609-The Skydivers

Film Year:  1963
Genre:  Drama
Director:  Coleman Francis
Starring:  Kevin Casey, Eric Tomlin, Tony Cardoza, Marcia Knight, Titus Moede
MST Season:  6
Featured Short:  "Why Study Industrial Arts"

The Short

"You know, it's fun to have an idea..."

"There, wasn't that fun?"

This little instructional short was likely shown as introductions to industrial arts or as some sort of tool in order to help teenagers decide what courses to take that encourages an industrial arts course.  It tells of a boy with a woody for shop (heh heh, I'm funny) who discusses why the class could help prepare anybody for future careers and/or homelife.

The points in this short are hard to argue with the points that are made, as it does an adequate job of relaying the handiness in having good hands and tools in the future.  Though the short itself is one of those poor presentations of a stilted discussion that pretty much no teenager would ever have, where one lectures about proper preparation and etiquette while the other listens attentively and "Ya know, you're right!" at the end.

Maybe I'm just salty because I slept through my industrial arts course and have been learning shit like this the hard way ever since.

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

And thus we are finally introduced to Mystery Science Theater 3000's favorite auteur, Coleman Francis.  Apparently Frank Conniff "discovered" his films when researching movies for the sixth season and decided we needed to do them all in one go.  I think I speak for everyone when I say through gritted teeth "Thhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnks, Frank."

The Skydivers was Francis's second film, and it's arguably the best.  And by best I mean the most competently made.  And by most competently made I mean least incompetently made.  The thing we'll need to get used to with Coleman Francis is sloppy editing, ugly camerawork, and poor acting.  But the one thing Skydivers has over Beast of Yucca Flats is synchronized sound, and the one thing it has over Red Zone Cuba is coherence.  Skydivers feels like a real movie, more or less, though it's storyline barely exists and the film feels like an excuse to watch skydiving sequences.  Apparently Francis thought those scenes were exciting enough that he didn't bother having an interesting story or characters.

But what of the story here?  Skydivers has a couple who run a little skydiving business on an airfield and wind up pissing off another couple off who then plot revenge by sabotaging a parachute.  That's pretty much it.  Occasionally there is something about an alluded affair or someone plummeting to their death through their own stupidity, but it never seems to have much bearing on anything.  Skydivers is an aimless movie that really isn't about much.  It's just an excuse to film skydiving.  And it certainly does that.  Yes indeed.  No doubt about it.

Actually come to think of it maybe Skydivers isn't Francis's best movie.  At least his other movies tried to be about something, and while they lacked competence they at least tried to have a narrative.  Skydivers may in the end be the least painful of Francis's lineup because it's the least ambitious, but for my money his other trainwrecks are more interesting to watch.

The Episode

"We've been waiting the whole movie for a skydiving scene and now it's here!"

The Skydivers is a very dull movie, which can lead to a disastrous riff if our boys aren't careful.  But the thing about a Coleman Francis film is that they're so haphazardly edited together with random shots that there is usually always a new image onscreen to spark a riff or two.  Some of the best riffs of the episode are just of random closeups of extras as Mike and the Bots shout out the right line at just the right moment.  It goes all the way through the end credit cast list, where the trio have already left the theater and suddenly Tom Servo blurts out one line that takes the viewer completely by surprise just before the theater doors close.  The bit never gets old, and it pretty much makes the episode in general.  Also under fire are inane plot developments ("Sex for sundries is fun!") and the strange ways Francis chooses to pad out the film ("I like coffee!").  When it comes to the cumbersome skydiving scenes the episode does run a risk of being stale with repetitiveness, but somehow the riff makes them work with constantly solid humor work.

"I still like this movie better than Top Gun.  A lot better."

That's not all, because the episode opens with a grade-A short, where some fabulous riffs are nailing this educational tool back and crafting something more useful out of it.  There is especially a fetishistic tone in the room, as they take the main character's love of industrial arts and makes it so very dirty.  Riffing on teens in these films is always a hoot, because acting is usually robotic and Why Study Industrial Arts is no exception.  Because of the lack of personality being displayed they can project whichever personality they desire onto them, and most of the time a laugh riot will result.

"This is the film the boys got to watch while the girls got to go to the gym and watch 'the other film.'"

Satellite News points out that the host segments of this episode are a series of "indignities" for Crow, which is something I've never noticed before but they're right.  Our segments feature the golden bot being sawed in half, stuck in a "double-jock-lock," and being blown up by Servo.  It's actually a pretty fun arc of chaotic nonsense.  The episode is led by a swing choir contest between the Mads and the SOL crewm  While I didn't think the songs themselves were all that funny, I enjoyed Dr. Forrester's judgment of the contest and Frank's reaction to winning.  Servo also puts on a planetarium show that Crow turns into a Uranus joke.

The Skydivers could have easily plummeted to the ground like several characters in the movie, but somehow the riffing acts as the parachute that glides this thing safely to the ground.  I'm pretty sure I've always thought of this episode fondly, though I always seem to underestimate it when I watch it because it always feels like that movie is going to blindside me.  Luckily it's just funny, and that's all I can ask for.

Good

The DVD

The Skydivers dropped in Rhino's Volume 1 collection, featuring solid video and audio.  Bonus features included an uncut version of the feature film, for masochists who prefer their Coleman Francis unfiltered through MST.  There is also a trailer for the film.

Years later Shout Factory reissued Volume 1, with a similar transfer.  The uncut feature was dropped, but the trailer was retained.

Why Study Industrial Arts was a part of the Shorts Volume 1 compilation, complete with an introduction by Tom Servo.  This disc was featured in Rhino's Volume 2 collection, which was also released by Shout Factory.