Indestructible Man (1956) User Reviews

FrankenChaney

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 27 February 2009]

Lon Chaney, Jr. stars in this most low budget science fiction/noir thriller about a man who comes back from the dead with no voice and more of a one track mind that Moose Malloy in Murder My Sweet. His lawyer Ross Elliott masterminded an armored car robbery in which the guards were killed and Chaney and two accomplices got away with over $600,000.00 dollars of which only Chaney knows where it's hid. The two accomplices turn state's evidence and pin the whole thing on Chaney at Elliott's direction. Some way, some how, Chaney's going to get these rats.

When scientists Robert Shayne and Joe Flynn make an under the table deal for the body, they shoot it with electricity, Frankenstein style, and Chaney comes to life, even though his vocal cords have burned to a cinder and has no voice. His skin and bones have become almost like Superman, he's truly an Indestructible Man.

The film is narrated by Max Showalter the detective on the original armored car heist. He can't believe it, but it's true, Chaney's back from the dead and leaving a murderous trail behind him. Bullets bounce off him just like Superman, even a flame thrower just burns him, and a bazooka only slows him down a bit.

There are two female roles of importance, Marian Carr as Chaney's girl friend as described by the papers and her best friend and fellow stripper Peggy Maley who always has a good wisecrack in any film she's ever in.

You can't rate the film all that high, the production values are almost non-existent. But Indestructible Man is not all that bad as a thriller. Chaney is mesmerizing and frightening in a performance that has no dialog except at the very beginning of the film. The final chase scene through the sewers is borrowed liberally from The Third Man.

If you're going to borrow, do it from the best and Indestructible Man while it will never win any awards, isn't anything the cast and crew have to be ashamed of.

Make the best of that second chance.

[michaelRokeefe · 4/10 · 4 February 2002]

Low budget; simple dialogue; filmed in shades of black and white; this is a great example of those early Sci-fi/horror flicks that entertained our imaginations. The body of a violent criminal, 'Butcher' Benton(Lon Chaney Jr), is accidentally brought back to life and the speechless bad man is determined to kill the three people responsible for his ride in the electric chair. Many close ups of Chaney's raised eyebrows and grimacing face. Marion Carr plays the killer's love interest. Three well traveled character actors(Max Showalter, Ross Elliott and Joe Flynn) provide support. This is really fun to watch.

300,000 Volts Of Fun

[ferbs54 · 5/10 · 1 May 2017]

I did get to have one wacky film experience over the weekend, and that film was the 1956 Lon Chaney, Jr. outing "Indestructible Man." This movie was originally shown as part of a double feature for the kiddies back when, paired with one of my favorite sci-fi shlock adventures ever, "World Without End," for one truly mind-boggling afternoon at the movies. In the film in question, Chaney plays a criminal named Butcher Benton, who, after a botched robbery, has been sentenced to the gas chamber. He is indeed put to death, but soon after, his body is sold to a scientist (Robert Shayne, who most viewers will remember from his role of Inspector Henderson on TV's "Adventures of Superman," and whose work I recently enjoyed in the 1953 film "The Neanderthal Man") who is doing experiments regarding a cancer cure. Benton's body is shot up with drugs and exposed to around 300,000 volts of juice, which treatment manages to actually bring the late con back to life! He also now has fairly impenetrable skin--a hypodermic that the scientist inserts into his arm is promptly bent out of shape--and, as later develops, cannot be killed by bullets...or even by a direct bazooka blast! Benton proceeds to quickly kill the scientist and his assistant (an uncredited Joe Flynn...yes, the future Captain "Leadbottom" Binghamton himself, from TV's "McHale's Navy"!) before hijacking a car to drive from the San Francisco area to L.A., where he intends to kill the two cons and the crooked lawyer who had double-crossed him in his last caper. The story is told in flashback and narrated by the detective on the case, whose name is Dick Chasen. (I wish MY name were Dick Chasen!) He is played by an actor whose face you will recall, and whose name is sometimes given as Casey Adams, and sometimes as Max Showalter; you will probably best recall him from his role in the Marilyn Monroe breakthrough film "Niagara." Ultimately, Dick teams up with Butcher's last galpal, a burlesque dancer played by Marian Carr, who seems to wear nothing but her burlesque outfit wherever she goes, providing the film with some undeniable visual appeal....

OK, I'm not gonna lie to you and say that "Indestructible Man" is a quality film, but at 70 minutes, it surely never does wear out its welcome. The film makes excellent use of its L.A. locales--including the famous Bradbury Building, where the Butcher throws one of his enemies to his doom, and the now-extinct Angels Flight funicular--and director Jack Pollexfen (who had directed Shayne in "The Neanderthal Man" and would later helm the sci-fi favorite "The Man From Planet X") shoots his film in a noirish manner, abetted by B&W photography. As for Chaney, he gets very little dialogue in the film, which dialogue is limited to his prison cell, before he is put to death; after he is revivified, his vocal cords have apparently been burnt to cinders by those 300,000 volts, forcing the big lug to limit his acting to grimacing, and squinting up his eyes in a fairly menacing manner. The film features a somewhat disappointing ending, with the Butcher scrambling through the sewers of L.A. as the cops pursue him (reminiscent of the finale in the great 1948 film noir "He Walked By Night, but not nearly as well done) and then, for some reason, climbing atop the works in some kind of power station. In all, a cheezy, cheaply made little potboiler, combining noir and horror elements, whose only real claim on the viewer's attention is the opportunity offered to watch the great Lon Chaney, Jr. mug his way around. And for some, including me, that might just be good enough....

Lon Chaney modernises his MAN MADE MONSTER role, sort of.

[reptilicus · 9 July 2001]

I have to say it, I love this movie. Not just for Lon Chaney but for the whole realistic approach to making the movie adopted by director Jack Pollexfen. Shooting in the real grimy, mean streets of downtown L.A. not only saved money but added a neo-film noir realism to everything. Lon picks up some quick pocket money playing Charles "Butcher" Benton (we are never told how he got the nickname and maybe are better off for not knowing) a career criminal railroaded to the gas chamber by his ex-partners. He is quickly brought back to life by a well meaning scientist (Robert Shayne) who needs a body to test his cancer cure theory. He zaps Chaney with 278,000 volts (how is THAT supposed to cure cancer?) and restores him to life as "a vicious, brutal animal with an almost inconceivable amount of strength". His partners (who have names like "Squeamy" Ellis) are suddenly in big trouble! Editing seems to be all over the map in one instance and it seems scenes were shot but then dropped. For example near the end of the film Lt. Chasen (Casey Adams) talks about Eva Martin (Marion Carr) getting out of the hospital. Why was she there? Stills exist showing Chaney rampaging through a police station and trying to carry Ms. Carr away. Jack Pollexfen also recalled directing a scene where Chaney destroyed a precinct and tore open jail cells looking for one of the men who betrayed him. Why were these scenes missing? Do they still exist? Let's start checking those film vaults! The cast is great, apart from Lon Chaney and Robert Shayne (NEANDERTHAL MAN, INVADERS FROM MARS, etc) there is also Ken Terrell (ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN), Casey Adams (THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD) and don't go for popcorn or you'll miss an unbilled Joe Flynn as a lab assistant. Scriptwriters Vy Russell and Sue Bradford later teamed up again to do the Grade-Z classic THE ATOMIC BRAIN.

"Charles Benton is alive and even bullets can't stop him!"

[utgard14 · 5/10 · 1 May 2017]

Minor sci-fi horror flick about an executed murderer (Lon Chaney, Jr.) brought back to life by a scientist (Robert "Inspector Henderson" Shayne). Chaney seeks revenge on his crooked lawyer and former partners, never speaking but stopping quite a few times to squint very hard for close-ups. An entertaining enough movie of its type, but even by 1956 this was pretty old hat. Max Showalter (billed as Casey Adams) plays the cop investigating it all. He also provides the distracting narration throughout the picture. Like I said, it's nothing special. But it'll get the job done for the undiscriminating fan of classic horror and sci-fi. It's certainly no Man Made Monster, that's for sure.

More crime thriller than horror

[Stevieboy666 · 5/10 · 8 December 2018]

Horror legend Lon Chaney Jnr plays The Butcher, a criminal who gets executed but is unintentionally brought back to life Frankenstein style in an illicit experiment to cure cancer. He then goes on a murderous rampage, killing those who double crossed him and anybody else who gets in his way. There's not much in the way of actual horror here, only his resurrection from the dead and the film's finale. For most part it plays like a crime thriller, and to be fair it does so reasonably well. Lon loses his voice early on but he looks menacing throughout. Acting is reasonable. Not a bad time filler and a must for Chaney fans. But not the "classic horror" as stated on the DVD sleeve.

More like "The Highly Resilient Man", but good fun nonetheless

[lemon_magic · 5/10 · 23 November 2006]

This was the first "monster movie" from this time period I saw that took the relatively fresh approach of narrating and structuring the plot as if it were a "gangbusters" movie or a police procedural, and I think that relative freshness contributed a lot to my enjoyment of the proceedings. Lon Chaney Jr used his stolid, ugly, lumbering presence to good effect in his role, although some of the many closeups (with the squirrelly eye twitches) scattered throughout were more goofy than "terrifying". The rest of cast...well, the rest of the cast performed as if they were trying to earn that month's rent, nothing more...but that's OK with me. No one in this film was shooting for "Art" after all, just a nice involving action and suspense flick.

The other thing I liked about "The Indestructible Man" was that when the cops realized they were up against someone who was bulletproof, they brought along a flame thrower and a bazooka. And I don't care how thick your skin is, if you are the size and shape of a normal human, and then someone fries you with napalm and then bounces a tank killer shell off your chest, it's going to sting like crazy. The screenplay hit the right note here, in keeping with a 'gangbusters' theme where the police always find the resources they need to get the job done. It was very satisfying to watch poor Lon stagger around like someone who'd taken a major shot to the "kishkas" after wards. Of course, then the writers had to 'disintegrate him' by rolling him into an electrical tower (how does that actually work, BTW??) in a scene strangely reminiscent of the climactic finish from "White Heat", only with a mute protagonist.

Still, for all its hackwork clichés and failings, I liked it quite a lot. I wouldn't actually pay money to see "IM" (or own it), except as part of a collection of movies, but it had enough going for it to stand out from most of the other monster movies of the time.

Well not so much indestructible as he was bulletproof

[Aaron1375 · 2/10 · 15 March 2008]

This film was featured on the cult television show, Mystery Science Theater 3000 and that is how I came across it. A perfectly bland film that combines some horror elements and science fiction elements with a police crime drama. It was a somewhat interesting concept, but they seemed to focus a bit too much on the crime drama portion of the film, rather than the more interesting aspects of it. Too much time spent having to watch two characters chatting in a car and not enough time watching the Indestructible Man doing his thing. I mean, you get a very short shot of the dude going after someone to kill and then you have to watch the detective make a move on this dancer and offer to get her a hamburger and this plays on for a long time. Back to the Indestructible Man and he's closing in on someone, but enough of that, lets show the viewer the police trying to get a guy to confess. He could have been a victim of the Indestructible Man, and made the body count go higher, but best to show us another awesome talking scene!

The story has a man dubbed the Butcher about to be executed. He is apparently taking the fall for some sort of robbery that three other individuals were involved in. I hope the fact the guy is called the Butcher means he killed someone, otherwise, he is being sent to the chair for stealing money. That is kind of harsh! I am sure he did kill someone though because why else would he be called the Butcher. That is unless he was a butcher...Anyways, he swears revenge on the three men that turned against him so they could get a larger portion of money that was stolen. Unfortunately, no one knows where that money is at the moment and the Butcher is executed leaving the only man to sort of know dead. Well, out of all the people in the city, a doctor performing experiments gets the Butcher's body, performs some experiments on it and now the Butcher is back and he is indestructible! Not really, it only increased his strength and made his body resistant to bullets and such.

This one made for an okay episode of the show, but not the best. The jokes when they were having to sit through the chatty car scenes were funny, but it was not a strong episode throughout. Joel episodes are always so hit and miss. Not that a lot of them are bad, just so many of them are just okay and that is the case with this episode too. So, we get a film that had an interesting concept in it that kind of played out in a more boring fashion than it should have and we also just have an okay episode of MST3K. Too much padding in this one for a film this short, they could have easily stretched it out using more chase scenes and more kills, but instead, they rather show us the detective making creepy advances towards the dancer.

The Shouldn't Have "Charged" Us to Get In

[Hitchcoc · 5/10 · 15 March 2006]

Aah, the power of electricity. Lumbering, sad faced, Lon Chaney, Jr., the wolf man. Here, he is a convicted criminal, sent to the gas chamber. On his last day, he threatens the men who turned on him. Little does he know that a professor who works with electrical charges, gets his body, blasts it with electricity, and sends the lumbering lunk out to do more damage. Not only that, he gets himself and his assistant killed (one of them is Joe Flynn, who was in many Disney movies and a character on "McHale's Navy"). Of course, the big oaf wanders around, out of control, looking for the people who framed him (well turned state's evidence). He has developed some great strength an bulletproof skin in the experiment, so he kills countless cops and bystanders on the way. One interesting thing is, even if he has bulletproof skin, why doesn't he get any holes in his jacket. Even when he is set on fire, his clothes don't burn. Perhaps when the remake comes out they will take these things into account.

The story also has an insipid subplot with the budding romance between a police officer and a stripper. She has a heart of gold and only does it because it's as good as any other job. If you want to see fifties' stereotypes of women, watch this movie. Naturally, there is a big confrontation at the end. Six hundred thousand dollars is at the center of it and a lot more electricity. It's OK as far as it goes, but it seems as plodding as Chaney.

Finally, until I purchased a set of these old B horror movies, I never realized how much re-animation played in the films of this genre. At least there was no spinal fluid in this one.

Dragnet meets Frankenstein's monster ...

[AlsExGal · 6/10 · 12 May 2013]

... 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. as armed robber Charles Benton, betrayed by two other bank robbers who turned state's evidence at the request of sleazy lawyer Paul Lowe, who wants a fall guy for the robbery and a chance at a smaller split for the 600K payroll heist for which he hired the three thieves in the first place. Benton realizes all of this, and the last thing he says before he is executed is that he is going to get the three who betrayed him.

Now the lawyer isn't nervous at all, but the two other robbers think maybe Benton took some of the money - which at the time of his death only he knew the location - and hired a hit man for them. What they are definitely not expecting is for a couple of scientists to pay off the morgue attendant at the prison to hand over Benton's body. The pair are experimenting with electricity as a cure for cancer and need a fresh human body for their next test. Well "It's Alive!" turns out to be instantaneous tragedy for this pair instead of temporary triumph as in the case of Victor Frankenstein. Benton is unexpectedly brought back to life with a molecular structure that can't be penetrated by any substance, vocal chords burned out so he can't speak, superhuman strength, and with a desire to pick up where he left off and kill the three guys who betrayed him. I'll let you watch and see how this all pans out.

The Dragnet comparison comes from the voice over of police Lt. Dick Chasen who is narrating the whole story. With Allied Artist horror you really don't expect much in the way of great acting or good art design, but more could have been done for the continuity and even the dialogue. For instance after Benton returns to life the narrator calls him a "Monster Made Man". Huh? What monster made him? I believe he meant to say "Man Made Monster". The narrator talks about how Benton wants to save killing crooked lawyer Paul for last, but then later after he kills the first of his fellow robbers he goes looking for the lawyer. In the jail house conversation Paul was trying to get the location of the hidden loot out of Benton who refuses to tell, but later Paul has somehow figured out how to get the loot but just can't open the strongbox it is in. Benton is established as a character who just wants to kill the three who betrayed him, yet mid-film he shows up in the middle of some suburb attacking and killing random people. Usually the best horror establishes the "monster" as someone for whom you have some sympathy and thus ambivalent feelings. Here Benton is pretty much just a mute killing machine after he is revived.

I'd recommend this one, just realize you are dealing with an outfit that didn't have much in the way of funding to begin with and try to meet it half-way.

Did people actually pay money to see crap like this?

[junk-monkey · 1/10 · 27 October 2005]

Many films rely on characters doing stupid things and putting themselves in unnecessary danger. There would be very few films made if characters didn't! The Indistructable Man though, has a real corker of a stupid people doing stupid things just to keep the movie going moment.

Here's the situation. On a steep street in LA there are 3 characters. A wants to murder B. C wants to warn B that A is waiting at the top of the hill to kill him. The potential victim (B) is at the bottom of the hill. On one side of the street is a Funky Little Trolley-bus Thing on rails. On the other side of the street are about 32 bezillion steps. Flight after flight of steep steep steps. C sees the potential victim arrive at the bottom of the funky little Trolley-bus side of the hill.

The potential victim is on crutches.

Does the potential victim:

1. Get on board the (free?) public transport?

2. Cross the street and laboriously struggle up the 32 bezillion steps?

It's 2, of course it's 2! Given a choice in crap movies like this they always take the stupid option.

From her vantage point C sees the victim climbing up all those steps. She now has a choice. She needs to get to him before he reaches the top of the hill.

So, she can either go all the way down the hill in the FLT-B Thing, cross the street, and then start to climb the bezillion stairs herself, or she can cross the street where she is and walk DOWN the steps to meet him.

Guess what she does...

The title of this film is a stupid lie too. If it had been called the "Nearly Indestructible Man with Indestructible Clothing" it would have been nearer the mark. After wading through sewers, being blasted by a bazooka (and why wasn't everyone deafened when that thing went off in such an enclosed space?) and toasted by a flame thrower, Lon Chaney's shirt and trousers should have vaporised, or at least a little singed round the edges... but no, like the Incredible Hulk's underpants they seem to keep hanging on in there...

Stupid stupid people doing stupid things in front of bad sets. Don't waste your time unless you are totally masochistic, or under the influence of self-prescribed narcotics.

Gritty, Nostalgic Sci-Fi

[PerryTV · 9/10 · 6 October 1999]

This film is to me what "The Wizard of Oz" is to most others--a warm fuzzy. Having grown up around Los Angeles, I thought this film was based on a true story when I first saw it as a kid. It has a gritty, real-time feel to it, and Casey Adams' narration is obviously based on Jack Webb's for "Dragnet." In fact, this film feels like an Outer Limits version of a Dragnet episode. Very similar in feel to "Kiss Me Deadly," another '50s film shot in similar locations. A great time capsule of the fading LA of the '50s. This film is almost universally panned, but the low budget and fairly tight script actually contribute to its effectiveness.

Despite a low overall score on IMDb, I think this IS a good film!

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 20 February 2007]

I am not really sure why the film has an overall score of 3.2 at this time--it's really NOT a bad film. And, for the budget behind it, the people responsible for INDESTRUCTIBLE MAN should be proud of the final product.

Oddly enough, this is a film that doesn't easily fit in one genre. The best way to categorize it is a "sci-fi/horror film with strong Film Noir overtones". Why sci-fi/horror? Well, the plot involves a scientist accidentally reviving a man who was executed. Upon being revived, the man finds he is practically indestructible and goes on a killing spree--to kill those who framed him as well as any other person who just happens to get in his way. Now as to the Noir aspects, the film is shown in a semi-documentary style like many Film Noir movies and features the usual narration--this time by the detective working on the case. In this sense, it's reminiscent of Noir films such as HE WALKED BY NIGHT and T-MEN.

Despite the merging of these genres, I think the film worked because the acting was decent and the writing showed imagination and a slight Noir edge to it. Considering two of my favorite genres are Noir and 50s horror/sci-fi, it's not at all surprising I liked it. About the only negative was the stupid and needless inter-cutting of closeups of Lon Chaney's rheumy-looking eyes (i.e., watery and perhaps looking like he was drunk--a distinct possibility in Chaney's case). This just looked cheap and seeing the same pointless closeup shot again and again was sloppy.

Fairly entertaining

[hemisphere65-1 · 5/10 · 15 July 2021]

Chaney Jr. Does okay, but the repeated closeup of the eyes is idiotic.

Showalter is terrible, so his detective kind of drags the whole thing down.

Grew up with this Fun Fifties Favorite! (But No DVD Restoration...)

[mord39 · 11 November 2000]

MORD39 RATING: **1/2 out of ****

I'm partial to this guilty favorite since I saw it hundreds of times as a youngster on television. Even so, it's just plain fun as Lon Chaney knocks off the traitors who sent him to death with their treachery. The L.A. locations are terrific, and the Dragnet-style narration adds spice to the proceedings. It's speedy and nostalgic, very much a "fifties" film.

As for the Roan DVD, I'm sorry to say that it has not been restored and is a disappointment. I have had much trouble acquiring the "perfect" version of this film, even though I've had it on VHS from FOUR(!) different companies, as well as on TNT. Some day I hope this personal fave of mine will get a clean and proper transfer on disc.

Not Bad for a B Picture

[arfdawg-1 · 5/10 · 17 May 2014]

Very low budget B picture with Lon Chaney Jr. Filmed not so much like a horror film, but as a film noir with a twist.

It's actually a decent story and is rather well played out, considering the budget.

Chaney over acts and does some crazy mugging and sometimes the closeups don't match up.

It's almost like an ED direction.

Still, it's easy to forgive because you can get into the story.

Here's the plot

"Butcher" Benton goes to his death in the state prison, cursing the three men who double-crossed him following an armored-car hold-up; "Squeamy" Ellis, Joe Marcelli and Paul Lowe, his attorney and leader of the gang.

He vows to return and kill them and dies without revealing the location of the stolen money.

Detective Chasen is determined to keep working on the case until the stolen loot is recovered. Benton's body is taken to Professor Bradshaw and his assistant for experimentation, and they manage to restore him to life, making him practically indestructible in the process.

He takes off after the three men, getting rid of everybody who stands in his way.

He is impervious to police bullets.

He kills Ellis and Marcelli, while Lowe seeks police protection.

Benton takes to the sewers to recover the hidden loot and the police are powerless to stop him.

Before Every Household Had Its Own TV Set

[theognis-80821 · 3/10 · 8 November 2023]

This harmless second feature offers another sympathetic Lon Chaney monster, pretty period ingenues, 1950s automobiles, and picturesque downtown LA locations including the Angel Flight Railway. It's mercifully restricted to 72 minutes, with help from voice-of-authority narration, always a weakness but suitable to a faux documentary style. DP John Russell subsequently did a lot of black and white TV work. The underground police search paid homage to "The Third Man" (1949), to which this show cannot be properly compared. The "pop-the-question" drive-in scene leaves the audience with a "warm glow."

Horror/film noir mix is entertaining

[scsu1975 · 4/10 · 14 November 2022]

The froggy-voiced Casey Adams narrates the film throughout a la Jack Webb, and begins with "I was dictating the wrap-up on the Butcher Benton package. I'm Lieutenant Dick Chasen." Apparently Inspector Jacques Strappe was on assignment.

The Butcher is played by Lon Chaney, Jr., who is about to be executed for a heist. His partners have ratted on him, and now he is about to take the fall. The Butcher promises his crooked attorney, played by Ross Elliott, that he'll kill them all.

Meanwhile, the 600 grand from the heist is hidden somewhere in L. A., its location known only to the Butcher. Butcher goes to the gas chamber in San Quentin (a fact announced by a radio voice which sounds suspiciously like Casey Adams).

Adams visits the Butcher's girlfriend, a burlesque dancer played by the lovely Marian Carr. He tries to get the location of the dough from her, but she is clueless. He does manage to take her out for a hamburger at a drive-in. Smooth. Elliott also pays her a visit, and discovers a map leading to the loot. Meanwhile, a distinguished biochemist, played by Robert Shayne, decides to experiment on the Butcher's dead body, hoping to find a cure for cancer. Yeah, right. He gives the Butcher 287,000 volts and accidentally revives him. Now the Butcher has a new cell structure - nothing can penetrate his skin. Unfortunately, the electricity shorts out his vocal chords (good for the viewing audience) so for the rest of the film he does mime (bad for the viewing audience - Chaney is no Marcel Marceau).

The Butcher wastes no time in tracking down the squealers and dispensing them one by one. The cops finally realize he is hiding in the L. A. sewers, where, oddly, he never encounters any giant ants. He survives a bazooka, a flame-thrower, and bullets fired by 60-year-old cops. Gosh, can anything halt this mayhem??

Ross Elliott probably does the best acting in the film, followed by Casey Adams. Robert Foulk has a nice bit as a bartender. Ann Doran can briefly be glimpsed in stock footage. Marian Carr looks great, but acts like a dumb bunny. Chaney wanders around L. A. inexplicably wearing a winter coat.

The director keeps giving us close-ups of Chaney's face sizzling with anger. His hairstyle continues to change throughout the movie. In one sequence, his coiffure is positively Hitleresque.

At 70 minutes, the film is tolerable, has some interesting L. A. location shots (almost noir-like at times), and is worth watching just to count all the dead bodies.

Could be okay except for insultingly banal lead character...

[Polaris_DiB · 3/10 · 31 October 2005]

Ahhh, the b-horror films of the world... The bad effects, the cheesy story lines, the wonderfully overacted and woefully underacted characters, the screams and the monsters eyes... too bad this one fails by being insultingly banal in the process.

What is generally an average story involving mad scientists, monster generation, a lot of killing, and attractive women is overshadowed by the lead character's voice-over narration, which serves two purposes: to tell the exact story the viewer can figure out on his or her own, and to quip bad wannabe film-noir lines. However, even such lines as, "I am a cop, so my job is to ask questions... and get answers...", most of the movie at least falls under camp value, except that the detective's annoying voice-over is backed by one of the most unbelievable and banal characters ever.

Especially with his relationship with the heroine of the film, the detective shows a notable lack of charisma with everything he does in the film. Answering to whether or not he wants to go get dinner, he says he'd rather have a hamburger. Asked what his first name is, he says Dick forcibly and Freudianly, as if to assert his man-power. And he gets the girl by getting her fired and telling her she has no choice but to marry him, which she gleefully accepts... ridiculously. Even in the context of the 1950s I have a hard time imagining this guy not getting smacked.

Oh and everyone else loves him too, the police captain, the other policemen. Why? Because of his name? Anyways, those are the overtones of a typically bad horror film involving a guy who, after given the death penalty, is accidentally resurrected by a scientist who was searching for a cure for cancer. The science, in this case, is unbelievably bad, wherein we're expected to believe that the multiplication of cells in an organism to one hundred times the amount will result in a human who stops bullets, instead of either a grotesque giant or something so dense it'd collapse in upon itself. Usually that kind of stuff is forgivable by the sheer power of the hilarity of the situation, but this time it's really hard to forgive anything in this film.

Acting is better than most b films but isn't really noteworthy, nothing else really sticks out. It honestly seems like an okay, albeit flawed movie until the last lines leave you with your mouth open in surprise that it could have possibly, possibly ended with those words... But so it goes.

--PolarisDiB

Gruesome and Stupid

[tomreynolds2004 · 1/10 · 5 April 2004]

Lon Chaney Jr. gets to play a caricature composite of some of his father's great horror role as a vicious criminal brought back to life by mad scientist Robert (Inspector Henderson) Shayne. He's now indestructible but voiceless. The legendary "B"-movie stalwart Max Showalter is on hand to play the doggedly determined cop. And Ross Elliott has a nice supporting turn. But, this is pure trash. Gruesome enough to be disgusting, but not horror enough to scare, poorly acted, directed and written, this never should have been released. Chaney, just four years after an excellent supporting role in High Noon, had to have been embarrassed beyond words to need a paycheck so badly to do this awful mess. I guess that's why his character had to be mute.

Good Cast For A 'B' Film

[ccthemovieman-1 · 6/10 · 29 October 2006]

This is another one of these "not bad" sci-fi/horror/crime/drama/whatever you want to label it 1950s B-films.

The cast actually has some fine actors, men like Casey Adams who starred in "Niagara" with some no-name dames called Marilyn Monroe and Jean Peters, and Lon Chaney, a familiar name among fans of this genre.

The is the tried-and-true revenge story. In this case, a man who is executed is taken from a mortuary to a scientist's lab where the doctor is experiment on cancer research. That doctor, by the way, is another familiar face - that of Inspector Henderson of Superman television fame (Robert Shayne). Oh, the assistant is Joe Flynn, also of TV fame (McHale's Navy.) I'm telling you, this had a pretty good cast.

Well, Charles "The Butcher" Benton (Chaney) is brought back to life, much to the surprise of the doctor and his assistant. "The Butcher" then shows his gratitude by killing those two guys and then grabbing a car and hightailing it from San Francisco down to Los Angeles. He's searching for his shyster lawyer and two other gang members who turned stoolie on him. His mission: kill those three guys.

I won't give away the rest but it's enjoyable to watch to see the "B" floozies in here and the generally schlocky-like story. It's a low-budget fun movie. Yet, despite all that, when it was all over - frankly - I thought this film could have been better, even on a small budget. I wonder if anyone else feels that way.

Undead Chaney

[nickenchuggets · 4/10 · 10 July 2021]

Lon Chaney was without a doubt one of the best and most prolific actors of the silent era of film, especially when it came to horror. He had the ability to play a huge variety of characters by utilizing the power of good makeup. His son Lon Chaney Jr. Would try to become an unforgettable actor like his father, but most of the movies he appeared in were just average. This movie is a good example of that. It's not horrible, but it probably has one of the lowest user scores I've seen on imdb. I still watched it, but came to roughly the same conclusion in that it is mediocre. It is about a man named Benton played by Chaney who is sentenced to be executed for being a violent criminal. He is killed, and his body is given to two scientists who accidentally manage to bring him back to life via a process that involves a huge amount of electricity. The doctor tries to get blood samples from him, but the needle bends upon coming into contact with his skin. As it turns out, Benton is virtually indestructible. He kills the men responsible for bringing him back to life and goes on a rampage killing other men, including cops sent to track him down. Later on, the cops pursue him into a sewer and this time bring much heavier weapons in the form of rocket launchers and flamethrowers. Benton is burned and takes a bazooka round to his stomach area, severely wounding him. He manages to escape onto a large gantry, which starts moving. It gets blasted with electricity by a nearby power station, and because it's made of metal, it gets conducted into Benton's body, disintegrating him. There's also other characters involved, including Lieutenant Chasen and his girlfriend, but it's not really that important. It just seems like they forced a love story into a movie that didn't need one, and it wasn't enough to salvage the experience anyway. To make things clear, this movie is pretty average. It's not terrible, but it's a shame how Chaney's son never got his same level of praise, and that's mainly because the movies he starred in were mostly forgettable.

Film Noir Meets Frankenstein

[jazzerooni · 8/10 · 29 December 2002]

Well-shot film noir (standard elements: LA setting, hardboiled detectives, police cars dispatched onto rainy streets in LA where it rarely rains), but with a Frankenstein plot. As with Shelley's classic, a scientist revives a criminal. Lon Chaney Jr.'s presence completes the circle.

Insert the preceding Frankenstein ingredient into the Maltese Falcon, dumb it down a bit but not too much, and you have "Indestructible Man" in a nutshell.

Keep an eye out for Max Showalter as the Lieutenant on the killer's trail. He would later play MANY bit roles in Dragnet, a show that seems a direct descendant of this one--"normal" LAPD cops trying to deal with dangerous freaks.

"There you are old boy, you respond properly and my theory is sound, you'll be more famous dead than alive..., throw the switch!"

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 3 September 2005]

"Indestructible Man" is one of those 1950's pseudo horror gems that threaten to implode into comedy at any minute, but chalk one up for Lon Chaney Jr. here, he holds this thinly scripted melodrama together long enough to provide some entertaining moments. Chaney's character is Butcher Benton, about to die in the electric chair for his role in a six hundred thousand dollar robbery. Masterminding the heist, as well as taking the fall is Paul Lowe (Ross Elliott), Benton's attorney. Vowing revenge from beyond (like he knew he was coming back), Benton declares "Remember what I said, I'm gonna getcha, all three of ya", including partners Squeamy Ellis (Marvin Ellis) and Joe Marcelli (Ken Terrell).

First major suspension of disbelief - how does a lab professor's assistant score a celebrity corpse, even if he WAS a criminal? You'll recognize future Captain Binghamton from "McHale's Navy" as that assistant, and boy does he play it without emotion. When Professor Bradshaw (Robert Shayne) brings Benton back to life with an untested combination of a special blood transfusion with a kick of two hundred seventy thousand electrical volts, the most Flynn's character can muster is "How do you explain this?" When Benton revives, he's left without his vocal chords, they were burned out in the electrical shock. The good news however is that his cellular structure was changed to acquire super human strength. The indestructible man can now withstand gun shots at close range without harmful effect, and as an added bonus, so can his clothes. They hold up well (his clothes) after repeated police encounters, including a bazooka round, and a blast from a flamethrower.

The film tries to get some mileage from repeated close up shots of Lon Chaney's eyes, similar to footage of Bela Lugosi's signature eye stare in films like "Dracula" and "White Zombie". It doesn't work as well for Chaney, the menace that Bela achieved with his glare is far superior. Maybe Chaney had too much on his mind, like what did I sign up for here?

Balancing out the cast and the story are Max Showalter as Police Lieutenant Dick Chasen and Marian Carr as showgirl Eva Martin. Eva had a somewhat platonic relationship with the Butcher, a shoulder for him to cry on when the Butcher's girl left him high and dry. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it seems a more than generous smile came across Eva's face when she learned the lieutenant's first name.

Ultimately, Benton exacts his revenge upon attorney Lowe and the rest of his no-goodnik partners, just as he vowed earlier from a prison cell. Alas though, he meets his end atop a gigantic crane high above a power plant. The scene is reminiscent of James Cagney's farewell in "White Heat", but without the defiant "Top of the World, Ma". As Butcher Benton succumbs to a massive high voltage charge, I couldn't help thinking that here in fact was the basis for the film's real title - "Almost Indestructible Man".

The Butcher of Los Angeles

[wes-connors · 2/10 · 25 July 2008]

Lon Chaney Jr. is completely wasted as Charles "The Butcher" Benton. Chaney as "The Butcher", a man convicted for bank robbery and murder, is executed; then, he is accidentally revived, by a doctor seeking a cure for cancer. So, the mute and murderous Mr. Chaney goes on a lumbering rampage, to Los Angeles, knocking off (among others) the gang members who betrayed him. The dull, unimaginative story is augmented by a even duller "Dragnet"-style descriptive narration. The location footage is a relative strength. Otherwise, this one is criminal.

** Indestructible Man (1956) Jack Pollexfen ~ Lon Chaney Jr., Max Showalter, Marian Carr