Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze – Detarnished!

August 20, 2011

A review of

DOC SAVAGE, THE MAN OF BRONZE: DETARNISHED

WARNING: This review will most likely contain SPOILERS!

In the Wonder Years of my 1970′s Childhood, I had many heroes that inspired my imagination with epic and fantastic adventures…. Superman, Tarzan, The Six Million Dollar Man, Flash Gordon, The Man from Atlantis, Fantastic Four, Johnny Quest and many more…
but at the top of the heap, was the father of all superheroes to follow…. DOC SAVAGE!!!

I think I was eight or nine when I saw the original movie for the first time, and being a wide eyed kid who had never heard of Doc and his Fabulous Five before, I remember greatly enjoying the movie but even then noting it was pretty cheesy and odd. But it did make me curious, and it prompted me to pick up the Bantam Book “The Man of Bronze” with the extraordinary cover art by James Bama, and within a couple of chapters I was hooked! In the next year or so, I read every Doc Savage adventure I could get my hands on, and I have been a life long fan ever since.

Since those early years, I have watched the original movie on several occasions. Often fast forwarding through the many cringe worthy and cheesier moments, all the while enjoying the small nuggets of “true Doc moments”. At the heart of the is bizzare and off beat movie, I always believed there was “good”, not great, but good Doc Savage adventure.

And now, here it is!!!

SLARK has done a masterful job with this edit. While I enjoyed his version one edit (Doc Savage: SALVAGED) a few years back, this newest edition is superior on every level. This is such an obvious work of love and passion, and it shows in every frame. Slark and his fellow editors show be congratulated on this fantastic and brilliant edit!

While this newest version still has many light and cheesy moments, it is far closer now to the source material than ever before. Not once did I cringe or fast forward. When Doc utters his Oath in the hanger, I actually found myself smiling, not wincing. The opening News Reel was an inspired idea for introducing the audience to Doc and his men! Kudos to the voice over person, he did an great job capturing the tone of the old news announcers. The visual work/editting is awesome! Many times I did not realize something had been removed or altered until I watched your Bonus Features. The reworking of the final fight between Doc and Seas was smartly cut and restructured.

More than anything, this edit really improves Ron Ely portrayal of Doc Savage, and what perfect casting he was for this role.

There are tons of tiny edits and improvements throughout this edit, with the vast majority of them being completely unnoticeable. The use of Fade to Black Transistions, in many ways, made the edit now kind of feel like a Movie of Week from 1970s network television, and I mean that comparison in the best way possible. The low budget, obvious Californian landscapes and Universal Backlot scenes, completely transported me back to my childhood and my favorite tv adventure shows.

This was a highly enjoyable, fun and entertaining edit, and a great way to start my Saturday morning off. The bonus features are great. Slark’s subtitle comments had me smiling and laughing. The entire dvd package is simple, smart and effective.

I highly recommend this edit! Slark has truly found the Gem in the Rubble!

Well Done!

And Thank You for returning one of my childhood heroes to me!

Originally written August 21, 2011

Bravo! You’ve outdone yourself this time. You took an extremely flawed movie, that many would have given up on, and made it into a good, fun adventure movie! “Doc Salvaged: The Fanedit of Bronze” was all right, but it only did what the title implied: it salvaged the movie. This version truly detarnishes it. Bionicbob has already mentioned the details, so there’s not much for me to say, except that George Pal must be smiling from his grave.

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.

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.

"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! :-)