The Indestructible Man
by Tom Weaver
Category: Performing Arts

“Butcher” Benton, a crook who pulled a Los Angeles armored car robbery, trudges to San Quentin’s gas chamber filled with loathing for his double-crossing partners in crime. Things take a turn for the weird when his corpse is carted off to the laboratory of a medical researcher who gives it a 287,000 volt zap, unintentionally restoring Benton to life and making his skin as hard as armor plate. The Butcher’s psychopathic itch, also reborn, still needs scratching so he returns to L.A. a volatile mix of super-strength and white-hot rage. Benton is murder looking for a place to happen: Inhuman! Invincible! Inescapable! Horror legend Lon Chaney puts his considerable all into his performance as the Indestructible Man in this sci-fi/action drive-in favorite. On the 60th anniversary of its 1954 production, the thriller gets the full Scripts from the Crypt treatment: a lengthy “Making Of” essay, quotes from its writers and its producer-director, cast members memories, Production Code correspondence, a dissertation on the music, release information, pressbook and the ultra-rare script.