A man on death row vows revenge on the men who have set him up and vows vengeance from beyond the grave. Fortunately after he is executed a scientist obtains his corpse (somehow) and pumps him full of electricity and he comes back to life to wreak his avowed mission of death as the Indestructible Man. So he kills some people before being fried in a power plant after dodging the police and being shot a lot of times. The Indestructible Man is played by Lon Chaney Jnr. who I would like to say gives an electric performance but no, he is rather flat, lumbering around and throwing his victims off high places.One of those places is the much filmed Bradbury Building in Los Angeles. The location shooting around Los Angeles is probably the best thing about the film as otherwise the story, acting and direction are mundane. After being revived Lon has no dialogue as his vocal chords have been zapped during the process (!) which doesn't matter as from the start of the film the story is related (in hilarious detail) continually in voice-over by Lt. Dick Chasen of the police force.Marian Carr is very cute and mention must go to Marjorie Stapp who plays 'Hysterical Young Woman' and Madge Cleveland who plays 'Screaming Woman.' Indeed the film is billed as "The scream that shocks the screen with 300,000 volts of horror! Inhuman! Invincible! Inescapable!" That's incorrect,

Scientific experiments accidentally revive an executed criminal (Lon Chaney Jr.) and make him impervious to harm, prompting him to seek revenge on his former partners.IMDb calls this a "horror" and "science fiction" film. And it is. But it is really more of a crime film with certain elements of science fiction (and just a pinch of horror). I mean, the basic plot is a condemned prisoner getting revenge on his gang. It is not gory or science-silly like "Shocker", for example.This is one of those roles in Chaney's career where the alcoholism has taken over. You can see it in his face, but he still gives a solid enough performance for this bit of 1950s cheese. Being in the public domain, we may never see a decent release, but then again who knows? If they can release "Brain That Wouldn't Die" on Blu...

Lon Chaney, Jr. stars in this most low budget science fiction/noir thriller about a man who comes back from the dead with no voice and more of a one track mind that Moose Malloy in Murder My Sweet. His lawyer Ross Elliott masterminded an armored car robbery in which the guards were killed and Chaney and two accomplices got away with over $600,000.00 dollars of which only Chaney knows where it's hid. The two accomplices turn state's evidence and pin the whole thing on Chaney at Elliott's direction. Some way, some how, Chaney's going to get these rats. When scientists Robert Shayne and Joe Flynn make an under the table deal for the body, they shoot it with electricity, Frankenstein style, and Chaney comes to life, even though his vocal cords have burned to a cinder and has no voice. His skin and bones have become almost like Superman, he's truly an Indestructible Man.The film is narrated by Max Showalter the detective on the original armored car heist. He can't believe it, but it's true, Chaney's back from the dead and leaving a murderous trail behind him. Bullets bounce off him just like Superman, even a flame thrower just burns him, and a bazooka only slows him down a bit.There are two female roles of importance, Marian Carr as Chaney's girl friend as described by the papers and her best friend and fellow stripper Peggy Maley who always has a good wisecrack in any film she's ever in.You can't rate the film all that high, the production values are almost non-existent. But Indestructible Man is not all that bad as a thriller. Chaney is mesmerizing and frightening in a performance that has no dialog except at the very beginning of the film. The final chase scene through the sewers is borrowed liberally from The Third Man.If you're going to borrow, do it from the best and Indestructible Man while it will never win any awards, isn't anything the cast and crew have to be ashamed of.

Indestructible Man (1956) ** (out of 4) A scientist brings an executed killer (Lon Chaney, Jr.) back to life who eventually goes on a killing spree in this minor cult classic. I'm really not sure why this film has gained a rather nice following over the years but perhaps it's due to its public domain status or perhaps it's due to the rather strange style that the film was made. With the Dragnet-like narration and strange performance from Chaney, those two mixtures make for a unique film that isn't very good but it is quite watchable. The entire Dragnet thing is rather annoying in my opinion because the story really isn't strong enough or original enough for the police/thriller aspect to work. The dialogue in the spoken narration is also quite silly to the point where you never really believe that you're listening to a cop speak. As for Chaney, his performance is mute throughout, which is something I've seen him do more than any other actor I can think of as I write this. His mute performance is rather good but with some of the editing it brings a surreal and rather strange feel to it overall. The supporting performances are all rather bland but they really don't hurt the film any.