I’m a cop and my job is to ask questions and get answers.
Detective Lt. Dick Chasen (Max Showalter) is a hard-boiled detective. He had been on the case of the armored car robbery from the beginning. He relates the events of what happened concerning Charles “Butcher” Benson (Lon Chaney), the indestructible man.
Butcher Benton is a psychopath. He and his buddies robbed an armored car. The prize was $600,000. Benton was caught and convicted. His two partners turned state’s evidence against him. Benton was sentenced to death. Benton vows revenge on his two partners and his lawyer.
He is killed in the gas chamber. His body is turned over to Dr. Bradshaw (Robert Shayne), a scientist who is experimenting on a cure for cancer. The doctor injects Benton with chemicals and applies massive jolts of high-voltage electricity to his body. The process stimulates Benton’s heart bringing him back to life. The procedure affects his vocal chords. The process also makes him stronger and affects his skin making it impervious to knives and bullets. He is in effect indestructible.
Benton, being a homicidal maniac kills doctor Bradshaw and his assistant (Joe Flynn). He then sets out to kill the three people he vowed to destroy; “Squeamy” Ellis (Marvin Press), Joe Marceli (Ken Terrell), and his attorney Paul Lowe (Ross Elliot). He heads for Los Angeles. On the way he kills a guy and steals his car. He then runs into a roadblock. He kills two cops and continues on to Los Angeles.
When he gets to Los Angeles he goes to see Eva Martin (Marian Carr). She was a friend of his before he was arrested. Before he was taken in he left an envelope with her. It contained directions to where he stashed the money from the robbery. Benton finds out that his attorney had taken the directions and replaced them with a fifty dollar bill. Now insane with anger Benton goes after his main targets.
“The Indestructible Man” was released on 1956 and was directed by Jack Pollexfen. The Dragnet style narration by detective Dick Chasen gives the movie a noir flavor that makes it a hoot. It’s not a particularly good movie but it does have some camp that can turn a meh movie into a cult movie.
Lon Chaney has almost no lines. I don’t know if that was to make him more menacing or if there was an ulterior movie behind it. He was well known, but not the best actor out there. There’s always been a problem casting him correctly. He’s not exactly a leading man and not exactly a character actor. Half the time he’s usually covered in heavy make-up or ranting insanely. In this movie he’s mostly seen very close-up. I guess extreme close-ups designate insanity. I’m also not sure if that twitch is natural or acting. Either way it did spawn a drinking game. Perhaps that’s what you need to be a cult movie, the ability to incorporate a drinking game into it.
Full movie
MST3K version