409-Indestructible Man

Film Year:  1956
Genre:  Science Fiction, Horror
Director:  Jack Pollexfen
Starring:  Lon Chaney Jr., Max Showalter, Marian Carr, Casey Adams (who incidentally was NOT in Catalina Caper)
MST Season:  4
Featured Short:  "Undersea Kingdom:  Chapter Two - The Undersea City"

The Short

The Atlanteans discover our heroes in their midst and chase the intruders.  Over and over.

Boy let me tell you, if you love watching people in silly costumes ride horses this is the serial for you.  You'll get more than your money's worth here.  There is little else of value in this final taste of serials that Mystery Science Theater has given us.  The fact that there is so little story in the second chapter of Undersea Kingdom does not bode well for future installments.  I don't blame the show for dumping it because I was getting tired of it too.  Maybe all of the running back and forth meant something in the long run, but I'm not too enthused to watch the entire thing to find out.

The Movie

Indestructible Man stars the son of the legendary Man of a Thousand Faces, Lon Chaney Jr. (who incidentally also had a bit part in the serial paired with the movie in this episode).  Cheney was best known for playing Lenny in the 30's version of Of Mice and Men and of course playing the title character in The Wolf Man.  By the 1950's he was fairly typecast in productions like this, due to his years being the "go-to" guy for horror movies on the Universal lot (in addition to the Wolf Man, he also played Frankenstein's Monster, Dracula, and the Mummy), so there is no shortage of cheap horror flicks during Cheney's declining years.  Indestructible Man is...one...of these.  That's really the most that can be said about it.

Indestructible Man is yet another movie of Chaney on a rampage.  This one has him playing a convict sentenced to death, vowing vengeance against those who he blames for his fate.  After his execution his body is donated to a scientist for an experimentation, in which he is accidentally brought back to life and made seemingly invincible (hint:  he isn't, what a rip).  The revived criminal then seeks out those who wronged him for revenge.

Indestructible Man does very little to break out of it's comfort zone, providing a safe and uninteresting revenge thriller with a supernatural twist.  I think a lot of one's enjoyment lies in how much one loves Chaney's work and films like this in general.  I like Chaney quite a bit, though it's easy to become impatient with the film for its lackluster pacing and really no general destination other than the inevitable destruction of someone who is supposedly "indestructible."  Blandness isn't the worst crime a movie can commit, but it can determine which films get remembered and which don't.  I don't think Indestructible Man is very high up on Chaney's most remembered films list.

The Episode

It's the end of an era as we watch the final serial chapter ever seen on Mystery Science Theater.  It was an experiment that had started and stalled several times and always failed to ignite.  Rifftrax later saw one through to the end several decades later, as they riffed the entire Batman and Robin serial (which is pretty great I might add) but MST just always seemed to get bored with them.  I don't really blame them as they have so little content here that things to observe seem few and far between.  Occasionally they'll latch onto something and turn it into something fun, but this second chapter didn't seem like a worthwhile return to the Undersea Kingdom.  I'm pretty happy with traditional shorts from here on out, thank you.

Moving on to the movie, they have something fairly unremarkable to work with.  In general the riffing does keep the episode above the movie's blandness constantly, which makes the episode an easy recommend overall.  Occasionally they'll tangent into run-on territory with mixed results, as there's a dialogue scene about a third of the way into the movie that they feel is a bit on the dull side and go on for a few minutes about how bored they are.  To be fair, they do some fun visual stuff with this bit such as Servo laying down to fall asleep before degrading into yelling at the movie to move on.  There's also a tangent with a terrified witness who tells her story wide-eyed, and our riffers try to get her to blink.  Both of these points in the episode can be funny, but it feels like they run much longer than they should.

The host segments are solid, with probably the most enjoyable being the opener where the 'Bots trade voices, which is trippier than it should be.  Another winner has Mike Nelson and Kevin Murphy playing cops in Deep 13, giving Dr. Forrester and Frank a noise citation.  Also featured is a fun Undersea Kingdom parade, Joel trying to imitate Lon Chaney's eye close-up, and a discussion of uses for indestructible powers.  The Invention Exchange sees the cute concept Cereal Box Novels, while the Mads' can't show us theirs because they're "wearing it."

Indestructible Man runs a tad middle of the road in its worst moments that leads me to think a tad lesser of it, though to be fair the episode is pretty enjoyable when it hits my rotation.  It's a solid episode in general, though I think some might consider it more of a comfort food episode than others.

Good

The DVD

Indestructible Man lumbered onto video shelves in Rhino's Volume 11 collection, with decent video and good audio.  The only special feature was a trailer for the film.

Undersea Kingdom was paired with it's preceding chapter on the Serial Variety Pack bonus DVD that was offered through Shout Factory's website on their Volume XXVII release.