ALL SCI-FI

[ufso]

I really liked this movie. I grew up in LA, back in the 50's and lived close to where it was filmed. I road Angel's Flight as a child, went into the Bradbury Bldg. once as a child and once as a LA Fire Inspector.

I remember we would pass Brew 102 brewery on Main St. on the way to my aunt's house and my dad would say that that was his Mission, like the San Gabriel Mission was my mom's and ours.

Brew 102 (LA's finest piss beer) was on quite a few of the billboards along the 101 Fwy. Don't remember Eastside (another LA fine piss beer) being on any billboards.
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[Bud Brewster]

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Ufso, welcome back!

Wow, if there's one thing we love on All Sci-Fi it's a personal story about seeing a science fiction movie as a kid. Very cool.

Its the only kind of information about a movie that you can't just look up on Google. The only person who can share that info is the guy who lived the experience.

All Sci-Fi member Rick is a Jedi Master when it comes to relating anecdotal experiences, because he's shared several great stories. I told him him he should put them all in book and publish it!

I even created a cover for him!


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I hope you'll could post more of your own stories, and then I could combine all the Monsterkid Memories we have on
All Sci-Fi in one book!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

Keep Watching the Skies! Bill Warren.

KWTS } Despite the presence of Lon Chaney, Jr., in the title role, The Indestructible Man is a flat, dull and unoriginal shocker, strictly bottom-of-the-double-bill fodder.

KWTS } Maybe the most notable parts of the movie are the scenes set at Angels' Flight, a small railway that was used to transport visitors up Bunker Hill in downtown Los Angeles. The charming little orange cars were removed in the mid-1960s to make room for urban development. The city of Los Angeles promised to put them back Real Soon, but in the 1980s the cars were still rotting away in some hidden storage room.

KWTS } Similar to both Boris Karloff's The Walking Dead (1936) and Chaney's own Man-Made Monster (1941), The Indestructible Man is already cursed with lack of novelty. The lurid poster implies that Chaney can throw bolts of electricity, something that certainly doesn't occur in the lame film. His imperviousness is the sole novelty of the movie, and it seems provisional anyway, as the climax proves he isn't indestructible.

KWTS } The film was made without the conviction that other low-budget films sometimes show, and was merely a by-the-numbers, take the money and run exploitation picture.
There's nothing to recommend the film in any way, except a few moments in which Chaney bugs out his eyes and looks fierce. He was always better in parts which didn't require him to talk much, although he's fine in High Noon (1952) and The Defiant Ones (1958), which was one of the reasons he's mute in The Indestructible Man. (He was allegedly having a drinking problem, and occasionally found it difficult to memorize his roles.)
Earlier in the decade, no one would have bothered to produce a film as shoddy in concept as this one. But by 1956, science fiction and monster films had begun to repeat themselves. They were still drawing in money, but those made with more imagination and verve didn't make much more cash than quickies like this one. Hence the sad fact that low-budget films late in the decade are inferior in most ways to those cheapies made at the beginning.

Sidebar: Well I certainly cannot dispute any of the late Mr. Warren's comments on this movie.
But I do have some sentimental reasons for still liking it, even though I haven't seen it in ages.
First, I have always been a huge fan of Lon Chaney (born Creighton Chaney), as well as his father, the legendary silent film star Lon Chaney, Sr., aka The Man of a Thousand Faces.
The Wolf Man movie is one of my favorite Universal monster films; in fact, the Wolf Man is my favorite Universal monster. of them all.
I also always felt that Chaney was an underappreciated actor in his time. He could play roles of tragedy such as The Wolf Man, and Of Mice and Men. He was able to perform comedy when required, and he certainly had no difficulty in any kind of villainous parts.
Second, this film actually benefits from its meager budget even though it's unintentional by the producers. It plays out like an episode of television's Dragnet show. On Dragnet, creator Jack Webb attempted a semi-documentary style of filming. This was in part because he always strived for authenticity in his episodes which were always based upon real L.A. Police Department cases. It was also due to Webb, much as I admire his many productions, being cheap.
The movie is shot at real locations that aren't in any way "prettied" up. The streets are dirty, the buildings have grit and grime on 'em, and the power plant at the finale of the film is just that, an industrial, stark real place.
Third, it simply is a fond memory of mine. I remember seeing this movie pop up on TV on a Saturday or weekday afternoon. I was a kid and enjoyed it. My tastes were that of a young person, we didn't have all the entertaining and sophisticated SF TV shows or films we have nowadays. So we were happy to get any SF we could and enjoyed it. Bill Warren's analysis of this film is spot-on. I doubt I'd ever sit down to watch this again unless Mystery Science Theater 3000 tackled it.
So, no, not a good film by any means. Ah, but some wonderful memories for me from another time and place.