MovieChat Forums > Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze Discussion > Two Versions of This Film?

Two Versions of This Film?

posted 18 years ago by Mencken59
4 replies | jump to latest

In a 1985 magazine article, writer Paul Davids (who later added "director" and "producer" to his resume) noted that:

"...there supposedly exist two versions of Doc Savage. One is a straight adventure, while the "camp" version was the one the Warner Brothers executives thought would be the more successful at the box office."

Much as I've always been skeptical of such accounts, it would tend to explain how the film has gotten ANY positive reviews at all. Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide, for example, says:

"Film debut of Kenneth Robeson's pulp hero was sold (and accepted) as camp; in reality, it's a straight-faced period adventure that just came out at the wrong time."

I always thought - "Wow, are they ever being charitable!" But I've begun to think lately that maybe they just reviewed a different version of the film than the one I've always seen. Even the hard-boiled reviewers at Cinefantastique reacted positively to the film in 1975, something that always befuddled me.

So - does anyone have any proof of the existence of this fabled "straight adventure" version of the film? Would love to know - for dear old George Pal's sake - that this is not just a rumor...

[–] shadow-otr 18 years ago

That's very interesting. I don't know if I was reading posts here, at Alt.pulp, or alt.fan.doc-savage but I recall someone saying that George Pal [or the director] wanted to make a straight forward Doc Savage move but that the suits at Warner Brothers got cold feet for some reason and at some point in production forced Pal to take the movie in the campy-direction.

IF the forced direction change happened late in the movies development I could see it easily possible for prints of the movie that George Pal wanted to release slipping out to reviewers by accident.

It'd be interesting to know there were indeed two variants of the film. If the 'straight forward' version apparently cited in the reviews survived it'd make for a great DVD release. Say in one of those 'super deluxe shiny chrome' DVD releases the movie industry is so fond of. {Admittedly I like such extras packed releases too - but poking fun at the names the studios come up with such releases is enjoyable.}

[–] TheSolarSailor 14 years ago

Interesting. I wouldn't mind seeing both versions for comparison sake.

- - - - - - -
Whose idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have an "S" in it?

[–] xenophile2002 14 years ago

I'd like to see that myself.

I disagree with you, but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler.
- Jon Stewart

[–] Mencken59 14 years ago

You know, I never really noticed before, but IMDb has the full running time on this film listed as 112 minutes - very different from the 100 minute running time of the version currently in circulation...