Most Dangerous Man Alive (1961)

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

***SPOILERS*** What's seems like a combination of the movies "Indistructable Man" and "The Beast of Yucca Flat" the movie "The Most Dangerous Man Alive" has convicted murderer Eddie Candell, Ron Randell,escape from his trip to the San Quentin gas chamber when his ride, an armored car, taking him there overturns and he makes his way into the Nevada Desert. It just happened that a nuclear test is being conducted there and Candell runs or walks right into it! Surviving the nuclear blast Candell is somehow turned into a man of steel where his cells turn into iron and in a way makes the guy indestructible. We soon find out that Candell was innocent of the murder he was convicted of but framed by fellow mobster Andy Damon, Anthony Caruso and Randell's two timing girlfriend Linda Marlow, Debra Paget. Knowning that he hasn't long to live with his steel body eventually turning to rust Candell is now determined to make the two pay for what they did to him! Even if he has to destroy the entire state of California to do it!We get to see Candell slowly go murderously insane as he realizes he'll never be normal or human again. Candell takes out his frustrations on his fellow mobsters who set him up and sold him down the river. While doing that he get his girlfriend, not Linda who sold him out, the revenging beautiful Carla Angelo, Elaine Stewart, to help him find a cure for his illness, turning to steel, by getting in touch with Dr. Meeks, Tuder Owen, the man responsible for the nuclear blast that deformed him! It's his attempt to bring in alive mobster Andy Damon that sets off Candell's timetable in Damon and his hoods, whoever were still left after Candell offed them, doing everything to destroy him before he gets to them.***SPOLIERS*** It's the California National Guard together with the LAPD lead by Captain Davis played by, this was a drop down in rank for him, the legendary Eternal Colonel Morris Ankrum that finally put an end to Candell's wild rampage. But before he was pulverized by artillery small and heavy arms fire as well as blasted by some half dozen flame throwers Crandell finally redeemed and exonerated himself from the murder that he was falsely accused and convicted of. But by doing that he must have killed more then a dozen men on his way for him to archive that.

This is one of those 1950ish Sci-Fi/Nuclear Paranoia entries that for some reason was mostly ignored and little seen until recently. But the oversight was probably intentional since once viewed there is little here that is either memorable or worth much.It is nothing if not a bit strange in its crossing of the Gangster/Human Monster genres. What it delivers is some titillating and quite tantalizing lingerie shots and cleavage obsessions with a couple of semi-violent confrontations with very little imagination. Hardly enough to carry the Movie.The editing and pacing are confusing and everything looks bizarrely placed and haphazard. The Sci-Fi parts are unimpressive, mostly because by this time there had been quite a lot of wild and crazy mutants running around both on the Big Screen and on TV. So what we have here is quite dull and depressing.It fails on almost every level and is a discovered disaster that might have been better off left in the dustbin of failed rip-offs, and Day Late-Dollar Short productions.

Mainly notable as prolific director Dwan's swan-song (and his tenth film for producer Benedict Bogeaus), this also happened to be his sole genre foray. Plot-wise, it recalls the recently-viewed 4D MAN (1959) and, even more so, Edgar G. Ulmer's similarly cheapskate hybrid of noir and sci-fi/horror THE AMAZING TRANSPARENT MAN (1960); interestingly, then, its having a man pursue those who framed him after undergoing an unwitting metamorphosis looks back to THE MONSTER AND THE GIRL (1941; also watched as part of the ongoing Halloween Horror challenge) while the device of an electrical booby-trap was seen too in HOUSE OF MYSTERY (1961; ditto). It is well-served by a good cast: Ron Randell (the cop on the trail of THE SHE-CREATURE [1956]) has the title role; Anthony Caruso (from PHANTOM OF THE RUE MORGUE [1954] – see review above) is his double-crossing nemesis; Morris Ankrum (I just saw him in BEGINNING OF THE END [1957]) is, typically, a figure of authority; and we get two lovely leading ladies in Debra Paget and Elaine Stewart, as femme fatale and good-girl type respectively. The film, of course, tackles the predominant concern of the era – nuclear paranoia – as escaped death-row convict Randell turns up on a test site but miraculously survives a blast, only to have his flesh slowly evolve into a literally steely exterior…which then comes in handy on his relentless payback mission, when he proves impervious to most kinds of weapons his enemies (and the pursuing Military and Police) can throw at him! Ultimately, he expires after being torched alive by a couple of flame-throwers: Stewart (who accompanies him most of the way as does a tied-up Paget) has to be forcibly removed from his side; poignantly, just prior to the final onslaught, his body temperature – by this point, icy cold – had begun to decrease (suggesting that, in the clash between human and machine that his shell had become, the former could still have taken the upper hand eventually)! Unfortunately, the ultra low-budget works against the film (in the copy I acquired, the exteriors are way too dark): I do not usually condone remakes (as many here know full well) but, watching this, I could not help feeling how effective the alterations in Randell's body (virtually inexistent here, though we do get to see a couple of mutant animals and plants) would have been depicted were this made 20 years later; ditto, his demise would have turned into something much more elaborate than mere sprayed cinders on a patch of land! Despite some lapses in continuity (when the supposedly police-guarded Stewart is seemingly effortlessly abducted by Caruso and his thugs), I would definitely contend that MOST DANGEROUS MAN ALIVE is still vastly preferable to Shinya Tsukamoto's insufferably grungy TETSUO (1989-92) movies.

After first reading about this movie when i was a kid,I finally caught it on TNT late one night.I thought it was pretty good ,even though hampered a little by a low budget.Ron Randell was his usual reliable self,and the rest of the cast was very good,especially Debra Paget as the snaky ex-girlfriend and Elaine Stewart(wooo!)as Randell's lover.Watch it if you get the chance.