The Pumaman

The Pumaman
Italian one-sheet for The Pumaman
Directed by	Alberto De Martino
Written by	Luigi Angelo Alberto De Martino Massimo De Rita
Starring	Walter George Alton Donald Pleasence Miguel Ángel Fuentes Sydne Rome Silvano Tranquilli Benito Stefanelli Guido Lollobrigida
Music by	Renato Serio
Cinematography	Mario Vulpiani
Edited by	Vincenzo Tomassi
Release dates	14 February 1980 (1980-02-14)
Running time	100 min
Country	Italy
Language	English

The Pumaman (L'uomo puma, in Italian) is an Italian-produced English-language movie about a superhero of the same name, released in 1980. It was mocked in a 1998 episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Plot

Thousands of years ago, an alien spaceship visited the Earth and became a god to the Aztecs. The aliens fathered the Pumaman, a man-god with supernatural powers who would guard the people of Earth and transmit his powers to his descendants. The original Pumaman was entrusted a gold mask with the ability to control people's minds.

In the present day, in London, archaeologist Jane Dobson (Sydne Rome) has found the mask and deciphered its instructions: when aimed at someone, it can be used to control their mind, and the control becomes tighter if a replica of the person's head is wired into it. Her employer, the villainous Dr. Kobras (Donald Pleasence), plans to use it to control the minds of world leaders. He begins with Jane, who is the Dutch ambassador's daughter. Kobras somehow learns the Pumaman will be after the mask, and is an American orphan living in London. Reasoning that the Pumaman can survive great falls, like a cat, he orders his henchmen to throw people matching that description from tall places and see if they survive.

After four people get killed thus, mild-mannered American paleontologist Tony Farms (Walter George Alton) survives being thrown out of a window by a large, muscular and mysterious Indian named Vadinho (Miguel Angel Fuentes). Soon afterwards, Jane invites Tony to a party at the Dutch embassy, so Kobras's mind slaves can kill him.

That evening, Vadinho confronts Tony at his home. He explains that he belongs to the Aztec cult of the alien god and knew Tony's father. He also reveals that Tony's ability to sense danger and see in the dark are due to his Pumaman blood. He claims that Tony's full powers will develop when he wears a magical golden belt. When Tony makes his disbelief evident, Vadinho warns him that the invitation is a trap, but Tony escapes to the embassy.

Kobras also arrives at the embassy, and negotiates control of the world's energy supply, while his henchmen try to subdue Tony. He manages to fight them off, and flees to the roof. Vadinho appears on the ground below and talks Tony into putting on the belt, which grants him powers of flight that allow him to escape to an abandoned warehouse. Vadinho explains Kobras's sinister scheme, and gets Tony to follow Kobras as he returns to his lair.

But Kobras is ready for him, and his henchmen swarm out to shoot down Tony. He manages to evade them, and even captures one to interrogate him about where Kobras is keeping the mask, but it turns out the location is kept secret from the henchmen. Meanwhile, Vadinho has used his mystical amulet to find out that Kobras is in a mansion of some kind. He tells Tony to use his teleportation powers to find it, but it turns out he cannot warp to a location he has not visited.

Tony concocts an alternate plan to find the mansion, and contacts his policeman friend Martin to obtain an electronic position indicator. When he returns to the warehouse, however, it turns out Vadinho has been captured by Kobras's henchmen, and he fights them off with his powers of flight, teleportation and super-strength. With the henchmen defeated, he teleports into Jane's car. When she refuses to tell him the mansion's location, he hides the position indicator under the passenger seat. A brief chase breaks out as Kobras's henchmen pursue him, but he teleports back to the warehouse. Kobras deduces from Jane's reluctance to kill Tony that her affection for him is weakening his mind control.

Tony tracks the position indicator to the mansion, where Kobras has convened the heads of state of the entire world and begun controlling them with the mask. He uses the mask on Jane again, and orders her to shoot Tony. Tony teleports in just then, and Jane relents out of love from killing him. Tony then launches at Kobras, but it turns out he is surrounded by a force field which strips Tony of his powers. Kobras also attempts mind control on Tony, but Vadinho appears in time to focus Tony's mind on resisting the spell.

Vadinho and Tony return to the warehouse. When Kobras attempts mind control on Tony again to coax him into committing suicide, Vadinho rescues him once more. Kobras dispatches his henchmen to check if he has died, but Vadinho is wise to his plans and has made Tony use a new superpower which slows down his metabolism to simulate death. The henchmen consider shooting him to make sure, but desist because Kobras wants the death to look like an accident.

Now that most of Tony's powers have gone, Vadinho decides to threaten Kobras with a suicide bomb. However, he uses all his concentration fighting off the mind control mask, allowing the henchmen to rob him of his bomb. He manages to defeat them in a fistfight, then damages the mind control apparatus by throwing a stick of dynamite. This destroys the replica of Jane's head, freeing her from Kobras' control, and the Jane smashes the replica of Tony's head, thus restoring Tony's Pumaman powers. He joins the fight with Vadinho and defeats all of the henchmen.

Kobras escapes through a trapdoor and to a helicopter. Tony catches up to him, and with some deft aerial maneuvering, manages to throw out the pilot and crash the chopper with Kobras inside. With the world safe, Vadinho, Tony and Jane head to Stonehenge with the mask. Vadinho summons the aliens with his amulet, and before joining them to return the mask to the Andes, he tells Tony to look for him when it is time to train his son to be the next Pumaman. The film ends as Tony flies into the air with Jane and embraces her.

Puma Powers

Every Pumaman is born with innate feline abilities including:

Cat-like agility, including the ability to land safely on his feet when dropped from a great height.
Superhuman night vision that allows him to see in the dark.
The ability to sense imminent danger, warned by a brief and quickly passing feeling of nausea.

The magic belt augments these abilities as well as granting him further god-like powers including:

Flight. This is described by characters as superhuman leaping like a puma, but aside from some fight scenes involving a hidden trampoline, it is usually depicted through special effects as somewhat traditional yet extremely dorky superhero flight.
Super strength and the ability to use his hands like claws to tear through metal and brick.
Teleporting himself to any location with which he is familiar, although if he attempts to teleport to any location which he is not familiar, he risks becoming lost forever in a dark and hellish void. This ability also allows him to pass ghost-like through walls and floors.
Feigning death by temporarily stopping his heartbeat for ten minutes.

Trivia

While the rest of the cast refers to the title character using the American pronunciation "poo-ma", Donald Pleasence uses the British pronunciation "pyu-ma".

External links

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