Indestructible Man

1956 science fiction B-junk

Rating: 7/20

Plot: A murderer known as The Butcher is executed for his crimes but soon after revived by a scientist and his assistant who start dicking around with his body. Not only is he brought back to life--he's also indestructible! He's ticked and wants revenge on his "friends" who double-crossed him.

This wasn't very good. Lon Chaney Jr., who I have nicknamed "The Man of One-and-a-Half Faces," competently plays a big, mute goon. There are a lot of unnecessary close-ups of his face, including one where he is supposedly dead but has wildly-flickering eyelids. He kind of looks like a Native American Andy Griffith at times. Hokey voice-over narration and almost constant music don't help this one, but it's got some moments--a surprise theramin, a scientist who can't pronounce the word syringe correctly, a gangster's womanly scream before a dummy version of himself is tossed off a roof, another obvious dummy thrown in an alley, attacks with a flame thrower and bazooka that prove the indestructible man's clothing is also somehow indestructible, and an improbably silly ending. This is cheap and choppy, seemingly shot in a fortnight, and beefed up with a ill-fitting and half-assed love story between the police detective and The Butcher's love interest. This story could have easily been told in under thirty minutes, so a lot of the seventy minutes drag. This is campy, but it's not really campy enough to make it worthwhile.