REEL RETRO CINEMA: New looks at old flicks — and their comic-book connections… — UPDATED 6/1/23: Ron Ely’s cult-fave Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze was released in June 1975 (the closest we could find to a release date) and with today the first of the month, it seemed like a good time to re-present this 2017 piece by Rob Kelly. You can also check out Rob’s episode of The Film and Water Podcast about it too. Click here. — Dan — By ROB KELLY Doc Savage was Superman before Superman. Possessor of a brilliant intellect, enhanced strength and a remote base of operations called the Fortress of Solitude, the man known as Clark(!) Savage Jr. was a creation of three men: Henry W. Ralston, John L. Nanovic and Lester Dent. Dent was the man who wrote most of Doc’s adventures for various pulp magazines of the 1930s and ’40s, and built the world that Savage would inhabit. Despite the character’s popularity in the pulps, his owners Street & Smith couldn’t drum up much interest in the character when it came to other media, outside of a short-lived radio show. Hollywood didn’t attempt any live-action adaptations for decades. A set of producers, Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, got close in the mid-1960s, trying to capitalize on the re-issued pulp novels (featuring staggeringly beautiful painted covers by artist James Bama) and the growing James Bond craze. But legal issues thwarted them and it would be another decade until the Man of Bronze finally hit the silver screen. In 1975, legendary producer/director/animator George Pal succeeded where Goodson and Todman did not, and got Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze made, with the help of Warner Bros. Directed by Michael Anderson (Around the World in 80 Days, Logan’s Run), the film starred Ron Ely (TV’s Tarzan) as our hero, with William Lucking, Michael Miller, Eldon Quick, Darrell Zwerling and Paul “You mess with the bull, you get the horns” Gleason as Doc’s team of highly-skilled, brave compatriots, The Fabulous Five: Renny, Monk, Johnny, Ham and Long Tom. Nostalgia for 1920s and ’30s culture was sweeping the nation in the 1970s, and that feeling is present in Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze from the first frame. Set to a score by John Philip Sousa (patriotically spelled SoUSA in the credits), the film...