Mystery Science Theater 3000: THE SKYDIVERS
December 14, 2016 3:47 PM - Season 6, Episode 9 - Subscribe

"Thrill Jumping Guys...Thrill Seeking Girls... Daring Death with Every Leap!" A woman gets revenge on her philandring, skydiving husband. Puts heavy emphasis on those skydiving scenes. Remarkably boring. With short Why Study Industrial Arts: A young man enthuses about his woodworking class. The short is great, let's get that out of the way. This movie though... it's the first of the three Coleman Francis movies they did in the sixth season. All three are in that lowest-of-the-low tier. Frank himself says "It's like 'Manos' without the lucid plot." Fan opinion of the episode is pretty high, but the movie is so bad. I'm not sure if I've ever stayed awake all the way through it! Good luck everyone. YouTube (1h32m) Promo (28s) Premiered August 27, 1994.

Episode 609 THE SKYDIVERS
Satellite News - MST3K Wikia - Mighty Jack's MST3K Episode Review - - Annotated MST3K

Movie
Daddy-O's Drive-In Dirt - Rotten Tomatoes (Critics N/A, Viewers 2%) - Wikipedia
IMDB (1963, 2.9 stars)
"A woman seeks revenge on her former lover, who owns a skydiving business."
Directed and written by Coleman Francis. Starring Kevin Casey, Eric Tomlin and Anthony Cardoza.

Short
Daddy-O's Drive-In Dirt
Produced by Centron Corp. with Young America Films.
IMDB (1956, 2.1 stars)
"A high school student really likes his shop class...perhaps a bit too much!"
Directed by Herk Harvey. Written by Margaret Travis. Starring Chuck Lacey. (Daddy-O says the actor and crew is unknown, but the IMDB came through here.)

Notes:
There used to be a website about director Coleman Francis, but it's long dead. Some of it can be found on the Internet Archive.

I'm calling attention to the Daddy-O link for The Skydivers, above, because it has a good list of bit parts Coleman Francis played. It turns out he actually was in quite a lot of movies, including a ton of westerns that Daddy-O doesn't even bother listing. Those interested can check out his IMDB page. He has 36 actor credits, including Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, the infamous movie Russ Meyer directed that Roger Ebert co-wrote. He was also in three episodes of Dragnet, one of The Rifleman, and four of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. However, none of his Western appearances are reported on the IMDB. Strange....

A factoid from the IMDB: "According to friend Anthony Cardoza, Francis' body was found in the back of a station wagon at the Vine Street Ranch Market." Anthony Cardoza, as "Tony Cardoza," is in Francis' other films as well.

Wikipedia notes "The film contains performances by influential Nashville guitarist Jimmy Bryant."
posted by JHarris (8 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'd rank this as the most boring, but most comprehensible, of the Coleman Francis trilogy.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:02 PM on December 14, 2016 [2 favorites]


I originally read the line at the top as "Guys Jumping Girls".
Is Coleman Francis related to Coleman Lanterns?
"body was found in the back of a station wagon at the Vine Street Ranch Market" used to be one of my preferred ways to die until I heard about Alan Thicke having a heart attack while playing hockey.
And "Industrial Arts" is one of my favorite oxymorons.
I'll just repeat those lines over and over in the chat during this week's MST3K Club...
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:30 PM on December 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'm taking Mrs. W to Trans-Siberian Orchestra tonight, so I will probably miss this one. I find this one really funny, partially because of the often incompetent acting.

Red Zone Cuba is probably the funniest Coleman Francis episode, with Yucca Flats #2 and Skydivers #3. Though Yucca Flats has one of my favorite lines (Flag on the moon. How did it get there?) and my favorite riffs (It's the KGB, Mr. Benny).
posted by wittgenstein at 8:15 AM on December 15, 2016


Is there gratuitous coffee drinking in this one? I've got to shovel a bunch of snow, and I could go for a hot cup of joe.
posted by valkane at 9:15 AM on December 15, 2016 [3 favorites]


Coffee is a major plot point, believe it or not.
posted by wittgenstein at 12:08 PM on December 15, 2016 [3 favorites]


Every week we in the MeFi MST3K Club watch this week's posted episode together over the internet! This week's showing is, again, in our cytu.be room, Thursday (today) at 9 PM ET/6 PM PT. I hope you can make it!
posted by JHarris at 1:29 PM on December 15, 2016


Thanks for coming out everyone! Next week is close to the planned 2016 marathon, so we're going to hold off on this week's usual club showing, and save 610 THE VIOLENT YEARS for the week after.
posted by JHarris at 9:22 AM on December 16, 2016


"I see you shiver with antici...."

"SAY IT!"

"...coffee."
posted by ilana at 3:09 PM on December 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


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