Indestructible Man (1956)

* * ½

“Just remember what I said. I’m gonna kill ya..all three of ya.”

“Butcher” Benton has a reason to be bitter and pissed off. Sentenced to die for his role in an armored truck heist, Benton burns to get revenge for those who framed him. While not completely innocent (he was part of a criminal gang, wanting $600,000 of the money caused the other two, including his attorney, to turn state’s evidence against him), Benton is sentenced to die, but knows where the money is and will not tell the one who orchestrated the job, Paul Lowe, swearing to get even with the three who sent him to the gas chamber, including “Squeamy” Ellis and Joe Marcelli.

That money is somewhere and the police have given up on finding it, while Detective Richard, despite being reassigned, decides to continue working on the case during his off-duty hours. It was an armored car heist, Benton keeping all the money to himself, never relinquishing the whereabouts of that cache to those who were part of the gang. Eva Martin, a stunning blond burlesque dancer, was a girl Charles “Butcher” Benton desired (even though she made her intentions clear that she was not interested in him that way), and unknowingly had a letter with a map providing a location inside the city sewer system where the money was hidden, Lowe stealing it so he could find the loot.

You might ask how Chaney’s Butcher Benton will return from the dead. Well, this movie’s excuse to do just that is through a scientist working on a cure for cancer, his experiments resurrecting Butcher Benton so he could get his revenge. Why else would we be attracted to a movie with the title Indestructible Man unless he was given an avenue for which to become an unkillable weapon of vengeance? A machine which sends thousands of volts through the body is the method for which the scientist tests his theories regarding the resurrection of a dead human being, and this will furnish Chaney with the incredible power to exact punishment upon his enemies. Multiplying cells, a beating heart shocked back to life, Chaney will be equipped with strength and abilities such a man as dangerous as him truly doesn’t need. Chaney’s Butcher, after the resurrection, has damaged vocal chords so he doesn’t have to bother with dialogue, which means he can lumber around with look of madness on his face, his character a hulking beast with only hate in his now beating heart and murderous intentions.



How indestructible is he? Well a hypodermic can not penetrate his skin. He can knock a door off its hinges with a shoulder block. He can choke two grown men and incapacitate them in mere seconds. He takes a missile launcher blast to the chest and a blow torch to the face. These are the best bits in the movie where we see just how much the indestructible man can endure.

The film is narrated to the hilt by a detective, Lieutenant Richard “Dick” Chasen, and it’s the kind of narration that spells out entire scenes and the storyline; he doesn’t just draw us a map, but presents an architectural design of the plot.

By this point in his career, Chaney had gained the “haggard, with jowls” look, thinning hair, wrinkled face, he was showing the effects of his alcoholism, although, interesting enough, it seems to add to his menacing characters. His menace in this film kills a carnival showman and two highway patrolmen, withstanding bullets to the body, quite literally an indestructible force.

The thing is even though Chaney was aging, his big and burly build still gave him quite an imposing presence on screen. One scene, where he returns to Eva’s dressing room for the map, discovering that Paul had took it, Chaney looms over her like an ominous thundercloud, tossing her to the side with ease. Men of smaller stature are thrown around like rag dolls; when his hands grip around the throats of these men, there like necks caught in vice grips. The real mystery of the movie is how anyone will be able to stop him—what is the Butcher’s weakness?



My reasons for watching this is to see Chaney destroy people. I love this one scene where he lifts the crippled “torch man” (the one who can open locked safes with blow torches) in the air, hurling him to his doom. Squeamy’s fate isn’t any different, except that Butcher picks him up and throws him from three stories instead of down a flight of steps.



Problem is that Chaney’s scenes are few and far between. The director loves to shoot Chaney’s face—particularly his eyes—up close, so much to the point that it grows tiresome, and his stature, as I mentioned previously, fills the screen. Still, the rest of the film, when he’s absent, is standard crime drama, just enough of the “mad science” is included in the story to return Chaney from the dead and make him superhuman.

The ending was rather neat—it starts inside the sewer when a cowardly Lowe, with no other choice since his life is on the line, gives the police the map to the payroll, with them following after Butcher, concluding with Benton attempting to *recharge his batteries* at the top of a power plant, resulting in a fireworks show . It’s just a shame Lowe doesn’t get his just desserts. One promise that isn’t kept which is too bad because Lowe was a shitheel.

The cast includes Max Showalter as Dick Chasen, Marian Carr as blond bombshell (although, not the greatest actress in the world) Eva, Ross Elliot laying on the slime as Lowe, with Ken Terrell and Marvin Ellis as the two robbers who get quashed by Chaney.