Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze/Production

Casting

In January 1974 Pal said the actor who played Savage "must be an unknown. He must play the prototype hero. He has to be at least six foot one with blonde hair and bronze skin. Dent described him as having blue eyes with a glint of gold." Pal added "you'd be surprised at the number of big stars who have applied for a part."

By the end of that month Ron Ely had been cast. At the time Ely was best known for playing Tarzan on television; he says he had been typecast and was unable to find roles in the USA afterwards, so mostly worked in Europe.

Ron Ely's involvement extended beyond starring in the lead role. The portrait of Professor Clark Savage, Sr., in Doc Savage's penthouse headquarters is Ely wearing a vintage safari outfit and pith helmet, with a handlebar moustache. Pamela Hensley made her film debut in this motion picture. Paul Frees, provided the uncredited^{(citation needed)} voiceover narration for the opening title sequence.

Filming

Filming began 23 January 1974. Principal photography was done in southern California. Scenes involving the fictitious Eastern Cranmoor Building in New York City were filmed underneath the clock tower of the art deco Eastern Columbia Building in downtown Los Angeles.

Pal said "1 have been on the set practically all the way through, in order to pick up on anything that he may have missed or reversed. He welcomed it. because in that way he used me as a sounding board. I wouldn't mind Michael to direct every picture of mine because we work so well together. I couldn't have directed this picture myself because it wouldn't have been right for the project. As a jiroducer. you must keep an overview. "

The film features a rare Cord Model 810 convertible coupe (license number NY 36 486–539) and a vintage Lockheed L-12A Electra aircraft, serial number 1203, original tail number NC16077, first registered to Continental Oil in 1936. The plane became famous as G-AFTL when flown by Sidney Cotton, who used it for spying on the Germans during World War Two. It was later owned by air-show pilot Art Scholl and flown in the 1976 two-part TV miniseries Amelia Earhart, the 1976 CBS-TV adventure series Spencer's Pilots, and the 1977 TV movie The Amazing Howard Hughes.

Style

Debate continues as to who was responsible for the camp content of Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze, the studio or George Pal and his production team. Among the many examples of over-the-top camp include Don Rubio Gorro (Bob Corso) rocking himself to sleep in an adult-sized baby crib, with Beautiful Dreamer as its musical cue, the animated twinkle in the eye of Doc Savage (Ron Ely) at the beginning of the film and later when Doc tells Mona (Pamela Hensley) that she was a brick. "La Cucaracha", played by a flute was used in an up-tempo musical cue, during the attempted escape of Captain Seas' henchmen from the Valley of the Vanished, and finally, an applause soundtrack was added following Doc's recitation of his personal code.

Music

The film is also remembered for its theme song arranged by Frank De Vol, based on John Philip Sousa's The Thunderer. Sousa's music was intended to evoke a patriotic theme for Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze and attempted to emulate the success that director George Roy Hill and composer Marvin Hamlisch had achieved when they used the ragtime music of Scott Joplin for the 1975 caper film The Sting. Both Sousa and Joplin were turn-of-the-century composers, and their music was not contemporaneous to the period that these 1930s nostalgia films were set. The credit acknowledging Sousa's score has the letters "USA" in his last name highlighted in red, white, and blue.

The soundtrack of George Pal's earlier film Houdini also made frequent use of The Thunderer.