First of all, the Indestructible Man of the title is not indestructible. If that were the case, the movie would go on and on forever. And since he’s played by Lon Chaney Jr., I’m not all that sure he’s a man, either. But that aside, Chaney is “The Butcher,” a two-bit robber thrown in prison and sentenced to death after his accomplices double-cross him.
While attempting to cure cancer, a local scientist uses Chaney’s fried cadaver for research purposes, and accidentally revives him with 287,000 volts! Though the process has given him life and super-strength, it has burned out his vocal chords, thus playing to Lonny’s limitations for the remainder of the film. His acting from then on mostly consists of quivering his eyeballs in menacing close-ups.
The now-bullet-invulnerable Butcher’s order of business is to seek out and kill the men who put him in jail, but Chaney is such a sweaty, disheveled, lumbering ox that he looks like he’s constantly in search of a nice, quiet hole in which to take a grizzly-bear dump. Aiding the cops in their search for Mr. Indestructible is a voluptuous stripper (Marian Carr, Kiss Me Deadly), who toils at a burlesque house introduced with a quasi-disturbing establishing shot of a sign reading “TAQUITOS – CHILI SHOP.”
This nice-girl stripper tells the lead detective, “For the past six months, I’ve only known you as Lt. Chasen. Don’t you have a first name?”
“Uh-huh,” he says, pausing for sexual effect. “Dick.”
She smiles mischievously while rubbing a finger along her lips. Yowsa!
Eventually, The Butcher is turned into a bacon-faced meatball via flame-thrower. This death, like the movie, is fun and efficient — a pulpy crime tale with an outrageous sci-fi bent. Dig the incredibly chauvinist ending! —Rod Lott