The Mad Bomber

1973
R
1h 31m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Los Angeles detectives Minelli and Blake must track down a serial rapist who may know the identity of a mentally disturbed bomber.Los Angeles detectives Minelli and Blake must track down a serial rapist who may know the identity of a mentally disturbed bomber.Los Angeles detectives Minelli and Blake must track down a serial rapist who may know the identity of a mentally disturbed bomber.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

5.8/10

809

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Trivia
The adult movie theater scene in the film is the Paris Theatre, located at 8163 Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood. The theater opened as the Carmel Theatre, a legitimate movie house, in 1926, and operated as a grindhouse and adults-only Paris Theatre from the mid-1960s until 1976, when the building was destroyed by a fire.

Quotes
[first lines]
[man throws cup on sidewalk]
William Dorn: You just littered the street.
Pedestrian on sidewalk: But it was empty.
William Dorn: Well, I want you to go back and pick up your trash.
Pedestrian on sidewalk: What?
William Dorn: I said I want you to go back and pick it up.
Pedestrian on sidewalk: Like hell I will.
William Dorn: It's people like you that make our world filthy my friend. You're a pig! Did you hear what I said? Tell me.
Pedestrian on sidewalk: It's people like me that make our world filthy, I'm a pig.
William Dorn: Now, go back and pick up your trash. Put it in your pocket. Now, don't you feel better?
[pedestrian walks off with no reply]

Alternate versions
An edited-for-television cut of the film, which has been widely released on DVD, removes scenes of nudity, gore and coarse language, but also features additional footage not seen in the original theatrical version. Among the additions:
A slightly longer scene of the bomb construction at the onset of the film.
A radio description of the bomber laid over a shot of a radio tower.
Lieutenant Minneli giving a citation over the placement of a street sign to a theatre owner who is exhibiting "teen sex" films.
Removal of a piece of dialogue where the police chief says he wants to catch the "son of a bitch before he blows up Los Angeles."
An alternate take of a woman getting changed through a window. In the TV version, her undergarments are never visible, and she's always wearing her blue dress.
Alternate shots of her attack where her blue dress hasn't been ripped.
An alternate edit of the montage of female police officers working the streets, which removes violence, but adds additional officers walking through the night.
An alternate version of Lieutenant Minneli exploring the presumed suspect's apartment. In the TV version, the walls don't contain nude images of his wife, but rather just nondescript decor. When Minneli plays the projector, a different version of footage of his wife is on it, with tight shots on her face and alternate perspectives that don't reveal her nude body.
When the man later returns home to view the footage of his wife alone, he is watching a different film of her without nude images. However, a single topless photograph of her still appears during the bomber's explosion for a brief moment, seemingly missed by the editors.

Connections
Referenced in Best of the Worst: Night Beast, Trick or Treat, and Skull Forest (2013)

Soundtracks
Reaching Out
by Dan Yordan
Vocal by Nancy Honnold

User reviews20

Review

Featured review

6/10

The Mad Bomber is an okay thriller by Bert I. Gordon

I've just seen on Google Video what-according to the other comments I've read-was the edited version of The Mad Bomber. Chuck Connors plays the title character who's trying to avenge his daughter's death from a drug overdose on the city of Los Angeles. Vince Edwards is the cop trying to stop him. And Neville Brand is the rapist who witnesses Connors at the mental hospital he sneaks into. Supposedly there were actual scenes of nudity, graphic rape, even more intense explosions. What I saw seemed sufficient. While there are some slow spots such as Brand's having to identify Connors through various face recreations with Edwards in the police headquarters, there is enough tension to keep things going. Writer, producer, director Bert I. Gordon does seem a bit heavy-handed in his approach and many of the minor characters are mostly stick figures for plot contrivances. Still, fairly good performances by Connors, Edwards, and Brand. Update:6/23/13-I just watched on YouTube one of the cut scenes from this movie, a scene when the Brand character is watching film of a nude woman doing flirty poses that he gets off on. The rating stays.