MST3K Review

PREV Season Six NEXT

609 - THE SKYDIVERS with short: WHY STUDY THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS? (RHINO DVD Box #1 and VHS)

Genre: Drama / Murder (1963, B&W)

One Line Summary: Men Jumping Out Of Perfectly Good Planes And Into An Absolutely Awful Movie

Short: This episode starts with a great very dated short on why kids should study the industrial arts that M&tBs skew mercilessly. A very funny short that’s on the first MST Shorts tapes from Rhino.

Don’s Synopsis: The movie deals with skydivers as they, well, skydive and the woman who watch them skydive. It all takes place at an airstrip owned by the main character, whose name I can’t recall but he’s the guy who mumbles all of his lines. The mumbling guy is cheating on his wife... I think. Because of this, his girlfriend who he’s cheating with gets an extremely dumb new boyfriend and they decide to put acid in his parachute. Why do they do this, I don’t know – I think it’s so that the movie would have some sort of plot because up till then, it had none at all. Anyway, they succeed in putting acid in his chute, so his last skydive is his last skydive. The police chase down the jealous girlfriend and dumb boyfriend and the film finally ends.

Host Segments:

Prologue: Tom is putting on a planetarium show for Crow and Mike (but Crow keeps interrupting with Uranus jokes)
Segment One: It’s a Swing Choir competition between the Mads and the SOL crew (and the Mads are the judges and decide that they won)
Segment Two: Mike is instructing the Bots in Shop Class, and Crow soon has a power saw accident
Segment Three: Crow has caught himself in a “double jock lock”
Segment Four: Crow is waxing his hot rod, when Tom takes it out in an air raid from his bi-plane
Segment Five (End): The Bots are stuck hanging in their tangled parachutes; a letter; Mike sings again to his captive audience; Dr. F plays dodgeball with Frank

Stinger: Guy says “I don't know, I feel real free up there in the high blue sky”

Don’s Review: The movie is another atrocity from Coleman Francis, who’s neck-and-neck with Ed Wood for being the worst director of all time. Although this is one awful movie, I have to give it a high rating because M&tBs riff it so well that I really enjoyed this experiment a lot. The host segments are also pretty enjoyable so this is a pretty good episode all around and Rhino made a pretty good choice in releasing this one.

Don’s Rating: [ S: F: ]

Forrest’s Review: Paul Chaplin said that The Skydivers is the perfect film for MST3K and I would have to agree with that. You may see this episode before seeing Coleman Francis’s other masterpieces like The Beast of Yucca Flats and the ultimate Coleman Francis movie: Red Zone Cuba. Well, then you will say to yourself, The Skydivers may as well be the worst one they ever riffed. Well, the truth is it’s the best of the Coleman Francis series of films. He is the ultimate bad director and makes Ed Wood look like Steven Spielberg in comparison. Also Red Zone Cuba, The Skydivers, and The Beast of Yucca Flats all share the same soundtrack – yes, you heard me, THEY all have the same music!! (With only The Beast of Yucca Flats having a little bit of original music in it that’s not in the other two.)
The Skydivers is, and always will be, one of the worst films ever made. Tony Cardoza, I think that was his name, is the most boring, no personality, self-esteem-less person to ever be seen in an MST3K film. And the funny thing is: he’s in every Coleman Francis movie! What Skydivers is about escapes me. I seriously just watched it like thirty minutes ago, and I couldn’t tell you what happened. There seems to me cheating on your girlfriend’s boyfriend’s girlfriend (compliments to the riff in Pod People) type issues in this movie, there is some skydiving, and Tony Cardoza dies due to acid. Nuff’ Said.
The riffing by M&TBs is brilliant! Some of the best of Season Six! Now, although I like the riffing in the two other Francis masterpieces more, the riffing in Skydivers is superb. It never goes flat until toward the end, but you get to see Coleman wield a gun in a plane! Bottom line, great episode, with an excellent first host segment! Did I mention the short? Excellent riffing as well (“I put them in my underwear!” “I built it for the grand wizard!” “The piercing scream of a freshman!”) Oh just see it!

Forrest’s Rating: [ S: F: ]