Film Year: 1976
Genre: Science Fiction, Adventure, Spy
Director: Alan J. Levi, Don McDougall
Starring: Ben Murphy, Katherine Crawford, Richard Dysart, William Sylvester, Andrew Prine
MST Season: 8
The Movie
Earlier this season MST took on the Gill Man feature Revenge of the Creature and it's easy to lament that they never riffed any other "less-than-stellar" (I love almost all) entries of the popular classic Universal Monster. But it's easy to overlook that technically they did riff another one, bizarrely enough in a made for TV spy film called Riding with Death. Technically this is a Universal production based on H.G. Wells novel The Invisible Man, which means technically it's an Invisible Man movie.
Barely.
For some reason producers always thought The Invisible Man would have been a great basis for a spy series, dating back to the 1942 film Invisible Agent. The TV series Gemini Man is just one of several, including one in the 1950's, one in the 2000's (which aired on the Sci-Fi Channel), and even another series in the 70's in which this TV series was supposed to be a budget friendly replacement for. Riding with Death edits together two episodes of the Gemini Man television series that have a loose connection and presents them as one feature, though sometimes really strains itself in being a coherent storyline of its own.
Gemini Man was the story of Agent Sam Casey who was turned invisible in an accident and forced to use a wristwatch to turn himself visible again. However if he turns the device off he can turn invisible for short periods of time (apparently no longer than fifteen minutes or he'll turn invisible forever, but this never comes into play in these episodes). Sam's first adventure sees him posing as a trucker hauling a scientist around, unknown that the scientist is working for the bad guys and plans on faking his death by blowing the truck up. During Sam's predicament he is aided by a fellow trucker named Buffalo Bill who saves his life. Later they meet again on another mission in which Bill works on a race track while Sam seeks out someone who has been sabotaging cars.
The two car themes barely match up, with the only real link between the two stories being the character of Buffalo Bill. Even still with the fast no-time edit from one story to the next one wonders just how Bill changed professions so damn fast. Even worse, the supporting cast from one story to the next doesn't pass along, as Sam's partner Abby disappears from the second plot, explained away by seeing her watch over the entire story through stock footage as she shouts inane, ADR dialogue at the screen.
But if I were to judge the series itself and not how it obviously doesn't work as a movie? It's...fine. It's dumb and a bit poorly done, but it's a mildly fun premise and there are some cute ideas. I don't know if I would have watched this weekly, as it feels to me like it's more of the type of show I'd watch if nothing else was on. But I do enjoy campy shows like this, where there's some stupid gimmick that it tries to hook you with when in reality it's not all that different from the next show with a stupid gimmick. Gemini Man was too mediocre for its own good, but maybe it could have been more fun than it's showing here.
Gemini Man was the story of Agent Sam Casey who was turned invisible in an accident and forced to use a wristwatch to turn himself visible again. However if he turns the device off he can turn invisible for short periods of time (apparently no longer than fifteen minutes or he'll turn invisible forever, but this never comes into play in these episodes). Sam's first adventure sees him posing as a trucker hauling a scientist around, unknown that the scientist is working for the bad guys and plans on faking his death by blowing the truck up. During Sam's predicament he is aided by a fellow trucker named Buffalo Bill who saves his life. Later they meet again on another mission in which Bill works on a race track while Sam seeks out someone who has been sabotaging cars.
The two car themes barely match up, with the only real link between the two stories being the character of Buffalo Bill. Even still with the fast no-time edit from one story to the next one wonders just how Bill changed professions so damn fast. Even worse, the supporting cast from one story to the next doesn't pass along, as Sam's partner Abby disappears from the second plot, explained away by seeing her watch over the entire story through stock footage as she shouts inane, ADR dialogue at the screen.
But if I were to judge the series itself and not how it obviously doesn't work as a movie? It's...fine. It's dumb and a bit poorly done, but it's a mildly fun premise and there are some cute ideas. I don't know if I would have watched this weekly, as it feels to me like it's more of the type of show I'd watch if nothing else was on. But I do enjoy campy shows like this, where there's some stupid gimmick that it tries to hook you with when in reality it's not all that different from the next show with a stupid gimmick. Gemini Man was too mediocre for its own good, but maybe it could have been more fun than it's showing here.
The Episode
That's it, MST! Give it the ol' college try!
Riding with Death is as of this writing the final television-series-to-film re-edit MST has done. While the quality of episodes riffing on "movies" like these is inconsistent (there's a huge difference in quality between Fugitive Alien and Stranded in Space, for example), Riding with Death gives us a huge argument for keeping them alive. There is hardly anything cheesier than weekly sci-fi heroic adventure shows from the 1970's, but they can be flat out endearing despite their stupidity. The short-lived Gemini Man was only re-edited into one TV movie, but I can't help but wish there were more just so they could feature on MST.
Ben Murphy's smugness is constantly being attacked by the riffers, projecting a narcissistic version of the character onto the screen. Sometimes the "I'm Ben Murphy" riffs can grow to be a bit much, but the wonderfully silly storyline of the film keeps things fresh and constantly goofy in the theater. It's hard to say which "episode" holds up better. The truckin' half is the more watchable of the two, but the riffing during the "race car" segment is probably the funnier portion. This part of the film relates to the earlier half so loosely and is so poorly edited to give continuity with it (the inclusion of the Abby character in stock footage snippets and ADR dialogue is hilarious) that Mike and the bots can't help but have more to play with here. They relish in how this movie just spins out of control and gets odder as it goes along.
Outside of the theater, we see Mike has destroyed his third planet, after the Earth (The Deadly Mantis) and the planet of the Observers (The She-Creature). The destruction of the Camping Planet comes about as he builds an explosive as a distraction as Pearl, Bobo, and Observer are being attacked by robots. All of this will come to a head in the next episode. Meanwhile we get a cute song about the 70's (the REAL 70's) and Mike as a teppanyaki chef. Less memorable is the wordy but mildly amusing Turkey Volume Guessing Man (which is a fan favorite, though I don't get much out of it) and a lackluster gag about Tom Servo as a trucker.
Riding with Death is another crown jewel in the mostly stellar eighth season of the series. The movie is already doing most of the work with how daffy it is, but the riffing just makes it a delicious treat. This is a must-see.
Classic
The DVD
We were graced with the presence of Ben Murphy in Shout Factory's Volume XXXVI collection. Picture was decent, if slightly flawed, audio was good. The sole special feature is an interview with writer Steven de Souza, who not only worked on Gemini Man but went on to an extensive film career of working on scripts for films like Die Hard, 48 Hrs., Commando, The Running Man, and directing everyone's favorite video game based film, Street Fighter. De Souza has a tendency to overflow with what information he's trying to convey, so sometimes it's hard to follow him, but he has some colorful stories about his career and working on Gemini Man. He also relays how Gemini Man inspired his screenplay for the film Knock Off.
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