Customer Reviews

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Skydivers [VHS]

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4 star:		(3)
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This film contains things that an impressionable young mind should not be exposed to. Adultery. Murder. Elderly, lustful pharmacists. Swing Choir.

Yes, it's another trip into cinema's nether regions with the folks from MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000, and this time they have a doozy on their hands.

To explain this movie is almost impossible--It was co-written, produced, and directed by one Coleman Francis, who earned most of his show-biz money playing the Man at Bar or the Third Soldier. And was so bad that even Russ Meyer (Russ Meyer! )wouldn't give him more than bit parts. Francis' only distinction as a filmmaker is the odd nature of his editing. Most directors use editing to help move the story along and generate tension. Francis used editing to recreate the sensation of an epileptic fit--people jump from one end of a room to another without taking a step, whole chunks of dialogue disappear, people explode from stasis into violent action, all of which contribute to the general feeling that every nerve ending in your brain is misfiring at once. Top all of this off with a long, pointless party sequence featuring every show-biz oddball that Coleman could round up, a crowd that might have made Fellini's mouth water, right down to an amazonian blonde who's almost a dead-ringer for Anita Ekberg. Alas, Marcello Mastroianni is nowhere in sight . . .

And then there's the swing-choir competition initiated by Dr. Forrester. I would go into detail, but this is a family audience, and the details are too grisly for young minds.

Director Coleman Francis certainly gives the crew of the SoL a lot of material to work with in this episode. Francis' editing in crazy, as you can also see in another MST episode, "Red Zone Cuba".

The 'plot' (if you want to call it that) of "Skydivers" involves the trials and tribulations of a skydiving school. Tony Cardoza, who stars in practically every Francis movie, plays the owner of the school along with his wife...uh, whats-her-face. There's murder, adultery, acid laced parachutes, and a dance number at the end. It's everything a MST watcher loves to see Mike and the Bots tear apart. The hackling is great, including a short called, "Why Study Industrial Arts?", a mighty frightening look at industrial arts by a few highschool kids and their basketball coach.

I highly recommend this film for anyone who needs a good laugh, a grand guffaw, or a busted diaphram. Get it today!

"Skydivers" ranks in the upper echelon of MST3K episodes. It's prime heckling fodder, complete with continuity problems, a cast that is lackluster at best, repeated references to coffee ("Coffee is a major plot point"), and an impenetrable hairstyle on the heroine. I won't even get started on the "plot." The opening scenes are hysterical, and it just gets better from there. This movie is a must for any MST3K fan!

I'm partial to the black and white episodes and this one is great. It has all the elements of a great Mst movie:bad acting, no plot, and as Servo says so magnificently "the editor has attention deficit disorder". Skydivers, episode 609 (109 according to the jacket), is a must for all MSTies.

This is definitely one of my favorite MST3K movies. Every single aspect of this movie can be made fun of. First off, there are about a thousand characters just randomly inserted that have no connection to the plot. They were probably just friends of Coleman Francis that were given roles. Appropriately enough concerning this odd bunch, Tom Servo says "Looks like they're having Village People auditions"

The main characters are taunted non-stop. The female lead has a steel reinforced 60s do. Everyone keeps telling her how beautiful she is, it's like she's the only woman left. The male lead is so hopelessly dull, he seems to lack the energy to even pick his feet off the ground.

The key reason to buy this video are the skydiving scenes. The difficulties of filming them result in a lot of discrepancies and continuity problems. One second someone is a mile from the ground, an instant later they're a human pancake.

The saving grace of this film is the gratuitous music by Jimmy Bryant's band near the end, which I think is pretty cool.

This miserable little movie is a typical Coleman Francis production. The plot is nearly incomprehensible, the dialogue (when you can hear it) doesn't make much sense, and there's not a single likeable character in the whole thing. People who supposedly love one another stand around aimlessly or mumble lines at each other. People who hate one another do just the same. Some folks jump out of planes, some folks die. Then some other folks die. The end. Enjoy the buffet.

The short 'Why Study Industrial Arts?' tells us that doing so prepares us for a great future, and will allow us to recognize a well-built manufactured home when we see one.

All the riffing in this episode is quite good (suffering through really awful movies often elevated the quality of the commentary), but in my opinion Crow T. Robot particularly shines in this episode. Not only does he have a lot of great riffs (on skydiving: 'With my luck, I'd probably land in a stump grinder.'), but the host segments are very funny too. In one, he accidentally saws himself in half while studying Industrial Arts. In another, he traps himself in a double jock-lock. In a third, Tom Servo strafes his great new car.

It's a rough episode for the little pin-beak, but it makes for a great show. Be sure you have this one.

This is possibly the best Mike Nelson episode of MST3K. I actually prefer Mike's episodes to Joel's( don't get me wrong Joel is great).Mike seems to get a lot more jokes off than joel, i don't really know how this is possible, since Mike was the head writer for most of the duration of Joel's run, but that's how it seems. i couldn't stop laughing at this movie, even when the boys wernt making fun of it, you have to wonder how it was ever made. A classic MST3K line if ever i heard one; from mike; "It seems like they forgot to do things in this movie" that pretty much sums up Skydivers. The industrial arts propaganda short at the beggining is just as good, this one is deffinantly a must have for fans.

This movie was the first of the "Coleman Francis Triumvirate" (as they're called in the MST3K Episode Guide) and another classic Mike episode released through Rhino.
here is a summary:

A short about a loser and his industrial arts/semi-nude club precedes the film. An MST classic. The movie takes place in a town that has an almost entirely skydiving-based economy, and centers around a recreationl skydiving outfit run by the extremely dull Harry (played by Francis stalwart Tony Cardoza) and his wife Beth (played by a woman who is always wearing a jumpsuit that makes it look like she has a load in her pants). These two are having marriage problems that are based around Harry's affair with a disgusting, scary-looking woman named Suzy. To complicate things, Suzy is also seeing a rat-faced moron named Frankie. Frankie used to work for Beth and Harry, but was fired for being drunk, which only causes more problems between the foursome. Then Harry's old army buddy, Joe, comes to town, and Harry hires him to do some sort of unspecified job for him. Well, Joe and Beth then have an affair that centers around a cup of coffee. Keep in mind that throughout all of this there are numerous random scenes of skydivers doing vaguely obscene air stunts. Eventually, Harry breaks it off with Suzy, so she and Frankie decide to kill Harry by putting acid in his parachute on the day of the night jump. It works and Harry plummets to his death. Frankie and Suzy are hunted down and shot by a militia led by Coleman Francis himself, who flies around in a helicopter taking pot-shots.

As you can probably tell from the above summary, this movie is a very hard one to describe properly. The highlight scene, though, is definitely the pre-party for the night jump. There is a really crappy surf-rock, Ventures or Dick Dale-type band playing and a bunch of really bizarre characters dancing around. There is a real skinny shirtless guy who dances with the largest woman I have ever seen, a Scotsman in a kilt, and a woman who goes everywhere in roller skates (the inspiration for Boogie Nights' Rollergirl perhaps? I doubt it.) That's a classic scene with some great riffs by Mike and the Bots. Really, the guys make great jokes throughout, and hardly any ever fall flat (the only jokes I wasn't particularly fond of were the fairly constant "Petey the Plane" references). Another classic episodem though.

Skydivers was basically the perfect vehicle for the MST3K treatment, featuring a meaningless plot, horribly untalented actors, and Coleman Francis as the brains (or lack thereof) behind it all. This is truly a classic, one of the best MST3K experiments of all time, featuring the best and most hilarious opening skit the guys at Best Brains ever came up with. Servo is "Tom Starshow," but his planetarium show is constantly interrupted and eventually broken up completely by Crow's loaded questions about Uranus; as far as I'm concerned, this is the funniest thing MST3K ever bestowed upon us. In later skits, Crow gives himself a double jock lock and accidentally saws himself in two. This whole video is really a Crow T. Robot showcase; he delivers one killer zinger after another while watching the movie, giving us some of his all-time best quips.

Before the movie starts, we are treated to the wonderful Why Study Industrial Arts?, one of my all-time favorite shorts. Then the movie begins; Mike cogently points out about halfway through it, "Seems like they forgot to have things happen in this movie." Of course, Coleman Francis is one of the masters of making films where nothing happens. He also goes out of his way to make sure that nobody with an ounce of acting talent finds his way in front of the camera. Tony Cardoza gives one of the most wooden, thoroughly unemotional performances I've ever seen. His character Harry runs a skydiving facility in the middle of nowhere with his wife, whom he is cheating on; the other woman has bad news written all over her. The wife is unhappy but perks up when Harry hires an old friend to replace the mechanic he fired. Things are going all right for the morbid pair until a jumper panics and waits far too late (as in never) to open his chute. Sadly, all we get to see is the guy lying placidly out in the field. The feds shut Harry's little airport down momentarily, but he is soon back in business. To celebrate, the gang has a big shin-dig, complete with such unexplainable partygoers as a Scotsman, an incredibly buxom blonde, and a really weird band; ironically, given the inane importance placed on coffee in the earlier dialogue, none is apparently served at the party. After the festivities, Harry and the gang all go on a parachute jump. What they don't know is that Harry's former mechanic and former squeeze have set in motion a plot of revenge against him.

There's a lot of skydiving here, so I can't fault Francis Coleman for the title of the movie. There are several successful jumps for each less successful one, so you find yourself disappointed more often than not to see everyone's chute open. The one good thing about all the boring skydiving action is the fact that it cuts dramatically down on the inane dialogue and painfully bad acting we would otherwise be forced to endure for a longer duration. All this quiet time also gives Mike and the Bots plenty of opportunities to ridicule the movie and every thing about it. I daresay you won't come across many MST3K experiments as hilarious as this one. The Uranus skit alone makes Skydivers a must-have for MST3K fans.

Cheese, Thy Name is Coleman. Skydivers is part of the Coleman Francis Trilogy: Beast of Yucca Flat and Red Zone Cuba are the others. These make for Mike Nelson what Manos: The Hands o'Fate was for Joel. Pointless dialogue, bizarre (to say the least) editing, goofily blocked shots are all unmistakeable signs of this auteur. In Skydivers, entire scenes revolve around coffee, and oh yeah, some babe and her weasily boyfriend pouring acid on a parachute. In the parachuting scenes watch for the "expert" skydiver who lands on his hand and knees. Bad, bad, bad-a good way to fracture a wrist and blow out a knee. As you might guess, Mike and Bot's have a field day with this one. You might have to watch it several times to get all the jokes you'll miss while laughing. The only downside I can think of, is the short preceding the "feature". It's not really conducive to MST treatment and I think slows the pacing down. Overall, this is one of the best MST3Ks on tape. A good episode to introduce someone to "Join Us". Get this.