A Quick Look: THE SKYDIVERS (1963)

    Actor/director Coleman Francis made three films with actor/producer Anthony Cardoza. THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS was a meandering quasi-monster movie, while NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNDO FINE made absolutely no sense at all in it's tale of on-the-run criminals who get involved in the Bay of Pigs invasion, escape Cuba, and then go hunting for tungsten. Of the three films, THE SKYDIVERS was the best one, though even it is murkily shot and seemingly edited by a mad man. Cardoza stars as Harry, the owner of a sport parachuting company run by he and his wife, Beth. Harry is also guilty of an affair with the morally bankrupt Suzie, but he's decided to call it quits. Meanwhile, Harry's old war buddy, Joe, has hit town and the lonely Beth starts warming up to his advances. Ultimately, she loves Harry and decides to stick with him. During this, Suzie cons her current boy toy (the slow-witted Frankie, recently fired by Harry and Beth for drinking on the job -the job Joe takes over) into getting back at Harry by putting acid in his chute before a night jump accompanied by a big shindig at the airstrip. It's as dreary and depressing as it sounds, but the story shows a marked complexity it's siblings simply can't claim. This is one of those cases where you really have to see it to understand just how terribly it's constructed. It breaks cinematic laws you probably never even considered until you actually see them broken! On the plus side, there's a featured band toward the climax, Jimmy Bryant and His Night Jumpers, and they're pretty good. Cardoza would produce several budgetless wonders over a 40 year career. He did manage to make one really good one (by low budget drive-in standards), in the form of 1967's THE HELLCATS. Coleman Francis gave up directing after making 1965's NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNDO FINE -known to MST fans by it's re-issue title RED ZONE CUBA. Francis would probably be completely forgotten today had his works not been rediscovered by Mystery Science Theater 3000.