more of a one track mind that Moose Malloy in Murder My Sweet. His lawyer Ross Elliott masterminded an armored car robbery in which the guards were killed and Chaney and two accomplices got away with over $600,000.00 dollars of which only Chaney knows where it's hid. The two accomplices turn state's evidence and pin the whole thing on Chaney at Elliott's direction. Some way, some how, Chaney's going to get these rats.

When scientists Robert Shayne and Joe Flynn make an under the table deal for the body, they shoot it with electricity, Frankenstein style, and Chaney comes to life, even though his vocal cords have burned to a cinder and has no voice. His skin and bones have become almost like Superman, he's truly an Indestructible Man.

The film is narrated by Max Showalter the detective on the original armored car heist. He can't believe it, but it's true, Chaney's back from the dead and leaving a murderous trail behind him. Bullets bounce off him just like Superman, even a flame thrower just burns him, and a bazooka only slows him down a bit.

There are two female roles of importance, Marian Carr as Chaney's girl friend as described by the papers and her best friend and fellow stripper Peggy Maley who always has a good wisecrack in any film she's ever in.

You can't rate the film all that high, the production values are almost non-existent. But Indestructible Man is not all that bad as a thriller. Chaney is mesmerizing and frightening in a performance that has no dialog except at the very beginning of the film. The final chase scene through the sewers is borrowed liberally from The Third Man.

If you're going to borrow, do it from the best and Indestructible Man while it will never win any awards, isn't anything the cast and crew have to be ashamed of.

This is another one of these "not bad" sci-fi/horror/crime/drama/whatever you want to label it 1950s B-films.

The cast actually has some fine actors, men like Casey Adams who starred in "Niagara" with some no-name dames called Marilyn Monroe and Jean Peters, and Lon Chaney, a familiar name among fans of this genre.

The is the tried-and-true revenge story. In this case, a man who is executed is taken from a mortuary to a scientist's lab where the doctor is experiment on cancer research. That doctor, by the way, is another familiar face - that of Inspector Henderson of Superman television fame (Robert Shayne). Oh, the assistant is Joe Flynn, also of TV fame (McHale's Navy.) I'm telling you, this had a pretty good cast.

Well, Charles "The Butcher" Benton (Chaney) is brought back to life, much to the surprise of the doctor and his assistant. "The Butcher" then shows his gratitude by killing those two guys and then grabbing a car and hightailing it from San Francisco down to Los Angeles. He's searching for his shyster lawyer and two other gang members who turned stoolie on him. His mission: kill those three guys.

I won't give away the rest but it's enjoyable to watch to see the "B" floozies in here and the generally schlocky-like story. It's a low-budget fun movie. Yet, despite all that, when it was all over - frankly - I thought this film could have been better, even on a small budget. I wonder if anyone else feels that way.