Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze – Detarnished!

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9.6
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9.5(10)
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9.6(11)
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9.8(11)
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9.6(10)
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9.4(20)
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(Updated: May 13, 2023)
Overall rating
 
8.4
Audio/Video Quality
 
9.0
Audio Editing
 
8.0
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8.0
Narrative
 
9.0
Enjoyment
 
8.0
I actually watched this Fanedit first before seeing the theatrical version. But i could watch the theatrical version on its own, Is it super cheesy and weird. Oh Yes. Im still scratching my head as too why all the bad guys are sleeping in oversized baby cradles. But To me there worst thing a movie can be than being cheesy and that being boring. Like Phantom Menace Boring. But this cut dose bring the cheese down a few slices and if your allergic to cheese. Than this version is for you. Personally i could watch either one. Depending if i want to watch something wacky or something more more restrained.

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Yes
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Digital
B
Top 1000 Reviewer 4 reviews
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Overall rating
 
8.6
Audio/Video Quality
 
9.0
Audio Editing
 
9.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
9.0
Enjoyment
 
6.0
An older fan-edit that is absolutely worth standing alongside the most recent work. I have to give credit to Slark for the opening title cards. It set me in the right frame of mind to enjoy this edit with appropriate expectations. In short: it is not a good movie. There is no magic wand that can make it a good movie. But there is a certain charm to it, and particularly for fans of pulp serials or Doc Savage himself, what this edit HAS done is revealed a kernel of what could've been a good movie. As the title cards say "If someone watches this and complains that they wasted 1 1/2 hours of their time, I'll consider that a victory because they didn't turn it off after 3 minutes!" Well, I watched it all the way through, and for a Doc Savage fan, it wasn't time wasted at all.

After trimming so much away, what we're left with is a smoothly edited film that gives a focused and consistent narrative: an old-school adventure serial of globe-trotting and scientific mystery. Now, there are parts that are super-cheesy and have been left in...they're just endemic to the story. The music is a horrible choice for making you take any of this without eye-rolls, but it IS "The Doc Savage March". While I would've scrapped the entire score, I understand the desire to keep at least the main theme. There are also some lines and scenes which are pretty campy and over-the-top ("Mona, you're a brick." Bwa ha!) but honestly it's kind of the charm of the film. You're just not going to get a serious action movie out of this, so why not leave in some of the less offensive wacky fun? Some of the inventions and effects work are also super-forced and campy, but they are consistent with the novels, so really you just have to keep them as they were realized.

The intro to the film is the major win here, and I'd love to see a whole movie done in a similar vein. What's here seems more like a long TV episode akin to a Magnum PI or Knight Rider...about the same level of quality, budget, acting, cinematography, etc. But this pared down version gives us a film that could stand alongside many of the big movies of the late '70s/early '80s.... it's not any cheesier than many of Moore's Bond films, not any more camp than ridiculous comedies with former SNL members. And what it does have is a really fantastic portrayal of Doc by Ron Ely! Until we get a Hollywood update (a matter of time), this is the best realization of those old novels a fan could hope for. Thanks to Slark for salvaging something from the wreckage.

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Overall rating
 
9.8
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
10.0
Enjoyment
 
9.0
Amazing. That's all there is to it. The editor has retrieved a pretty decent film from the shell of a truly bad film: something watchable and enjoyable, rather than something you might own on a "completist impulse," or out of a sense of the macabre, or for masochistic reasons, or to torment your friends and family. The original version has some good bits but overall, its just awful. Too much is played for laughs, but without being very funny or cleverly camp or even enjoyable. Cutting away the dreadful (the villain who sleeps in a baby cot, the sequence of fighting in sumo, king fu etc. etc.) and the laboured (like the villains' tiresome evil-laugh-festival), and removing the silliest (the Sousa marches, the twinkle in Doc's eye near his fortress, the sparkles on the main villain's black coat etc.) makes a big difference. The movie is shorter, but less is very clearly better. The opening newsreel makes great framing device. Of course, there are problems that the faneditor cannot fix (Monk, for example, is woefully miscast: in the pulps he is a loud, ape-like, musclebound hulk who can bend coins and straighten horse shows with his bare hands in the pulps, not an affable, portly fellow who likes to cook, as the movie suggests), but within the material available, we have an absolutely astounding piece of work.

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Digital
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Overall rating
 
9.2
Audio/Video Quality
 
8.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
9.0
Enjoyment
 
9.0
A guilty pleasure. The Man of Bronze leaps off the written page and onto the big screen with his colorful team in tow. Thank you for salvaging Doc's movie adventure and exposing the little gem that lay hidden under the movie studio's official release. Until we see a full-feature, modern version of Doc Savage (Shane Black and Dwayne Johnson: make it happen!), this lovely yet clunky rendition is the best Doc outside of the books.

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L
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(Updated: August 05, 2014)
Overall rating
 
9.6
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
9.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
10.0
Enjoyment
 
9.0
"Mona, you're a brick."
That line really cracked me up. I am so glad I finally got to check this edit out. My history with Doc Savage consists solely of going to see this movie in the theater with my dad when I was 7 years old. I remember seeing glowing green snakes whenever I closed my eyes for hours afterwards. It is the only movie I ever saw in a theater with my dad.

You have really worked wonders on this. I hadn't seen the movie again since it was in theaters. I was excited when the dvd became available, until I actually tried to sit thru it. The camp aspect gets compared to the 60s Batman TV Show, but in general, I find this movie has what I call a Gilligan's Island sensibility--characters are not affected by climate or situation or common sense. If the bad guy likes wearing black turtle necks and sparkly sport coats, he'll wear them in the jungle, on a boat and possibly to bed. Removing the sequins from the sport coat in the one scene was genius, I thought, because it is just about impossible to improve a movie whose whole sensibility is so ridiculous. But you did improve it dramatically through so many smart editing choices.
Of course, I hate the Sousa marches, most of which you removed. Unfortunately, it made some of the remaining ones stand out more. The movie, for me, was really moving along well and then the first fight on the boat features the silly Stars n Stripes music. I'm not an editor, but if I were, I would not change a thing in your edit except changing the music in 3 scenes--none of which feature dialogue. --The fight on the boat, a driving scene and a horse-riding scene (the 3 scenes occur in that order). But then I guess the challenge becomes choosing the right music (on the bright side, you cannot do worse than the Sousa marches). It can't be as well known as the Indiana Jones theme, but if you could find something in that vein but much much more obscure, I think that might make things miles better. (I'm hoping your possible version 2 deals with this. Even in scenes where you have removed the terrible music might be improved by adding the right background music, while keeping the great foley work you did. The fight around the gold pit, I think, was a place that could have used this).

The other minor suggestion has to do with the film grain, or lack of it. Again I must mention that I am not an editor myself and therefore can't speak with any expertise. But one thing I didn't like about the movie was how it looked like it was shot on videotape. It looked like an episode of Gilligan's Island or the Brady Bunch. Is there a filter that could give it a more cinematic look? Or could it be letter-boxed without losing too much?

These are minor suggestions, not complaints. This is an absolutely great edit. You've detarnished not only the movie, but my memories of going to see the movie. An easy recommendation! :-)

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DVD
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