"Funner" With Frank

Note: this post mentions my picks for the greatest adventure films ever made. Here’s the link to that list. ‎The Great Adventure Films, a list of films by Frank Campbell • Letterboxd Now, on with the show.

Pure Pulp.

Those were the two words at the front of my mind as I walked out of the old Fox Theater on Airport Blvd. in Austin, Texas, in 1981 having just seen RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK for the first time.

And following a synapse behind that thought was this:

This is what the Doc Savage movie should have been like!

Ah, yes, the infamous Doc Savage movie of 1975, a campy, low budget farce of a movie that, while it got a couple of things right, the overall tone and presentation was just horrible. It was an abomination in the eyes of those of us who love Doc Savage, the hero of a series of pulp magazines in the 1930s and ’40s. Each month would find Doc and his five assistants confronted with some kind of incredible menace which would require all of their skills and gadgets to overcome. Colorful villains, exotic locales and nonstop action were the hallmarks of the Doc Savage pulp adventures.

Those adventures were reprinted in mass market paperback format in the mid ’60s, which is where I discovered the Man of Bronze. I fell in love with Doc when I was ten years old and, at the age of seventy, have never stopped loving him. And when it was announced that a Doc Savage movie was to be produced and released in 1975, my hopes ran high. However, DOC SAVAGE: THE MAN OF BRONZE was a truly wretched film and a major disappointment given that George Pal, who knew his way around the cinema of the fantastic as well as any producer at the time, was in charge of this misbegotten mess. Ron Ely was cast as Doc and it was a good choice but after that, things went downhill very, very quickly.

So, you get the picture. It was a bad movie that failed entirely to capture the look and rough and tumble feel of the pulp magazines in which Doc and his men starred in the 1930 and ’40s.

Nevertheless, I own a Blu-Ray of DOC SAVAGE: THE MAN OF BRONZE. Why? Because it’s more and more likely that, with each passing year, we get farther and farther away from ever seeing a new DOC SAVAGE movie on the silver screen. It’s the only cinematic incarnation of Doc that we members of the Brotherhood of Bronze have and ever will have.

But on that night in 1981, I felt like I had seen not only a thrilling homage to the pulps and the serials of the ’30s and ’40s, but a template for what a Doc movie should look and feel like.

Okay, enough about Calrk Savage and his Fabulous Five. Let’s turn to RAIDERS and marvel about what a magnificent film it is. I saw it again for the who-knows-how-many time on Friday at the beautiful Howard Theater in downtown Taylor, Texas. RAIDERS holds up remarkably well and still manages to evoke thrills aplenty. It’s non-stop action, rapidly moving from one set piece to the next with very little time in between for us to catch our collective breaths.

Director Steven Spielberg leavens the slam-bang stuff with bits of well-earned humor, evoking several chuckles if not downright guffaws with the legendary scene where Indy shoots the sword wielding bad guy.

While RAIDERS is primarily a valentine to the serials, Spielberg references other films and pop culture influences throughout the film. The opening sequence is a nod to the great Donald Duck comic book adventures written and drawn by the legendary “Good Duck Artist” Carl Barks. STAR WARS is quoted in the numbers and letters on an airplane, hieroglyphics of C-3PO and R2D2 in the Well of Souls and the apocalyptic finale was filmed in the same location in Tunisia which had doubled as Tatooine in the first STAR WARS film. There are visual nods to LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, the truck chase clearly uses scenes from STAGECOACH, and the last shot of the film is straight out of CITIZEN KANE.

Harrison Ford is pitch perfect as Indiana Jones. He plays everything with a slightly put upon air. When Ford tells his friends that he’s “making this up as I go along”, he acknowledges the pell-mell structure of the classic action serials of days gone by. But RAIDERS was not made up as they went along. It moves with clockwork precision from various locales, a variety of dangers, truly evil villains and loyal, steadfast friends. I can’t be the only one that would pay good money to see a Captain Katanga movie on the big screen.

RAIDERS ws folllowed by four sequels which might be one too many. TEMPLE OF DOOM was fun, as was LAST CRUSADE. But KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL was a disappointment, and I am not qualified to say anything about DIAL OF DESTINY as I have not seen it.

But RAIDERS lives on, secure in its status as one of the greatest adventure films ever made. See the link above for my picks for other great adventure films. Watching it at the Howard the other day, I was taken back to that night in 1981 when the world was introduced to a globetrotting archeologist who was as quick with a whip as he was with a quip.

And thinking, once again, this is what a Doc Savage movie should look like.