More Old Sci-Fi Films
It’s another avoidance mechanism, I guess!
Things to Come
1936 London Film
| John/Oswald Cabal | Raymond Massey |
| Pippa/Raymond Passworthy | Edward Chapman |
| The Boss | Ralph Richardson |
| Roxana/Rowena | Margueretta Scott |
| Theotocopulos | Cedric Hardwicke |
| Dr. Harding | Maurice Braddell |
| Mrs Cabal | Sophie Stewart |
| Richard Gordon | Derrick de Marney |
| Mary Gordon | Ann Todd |
| Catherine Cabal | Pearl Argyle |
| Maurice Passworthy | Kenneth Villiers |
| Morden Mitani | Ivan Brandt |
| The Child | Anne McLaren |
| Janet Gordon | Patricia Hilliard |
| Great Grandfather | Charles Carson |
| Produced by | Alexander Korda |
| Directed by | William Cameron Menzies |
| Based on a novel by | H. G. Welles |
This is a big film. The cast, the plot, the scenery, the camera angles, and the dialog are all big and complex. It takes very long shots at visions of various aspects of the future, and tries to ask the right questions.
It begins 1940, in “Everytown” (somewhere in England). War is breaking out.
We’re introduced straight away to the participants in the main ethical dialog. Cabal names Passworthy “Pippa”; Passworthy says Cabal is not “eupeptic”. This defines their relationship.
(Cabal) “If we don’t end war, War will end us!”
(Passworthy) “What can you do?”
(Cabal) “Yeess. What can you do?”
Bad guys have fixed wing aircraft, good guys have biplanes. Cool sleek war tanks (perhaps of the bad guys), are interspersed between WWI tank photos.
A bad guy pilot ridiculously survives a vertical crash, to philosophize about the ethics of gassing civilians.
By 1955, it’s total war, by 1960 civilization has collapsed; people walk about in rags. In 1965, the “wandering sickness” breaks out. Decisive citizens just shoot the diseased. In 1970, things become a little better, and “the Chief” is praised for saving the community by shooting the sick. He wants build an air force, to finally end the battle with the “hill people”. Really, the Chief and his main babe are the best part here.
Then Cabal shows up in a very cool one-man aircraft, with an utterly unnecessarily bulbous helmet. He grimly announces he and his “Wings over the World” are taking over. They are a group of engineers who have created a better society, based on dropping sleeping gas (the “Gas of Peace”) on people from huge aircraft.
“Organize, advance, this zone then that, and at last ’Wings over the World’, and a new world begins.”
Lots of heroic blather and big industrial digging equipment herald in the new age.
2036. Society lives underground in industrial surroundings dotted tastefully with decorative shrubbery. (It’s explained later that people formerly lived on the surface only because they didn’t know how to light their houses otherwise.) The scenes are disturbingly reminiscent of modern shopping malls. The silly futuristic outfits do not compliment Cabal’s slender legs.
Transparent, flat screen TV’s are the one accurate technological vision. Cabal drives a cute little helicopter.
A gargantuan “Space Gun” is to blast people into space, to go around the moon.
A rabble objects to the gun. Its leader propounds theatrically:
“Progress is folly, and unrestful, and dreary … scientific inventions are perpetually changing life for us … you make what we think great, seem small, … you make what we think strong, seem feeble.”
Cabal says: “The best of life Passworthy lies at the edge of death. There’s nothing wrong is suffering if you suffer for a purpose. Our revolution didn’t abolish danger or death, it simply made danger and death worthwhile.”
A cute couple, who happen to be the kids of Cabal and Passworthy, are chosen as passengers. They are strapped into bungee-chairs, and advised: “contract all your muscles when the concussion comes”.
Parables: what could I say to add to this? most of Cabal’s dialog is sermonizing and moralizing. I’ll accept the closing lines as a summary:
“All the Universe or Nothing! Which shall it be, Passworthy, which shall it be?”
Destination Moon
1950 Eagle Lion
| Jim Barnes | John Archer |
| Dr. Charles Cargraves | Warner Anderson |
| General Thayer | Tom Powers |
| Joe Sweeny | Dick Wesson |
| Emily Cargraves | Erin O’Brien- Moore |
| Produced by | George Pal |
| Directed by | Irving Pichel |
| Screenplay by | Rip van Ronkel, Robert Heinlein and James O’Hanlon |
| Based on a novel by | Robert Heinlein |
| Space art by | Chesley Bonestell |
Only boys on this mission; Heinlein never wrote well for women.
Technology: Clips of White Sands V-2, discussion of satellites
Vehicle: Silver, cigar shaped rocket with big fins. Not really very big. Nuclear rocket engine: steam super-heated by nuclear reactor.
Clackety computer similar to that in Attack of the Flying Saucers
Beautiful pitch for going into space by Woody Woodpecker! With lesson in Newtonian mechanics.
Why go to the moon? “There is no way to stop an attack from outer space”
Public opposition to the nuclear motor is dismissed as propaganda financed by “somebody with money and brains”.
“Rockets are an absolute necessity—if any other power gets one into space before we do, we’ll no longer be the United States, we’ll be ‘This United World, etc, etc’ unquote.”
On landing on the Moon, they “claim possession for the United States, for the benefit of all mankind”.
Effects of acceleration are depicted as excruciating.
Very nice artist’s rendering of Earth; astronauts soliloquize on its beauty.
Weightlessness done well, with invisible wires. They report that weightlessness makes swallowing difficult. They walk with what appear to be real magnetized boots!
Oxygen tank used to thrust astronaut to make a rescue.
Rocketship X-M
1950 Lippert Productions
| Lloyd Bridges | Col. Floyd Graham, pilot |
| Osa Massen | Dr. Lisa Van Horn, able co-worker and assistant, Dr of Chem. |
| John Emery | Dr. Karl Extrum, designer & brilliant physicist |
| Noah Beery, Jr. | Maj. William Corrigan, Engr. |
| Hugh O’Brian | Harry Chamberlain, astronomer, navigator |
| Morris Ankrum | Dr. Fleming |
| Patrick Ahern | |
| Sherry Moreland | |
| John Dutra | |
| Katherine Marlowe |
| Produced, written and directed by | Kurt Neumann |
Vehicle RXM (Rocketship Expedition to the Moon). Two-stage, shaped rather like a squid’s mantle. Carries “Twice the fuel we expect to use to keep within the margin of safety.”
Not strictly a military project, but built in secrecy. That “…an unassailable base could be established on the moon, to control world peace.”
According to a trailer provided with the tape, the crew consists of “Four Men and a Girl”.
Comment as they’re taking their physicals: “The weaker sex, the only one whose blood pressure is normal!” “Unless you look like a test tube or a chemical formula, you don’t have a chance”. She’s on board because she invented the fuel the rocket uses.
They get a case of meteorites.
At some point between the Earth and Moon, they have an encounter with reduced gravity. It’s briefly amusing, but they aren’t bothered by it again.
While in space, they gaze upon a gage that reads “Air Speed - MPH”.
Something goes wrong: “By heading into space, we’ve added the Earth’s orbital velocity to our own”. They’re doing a course change, and everyone blacks out (for days). Perhaps they were to have made another correction.
“You know the consequences of a body moving with unchecked velocity in free space…Infinite motion!”
Ship ends up going to Mars instead of the Moon. They acknowledge that this is wildly improbable, and “pause and observe respectfully while something infinitely greater assumes control”.
On Mars: “We have atmosphere here, we won’t need pressure suits”
Martians are just people. They have nuked themselves back to the stone age. The whole Mars episode is rather disappointing.
Most of the film is B&W, but Mars scenes are pink!
Musical score by Ferde Grofé resembles the Star Trek theme.
Texan Bill Corrigan prefers colorful expressions like “Mars — whaddya know!”. Remarks: “On my ranch, I’ve thrown heifers over my shoulder bigger than that”. Col. Graham retorts: “You sure that wasn’t a bull?”
Graham has been chipping away at Van Horn’s icy exterior all alone, but after a couple of guys die, and they’re headed back to Earth, it’s time for romance. Graham: “Lisa, you’re a pretty swell girl.” Van Horn: “Girl? I’m not Dr. Van Horn any more?” He has hit on the right formula!
But too late. Brace yourself for a bummer.
Parables:
God is in the pilot seat (and He can’t be killed!)
Races naturally engage in combat on first encounter.
Mars is too boring to bother with.
Flight to Mars
1951 Monogram
| Marguerite Chapman | Alita |
| Cameron Mitchell | reporter Steve Abbott |
| Arthur Franz | Jim Barker, Chief Engineer |
| Virginia Huston | Carol Stafford |
| John Litel | |
| Morris Ankrum | Ikron (Alita’s Father) |
| Richard Gaines | |
| Lucille Barkley | |
| Robert H. Barratt | |
| Professor William Jackson | |
| Dr. Laine |
| Produced by | Walter Mirisch |
| Directed by | Lesley Selander |
| Screenplay by | Arthur Strawn |
Date “Fifty Years into the Future” (from trailers)
Built in secret by the Pentagon, but the (much-discussed) reason for the ship is just to get there.
Vehicle: Sleek silver rocket-ship, boarded in the conventional manner—a little ladder to a door at the rear.
“What happens when the rocket finally levels off, do we walk on the walls?” “Our gyro mechanism keeps this cabin vertical at all times!”
Crew: a woman scientist, a know-nothing-but-whimsical newspaper reporter, the handsome and lusty captain, and some old guys.
Obligatory encounter with “meteorites” (which appear to be micrographs of blood cells) causes crash landing on Mars.
The inside of the rocket ship is identical to that of Rocketship X-M.
Martians are just people with futuristic clothing. The thoughts of both species turn promptly to procreation with the other.
Martians running out of “corium”, which is their equivalent of coal.
Martian girls can’t really bend over in their outfits. Futuristic! The length of their skirts was a taste of things to come in Star Trek.
Mars is a “woman’s paradise”, because instead of a kitchen, there is a “food laboratory”, which delivers meals, and washes the dishes.
Parables:
Watch out for meteorites.
Mars is dying.
Martian girls look good in mini-skirts.
Martian women belong in the food laboratory.
Radar Men from the Moon
Introducing Commander Cody
1952 Republic
| George Wallace | Commander Cody |
| Clayton Moore |
| Directed by | Fred C. Brannon |
| Produced by | Franklyn Adreon |
| Screenplay by | Ronald Davidson |
Serial in 12 chapters; this is very poor indeed.
Vehicles: Commander Cody has a rocket suit! There’s an experimental moon rocket. Cody must always command a “180 degree turn” on landing. This turn is executed in a leisurely horizontal fashion, not so the rocket can land on its tail. Some effort is put into decorating an army tank as a Moon tank. It’s got fins and a cool paint job, and belches diesel smoke.
A woman is on board the rocket explicitly to cook.
Weapons: Moon men have atomic weapons, which can be hand weapons or cannons, but which are exceedingly clumsy to re-load, always allowing Cody to escape.
Aliens: Wear tight hoods, are evil and incompetent. Hire Earth men who are bank robbers by trade and who can’t complete any mission. The atmosphere on the Moon has become too thin to breathe, so that’s why they want Earth.
Parables:
The Moon is dying.
To land, make a 180° turn.
If you want a hot meal, don’t forget the women.
Red Planet Mars
1952
| Peter Graves | |
| Andrea King | |
| Marvin Miller | |
| Herbert Bergof | |
| House Peters |
| Directed by | Harry Horner |
Scientist invents gizmo to talk to Mars. (Or did he steal it?)
Message from Mars says there is a God. Everybody gets religion. Commies head for the hills
Sociopath Nazi scientist claims he invented the gizmo, and has been sending the broadcasts.
Very little sci-fi here; this is a morality tale. Some good performances, but the script dooms all attempts to keep one’s interest.
Invaders from Mars
1953 Twentieth Century-Fox
| Helena Carter | |
| Arthur Franz | |
| Jimmy Hunt | |
| Lief Erickson | |
| Hillary Brooke | |
| Morris Ankrum | |
| Max Wagner | |
| Bill Phipps | |
| Milburn Stone | |
| Janine Perreau |
| Produced by | Edward L. Alperson |
| Screenplay by | Richard Blake |
| Directed by | William Cameron Menzies |
Kid sees saucer land, nobody believes him.
Martians suck victims into the sand. The victims return home, with only a little scar on the back of the neck to show for it, and…they aren’t the same.
Scary brainy Martian in a plastic bubble has tentacles, orders the other Martians around using his bloodshot eyes. The other Martians are in fuzzy, faceless, teddy-bear suits.
Flying saucer, brain implant, rock-boring ray.
Weird choral music by Raoule Kraushaar reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Parables:
Listen to the kid!
Martians, bad!
Leave it to the army!
Project Moon Base
1953 Galaxy
| Colonel Briteis (Brighteyes) | Donna Martel |
| Haydon Rorke | General Greene |
| Ross Ford | Major Moore |
| Larry Johns | Dr. Wernher |
| Herb Jacobs | Mr. Roundtree |
| Barbara Morrison | Polly Prattles |
| Ernestime Barrier | Madame President |
| James Craven | Commodore Carlson |
| John Hedloe | Adjutant |
| Peter Adams | Captain Carmody |
| Robert Karmer | Sam |
| John Straub | Chaplain |
| Clarke Keene | Spacecom Operator |
| John Tomecko | Blockhouse Operator |
| Robert Paltz | Bellboy |
| Produced by | Jack Seaman |
| Directed by | Robert Talmadge |
| Screenplay by | Robert Heinlein and Jack Seaman |
| Based on a story by | Irving Block |
Date: post 1970
Elaborate sets and models manage always to look like sets and models.
Very small one-person rocket ships Canada and Mexico fly to the space station, from which a moon ship departs.
Space Station 350 ft in diameter. USSF: U.S. Space Force (but craft bear the USAF insignia ). Built to “consolidate the safety of the Free World.”
Everybody smokes.
Haydon Rorke has a lot of trouble with the technobabble.
First surprise: Colonel Briteis is a woman! Last surprise: The President of the U.S. is a woman!
It is explained Briteis was picked because she weighs so little.
Briteis doesn’t fill us with confidence, though. She’s as cute as a button, but sounds like Judy Garland (Ooh! YOU!). And of course, due to her feminine weakness, she accidentally fires the rockets that force them to land on the moon.
The “enemies of Freedom” kill a scientist that was to go on the flight, and replace him with a double who’s to destroy the Space Station, which to them is a “perpetually menacing eye-in-the-sky”.
Briteis and Ford get stuck on the moon, and are duly married, as is required by common decency, thus providing an ending to the story.
Some time is spent on issues such as space-docking, weightlessness, the airlessness of the moon. They have the sense to wear space suits on the moon, and communicate by radio while in the space suits.
Space crews all wear T-shirts and shorts, a cute little skull cap, and cute space-boots. While Briteis makes this look great, the others strain to maintain their dignity.
Unconvincing weightlessness of “free-fall”: They wear special space-boots that allow them to walk normally on ceilings or floors, to which are attached conventional chairs and tables.
Crew exhibits signs of great distress each time the rocket engine fires.
Parables:
Blast-off!
A woman on the ship is bad luck (but if she must be President,
I suppose she must)
In space—to enforce Freedom!
When on the Moon, get married!
This Island Earth
1955 Universal
| Jess Morrow | Exeter |
| Faith Domergue | Dr. Ruth Adams |
| Rex Reason | Dr. Cal Meacham |
| Russell Johnson (The Professor of Gilligan’s Island) |
Dr. Steve Carlson |
| Directed by | Joseph M. Newman |
| From Novel by | Raymond F. Jones |
James-Bond-handsome scientist Cal Meacham is lent a jet fighter by the U.S. Air Force just because they want to be his friend. He zooms around in it, and gets into trouble with aliens.
When he gets to the lab, he’ll unzip his flight suit to uncover his tweed jacket, and the science can begin!
Aliens are from Metaluna, which is at odds with planet Zahgon, whose inhabitants keep shooting meteors at them.
They provide instructions on how to build an “interociter”, which turns out to be a triangular TV equipped with laser beams. The function of the laser beams is to illustrate the superiority of the technology.
Space ship is stylistically very reminiscent of the Star Trek Enterprise disk. Has something like a tractor beam.
Cal and Ruth are taken to Metaluna, where they get scared by a “Mutant” slave, get threatened with captivity, then run away just in time to escape the planet’s destruction.
Parables:
The aliens have motives, which are naturally ulterior.
Metaluna is dying.
The usual stuff about the alpha male and the girl.
Conquest of Space
1955 Paramount
| Walter Brooke | Gen. Samuel T. Merrit |
| Erik Fleming | Capt. Barney Merrit |
| Mickey Shaughnessy | Sgt. Mahoney |
| Phil Foster | Sgt. Jackie Siegle |
| William Redfield | Roy Cooper |
| William Hopper | Dr. George Fenton |
| Benson Fong | Sgt. Imoto |
| Ross Martin (Artemus Gordon in “The Wild Wild West”) | Sgt. Andre Fodor |
| Vito Scotti | Sanella |
| John Dennis | Donkersgoed |
| Michael Fox | Elsbach |
| Joan Shawlee | Rosie McCann |
| Iphigenie Castiglioni | Mrs. Heinz Fodor |
| Produced by | George Pal |
| Directed by | Byron Haskin |
| From Novel by | Chesley Bonestell and Willy Ley |
| Adapted by | Philip Yourdan, Barré Lyndon, and George Worthing Yates |
The lead-in is a nice summary:
This is a story of tomorrow, or of the day after tomorrow, when men have built a station in space constructed in the form of a great wheel, and set a thousand miles out from the Earth, fixed by gravity and turning about the world every two hours, serving a double purpose: an observation post in the heavens, and a place where a spaceship can be assembled, and then launched to explore other planets and the vast Universe itself, in the last and greatest adventure of Mankind—a plunge toward the…Conquest of Space
(Those who enjoyed the Muppet Show will recognize a familiar spoof of this lead-in.)
This is a straight-up “man in space” movie. There are no monsters, computers or aliens.
Several space vehicles appear besides the Wheel. The coolest is Spaceship 1, which combines a beautiful mono-wing craft, a classic rocket ship, and realistic space fuel tanks. Then there is a single-person “taxi”, open to space, and some transport rockets. The realism was marred for me by rocket exhaust effects that owe to the Flash Gordon serials, but otherwise, these are the best space ships of the decade.
Weightlessness and the vacuum are treated pretty well. Space workers wear very functional-looking space suits, and walk only with magnetic shoes. We also see atmospheric burn-up, and a space-walk on a moving ship, both fairly well explained in dialog.
During rocket accelerations faces are contorted grotesquely and sometimes bleed. They accelerate to 20,000 MPH (according to the “Space Speed Indicator”).
This is a military outfit, but it isn’t clear whose military. Crew members are beholding to the Supreme International Space Authority, and watch TV broadcasts of Trans-World Communications. Crew members talk about having been in WWII and the Korean conflict.
The only environmental hazards are meteors, which become involved in three scenes, and the dry and crumbly Martian planetary surface.
Even more lethal, however, is “space fatigue”, which causes paralysis, questions of the propriety of man’s place in space, homicide, and readings from the Bible.
The views of Earth from space are beautiful and very convincing. I think these are unmatched in this decade of cinema.
Space explorers eat food from tablets to improve their health, not because it’s more compact. Then they all smoke, presumably for the same reason.
The script is choppy; it feels like they were just trying to do too much. We have very interesting portrayals of space, mixed with formulaic military chivalry, death-defying action scenes, comic relief, awe-inspired monologues, girls in bathing suits, and mother’s love. Then we have discussions of race, family responsibility, and the future of mankind. And so on. A little focus would have helped.
A lot of effort is spent developing personalities and relationships that are either implausible or stereotypical.
Women are archetypal, and appear only in video transmissions, consisting of: a chorus line, a loving, supportive mother, and a vamp girlfriend.
The crew is quite multi-ethnic. Besides the Japanese, German, Irish, Jewish, and Italian-Americans who have lines, there are Black crew members.
While the comic relief, mostly coming from Brooklyn stand-up comedian Phil Foster, is really fun, one wonders why the film required so much relief.
…for a fat solid year I’ve been eating birdseed out of this goofy sombrero with no squawk.
Of a capsulized sandwich he remarks:
This ain’t Kosher corned beef!
As a tough old Irish-American sergeant, Mickey Shaughnessy delivers a performance that is sometimes really scary, and…somehow out of place in the film.
Listen, you slimy little calumnator—if you were one-tenth the man that the general is, you’d be twice the man you are!
…I’ll pull out your filthy tongue and strangle you with it!
…It’ll be a rope for you, Captain, and I hope they make it slow, very slow, so I can watch ya kick!
The most precious moments are poetic speeches by Benson Fong, wherein he apologizes for the behavior of Japan in WWII, explains why Japanese use chopsticks and build buildings of wood and paper, rationalizes the exploration of Mars, and explains why he and his kind are “little people”. This by itself made the film worthwhile for me.
Parables:
The Universe was put here for Man to conquer
(Man meaning “tough military-type guys”)
Questions:
Are we explorers, or invaders of the sacred domain of God?
The Phantom Planet
1961 Four Crown
| Capt. Frank Chapman | Dean Fredricks |
| Liara | Coleen Gray |
| Herron | Tony Dexter |
| Zetha | Dolores Faith |
| Seson | Francis X. Bushman |
| Lieutenant Roy Makonnen | Richard Weber |
| Judge Eden | Al Jarvis |
| Colonel Lansfield | Dick Haynes |
| Pilot Leonard | Earl McDaniel |
| Lieutenant White | Michael Marshall |
| Captain Beecher | John Herrin |
| Lieutenant Cutler | Mel Curtis |
| Navigator Webb | Jimmy Weldon |
| Communications Officer | Akemi Tani |
| Radar Officer | Lori Lyons |
| a Solarite | Richard Kiel (“Jaws” of James Bond fame) |
| Susan Cembrowska | |
| Merissa Mathes | |
| Gloria Moreland | |
| Judy Erickson | |
| Marya Carter | |
| Allyson James | |
| Maryon Thompson |
| Produced by | Fred Gebhardt |
| Directed by | William Marshall |
| Story by | Fred Gebhardt |
| Screenplay by | William Telaak, Fred de Gorter and Fred Gebhardt |
Date: 1980
Rockets all blast off from the USAF base on the Moon. Just what they’re doing there is not explained, but there’s some talk about a Mars project.
Vehicles: USAF rocket ships: Dart-like with very 50’s paint jobs, at least have a realistic stock of equipment. Aliens all drive asteroids. Squeal/roar of monster’s ships very similar to that of Darth Vader’s.
Aliens live on asteroid Rheton. They are people 6 inches tall. Chapman shrinks to their size, because of the atmosphere—the atoms have “narrower electronic orbits”. (This has no further bearing on the story.) They fail to explain why they speak English. It is immediately suggested that Chapman take one as his bride.
Main alien technology is gravity. They move their asteroid about with it, and use it as a weapon.
Monsters: “Solarites”, who are very ugly and unreasonable and have a chip on their soaring shoulders, but can appreciate a pretty girl.
Plenty of asteroids and meteors. Space walk is marred by deadly micro-meteorites that whiz and ricochet. The co-pilot is killed on the space walk when his air line is busted, then he floats out into space (2001).
At first Chapman likes Liara, the daughter of the boss, then he decides she’s a snob and goes for the mute girl Zetha (who finally gains the ability to speak by screaming at a Solarite.)
While the astronauts are a boys-only club, there are female technical officers, one of whom isn’t caucasian.
Parables:
Pretty girls are too self absorbed.
If you gotta fight a duel for honor, you gotta
Ugly monsters are evil.
Nobody will believe you when you get home.
World without End
1956 Cinemascope
| John Borden | Hugh Marlowe |
| Dr Galbraithe | John Borden |
| Garnet | Nancy Gates |
| Herbert Ellis | Rodney Turt Taylor |
| Henry Jaffe | Christopher Dark |
| Deena | Lisa Montell |
| President Timmek | Everett Glass |
| Mories | Booth Colman |
| Councilman Elda | Stanley Fraser |
| Councilman James | William Vedder |
| Vida | Paul Brinegar |
| Beryl | Rankin Mansfield |
| Naga | Mickey Simpson |
| Second Reporter | Herb Vigran |
| Produced by | Richard Heermance |
| Directed by | Edward Bernds |
| Screenplay by | Edward Bernds |
Rocket ship, pointy, silver, winged, horizontal-flying. Has “magnetic gravity”. Leaves for Mars 1957 to do reconnaissance without landing. That’s the end of the Mars part of the story.
On the way back, something (never explained but later described as an “exponential time displacement”) that makes them go faster than light, so that they end up crashing on Earth in the future, 2508AD. (The crash is very cheesy: the rocket ship buzzes like a diving prop plane, and bounces like a plastic model.)
Earth’s surface has been destroyed by atomic war. They are beset by giant spiders and cyclops cavemen “mutates”.
They find the remains of civilization underground, where the doors slide automatically, the men wear tights and skullcaps in the wimpiest way possible, and the women, who are all under 25, wear high heels, short skirts and very low-cut blouses.
Several romances ensue.
The space guys show the underground humans the benefits of firepower and aggression. The also determine that the best way to deal with a cave man is with a bazooka, hand guns being deemed somehow inadequate. The better- looking cavemen are spared and taught English.
Sets very stylish, reminiscent of Star Trek.
This really has the feel and look of ’60s sci-fi.
Parables:
Man was not meant to live in an hole in the ground.
(Men, anyway: the men get wimpy, the women get voluptuous)
To live in peace, you gotta shoot the bad guys.
The bad guys are the ugly ones.
The Man who Fell to Earth
1976 RCA/Columbia
| David Bowie | Thomas Jerome Newton |
| Candy Clark | Mary Lou |
| Buck Henry | lawyer Oliver Farnsworth |
| Rip Torn | Dr. Brice |
| Directed by | Nicholas Roeg |
Bowie as a Howard Hughes figure who’s secretly a Martian. Perfect for the part.
Very tiresome period piece, struggling with the ethical and aesthetic issues of the early 1970’s, but cannot break free. Doesn’t do justice to the book.
Lots of sloppy sex (often involving Rip Torn). Some very nice peeing.
Otherwise, very little sci-fi, beyond Bowie stripped of his human prostheses.
Parables:
Mars is dying.
Martians are sad, sensitive geniuses.
Lots of 60’s hip mumbo-jumbo…does that count as parables?
to be reviewed
1902 A Trip to the Moon
1924 Aelita - Queen of Mars
1927 Metropolis
1927 Frau im Mond (Fritz Lang)
1936 The Invisible Ray (with Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff)
1940 One Million B.C.
1941 Adventures of Captain Marvel
1954 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea
1951 The Man from Planet X
1953 Cat-Women of the Moon
1954 Target Earth
1954 Killers from Space
1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers
1957 20 Million Miles to Earth
1957 The Invasion of the Saucer Men
1958 From the Earth to the Moon
monster movies
1925 The Lost World
1931 Frankenstein
1931 Dracula
1933 King Kong
1933 The Invisible Man
1935 Transatlatic Tunnel (The Tunnel)
1940 Dr. Cyclops
1951 The Thing from Another World
1953 It Came from Outer Space
1954 Them! (giant ants)
1955 Tarantula
1955 It Came from Beneath the Sea
1955 The Quartermass Xperiment
1957 The Deadly Mantis
1957 The Beginning of the End (giant grasshoppers)
1957 The Amazing Colossal Man
1957 The Attack of the Crab Monsters
1957 From Hell it Came
1957 The Giant Claw
1957 The Incredible Shrinking Man
1957 The Monolith Monsters
1957 The Monster that Challenged the World
1957 The Unearthly
1958 Attack of the 50 Foot Woman
1958 Earth vs. the Spider
1958 The Fly
1958 It! The Terror from Beyond Space
1958 Plan 9 from Outer Space
1958 Queen of Outer Space
1958 The Space Children
1958 Terror from the Year 5000
1958 The Trollenberg Terror
1958 The Thing That Couldn’t Die