MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: A Doc Savage movie was cast and ready to go when they abruptly changed to an entirely different film at the last minute.

In the mid-1960s, the success of heroes from novels and comic books like James Bond and Batman led to producers looking to see whatever other 20th Century heroes that could be adapted into films.

Producers Mark Goodson & Bill Todman (best known for their TV game shows) decided to pick Doc Savage to turn into a matinee idol.

Doc Savage was selling well in trade paperback at the time, and so they decided to adapt one of those reprinted stories, The Thousand-Headed Man, for the plot of their first Doc Savage film...

Chuck Connors, who had recently wrapped up his hit TV series, The Rifleman, was cast as Doc Savage. The rest of the movie was cast, as well. The great website, Hero Histories (which also has some more great information about the pre-production of the movie), believes that the cast (besides Connors as Doc) was likely...

Claude Akins as Monk

Michael Rennie as Ham

William Bryant as Renny

Jamie Farr as Johnny

Bill Bixby as Long Tom

Gary Merrill or Paul Fix as Calvin Copeland

Kathryn Hays as Lucille Copeland

But then the twist!

It turns out that Goodson and Todman had made their deal with Conde Nast, who had the literary rights to Doc Savage, but they didn't actually have the FILM rights to the character! Those still resided with Doc Savage's creator, Lester Dent. Dent had passed away by this point, so his widow owned the rights. She was up for making a deal, but Goodson and Todman had a production deadline and felt that they didn't have the time to negotiate with her.

So instead, they just decided to pivot the entire production to a whole NEW story.

They had the option to a western novel called Night of the Tiger...

And so they just had the cast members all play characters from THAT story, instead, with the resulting film called Ride Beyond Vengeance...

Isn't that hilarious?

The excellent pulp historian, Will Murray, wrote in to note that he isn't sure if Goodson and Todman ever got to the point of locking Connors down for Doc Savage, as Murray notes that Connors discussed wanting to play the role in the future. I think the Newsweek article is pretty convincing, but Murray makes a fine point, as well.

I'll go with the legend as...

STATUS: Leaning Towards True

Thanks to Hero Histories for the information!

Be sure to check out my archive of Movie Legends Revealed for more urban legends about the world of film.

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