Title: Indestructible Man

Year of Release: 1956

Director: Jack Pollexfen

Length: 72 mins

Starring: Lon Chaney Jr, Max Showalter, Marian Carr, Ross Elliott, Robert Shayne

The summary of this one reads like a mash up of Curse of Frankenstein and Shocker. Charles ‘Butcher’ Benton (played by Chaney Jr, by consensus one of the greatest horror movie actors ever) is a convicted murderer and robber betrayed by some acquaintances (and his attorney) who wanted to get their hands on his share of some loot. As a result, he is sent to the gas chamber and his body unlawfully sold to a mad scientist (Shayne). Benton’s lifeless corpse is then zapped with high-voltage electricity and subjected to various experimental chemical injections. His heart is re-stimulated and he is essentially brought back to life. Except now he has been rendered mute because of the electrical damage to his vocal chords, so all he can do is stare menacingly at people. By way of compensation, he is immensely strong and impervious to scalpels, bullets and even, as we find out later, bazooka shells. Hence, the Indestructible Man. Got it so far? Nice.

So, moving on, when Benton ‘comes around’ he is understandably a bit miffed at how things have turned out and swears revenge on all those who have wronged him. And by now, its a pretty extensive list. So first he kills the mad scientist and his assistant, then goes on a murderous rampage to even up the score(s). At one point, one of his would-be victims seeks the help of a friendly barman, busting into his joint saying, “I need help! I just found out Benton has hired a killer to get me.” This was before anyone had twigged it was Benton doing the killing, of course. The ‘friendly’ barman turns out to be anything but sympathetic and says, “Then drink up and get out. I don’t want any trouble in my place.”

The entire movie takes place in Los Angeles over a 72-hour period and is told in the kind of narrative style popularised by TV cop show Dragnet, which keeps the viewer up to speed and is just as well given the fact that the main star has been struck mute. Weirdly enough, that year Chaney Jr starred in another movie in which his character doesn’t speak (The Black Sleep). A very accurate IMDB review (where it currently holds a review score of 4.3/10) says, “Dragnet meets Frankenstein’s monster is the best way I can describe the flavor of this film, which is not nearly as bad as its current low rating would have you believe. In fact, if you like 50’s and 60’s Allied Artist horror on the cheap, I think you’ll like this one. Remember Allied Artists was a poverty row outfit, and they could usually afford just one star. In this case it is Lon Chaney Jr.”

In their contemporary review, the website Basement Rejects gives us the other side of the coin. “For the most part the special effects are pretty awful and the movie appears very cheap. I say for the most part because I think the burn make-up at the end of the film is pretty good. He is supposed to be a character that cannot die but his character can still be maimed. The result is a pretty effective face-melt burn. Indestructible Man isn’t so invincible. It is a rather lame story that seems more like a plot of an episode of The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits than a feature film (maybe that is why it is only 70 minutes long). The movie isn’t very good and it isn’t very fun…there is a reason it is often a bargain B-Movie.”

The Spinning Image was even more scathing, but no less accurate: “This endearingly rubbish science fiction thriller was scripted by Vy Russell and Sue Bradford. It’s basically a low budget gangster movie with the novelty of featuring an indestructible man as its main villain. There are many moments of lunacy: the map to the stolen money has no landmarks or writing on it, save for a big X, the professor’s assistant apparently drives Chaney’s freshly-executed corpse home in the back of his car; Chaney’s stripper girlfriend eagerly agrees to go out with the lieutenant tracking him down when the detective reveals his first name is “Dick”.

Indestructible Man came as something of a surprise to me. Or a bolt out of the blue, if you’ll excuse the pun. It’s refreshing to come across a fifties B-movie that isn’t about either aliens or radiation. It was distributed on a double-bill with World Without End (1956) and in some areas with Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) both of which ARE about aliens. Sort of. Overall, I liked it. Sure, the special effects are questionable. Okay, everything about it is questionable, but it was made in1954 (and held back for two years). That’s a long time ago. So long ago, you can watch the whole thing on YouTube for free.

Do it.

Trivia Corner:

Lon Chaney Jr. reportedly asked director Jack Pollexfen not to make any dialogue changes or additions after the lunch break, because he was a big drinker and would usually be blotto by then.