Riding with Death (1976)

Dimwitted, meaty guy foils criminals by turning invisible.

Directors:

Alan J. Levi, Don McDougall

Writers:

Leslie Stevens (created for television by), Harve Bennett (created for television by)

Stars:

Ben Murphy, Katherine Crawford, Richard Dysart

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Ben Murphy	...	Sam Casey
Katherine Crawford	...	Dr. Abby Lawrence
Richard Dysart	...	Leonard Driscoll (flashback scenes)
William Sylvester	...	Leonard Driscoll
Andrew Prine	...	Luther Stark
John Milford	...	Elliott
Alan Oppenheimer	...	Dr. Arthur Hale
Smith Wordes	...	Tina (as Smith Evans)
Don Galloway	...	John Hiller
Ed Nelson	...	Robert Denby
Jim Stafford	...	Buffalo Bill Joe Hickens
Austin Stoker	...	Dive Officer
Alan Oliney	...	1st Hood
Fred Waugh	...	2nd Hood
Lawrence Bame	...	Worker

Storyline

The ever-so mellow Agent Sam Casey is in a satellite explosion and the radiation turns him invisible. He gets a watch that keeps him visible, and he can use it to switch from visible to invisible. He is given two assignments - The first is to transport a chemical, Tripolydine, purported to be the most efficient fuel. After the cover is blown on that, and Casey uncovers and stops the Tripolydine fraud, he must then stop terrorist Robert Denby from blowing up race cars.

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Plot Keywords:

radiation | explosion | stock car | evil scientist | wristwatch | 

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Taglines:

An unforgettable excursion into adventure.

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Genres:

Thriller | Action | Sci-Fi

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Also Known As:

Codename: Minus One

Company Credits

Technical Specs

Runtime:

97 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Did You Know?

Trivia

This made for TV movie was lampooned in Mystery Science Theater 3000: Riding with Death (1997).

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Goofs

Casey uses a blowtorch to cut his way through a metal wall to get to his girlfriend. Once he's cut a huge circle out of the wall he pushes the metal plate into the room out of the wall, and the girl appears. She puts her hand on the rim of the newly cut hole - that metal has just been cut with a blowtorch - you'd think it might be a bit hot to just grab hold of...

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Quotes

Leonard Driscoll: OPTICAL ILLUSION!

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Alternate Versions

Two versions of this movie exist. In the cut shown on "Mystery Science Theater 3000", background information from the pilot film of "Gemini Man" (episodes of which were combined for this movie) are presented via opening narration and stills, and later flashbacks. In the alternate version (shown at the 2000 Gateway Media Convention in St. Louis), the narration and flashbacks are not present. Instead, the movie opens with a condensed version of the Gemini Man's "origin" from the first part of the pilot film. Also, some of the dubbed-in lines linking the two original episodes this movie is taken from differ in each version.

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Connections

Edited from Gemini Man: Pilot (1976)

User Reviews

See, Crackers and Hicks can get along....

Please, oh please, somebody help me...every time i watch this amazingly amusing and cheesy bit of dreck on MST3K, I can't help myself. I know I shouldn't bother, I know that the plot makes no sense and that everybody involved was probably on drugs...but every time i still find myself obsessing over that second half of the...err....movie! The first part is bad, granted; but at least the whole Triplodene(or however you spell that) does make a certain amount of sense. But when they string that second episode together with it, that part always leaves me scratching my head. WHY does the Baxter Electronics guy want to blow up his own race car? Does the oh-so-elusive Mr. Denby specialize in sabotage-for-hire? They never made that clear, or what Mr. Baxter was getting out of it. A big paycheck from foreign countries, perhaps, if he used the deuterium to sabotage our military craft? It makes me tremble when I think about how little that MST3K cut out - and that the ten minutes or so probably doesn't explain anything any better. Also, why would mechanics need to sneak the deuterium into the car in East Berlin when Mr. Baxter could have hired some unsavory mechanics to do it, since it was his car. Was this whole thing supposed to be a demonstration to representatives of foreign powers? Again, they never made that clear. That second part just gets me every time, because by golly no matter how many times i watch it I'm baffled. What is it all about?! And why must I obsess about it rather than just letting it go as two bad episodes of a terrible seventies t.v. series made into an awful film? I just don't get it!