Product Details

• Actors: Ron Ely, Paul Gleason, William Lucking, Michael Miller, Eldon Quick
• Directors: Michael Anderson
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: G (General Audience)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• VHS Release Date: January 14, 1994
• Run Time: 101 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302877911
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #14,136 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

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

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Buckaroo Banzai in embryo., February 26, 2002

By	Kendal B. Hunter (Provo, UT United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This film is very good, but has one critical flaw-the campiness! I realize it made Mystery Science Theater 3000, and that is the best compliment that a bad film can have.

I say that this film is good for several reasons. First, the story is faithful to the original story. Compare that to the fast and loose "Superman" and "Batman" movies, which were good films, but ran roughshod over the origin stories.

Secondly, and with the one exception of Monk, this film is perfectly cast. Going by the book descriptions, the actors look like the characters they play: Ham looks like Ham, Renny is uncannily like Renny, and Habeas Corpus looks like a pig, although with smaller ears. By the way, Habeas wasn't in the first novel, and they left out Ham's pet monkey Chemistry, thank goodness!

To his credit, Michael Miller plays the part that he was cast to play quite well, and he is great and charming actor. However, he was miscast as a character, and that was the main problem. Especially, since Monk is one of the main characters in the book. Other members of the brain trust come and go, but Doc, Ham and Monk are the Holy Trinity of the 181 super-sagas. I think the produces didn't want to have two muscle-bound characters, and fat people always seem to be jolly. The fat man/thin man interplay with Ham and Monk works for the film, but it isn't quite right for what should be done.

The hardware is also superbly done. Basically Doc Savage is a Depression James Bond, and it was a tread to see the retro-technology that would have been used by a genius in the 1930's. The answering machine says it all.

So now to the John Phillip Sousa music. It works with me, since Doc Savage isn't a hero, but he is the first-the prototype-Superhero. He is even prior to Superman, who was really a rip-off of Doc Savage. Sorry Mr. Seinfeld! The music adds patriotic majesty and "oomph" to what Doc Savage is all about. Keep in mind, this was made in 1975, a year before the Bicentennial, when we has a spike of patriotism, just like after the 9/11 attacks. It is no shame to love your country!

The campiness is not as bad as it seems. The wild success of the Adam West "Batman," is the reason why this film was done in that vein. You had everyone wanting to be a part of "Batman." Just look at the guest villains, such as Caesar Romero, Burgess Meredith, and the weird cameos when they were scaling the walls with the bat ropes. I think the studio wanted to try to reproduce the feel of "Batman," but it didn't work. And it looks quite lame with 20/20 hindsight.

Sadly, this is all we Savagites have to tide us over. There were rumors of Arnold Schwartzeneggar as Doc Savage. His body is right, but the accent is all wrong. A pre-accident Christopher Reeve would be ideal, and there is always hope that we can clone Orson Welles, but other than that, I don't know of anyone who could play Doc, except Nicholas Cage. Just Kidding!

All in all, this movie isn't as bad as it first seems, and the floating snakes are downright creepy. At least they freaked me out as a four year old kid when I saw this in a drive in. But I date myself!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Best seen through squinted eyes, November 30, 1996

By A Customer

This is Producer George Pal's (the George Lucas of the 1950s) last film. He spent the rest of his life working on the Paramount lot trying to put together a few final productions. Pal had some great source material with Doc Savage. Bantam reprinted nearly all of the Doc Savage novels from the pulp era, and Doc became something of a cult hero on campuses in the 1960s. But Pal made the mistake (possibly at the studio's urging) to go campy with this production. Campiness has not worked when working with a hallowed hero like Doc. A few years later Dino DeLaurentiis camped up Flash Gordon with similar disappointing results. It's too bad no one else has tried to make a Doc Savage movie. For now, this is all Doc Savage fans have. Despite the John Phillip Souza marches and the tongue-in- cheek patriotism, there's a few things to like about this film. Ron Ely makes a decent Doc Savage. The casting of his "Fantastic Five" assistants is really good. And the plot stays pretty close to that of the first book in the series. It's a shame that one of the pulp era's most popular creations was treated so shabbily. But it's only been recently that Hollywood has treated super heroes with respect. If Pal had treated it more like "Raiders of the Lost Ark" instead of "Batman" this might have been memorable. Maybe one day someone will remake Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze the way it should be made. Until then, this video is probably only for die-hard Doc fans. END

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Doctor is In, November 26, 2000

By	Bob Besco (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews

Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze, while awkwardly out of time and a general source of embarrassment to most lifelong fans of Lester Dent's archetypal pulp-literature hero, is nevertheless an oddly entertaining and likable film.

Viewed without prejudice, it succeeds on the level of classic action-adventure marred only by an unfortunate overdose of comedy relief courtesy of Monk, the Lost Stooge. The "real" chemical wizard was, like Doyle's Prof. Challenger, a tough anthropoidal brawler whose trademark shenanigans contrasted his brutish appearance. Not a pallid Curly with muttonchops.

The rest of the supporting cast play their respective print counterparts convincingly. And as Doc, the Supreme Adventurer, Ron Ely is as close to the mark as anyone could possibly be.

Having watched this movie more than 30 times over the years, I no longer refer to it as a guilty pleasure. Just a pleasure.