User reviews

This film tells the turgid tale of a man named Harry who is cheating on his wife (who is played by an actress named Kevin), who is cheating on him with his ol' war buddy Joe. At one point Harry dies, I think. The film-makers were a bit ambivalent on this point.

Anyway, this is a total movie-going experience. For one thing, Tony Cardoza, in the role of Harry, cannot act. Well, make that "DOESN'T" act. He says every line in the same monotone voice. It doesn't matter if his Skydiving Center is being shut down or he suspects his wife & best friend are making out on ladder or it's his turn to pick a song at the jukebox: HE NEVER CHANGES HIS EXPRESSION! It's pretty entertaining.

Don't worry, the supporting cast more than makes up for Cardoza's lack of a screen presence. Apparently director Coleman Francis stuck in all his odd, lumpy friends in the background of this epic. There's the excited Scotsman in his kilt, a manly woman who beats up a scrawny, Iggy Pop-esque fellow while dancing, a noodly retarded photographer, a bland guy holding a guitar for no apparant reason, a beatnik holding a rooster, a gal who wears Roller Skates and an Ice skating outfit no matter where she is (including a bar), a perky gal in a polka-dot bikini dancing at the airfield (the camera focuses on her buttocks for 75% of the dance sequence), the confused millionaire, the weasly lawyer (wonderfully played by Harold Saunders from Francis' Red Zone Cuba), the confused old lady in a straw hat, the excited immigrant girl, and Steve, the creepy, stubbly Skydiver who falls to his death after yelling that skydiving is "FUN"!

Personally, I love all of Coleman Francis' unique films. Each chapter in his trilogy paints a portrait of a dark, plane-obsessed man who drank a lot.

And that's just fine with me.

Very easily one of the most bungling and unskilled attempts at film making in history. Sound synch is solved by showing other people listening as one person speaks, or just doesn't synch at all. The plot is a real head-scratcher, leaving one wondering who this was supposed to be about, what was the point, who was the beatnik with a chicken under his arm? Everyone appears to be reading directly from cue cards, voices droning on and on, no emphasis or vocal-inflection for these people posing as actors. Skydiving scenes are just stock footage intercut with close-ups of the actors hanging in a soundstage. Coleman Francis has a knack for throwing something new at you, but in a good way. To think that he actually wasted paper on this is dumbfounding in itself. However, the entire film is so badly done, it's quite funny. Any version is funny and worth the watch just to see such a bad movie can actually be made, but I suggest the MST3K version, as it is absolutely priceless.

Never before in the annals of cinematic history has there risen a film so intensely stupid that it makes Jeff Foxworthy's "You Might Be A Redneck" monologues look staid and deeply philosophical.

This film stars a thin, joyless, gray man who runs a skydiving school with his large-haired, joyless, gray wife who, it seems, might be cheating on him. It's just as well, because I think he may have also been cheating on her. Really, I don't remember. I just finished watching it, and I cannot remember a single thing about it, other than the fact that a lot of it was gray.

A gray friend of the man is recently released from prison or something, and he comes to work at the school as the gray man's airplane mechanic. A romance of some kind may or may not have sparked between the gray friend and the gray man's gray wife - although my memory of it is a bit hazy - and gray woman and gray friend hatch a plot to kill the gray man (or something like that).

Stuff happens, including reels and reels of stock footage showing people jumping out of planes (gray), as well as a huge dance party inexplicably taking place on the tarmac where the gray man parks his gray plane, complete with various other gray people and music performed by, I would assume, gray musicians. (They were never shown.) The movie ends when somebody dies, but not before Coleman Francis, the evil demon behind this film, as well as the abysmal "Red Zone Cuba", makes his standard bland appearance, looking for all the world like an angry Curly Howard from the Three Stooges, and probably thinking himself pretty clever because of this ridiculous Hitchcockian tribute to himself.

As the title of this review states, I want to hit this movie, over and over again, to quell the feeling that Coleman Francis and his minions have consumed my soul, and I am left a dark, bitter husk of a man.

But maybe that's just me.

I was cruising IMDb and was checking out the Bottom 100 because I wanted to see if "Manos" was given a boost after the Entertainment Weekly story. What a pleasant surprise to see that "The Skydivers," the movie that I said was the worst I'd ever seen when I rubbernecked it twenty five years ago, has taken its rightful place at the top…I mean, the bottom.

For a while, I thought perhaps the WOAT tag should have gone to a woeful idea for a teen comedy called "Nice Girls Don't Explode," starring archetypal pretty-girl-trapped-by-a-nerd's-psyche Michelle Meyrink, but then I found my Beta cassette of "Skydivers" and came to my senses.

You've heard of "shoestring budgets" – this movie had a dental floss budget. Everything you need to know about the lack of cash Coleman Francis suffered is in an early scene in which a car – a junker with what looks like latex paint strokes across it – pulls up at the airport. As the car stops, the passenger door flies open. The driver gets out, there is dialogue I can't remember (but I'm sure it was as inane as the infamous coffee line), and the driver and another person get into the car. The driver gets in the driver's seat, the other person gets in the passenger's seat, closes the door, and sticks his arm out the open window to hold the door closed! Francis didn't have a friend who could lend him a car with properly operating doors?

Even the centerpiece of the movie – the skydiving footage – is ridiculously inept. And "Skydivers" has the most unconvincing love scene on celluloid – there's even less chemistry between those two than there was between Hayden Christiansen and Natalie Portman in "Revenge of the Sith." At least "Manos" made a lame attempt at titillation with the ladies wrestling in lingerie.

It's a shame I have to give "Skydivers" one star in order to vote (especially when there are apparent "Manos" anti-fans who are giving "Skydivers" 10 stars). When it comes to bad movies, "Skydivers" is back where it belongs: Number One with an ICBM.

It isn't fair to call "Skydivers" a train-wreck of a film, when the motif revolves around skydiving...so I'll have to call it a "plane crash" of a movie.

Technically speaking, this is actually the "best" of the Coleman Francis trilogy. "Beast Of Yucca Flats" has a plot that makes even less sense than this and has even more non-sequiteurs. "Red Zone Cuba" features far too much of Francis himself to be even remotely watchable. So if you HAD to watch a Coleman Francis movie, you should choose "Skydivers". Which is like saying that if you had to jump off a building, you should jump off the top floor of The "Stratosphere" tower instead of the Sears Tower or the Empire State building because the weather in Las Vegas is better.

Where "Beast" was a failed science fiction/horror film and "Red Zone Cuba" was a Bizarro World combination of a "Road" flick and a "Buddy" flick, the central concern of "Skydivers" seems to be sexual politics. I think. I can't really explain why else the two morons who want the airstrip owner dead put acid on his chute, so I'm pretty sure that sexual politics was involved. Highlights of "Skydivers" include...oh wait, don't tell me...um...uhhh, well parts of "Skydivers" that don't actually shut your cerebral cortex down include: the skydiving footage (because no one has to act), the impromptu party that breaks out on the airstrip for no apparent reason, (it brings the movie to a screeching halt, and that's a good thing), the guitar driven songs contributed by Dwane Eddy tribute band "the Night Jumpers", and the scene where everyone hunts down the killers and shoots them dead without benefit of a trial. (After all, they were fleeing the scene, so they HAD to be the killers, right???) Oh, and the scene where the jilted lover "Suzy" trades sex for the acid to put on the chute. And the long fistfight scene that tries to go "The Quiet Man" one better. And the repeated references to drinking coffee. ("Coffee?? Gee, that's better than SEX!!!")

Wait, those aren't highlights (well, the Dwayne Eddy songs are good). So this movie doesn't actually have anything to recommend it. Except for the fact that it is so unintentionally hilarious in its ineptness that it makes a fascinating example of what happens when people without talent insist on trying to make movies.

The MST coverage of "Skydivers" is one of their best episodes - it is just so ripe for the picking (and the kicking) that Mike and the Bots have a field day with it. So if you have some morbid urge to see this film, seek out the MST3000 version.

Skydivers lacks everything condusive to a good movie. No plot, no continuity, no action, no story, no intelligent dialog, no acting ability, no soundtrack, not much of anything. In the second of the Coleman Francis trio, Harry and Beth are a struggling couple, trying to run a parachute school. But Harry is messing around with Suzy. That is until Suzy's boyfriend Jimmy finds out, and decks Harry. Much to everyone's dismay, there is a freak accident at the school, which closes them down. Poor Beth finds herself in the arms of mechanic Peter. That is until Harry finds out about it and fires Peter. Meanwhile the FAA, has sent out an investigator to find out about the accident. FAA man Bob makes unwanted passes at Beth who thinks she can patch up her fractured marriage with Harry. But Oh No. Suzy, still mad about being thrown back to Jimmy, decides to get revenge on Harry.

Did you follow that? Take this indiscernable plot; throw in really bad acting, weak dialogue, poor sound recording, 5,000 continuity jumps, and plot jumps, a hand full of public domain classical pieces passed off as a soundtrack, and you've got a turd fit for the garbage compactor. Avoid this crud at all costs! 1/2 *

Since I've watched Coleman Francis' other "masterpieces" The Beast of Yucca Flats and Night Train to Mundo Fine (aka Red Zone Cuba), I had to watch his other movie. If not for the MST3K crew this movie would just remain awfully dull and boring. Just like Francis' other movies, this too is plagued with awful acting, bad editing, weak story, and bad sound, lighting & camera work. Which is a shame for something which at least in part proposes to be an action movie, but even the skydiving "action" scenes seemed pretty dull and lifeless. But at least they had coffee.

If you're looking for a good ending, forget it. For some reason Coleman Francis thought that the way to deal with criminals is to shoot at them from the air, since all three movies ended that way. So much for arrest and due process, we know they're guilty so let's gun them down. But basically the ending is the somewhat climactic ending to a movie with hardly any plot.

The MST3K version will keep you laughing, though.

I had to give this movie a ten rating because it is hilarious. This movie is funny with or without the MST3K Bots. Look, we all love to complain about how awful a movie is, but there really is such a thing as being so bad it's good. Bad movies, truly bad movies, are some of cinema's most entertaining films. Like most good bad movies, this film feels totally surreal, especially the really weird party thrown at the end with bikini girls and a Scottish highlander type. I would rather sit through great bad movies like this or 'Rat Fink A Boo Boo' any day over most major Hollywood blockbuster turkeys. Bad movies are surreal, like some kind of strange art style. Bad movies rule. Bad movies are the best. Scream over bad movies.

I just happen to like this film, and I'd like it just as much without the MST3K characters. It would be a very bleak, depressing movie if it weren't so goofy and stupid. It would be incredibly boring, but the incompetence of everyone involved means that something's always coming out of left field to surprise you.

It's quite a bit more entertaining than most movies. I watch it again and again.

Never before in the history has so much coffee been consumed! Never before has there been so much skydiving! Never before had I been bored off my rear end than by watching this movie!! What Roger Corman does for walking, Coleman Francis does for skydiving.

The story concerns a small skydiving school that teeters of the brink of ruin. The owner's wife is fooling around, people are jumping out of planes left and right, a sinister plot is afoot, and more coffee is being consumed in two hours than in one year at a Starbucks. Oh, and did I mention that someone falls to their death?

Coleman Francis knows three paces in movies: slow, turgid, and dead. Your common box turtle moves faster than this movie does. However, I will say that it does not reach the level of "Red Zone Cuba", Francis' magnum opus. At least The Skydivers has that cheeky woman to look at towards the end; "Red Zone Cuba" gives us a horrible Fidel Castro impersonation.

This movie is required viewing if you plan to work in an ad agency that has Folgers or Maxwell House as a client. If not, use this to cure your insomnia.

Little could directors like Coleman Francis, Roger Corman, and Hal Warren imagine that their catastrophic pieces of celluloid excrement would, one day, bring so much joy to future generations. With the help of Mike, Joel, and a couple of robots, of course. Make no mistake, "Skydivers", along with "Plan 9 From Outer Space", "Manos, the Hands of Fate", etc... represents film-making at its lowest level. Lousy directing, flimsy storyline, complete lack of character development, crappy lighting, botched sound, laughable continuity, and, what might be the worst acting I've ever seen all make for a uniquely surreal experience.

While on the subject of acting, I, and other reviewers, are not kidding when we say that every actor seems to be reading from cue cards. After enduring "Skydivers", I immediately watched another MST3K masterpiece, "Sidehackers". As bad as "Sidehackers" was, Ross Hagen (Rommel, "I read your book, you magnificent S.O.B.!") was Laurence Olivier compared to Anthony Cardoza. So, in its raw form, I would highly recommend avoiding this hack job at all costs. However, if you're a fan of MST3K, this is actually one of the best episodes I've seen.

Anthony Cardoza is cheating on his wife, Kevin Casey, with Marcia Knight, so she has affair with someone else. They stay married for the sake of the airfield they own together, where the bills are paid by a skydiving school. Eventually they will decide to try to kill each other, but this doesn't stop everyone from getting together to enjoy some coffee.

Coleman Francis wrote and directed this movie. The print I saw was certainly not a good one, but it's a nifty idea and might have made a decent Universal programmer a decade earlier. I can well imagine a cast led by, say Jeff Chandler and Deborah Pagey, directed by someone like Jesse Hibbs, mildly sordid, but with a Code-mandated ending.

Alas, Mr. Francis lacks the ability and cast to hit those buttons. Unless you are fascinated by coffee, this is not a particularly well-done movie, although the skydiving sequences are ok.

"The Skydivers" might have been a little better had it had a comprehensible plot, but it doesn't. The skydiving is the background setting for a bunch of sexual tension and other things, but it's so muddled that you'd never be able to figure out who's doing what with whom.

That said, the movie was not a total waste. It once appeared on "MST3K". According to the Satellite of Love's crew, one of the women in the movie is going for a Laura Petrie look, while Abner and Gladys Kravitz make a guest appearance. The movie alone gets 0/10 stars, but the "MST3K" version gets 11/10 stars. That Dr. Forrester was sure a cruel man for making them watch this garbage.

'Skydivers' is a tawdry, unpleasant, hamfisted botch of a film BUT it is far better than 'Red Zone Cuba'.

The movies of Coleman Francis offered a showcase for the talents of those who otherwise could never have made the big time. Yes, they may have been 'differently talented', but at least Coleman never played by the Hollywood 'rules' of hiring only the skilled, or trying to make movies people might like!

The best thing about this film is the way Coleman brilliantly conveys the greyness and despair of this dusty town. When I feel down in the mouth I can always say 'at least I don't live there!'

The plot is simultaneously convoluted and thin - an achievement in itself. The script sounds like it was an unpleasant chore Coleman put off and put off and finally wrote in half an hour because he had to finish it before he could get on with filming people jumping out of planes. The acting ranges from mediocre (Suzie) to quite poor (Beth) to strange (the guy whose name I've forgotten who dies first-the odd one who thinks Beth gets prettier every day) to amateur (the sky divers) to bad (everyone else) to comatose (Harry).

The editing seems to have been done at random - Beth and Joe are having a conversation indoors, there is a sudden shot of Harry outdoors nodding. That kind of thing. And the music only occasionally suits the mood of the action, presumably by accident. It sounds like the soundtrack to a Russian propaganda war film, huge brass crescendos accompany car journeys and cut into the middle of humdrum conversations.

But it is better than 'Red Zone Cuba'. And remember sky diving is FUN.

I don't know when this was filmed but I think it was made after Beast of Yucca Flats and Red Zone Cuba. I know that Yucca Flats was released in '61 and Red Zone Cuba was filmed un '61. Skydivers has the feel of a complete movie with a full script and lots of padding to flesh it out. The other two movies had plots that can be summed up in a single sentence fragment. This movie has a plot twisting love triangle. It is clumsy in execution but it is at least tried.

The movie is boring even with MST3K's often dated comedy commentary. I have watched it without that commentary and suddenly I felt like I was watching an off feeling French film of the early 60s. Make the characters all qorkers on the Eiffel Tower, watch them work for 40 minutes, add some music at a bar qhere they al hang out, throw in the love affair stuff and it would be similar to this. Even the coffee fits.

I caught The Skydivers a couple of days ago on MST3K on IFC. This "movie" was made in 1963. The TV series "Ripcord" was real popular then and that may be what inspired Coleman Francis to grind this one out. It looks like it was shot in a vacant lot with a VHS camcorder. The direction is awful, the editing ridiculously bad, and the acting amateurish at best. The men are all lechers and the women are all loose. The numerous skydiving scenes provide some relief from an otherwise painful watching experience. The best thing I can say about The Skydivers is that it makes Plan 9 From Outer Space look like Gone With the Wind.

Say what you will about Coleman Francis, but as director and producer he had an innate ability to get so many people together who just could not act in all of his movies. That is pure talent.

Another reviewer speaks somewhat poorly of the musician in this movie, which is a shame.

The "Jimmy Bryant & The Night Jumpers" credited in this movie is actually just "Jimmy Bryant", a fantastic guitarist who is considered a great by other great guitar players. How he was unlucky enough to end up in this stinkbomb of a movie is unknown, and his music was used to poor effect in the film, but trust me.... he's a great guitarist. (or was... he's passed on now.)

Leave it to Tony Cardoza (and Coleman Francis) to take a good musician and make him look bad.

Look here for some info about Jimmy Bryant:

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql:3b8o1v0jzzva