Ray Harryhausen and Medusa, whose sequence is one of the great fantasy moments in all of cinema. Photo by the author.

On June 29th, 2010, depending on when you read this, Ray Harryhausen will or did celebrate his 90th birthday.

To the geek squad of science fiction and stop motion animation enthusiasts (yours truly included), Ray Harryhausen is a name which is more than respected; it’s revered.

However, the more general readership at FIR perhaps should be told from the outset that his importance is so great that the following can be legitimately understood to be true: in the long-term perspective of things, so influential has Ray Harryhausen been that he – to a great extent literally single-handedly – changed the face and direction of motion pictures, probably for all time.

Quite a claim, to cite a single individual who by sheer enthusiasm and dint of effort changed with small films an entire industry operating on many times the GDP of legitimate free nations and run by often ruthless powerbrokers by the hundreds, but thus it has come to pass.

To those who may not know, Ray Harryhausen, known primarily for his stop motion special effects, is the auteur of approximately 18 feature films, many of which sprang, initially unscripted, from theme-based drawings created by him years before and put away before being eventually presented to his long-time producer, Charles Schneer. Among these is a small “children’s fantasy”, THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD, which was the hit of 1958 and, in historical hindsight, truly changed everything.

Ray Harryhausen’s history, in a nutshell, goes like this: influenced in 1933 at the age of 13 to the point of obsession by the stunning visuals in the original KING KONG, he worked tirelessly, at first as a hobbyist, and then eventually as the head animator under his hero, Willis O’Brien (creator of the animation and many designs and scenarios of KING KONG) on the feature MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, which could be described as “KONG Light”. Short films, both as an employed animator and creating his own educational works followed in what was sometimes a family affair, with his skilled machinist father creating rigs and steel articulations for his figures while his mother created miniature clothing and other artistic touches. Eventually this led to his first feature solo FX assignment, THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS (1953), a low budget film in which his visual effects were so realistic for the time that the modestly-produced film was an industry-changing runaway smash hit. In that film, an atomic blast test in the arctic releases a enormous prehistoric beast who winds up eventually surfacing off a pier in New York City, leading both to panic in the streets and, at the time, a motion picture riot of copycats of variations on the theme.

Here begins Ray’s turning of the motion picture industry into an imitation of his own imagination: this single film ignited the science fiction movie craze of the 1950′s like a brushfire, and in so doing, created by proxy a media empire for Toho studios in Japan started with GODZILLA – which continues to spawn sequels and is a multimillion dollar merchandizing juggernaut even today – a clear though fanciful knock-off of THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS. That industry-wide frenzy to cash in on the success of BEAST would not have likely happened had Ray not infused the film with a standard of realism and special effects dramaturgy that can be plainly said to have exceeded by far anything that had come before, regardless of budget.

20 Million Miles To Earth - The Ymir

Warner brothers demonstrated it clearly understood what Ray had created when they advertised it with such lines as, “They couldn’t believe their eyes – and neither will you!” – an unambiguous reference to the realism of Ray’s achievement. This he did through his own sheer artistry and ingenuity, as his budget allowed for little else.

Somewhat sadly, in this one premier effort, Ray essentially eclipsed his idol and mentor, O’Brien, who would find himself playing catch up several years later, creating the visual effects for even lower budget knock-offs of the BEAST and not faring at all well in the head-to-head competition. O’Brien was a man of large budget operations, like KING KONG, who simply failed to demonstrate the artistry to turn on a thin dime like his young protégé.

THE BEAST caught the attention of Charles Schneer, a young and ambitious producer at Columbia Studios, who contacted Ray about doing a similar version of that very film, only this one about a giant octopus. While not the runaway smash of BEAST, IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA made a great deal of money for Columbia and started a relationship between Ray Harryhausen and Charles Schneer that would last for three decades and leave indelible impressions on hundreds who would come to matter a great deal in Hollywood in every possible aspect.

At this point something needs to be said to enrich the record: producer Charles Schneer, who passed away last year, is generally and correctly credited as being the man who made it possible for Ray to bring his visions to feature film life. The industry otherwise was very staid at that point and had not yet been influenced by Ray himself, quite frankly, to be receptive to his unbridled imaginative and fanciful ideas. Schneer saw the artistic and commercial value in Ray that few others had and thus continued to make possible platforms on which Ray could express himself. While there is no lack of truth to this, another name has been overlooked.

Hal Chester.

Hal Chester was a rough-around-the-edges producer from New York and originally a tough-guy child actor. Turning to producing later on, he in fact made not one but two genuine classics of the genre: The sublime NIGHT OF THE DEMON (UK) and the aforementioned THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS. While it is indeed readily known that Chester hired Ray Harryhausen, placing enormous faith in the talent he recognized, this producer, for whom a reported lack of personal sophistication has led to often near-character assassination by smarmy aesthetes, also gave Ray an extraordinarily good deal, essentially setting Ray up as an independent special effects creator for life.

When Chester met with Ray, Ray owned only his 16mm equipment (35mm was the standard of the day, as it remains). After a few meetings and a signed contract, Chester started an unusual process with Ray: he took the trouble to find what Ray needed. This was not a terribly common method for producers of the day. Ray suggested to Chester that the sometimes custom-created equipment from MIGHTY JOE YOUNG might still be available at RKO. RKO was looking to dump it, and offered it to Chester for $6,500.00 (approximately $50,000 today), which was a fraction of its actual value (approximately a full half million today adjusted for inflation). It needs to be known that most producers would have simply set up shop with the equipment under their ownership, have Ray use it, and then sell it off for far more than the price for which he bought it (Schneer himself did that on some abandoned camera equipment on location left behind from another feature by other producers, and used it to partially offset the costs of one of Ray’s features). This was some of the finest equipment of its kind anywhere, and had a pedigree to boot, in that MIGHTY JOE YOUNG won an Academy Award for best special effects. So good was that equipment that Ray continued to use it for the entire length of his career, through his last film, 1981′s $20 million CLASH OF THE TITANS.

Ray Harryhausen and two seldom-seen friends from his early, storybook days. Photo by the author.

In other words, when Charles Schneer approached Ray, Ray was already set up and ready to go with some of the finest equipment the era had to offer, thanks to Hal Chester. Would Schneer, then young and on very low budgets, have been able to get what Ray needed with the finance available if Chester had retained ownership of that equipment, as was the common practice? Would Schneer have done it if he could? And would he have offered ownership of it to Ray as part of the deal, knowing how he handled the situation with the abandoned camera equipment? We can only speculate. But Chester’s basic altruistic decency might have made all the difference between what Ray’s career ultimately became and what we might speculate it could otherwise have been. Hal Chester has become a footnote in the career of Ray Harryhausen and the fact is that he deserves more praise than history has thus far allowed.

Eventually, more amazing films sprang from Harryhausen’s imagination, each filling the screen with sights and ideas that were so amazing that he was – never, mind you – nominated for an Academy Award. We can only speculate on that, too, but the reason seems clear: Hollywood was still operating with large studios, and most had a special effects department, filled with people who punched a union time card every day and went home to wives and kids whose lifestyle depended on that job. These were also the men (primarily) who voted for the Special Effects Oscars. Knowing the world as we do, how can anyone believe that they could not see the artistry in work that left millions of common ticket holders in theaters in absolute jaw-dropping awe while their own collective efforts, with large overheads and overtime, were sometimes met with unintentional laughter? The almost certain probability is that Ray was perceived as a genuine threat (as a good example of this mindset, Bud Westmore, in the early 50′s, apparently demanded, until Universal Studios nixed, the continued personal and television appearances of artist/ actress Millicent Patrick who designed THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON for Universal, opting to lay claim to the creation himself. As the makeup department head from a prestigious family of makeup artists, he could make the demand and have Universal decide in his favor).

So they didn’t nominate Ray. Not once. Until he retired, that is, whereupon Tom Hanks, who said that Ray’s JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS was the primary influence that made him decide to be an actor, handed Ray his lifetime achievement Oscar, presumably when it was safe for all those union effects department workers to vote for him. In other words, after Ray had retired and was no longer a threat, though the prestige of that award when it was deserved for individual films could have helped his career enormously.

However, even being passed over for Oscar after Oscar, Ray was having an impact that would reshape motion pictures. Throughout the 60′s and into the early 70′s, artists of all cinematic varieties were growing up fancying themselves to be next-generation Harryhausens (the author sheepishly raises his hand in admission), and Ray’s reputation grew, not only as an artist delivering fantasy with the passion of a religious convert, but as an underdog folk hero as well. “How could he not even be nominated?!”, the cry would go every few years when a new Harryhausen film would be passed over by the Academy. “How could this happen?!” And indeed, most were at a loss to explain it. As I sat as a student in the late 70′s in the auditorium classroom of one of the most celebrated film historians ever, the late William K. Everson, even he went on at length about the insane injustice of such a situation with a passion that left many of us amazed, as this portly, old-school English gentleman was not prone to dramatic outbursts.

Admittedly, it is this author’s unconfirmed speculation alone that he was regarded as too great a threat to be nominated for an Oscar, since to nominate Ray would prove to the department worker’s bosses that they and their large operations were mostly superfluous. Should anyone have a more conclusive answer, this author is open to suggestions. Ray’s films were occasionally box office smashes and therefore impossible to ignore and everyone understood his primary stop motion technique. There has been speculation that his techniques were so well executed that fellow special effects technicians and artists simply did not understand what they were looking at. Had that been true, however, it would have been all the more reason to nominate him, not less.

Jason Battles The Skeletons

And thus his underdog folk hero status, combined with his obvious passion for his art showing with each new and more technically improved film, and the pure inspiration of his fantastic internal vision, began to make the folk hero a legend – and a legend of the rarest variety – a legitimate one who deserved the designation.

Then in the late 70′s, the “Children Of Harryhausen” had grown up and were beginning to make an impact. People with names like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg readily admit Ray’s significant artistic influence on them, and that influence is readily apparent in some of their films. More to the point, the large number of people they first needed in the beginning, Lucas particularly as he set up his own special effects shop called Industrial Light and Magic to produce a little movie called STARWARS, were available and skilled and passionate and ready to work long weeks for very low wages because they, too, had been impassioned from their teenage years by Ray’s singularly unbridled imagination coupled with his stunning technical virtuosity.

A bronze of “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms”, the one and only film that started the “giant monster craze” of the 1950’s, also at the Harryhausen home. Photo by the author. While the bronze was a separate sculpture not related to the original animation model, the lighthouse is the same prop used in the film. – DR

Though inspired by many sources, these eclectic individuals from diverse backgrounds were mostly all coming from one primary artistic influence: Ray Harryhausen, and they were and are more than happy to admit it. Many of them even have photos and 8mm films available from their formative childhood years, and over and over again you see clay variations of the Beast, the Cyclops from THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD and other childhood creations patterned after Ray’s designs. Even if Lucas had decided to make STAR WARS and had not been inspired by Ray Harryhausen, the chances are that the homegrown special effects fanatics he needed to work long and to get the ball rolling probably would not have existed to do it. Remember, without Ray, not only would his films not exist, but the 1950′s science fiction craze almost certainly would not either, and all that was the fertile breeding ground for most of the people who in time would turn STAR WARS and similar films into stunning visual realities. And without the STAR WARS franchise breaking box office records at every turn in the late-seventies through the mid-eighties, everything would be entirely different today. Of that there can be no discussion.

Had Ray not done what he had done, then, so far we can count the following: probably no science fiction boom of the ’50′s, no GODZILLA mythology and probably no STAR WARS, or at the very least, not remotely realized to be the stunning achievement that broke all records and changed the way motion pictures looked an felt initially from the 1980′s and onward.

But Ray was still not through. CLASH OF THE TITANS, his final feature released in 1981, boasting a cast of some of the finest actors ever to grace the screen, was, along with E.T., one of the two smash hits of that year.

Lucas, Speilberg, James Cameron, Tim Burton, other directors, special effects technicians and artists, cinematographers, writers, actors, the list of people very directly influenced and to a great degree set on their professional paths by Ray Harryhausen is almost endless, and much of their work still bears the imprint of his influence. From video games with sword fighting skeletons to a myriad of design features which often have some mark of someone having grown up to want to be Ray Harryhausen, there is no escaping his brilliant and exciting shadow. Tim Burton’s CORPSE BRIDE, for example, shut down the entire animation production one afternoon when Ray visited in order to show him around and offer some inspirational thanks. He has had exhibitions of his art and animation figures at some of the world’s most prestigious museums, including the New York Museum of Modern Art. Turner Classic Movies occasionally runs a night, and once in a while a weekend, of Ray Harryhausen films. And DVDs of his motion pictures continue to be strong sellers.

From Harryhausen’s home, this magnificent bronze is an interpretation of the classic scene in which Kong slays the Tyrannosaurus. Note the beautiful completion of the composition in the piece by the Ann Darrow character in the lower left. Photo by the author. A more studied shot of this sculpture from a different angle, can be seen in the very highly recommended book by Ray Harryhausen and Tony Dalton, “The Art Of Ray Harryhausen” on page 219. The full painting in the background can be seen on page 25 of the same book. – DR

Today, Ray continues on with his fine art sculptures and restorations of his favorite classic films, both from his hands and those of others. He remains enthusiastic, tireless and a champion. He has written three large, coffee-table size books heavy enough to put behind the wheel of a car in lieu of an emergency brake, and watching long lines of people of all ages, from teenagers to men in their sixties, make the rite of personal passage for an autograph at a book signing is a wonder to behold. As each person makes their acquaintance, you hear the same words repeated endlessly with little variation: “I love your films”, “You changed my life”, “I became a professional (fill in the blank) because of your films”, “I’ve introduced my kids to your films and they love them as much as I do”. It is almost unbelievable. (Naturally, I, too, have said those same words, of course, so take that sense of disbelief with a grain of salt, please) It is truly wondrous, heartwarming, and utterly astonishing.

What makes this a pleasure to write is that Ray himself is so personally pleasant and unassuming, as anyone who has met him can tell you. In a cynical world, it gives one hope and comfort that a man so revered is so personally appreciative and yet unaffected by the adoration. When my wife and I had the pleasure of visiting he and his lovely and charming wife Diana in their London home a couple years back, as I learned in times past, you could rest assured that you’d never spend an afternoon with a more relaxed and easygoing gentleman, not at all miserly with a smile and a laugh, with not an ounce of ego or pretension, even as he pointed out the occasional offerings from highly-placed followers, such as a stunning four-foot long bronze sculpture of a Tyrannosaurs on the run personally created for Ray by Phil Tippett, one of Hollywood’s biggest Oscar-winning FX players, yet another “child of Harryhausen”.
The famous writer and Ray’s childhood/lifelong friend, another “Ray”, author Ray Bradbury, once said, “Ray and I agreed to grow old, but vowed to never grow up.” Meaning, of course, to never give up a love for things that a child, too, might love. Ray’s enthusiasm is contagious not only in his presence, but much more importantly, that enthusiasm has proved to be contagious through his very work on the screen. And in and through those amazing moments and images and places, millions of people have followed suit and also consciously decided that they, too, shall never grow up, either.

And that, perhaps, is his greatest legacy.

A Happy Milestone Birthday to Ray Harryhausen, and many more to come.

With the CGI remake of Ray Harryhausen’s original stop-motion special effects CLASH OF THE TITANS doing well in theaters, the stop-motion special effects vs. computer animation special effects battle, which has been a passionate one in the industry among old and new practitioners, has been framed with a new and unique sense of clarity.

This isn’t just a geek squad topic of conversation; it has more general implications across the entire spectrum of motion picture visual aesthetics.

To set the ground rules: stop motion is the process by which – for special effects applications – reasonably realistic miniature articulated figures are moved one frame at a time and photographically combined with live action (the classic though somewhat technically primitive example of this would be the original King Kong, still an artistic powerhouse). Even today, the effect can be occasionally stunning. In the opposing corner, CGI, which means “computer generated imagery”, is a technique whereby the figures and often-greater parts of the worlds they inhabit are created within the computer by artistic and design wizards. Stop motion is by necessity usually the work of a lone or nearly lone craftsman performing all the duties under intense concentration one frame at a time while CGI special effect sequences tend to have small armies devoted to their specialized tasks.

In the larger debates, stop motion generally wins with traditional artistically-biased aesthetes because its handcrafted nature does more than telegraph its traditional art history background of design and sculpture, but it’s also a magic show in which actual physical material objects have been handled in a way which produces an illusion. CGI is an abstract technological computer world of zeroes and ones, and while the artistry is there to be sure, the traditional special-effects-man-as-magician magic show is not. This forces special effects practitioners in the CGI realm to be better artists to compensate for the lost magic-show wow factor, but when it works, it’s a detail-enhanced and roller coaster with a wow factor all its own.

It would be a mistake, however, to simplify the discussion into being about one of Paintings (CGI) vs Sculpture (stop motion) – the details are too nuanced for that.

One additional mistake we should not make, which won’t go down well with stop motion people, is that we need to keep a perspective on the stop motion medium in the totality of the examples that exist . To say that something Ray Harryhausen created decades ago does or does not hold up well does not speak to the entire medium. There have only been a few geniuses in the stop motion field of special effects and Ray Harryhausen sits alone at the top.

Additional to Harryhausen’s often-flawless live-action/animation matching was a powerful directorial talent that often left people mistaking that it was the animation that made his FX sequences so interesting when it was often Ray’s direction and cutting that ultimately sold a scene. Put it all together and we have a unique singular talent who will probably never be equaled for generations yet to come.

The point is that just because Ray Harryhausen = stop motion animation does not mean that stop motion animation = Ray Harryhausen. Stop motion proponents often remark about the stop motion technique in a context divorced from the artist who made it most interesting and believable. Some stop motion enthusiasts might even feel that the stop motion special effects from the non-Harryhausen JACK THE GIANT KILLER (1960) are superior to the best current CGI (and such people do exist), but with that film’s animated creatures looking like little more than refugees from a play-doh factory, that’s going to be an extremely hard sell outside a very tiny and specialized group of fans and practitioners.

Speaking for myself, CLASH OF THE TITANS, both versions, reminds me that I don’t miss stop motion special effects. I miss Ray Harryhausen’s stop motion effects, specifically, combined with his design and scene set-up, direction and cutting. While stop motion enthusiasts will agree that what we need, really, are fewer computer render farms, that only works for stop motion if those render farms are replaced by brilliantly imaginative lone geniuses, regardless of the technique and technology. The problem is that computer render farms can be bought. Not so with lone geniuses.

Ultimately this reality should satisfy no one on a schedule and a budget, but has the advantage of making the very occasional lone genius all the more special when he or she arrives. A toast, then, to Ray Harryhausen and the very, very small, exclusive club of occasional lone geniuses, regardless of the technology. It’s been officially proven: assembly lines and render farms cannot replace them.

BEST OF THE DECADE By FIR’s Editor Roy Frumkes

I chose twenty. Sorry. Couldn’t help myself. But as you’ll see, some come from diverse new media.

JENIFER – Dario Argento paves new ground on cable TV, where you thought filmmakers had already gotten away with just about everything, and on the DVD release he seems genuinely confused that two major cuts were made in his treatise on men’s fatal obsession with female flesh over all rational thought. The two scenes exist on the DVD, and you can splice them in (though with sound problems) via computer.

THE KITE RUNNER – An insightful, novelistic, deftly directed study of cause and effect. Provides an understanding of international rifts and mistrust where compassion and trust are needed.

TAKEN – A great exploiter, partially from the guy who gave us LEON: THE PROFESSIONAL. Unfortunately the girl in the story doesn’t generate much excitement, either as a performer or as an teenage sexpot (a la Natalie Portman), and the final car/boat chase should have been trimmed. But Liam Neeson is marvelous, and the script has some terrific payoffs. As you can see, I have mixed feelings about it, but I’ve had mixed feelings about every film I’ve seen since NOTORIOUS.

RAMBO/ROCKY BALBOA – A profound nostalgic experiences. Stallone triumphs in both, and the third act of RAMBO, CGI’d by STREET TRASH alumnus Scott Coulter, delivers possibly the largest amount of unmitigated, cathartic gore in a non-horror film since THE WILD BUNCH. (One could clump GRAN TORINO into Cinema-Nostalgia as well; it’s not as directly obvious, but certainly resonates with Eastwood’s career. Differences here are that a) Eastwood has not had to make a comeback, which greatly empowers the Stallone films, and b) GRAN TORINO closely emulates THE SHOOTIST, which was John Wayne’s fantasy-persona cinematic-immortality-wish, whereas Eastwood’s would have been HONKYTONK MAN.)

THE MELTDOWN MEMOIRS – I know. I know. It’s my film. Well, if you saw it, I’m sure you would agree. (And please do: on the STREET TRASH double-disc release)

BUSH VS. ZOMBIES – An internet parody of a Bush White House lawn press conference, in which the topic of zombies comes up, and the President expresses great concern about this ever-present threat to humanity.

THE PIANIST – Polanski’s best film. And exactly the right balance of story (someone else’s) and memory (his).

SHREK – It changed everything in the animation biz, as much or more than the introduction of Pixar, because it was a shift in the realm of ideas rather than technology.

DEADWOOD – The profane, addictive cable series took us back to a time in our history when the new West was operating on the level of The Decameron or The Canterbury Tales. I enjoy wondering how Pasolini would have done helming an episode or two…

Episode 10 of The Sopranos, 5/5/01. Directed by Steve Buscemi.

OUR LADY OF THE ASSASSINS – The first feature shot in Hi Def, according to director Barbet Shroeder, who told me that if he hadn’t had the mobility and reduced presence of that camera, without question both he and the crew would have been killed.

(TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE – I have to see this again, but as I recall, it was one of a few films to challenge STREET TRASH’s democratic offensiveness, and like ST, all in the service of good, not necessarily wholesome, entertainment. The DVD has a prime moment restored, which pushes it merrily over the edge, where it belongs.)

PARANOID PARK – The new millennium’s REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. Important in exactly the same way, and this time with realistic age-casting.

JAR CITY – A noir from Sweden, dripping with mise-en-scene, that tells us much about that country’s damaged psyche.

IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH – The best use of applied research since 1974′s THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123.

THE LIVES OF OTHERS – A beautiful study of political paranoia and the human tragedy in its wake.

AMERICAN DREAMER – The best main-stream experimental film of the decade.

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE – Compare it to near-miss EASTERN PROMISES to see just how right Cronenberg got this one.

MY VOYAGE TO ITALY – Scorsese’s wonderful and personal 3-hr. documentary enlightens us about Italy and Italian cinema.

BAD EDUCATION – Almodovar is my pick for the best director of the 00s. TALK TO HER equally deserved to be on the list. I tossed a coin. Mark Gross picked the other.

Continue to Guglielmo Anthony’s Choices…

Here’s a little overview about our making of H.G.WELLS’ THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON in 3-D. This is not to be confused with the very recently announced BBC 4 version of Wells’ tale in standard 2-D reportedly still being filmed and coming out as quickly as late spring or summer of 2010. Our H.G.WELLS’ THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON in 3D is just completed after more than two years from inception to finish. Why would I tell the following tale before distribution even commences? Because this magazine’s owner and editor, Roy Frumkes, asked me to, quite frankly, and as he’s one of my former teachers from long ago at the School of Visual Arts, a now long-time friend and quite plainly one of the nicest and most talented guys in the motion picture business, I simply cannot refuse. Who could?

My own tasks on FIRST MEN were screenplay adaptation, co-producing, direction and handling both the art direction and visual effects. One person doing so much is nothing new even for larger-budgeted pictures, but it requires a true love of both the medium and genre to get through it on a somewhat modest budget considering the very elaborate material presented in Wells’ Victorian novel.

FIRST MEN got off the ground when the executive producer, who I knew from another film, called me entirely out of the blue and said, right out of the box, “I wanna make a movie with you,” in exactly those words. Once I realized that this lightning-bolt offer was legit, we quickly and painlessly agreed on terms, including the idea that the film – whatever it would be – should be made based on pre-existing family-friendly material. A couple of weeks later we agreed on the story, and then we got cracking in earnest.
THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON has always been in my mind the best narrative in the Wells’ cannon.

Fascinating stories like “The Time Machine” are staggering in their mental imagery, but are somewhat the literary equivalent of “special effects movies on paper”, in which the concept and mental images take precedence over a solid story structure. Not so with FIRST MEN. The story concerns the recollections of an aging Mr. Bedford who recounts his adventure with an archetypical eccentric scientist, Mr. Cavor, in 1895, who, thanks to his anti-gravity paint, allows the two men to embark in a glass and metal sphere on the first sojourn to our nearest neighbor in space which is filled in the book with a society of ant-men-like creatures called Selenites, giant slug-like mooncalves, and a plethora of fantastic scenes and moments, all built around a solid adventure structure with good character arcs. It should be noted that the characters’ first names are never mentioned in the book. While, “Hey, Cavor” is considered potentially rude in the US, it’s been a common way of speaking in the UK, especially in Wells’ day, and so therefore we stuck to the book even in that, and it does lend an authenticity that helps to balance the more fanciful elements.

A Mooncalf: a gigantic invention from Wells' gigantic imagination.

The one story problem for the adaptation was that some of the science contained in the novel, especially the notion of there being a thin atmosphere on the moon, was so at variance with current science that suspending audience disbelief seemed almost insurmountable. Until, that is, we hit on an idea for a story wrap-around: in 1945, the aging Bedford, reading of the atomic explosion of Hiroshima, recounts his secret tale on paper at last, for he fears that just as the Selenites had destroyed the moon through war (in the novel) leading to a barren, airless world (*as we know it today), so, too, could mankind do the same to earth. At that point, with a little of the disbelief shaved away, we could then stick unerringly to the Wells book, outdated science and all, if we played our cards right. That hurdle being done, it was simply a matter of producing the film itself on a TV movie budget – at best.

MOVING FORWARD

The casting was straightforward except for the problematic role of eccentric scientist, Mr. Cavor. Veteran character actor Bob Cummins was both known to me and ultimately fit the part well. Indeed, he looks like he could even be related to Wells himself, which I took “as a sign” once that fact was discovered after shooting started. We were lucky to have him; he gives a nuanced and credible performance full of gentle humor, sympathy and occasional pathos in what otherwise could have easily been a cartoon character as written in the book.

OLD ENGLAND

As was true throughout the film, some good fortune was had in the location department, as well. The reality of doing a period piece is that you can’t just gather up some antiques in an old house, do some mattes, and expect people to really feel an 18th century environment, even a rural one. Such productions almost all look like what they are: pretty collections of antiques shot a year or two prior. On a suggestion, we scoped out a place in Western New Jersey called Waterloo Village (the scenes shot there are not to be confused with the wrap-around “old Bedford” mansion scenes which open and close the film, that were shot on the stunning (President) Lincoln family home estate “Hildene” in southwestern Vermont).

Waterloo Village is a maintained – not simply “restored” – English-style town from the1850′s with everything kept as it was back then, in immaculate condition. Generally, the exteriors at Waterloo were open to negotiation for filmmakers but interiors were essentially off limits because of the very delicate nature of the furniture and original rugs and tapestries. Amazingly, however, the gentleman who ran the operation turned out to be a science fiction and fantasy film buff, and flipped when he found out that we were doing THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON, and so FIRST MEN’s first 20 minutes, through delicate tip-toeing through the interiors on the part of the crew, is filled with both exteriors and interiors which are almost a celebration of the simple, elegant authenticity of the time. No art director could hope to match it with conventional means.

Travelling Weightless

THE SURFACE OF THE MOON

Very simple: an absolutely gigantic disused limestone quarry which seemed to reach in every direction forever – one of the largest anywhere, we were told – with white and yellow-white rock serving very nicely for an otherworldly place when combined with stronger fantasy landscape elements added in post production. Be forewarned about using limestone quarries, however: in the bright sunlight limestone quarries are both blindingly bright and impossibly hot, leaving everyone continually dry and exhausted, and the dust will follow you around for years. It does, however, look terrific.

THE CAVES OF THE MOON

Naturally, this environment in which most of the story takes place (The First Men In The Moon) was the biggest concern. Phony cave sets with rock outcrops emerging from smooth floors is simply unacceptable. We investigated several actual large cave locations but none would do the trick because they simply looked like earth caves, not moon caves. Natural earth caves with interesting formations invariably look smooth, and sometimes wet, and always dark, while for us the moon caves needed to seem crusty and chalk-dry and much lighter in tone so the film would have a spatial sense the audience could understand for some of the complex action. Ultimately, we chose the route we really knew we were originally headed anyway: a very large warehouse with large sets and green-screen combinations, and very careful advance planning (a conventional studio would be much too delicate for the very rough and gritty environment we intended to create, as well as in all likelihood nowhere near large enough).

At this point I suppose it needs to be said what my background is to justify all this. As the now-clichéd story so often goes with genre filmmakers, I was enamored of the science fiction and fantasy films of Harryhausen and Pal since childhood, and the genre films from Universal from the 30′s through the 50′s many of us grew up watching on TV (one would be hard-pressed to argue, for example, that TARANTULA is not the GONE WITH THE WIND of giant spider movies.) Eventually this led professionally to design, special effects, and stop motion. Between animation and FX assignments I found myself doing quite a lot of design, illustration and ultimately a very great deal of storyboard work including much for some of Madison Avenue’s largest Ad Agencies and animated TV programs – you get the picture.

My feeling was – and is – that this particular film needed to be visually straightforward and the storyboards loose. Straightforward because animated/special effects creature scenes and overtly artsy camera work can prove to be an aesthetic jumble, though we still wound up with crane, trucking and high and low angles aplenty just to be able to tell the story coherently and in an interesting way. Loose storyboards because when composition, perspective and physical reality converge, what feels right drawn lovingly on paper sometimes misses the mark in terms of visual flavor when put before the camera, and that can be everything. And it’s a good thing the storyboards were loose, too, because improvisation often proved imperative, such as when rigs for weightless scenes proved obvious on the screen and we wound up filming the actors occasionally sideways with mechanical rigs which changed the composition requirements drastically (weightless green-screening of actors in close confines would simply have felt phony, as it always does, no matter how good the technology).

SELENITE CREATION PROGRESSION

This is a good time to mention one of the unsung heroes of the film, Associate Producer Gregg Jacobis, who simply would not take no from fate as an answer. For instance, one time when a necessary prop broke and couldn’t be repaired and we were planning on having to change direction, costing us a day’s shooting, Gregg said, “Give me one hour” and took some raw Styrofoam from a corner and an assistant and in an hour re-emerged with a near-perfect copy, painted and ready to go. You cannot tell the difference on-screen. You simply can’t hope to hire someone like that by design – it’s just dumb luck.

Not all the luck was with us, however. A development had occurred between the time we procured the warehouse to when we started filming and was truly impossible to predict: along the eaves, very far up away from everyone, where the warehouse opened to allow venting (this place was very big), with the advent of warm weather, untold numbers of birds had built nests and very noisy families by the score. On the first day of warehouse shooting we realized that the endless echoing noise of the birds was going to make it impossible to record any dialogue, and we all agreed that post-syncing delicate performances on that scale would make no sense. We hired animal-friendly pest control people, but they may have been too friendly, because their efforts did nothing to eliminate the birds. So we simply did the only thing we could: we shot at night, arriving at around 7 pm and prepping and so forth until the birds went to sleep around 8:30 pm, and shot until they awoke between 4:30 and 5:00 AM. Bear in mind the sets were built and everything arranged; to change locations at that point would have been a disaster to the budget. And while shooting overnights is nothing new, it was new to me and I have to say that the sense of concentration knowing that nothing else was going on in the world outside really did help the production. If nothing else, not a single cell phone rang on-set, ever: a miracle by any standard.

There was good luck in the warehouse, too, however, on a par of unlikelihood similar to that which we had had with Waterloo: The warehouse was utilized for long-term storage by three other businesses in smaller, lesser areas, and with their eager enthusiasm the production wound up with – for free – a plethora of antiques (used for the observatory set); enormous, 2-story scaffoldings on wheels with stairwells that, once we began to use them, became invaluable for anything requiring getting to awkward heights quickly with light or camera; and, amazingly, an outfit that used an off-section to store hundreds of garden steppingstones of endless size and shape that they manufactured. These latter people volunteered the use of as many of the hundreds of stones as we needed to vary and make more credible and craggy some areas of our cave flooring, an otherwise prohibitively costly option for just about anyone, and the additional cave flooring worked beautifully. One has to wonder: what are the chances that all three outfits would be storing such equipment and material under our same roof at the same time as we had scheduled use of the majority of the place? You decide.

Amazingly, the film came in very slightly under its original budget, the biggest miracle of all.

VISUAL EFFECTS

A good hour and fifteen minutes of H.G.WELLS’ THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON in 3-D consists of special effects. We were determined to tell Wells’ story more or less as written, something never done before, including the weightless state, always, while traveling in space in the sphere. Wells was not writing with a budget in mind, so the scope and complexity of the tale to be told was an interesting challenge.

The concept of shooting on cave sets presented an interesting problem dynamically. The good news is that such sets are always re-used (or risk bursting any budget, particularly ours.) The bad news is that sets that can be re-used with modification tend to have a sameness by their design nature that not only makes for dull extended viewing for the audience, but additionally for this production particularly some of the complex blocking of the action needed to be crystal clear for the viewers – not always what one can expect from the sameness of generic cave sets. There were three solutions, eventually, usually used all at once: the endless interplay of shadows (making it a little “arty” after all); bold areas, often miniature or CGI, as visual anchor points; and most importantly, very precise and linear colored lighting schemes which stretched seamlessly from live action to CGI and/or miniature. This last part was the most important, so on things like the scene in which the Selenites descend on Bedford and a hectic swordfight ensues, or Cavor and Bedford weave their way through the caves being chased, we could cut loose with the camera a bit and the broad color areas and directions would keep the audience orientation firmly anchored so that annoying visual confusion didn’t erupt.

Cavor and Bedford watch the impossible - again.

The Grand Lunar

Naturally, films like this require a great deal of rehearsal on the part of the actors so the creatures can be put in seamlessly after the fact. The mention of a swordfight is certain to raise comparisons with Harryhausen’s films, but the narrative forced us to take a very different approach: Harryhausen’s films are piled with swashbuckling heroes, but our Mr. Bedford, while physically fit, is no hero, so “swashbuckling moments” were sparse and we kept more to hectic, point-of-view shots. On retrospect, I have to admit a possible weakness there, because the swashbuckling shots came out quite well, and Bedford still does not play like a hero. We might have been able to sneak in a couple more after all. Live and learn.

Actors often remark about the difficulty of “playing to nothing”, as the FX are added later. Determined to give the actors a hook on which to hang their performances to the creatures, Styrofoam cut-outs with carefully illustrated features were placed in their sight-lines and occasionally within frame, and matted out later. It also helps to sell the CGI creatures as being in the scene when the actor’s sight-lines match up perfectly. Additionally, actors off-screen performed the creature voice parts for the actors instead of us just arranging for them to be “read” by a script person, to further sharpen the performances on-screen (having actors on-screen react to a reading off-screen and not a full performance, which is common in production, has never made sense if one values the effect of good performances).

Rest assured just about every trick in the book was needed and used, some old, some new, including CGI creatures, practical effects such as steam and fog and smoke, green-screen, miniatures, forced perspective, and a few tricks we’re keeping up our sleeves for now; suffice to say that a few shots should hopefully raise eyebrows among FX aficionados when they least expect it (some of the integration of the creatures with the live action is very integrated, indeed, even in the current CGI age).

3-D

Choosing to go this route was essentially a no-brainer, but on this aspect I don’t know what to add that isn’t already known. 2 cameras in reality, 2 virtual cameras in the computer. Care did need to be taken during many of the human-Selenite interactions (with the animated Selenites added later), because while to the 2-D eye of the normal camera distance is not an issue (indeed, forced perspective capitalizes on this fact), it is very much an issue in 3-D, so if you have animated Selenites sword fighting with Bedford for example, it’s critical that Bedford and the creatures appear not only in close interaction in all other respects, but existent in the same physical plane along the z axis (in line with the camera) in 3-D, as well. Likewise, scale of environments needs to be carefully considered, because 3-D just gives it all away when it isn’t right.

3-D EXAMPLE (selenites) - Click to enlarge photo

As a director, I found very few instances where I did anything different directorially in 3-D than I would have done in 2-D. A good image composition is a good image composition, and invariably this means foreground and background. As far as POV shots of Selenites swinging swords at the camera or the mooncalf snapping at the audience and the like, these are shots that simply would have been done anyway regardless of being in 2-D or 3-D. Is there a lesson, here? I don’t know, except that a good 3-D film is almost certainly simply a good 2-D film, only in 3-D.

Personally, it’s difficult for me to not want to do everything in 3-D now. It’s more than a novelty for me, after this experience, it’s a natural extension of the cinematic narrative process, and easy to love for that reason.

THE MUSIC

No discussion of THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON IN 3-D would be complete without enthusiastic kudos to our composer Daniel Godsil, whose love of the greats – Herrmann, Goldsmith, Williams and Copland – speaks for itself in his work. He is capable of wildly exciting orchestrations of the strange and beautifully composed and orchestrated sensitive melodies when the scenes demand it. Chosen from an open call in every venue we could find for an orchestral composer who could actually deliver what a film of this type, with it’s lofty aesthetic aims demanded, he was chosen immediately after already culling through over 300 respondents. Even some of the better-experienced composers whose work you may hear often on TV didn’t cut it. Daniel, trained among other places in Vienna as a composer/conductor, with his own symphonic works performed before large audiences and conducted by him, did, and we’re looking forward to working with him often. (You can hear his work loud and clear on the trailer)

THE STYLE OF THE FILM

It was always our intention in FIRST MEN to revisit those films of days gone by, but not cheaply. The spirit – the essence – of those films is what we wanted to capture without doing a camp send-up or weak imitation. There was simply a different style of storytelling in those days: it was clear, it was direct, both visually and in story structure… murky did not equal ambiguous and ambiguous did not equal sophisticated. Suspense was sought, crafted and maintained through a combination of character development, carefully explained circumstances and adroit camera handling, not attempted as it seems to be as of late through a series of expectations for the next moment that “pushes the envelope”.

This isn’t just my view; I find it said by film fans of all ages. As this magazine’s editor, who immerses himself a couple of days a week in the classroom as a teacher can attest, more excitement is generated among his students by the older than the new. Chalk it up to retro-novelty if you will, but there is no question in my mind that it goes deeper than that. The immutable fact is that back in the day they just made better films on average, and that can be attributed to any number of things, some formulated, some instinctive. For FIRST MEN this director simply chose to go instinctive in that direction. It’s up to you as to whether we succeeded. I will relate this though: One person not directly associated with the film saw a rough cut of the landing scene and, much to our amazement, she seemed to instinctively confirm what we sought for the film and gave the scene the best compliment we could hope for from someone not in the film business: “It reminds me of the great movies we grew up watching on television as kids, only with modern special effects.”

From this director’s perspective, if most people agree with her, then we’ve succeeded as much as we could have ever dared hope.

For more info or opinions about this article, free to contact us at moonfan@thefirstmeninthemoon.com

Fan site:

www.thefirstmeninthemoon.com

“A Dream Reflection Of Reflected Reality: FEAR NO EVIL – An Observance”

EXT. GRAVEYARD-NIGHT-MOVING SHOT

Our FIRST PERSON CAMERA PROBES SLOWLY through the mist-shrouded reaches of a rank and ancient graveyard idealized to our grotesque purposes. Visions of headstones crumbling and statues dissolving into faceless chimeras. Vines and creepers imprison all. Here are burning torches, set as if to light our way. The CHORAL SCORE gives a sense of tormented SIGHING, of ANGUISHED VOICES locked within the dank earth.

Strange relics APPEAR to the searching CAMERA: the spare wreckage of a pendulum clock, its pulse still beating – a night creature taking sudden flight from beneath its base; a skull sealed within a tortured bird cage on a tapestry of rotted velvet, a light gleaming through its eye sockets; an iron gate appearing to bar our way and then swinging soundlessly inward.

“There was a time, we were told, when shapeless evils stalked the earth in search of human souls. In our own time, if such nightmare spirits exist, it is by disguising themselves in familiar forms – to dwell upon us – friend and neighbor – and thereby seek their victims. I submit to you now that there is indeed a case for the bedeviled. My name is Dr. David Sorell. And I have seen such things.”

These are the opening images, and narration by Louis Jourdan, for the original TV pilot, THE BEDEVILED, not used in FEAR NO EVIL.

FEAR NO EVIL was one of those films I had taken for granted, along with its talented director, Paul Wendkos, for many years, until I was reintroduced to the title at a private screening (along with another Wendkos feature, THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE BELL) giving me a chance to view this gem with a fresh, mature eye. Critically acclaimed when broadcast as a television movie on March 3, 1969, for NBC Television’s first “Movie Of The Week”, this intelligent and well-written motion picture is nearly forgotten, and in many ways can almost be viewed as a ‘lost film’. As of this writing I had contacted Universal Pictures, who replied that no copy is in their collection. And the UCLA Television Archives doesn’t list it in their collection either. But after getting e-mails from Mr. Gary Gerani (PUMPKINHEAD co-creator/writer), who then sent me a copy of the shooting script, and finally talking with him personally, I was assured that Universal does indeed have the original negative, which is believed to be in good condition. Additional information was also given to me by Jonathan Etter; the author of an excellent book on Quinn Martin ( “Quinn Martin, Producer: A Behind-The-Scenes History Of QM Productions and It’s Founder”. McFarland & Company. 2003, and again in 2008). And the Library Of Congress informed me that it has a 16mm copyright print on file. My real concern is the condition/existence of the original printing materials, said to be in the vaults at Universal. Are they in pristine/acceptable condition, and outside of faded TV print sources, will the film ever be restored and released to lovers of the fantastic?

The 1960′s were a time of experimentation by the motion picture industry that extended to the small screen. Made-For-Television features were just starting to get attention. The first TV movie was Universal’s See How They Run (aired in October, 1964). It starred John Forsythe, Senta Berger, and Pamela Franklin. In many cases, when it came to experimentation in television, Universal was ahead of the other studios.

Universal filmed a well-received motion picture for this new genre, broadcast on NBC on January 21, 1967 entitled THE LONGEST HUNDRED MILES. A well acted World War Two drama that was directed by Don Weiss and starring Doug McClure, Ricardo Montalban, Katherine Ross and Ronald Remy, it was a fast-paced tale of an American soldier (McClure) who aids in evacuating a group of refugees from the advancing Japanese after the fall of Bataan. Having seen this when first broadcasted, I never forgot the catchy theme music which I later discovered was composed by Hollywood legend Franz Waxman.

Gary Gerani wrote me: “For the record: NBC’s made for TV movies were called “WORLD PREMIERES.” These two-hour productions were broadcast on “Tuesday Night at the Movies” and “Saturday Night at the Movies” during this period, interspersed with theatrical films being presented on TV for the first time (many of them Universal releases from the 60′s, including films like the remake of MIRAGE with Bradford Dillman called JIGSAW, which began life as a made-for-TV movie. ABC’s “Movie of the Week” offered cheaper, shorter (90 minutes with commercials) TV movies every week in the same time slot. Although these became cult classics in their own right (THE NIGHT STALKER being the highest-rated TV movie of its day), they were generally inferior to Universal’s more expensive product (Universal would jump on ABC’s 90 minute bandwagon a few years later with “Movie of the Weekend”, which yielded DUEL, among others).”

Bradford Dillman

Speculating on the seed of the story that would be released as FEAR NO EVIL, in view of the flood of medical dramas then on television, was it originally meant to be a story of a hip professional shrink dealing with mental illness, or was a supernatural element plot device intended from the start? Again, Gary points out, “Although psychiatry served as the basis for a number of TV series (“The Breaking Point”, “Eleventh Hour”) and Universal was giving every professional prime-time leading man treatment during this period (Roy Thinnes as “The Psychiatrist”), I honestly feel that THE BEDEVILED/FEAR NO EVIL was always intended as a story about a handsome psychiatrist who realizes that x-amount of his patients aren’t crazy, just beset by demons…hence his special interest in all things dangerously supernatural, starting with the Siletski case. The “Enter David Sorell” speech pretty much says it all. And FNE and RITUAL OF EVIL were green-lit by NBC Programming exec Mort Werner, who is on record as saying “There’s always interest in the occult…the Jourdan character could return annually.”

BEDEVILED was given the go ahead with veteran Hollywood writer Guy Endore signed on to do the story. But, as reported to me by Jonathan Etter, the writer was unable to deliver a finished product and Richard Alan Simmons ended up doing the project. Despite the problems, Endore was still given a screen credit for story. Richard Alan Simmon’s story about death, loss, demonic forces, and the fight to restore faith and life was totally original in this highly intelligent and dramatic presentation. The dialogue, written for Louis Jourdan’s David Sorrell, is brisk and interesting (with a caustic dry humor) as his opening scene, taking place at a gathering of friends at his apartment, illustrates. We see a comfortable flat, the walls decorated with various images of primitive art (occult related?), as a sonorous voice intones “In the name of the smoldering legions of hell…I call upon The Devil and his servants…the demon Baal and Forcas…demon Marchocis…Buer…Astaroth…Behemoth…Asmodeus…And Theutus….All these [the camera finally sets upon the speaker - a casual, hip, cigarette-smoking younger man, scotch in hand. This is psychiatrist David Sorell, played by Jourdan] summoned hot upon these hours…to do battle with a pack of infidels…who never know when to go home and who drink up all of my booze and sit around insulting their host”.

Later in the story, meeting with his patient, Barbara Arnholt (Linda Day George), who had just lost her future husband, Paul Varney (played by Bradford Dillman, who we eventually discover was set up by a coven of Demonologists), the viewer gets a glimpse into his professional mindset as they go over the woman’s situation and question whether she has experienced seeing her dead lover.

“Trying to explain the unexplainable is a parlor game; by definition, it’s an exercise in futility”, Sorell lectures Barbara. “The challenge – the real challenge – is to crack the riddle of what can be explained – even though the explanation lies beyond the bounds of what we call normal experience-reason-logic. And the then we find ourselves face to face with the whole bag of tricks – E.S.P.-Psycho-kinesis-Foreknowledge-Ghost Phenomena-Possession – all those things that simply can’t be-could be-might be-sometimes are – no matter how much that jolts our comfortable, common sense universe. Mine was jolted a few years ago – the Siletski case. Still, these occurrences are very rare. They usually have more conventional explanations. Do you have one?”

Caroll O'Conner

Despite her unnerving experiences, Barbara nonetheless displays the self-deprecating humor she will exhibit throughout the story: “I… think there’s every possibility that I’m losing my mind,” she cracks. Sorell offers that this is still a good reason to visit a psychiatrist, then adds that her visions of a dead lover coming back might offer luster to what may be erotic fantasies. “Is that what you think they are?” Barbara asks. “For the moment, it doesn’t matter. I assume you’re here for help; I want to help you.” Barbara insists they weren’t fantasies. Sorell asks if she wants these experiences to stop? After a lengthy pause, Barbara replies, softly but firmly, ‘NO!’, explaining that she cannot let Paul go – she loves him. The doctor responds that Paul is dead.

“Not for me! Not…when these things happen.” David responds that in some way, in some place, her lover still exists. Satisfied that she has given him truthful responses, Sorell pushes with this question: “There’s only one way to be with him, isn’t there Barbara?”. He pushes a little more: What must you do?” Barbara, hushed, says “Die”. David then asks if that is what she wants? The girl shakes her head ‘No’.

It is from this point on that the complex screenplay by Richard Alan Simmons goes into high gear as the viewer is plunged into a nightmarish dark world of power-mad obsession, betrayal, loss, and the supernatural. Adding to the tension is the cutting back and forth from Dr. Sorell’s investigation to his patient Barbara Arnholt’s ongoing struggle with the demonic forces attempting to possess her. The mixture of Lynda Day George’s involving acting style with the detached, and cold direction of Paul Wendkos, plays on the viewer’s anxieties concerning the Barbara character. As does the Simmons script. In fact, each time the story cuts from the Barbara character to the Dr. David Sorell character, Barbara is left in an extremely vulnerable state. The character of David Sorrel comes across almost as an alternate Father Karras from THE EXORCIST (with Harry Snowden, his friend and mentor, in the Father Merrin role) as a man who first uses his mind to find a rational explanation (shock-survivor’s guilt – mental illness) to Barbara Arnholt’s situation before exploring the other possibility).

FEAR NO EVIL received high ratings when broadcast on March 3, 1969, and excellent reviews. When one thinks about it, the film represented a number of ‘firsts’ in the history of television: 1. The first made-for-television horror film. 2. The first tele-project featuring Carroll O’Conner, who would of course would go on to fame as Archie Bunker in “ALL IN THE FAMILY” and 3. Famed writer Guy Endore’s final Hollywood project before his death on February 12th, 1970.

Guy Endore (full name Samuel Guy Endore) was born Samuel Goldstein July 4, 1900 to Isidore and Malka Hapern Goldstein in New York. His father was a coal miner, investor and inventor who was not very successful. When he was four years old, Guy’s mother took her own life. Isidore changed their names and placed his children in a Methodist orphanage, later gaining enough money from the sale of an invention to move the family to Vienna (the man said his wife came to him in a dream and wished the children to have a European education). For five years the children lived in Vienna until their father disappeared, the money ran out, and what was left of the family settled in Pittsburgh.

Image courtesy of www.dvddrive-in.com

Back in the 1970′s, if you were growing up within broadcast reach of The Empire State Building, and you loved horror films, then you definitely remember television treats like CHILLER THEATRE and CREATURE FEATURES. These weekly broadcast showcases for horror and science fiction films had many youthful film buffs glued to the family television set. Before the era of Tivo, DVD collections and downloading, broadcast TV was it. This was the only venue one could catch those wonderful horror flicks that budding film fanatics would read about in monster magazines like FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND and THE MONSTER TIMES. If the station ran a baseball game instead, or your parents decided this was the weekend to take you to see Colonial Williamsburg, you were out of luck. No monster movie for you!

WPIX, Channel 11 ran CHILLER THEATRE on Saturday nights from 1971 to 1982. Its famous logo featured a six-fingered clay-mation hand oozing from a swamp and forming the words CHILLER. Primitive, eerie electronic music accompanied a spooky moan – “Chillleerrrrrrrrrrrr…..” This little bit of animation would then fade out and up would come the featured movie. CHILLER usually ran AIP horror films (AIP made many of the drive-in shock films), Hammer films, Japanese Toho films, and more. CHILLER was the first place I saw Vincent Price trip out over THE TINGLER, London get smashed to match-sticks by GORGO, and Fay Wray scream in DOCTOR X.

WNEW – Channel 5, which later became Fox, ran CREATURE FEATURES at the same time as CHILLER. Its first logo featured the Frankenstein Monster’s face (as played in the 1940′s by Glenn Strange) in negative, backed by the monster-on-the-march music from IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE. Somewhere in the mid 1970′s, this was replaced by an introduction by a dignified man in tux and sunglasses known as “The Creep”. The Creep told us what movie was in store. He sometimes gave some quick production background, and possibly offered a joke. (I remember his comment about bra sizes for ATTACK OF THE FIFTY FOOT WOMAN) Regardless of how campy the movie was, The Creep never trashed the upcoming film. “The Creep” was actually Channel 5 announcer Lou Steele. The late Mr. Steele was also famous amongst New York parents for his nightly question: “It’s 10 p.m. Do you know where your children are?” CREATURE FEATURES ran the classic Universal Horror Films such as FRANKENSTEIN, THE BLACK CAT, BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and THE WOLF MAN. They also showcased bargain basement Monogram films from the 40′s, and the Allied Artist films. Allied Artist made lower budgeted films than AIP, but they had more imagination. Who can forget Richard Boone in the wonderfully minimalist, but chilling I BURY THE LIVING, or the totally ridiculous but fun walking tree in FROM HELL IT CAME?

Image courtesy of www.dvddrive-in.com

CREATURE FEATURES ceased to be in August 1973, but picked up for a year starting in late 1979, playing triple feature horror films at midnight. Rival station WOR-TV (Channel 9) entered the horror ring in 1973 with FRIGHT NIGHT. Their assortment of films was much wider, and more contemporary, so many of the films they played – like PSYCHOMANIA and INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS (both from the early 1970′s) were aired in censored versions. This is where I was able to catch then obscure British horror films like THE MIND OF Mr. SOAMES and Michael Powell’s disturbing PEEPING TOM. FRIGHT NIGHT occasionally played non-horror films with fantasy elements (like the romantic ghost classic HERE COMES Mr. JORDAN) and normal films with horror movie like titles, such as the neglected noir crime drama KISS THE BLOOD OFF MY HANDS or the Lon Chaney bio-pic MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES. While home video nailed the coffin shut forever on CHILLER THEATRE and CREATRE FEATURES in the early 1980′s, FRIGHT NIGHT stayed on until 1987.

These weekly horror shows provided so much film knowledge. As a child, I noticed how formulistic most horror films were. The 90-minute horror show started at 8:30 pm. For the next half hour, either the monster would create small introductory damage (like icing the town drunk) or we’d sit and squirm through dull character development or a romantic subplot. The middle third of the movie is when the monster would start causing havoc, and the thrills would abound. The final thirty minutes of the film had our heroes finding a solution to defeat the creatures. Many films became so routine here that you could set your watch to CREATURE FEATURES.

But then the odd film would come through. We are only five minutes into CARNIVAL OF SOULS and the leading lady dies. Or halfway through RODAN you realize that the man-sized insects aren’t the monsters – they’re the little snacks for a really large monster. You noticed that the brazen monster movies tossed the recipe book out.

Many times I pleaded for my parents to get us all home from Saturday evening shopping because THE ISLAND OF LOST SOULS or something started at 8:30. The watch-whenever-you-want luxury of Tivo and DVD today is great, but it does deprive young film goers of movie-watching as an anxiously waited-for event.

If you grew up with CHILLER and CREATURE FEATURES, you really have to visit www.dvddrive-in.com. The web-builders here have created the ultimate reference guide to this long-gone movie-watching venue.

BEST DVD RELEASES OF 2008 By Roy Frumkes

KEN RUSSELL AT THE BBC (BBC Video)

Despite the fact that the Laurel & Hardy routine at the beginning of SONG OF SUMMER is MIA, something that will bug me forever since SOS is Russell’s best film, this is a great collection, elegantly and discreetly packaged considering the enfant terrible it deals with, containing good recent interviews with the octogenarian filmmaker. Also included are: ELGAR (’62), THE DEBUSSY FILM (’65), ALWAYS ON SUNDAY (’65), ISADORA: THE BIGGEST DANCER IN THE WORLD (’66), and DANTE’S INFERNO (’67). Now let’s see Warner Bros put out THE DEVILS, and UA/MGM put out THE MUSIC LOVERS.

MARCO FERRERI COLLECTION (Koch Lorber Films)

LA GRANDE BOUFFE

Utterly unrepresented until now, save for inferior, VHS-quality releases, the black comedic visionary is wonderfully shocking here with eight features: EL COCHECITO, THE SEED OF MAN, LA GRANDE BOUFFE, DON’T TOUCH THE WHITE WOMAN, BYE BYE MONKEY, SEEKING ASYLUM, TALES OF ORDINARY MADNESS, and THE HOUSE OF SMILES, spanning the years 1960-1988. LA GRANDE BOUFFE is one of the greats, held back by its US distributor for eons. I brought my young son to a special screening at Lincoln Center decades ago, and Ferreri was in attendance. When I went up to him with my son to say hello, he actually looked horrified that I’d brought a child to a screening of one of his films. Obviously he’d never seen STREET TRASH. My son was used to unforgiving cinema.

HOW THE WEST WAS WON (Warner Bros Home Entertainment)

This release almost had me in tears. Time, and digital technology, have enabled the computer wizards to remove the lines from the three Cinerama film strips, making one complete, mind-boggling canvas out of the 1962 epic Western. If only it could be projected this way in a theater. But the latest step forward is profound, with its great score, its depth-of-field, and its utterly compelling visual distortions. The John Ford Civil War sequences, which felt so clunky back in the day, are quite stirring all of a sudden in this resolved format. I’m really thrilled that I lived long enough to see it this way. Plus there’s a magnificent feature-length documentary included on the history of the unwieldy medium.

Not surprising that today’s two foremost American filmmakers – Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorsese – have agreed to appear on this compilation, extolling the gifts of Boetticher’s Western genre. It’s an important historical collection, and they’ve been gorgeously mastered. The five features are THE TALL T (1957), DECISION AT SUNDOWN (’57), BUCHANNAN RIDES ALONE (’58), RIDE LONESOME (’59), and COMMANCHE STATION (1960), plus a feature doc, A MAN CAN DO THAT, exec produced by Eastwood. These are lean, visually dominant narratives, with spectacular twists and complex characterizations. Randolph Scott, who stars in all of them, was eager to come out of retirement to appear in a film I co-produced called THE COMEBACK TRAIL. Happy as we were with Buster Crabbe as our final choice, Scott would have been wonderful.

HOUDINI THE MOVIE STAR (Kino International)

My grandfather was Houdini’s booking agent, and probably inspired me to follow the uneven path I have through the annals of cinema these past forty years. Houdini was a great magician, and perhaps even better at self-promotion. He certainly was not movie star material, but he made some interesting choices in his handful of cinematic appearances, and what still exists has been compiled onto this beautifully-designed three-disc collection. Films represented are THE MASTER MYSTERY (a serial from1919), THE GRIM GAME (a fragment from 1919), TERROR ISLAND (1920), THE MAN FROM BEYOND (1922) and HALDANE OF THE SECRET SERVICE (1923). Musical accompaniment has been supplied by several of the leading silent film composers/performers including Ben Model, Clark Wilson, Jon C. Mirsalis, and Stuart Oderman (who recently celebrated 50 years as a silent film pianist). There are fabulous supplements as well, including a 1914 audio recording of Houdini introducing his Water Torture Cell. The collection is worth it for that alone. This is a labor of love from an indie company that has brought us many gorgeous restorations over the years, particularly those of Fritz Lang and Murnau.

ALFRED HITCHCOCK: PREMIERE COLLECTION (Fox Home Entertainment)

Glenn has written about his top ten, and picked THE LODGER as one of them.

This box set is among the first of the DVD releases to be too large for a normal shelf. Others followed, such as the MURNAU/BORZAGE COLLECTION (also from Fox), and THE BLURAY PLANET OF THE APES COLLECTION (also from Fox), both marvelous, but equally provocative in terms of storage space. This collection presents eight immaculate masterings of the master’s work, bridging the silent period up into the 40s. The films range in terms of greatness, but in this compendium, who can complain. The design of the box and its contents is complex and aesthetically impressive. The extras are exhaustive and much appreciated, including commentaries, ‘making of’ featurettes, radio plays directed by Hitch, and interviews with Bogdanovich and Truffaut. Films included: THE LODGER (’27), SABOTAGE (1940), YOUNG AND INNOCENT (1937), REBECCA (1940), LIFEBOAT (1944), SPELLBOUND (1945), NOTORIOUS 1946), and THE PARADINE CASE (1947).

DANGEROUS ASSIGNMENT (Classic Television)

On four discs, in two separate containers, the 30+ early TV espionage episodes (1952) starring Brian Donlevy are available at last. The iconic noir opening, of Secret agent Steve Mitchell appearing out of a thick fog, only to have a knife thrown at him, backed by the pounding score, set the mood for episodes that, today, seem almost relaxed in tone, bordering on improv. Donlevy fans who love his early work for Capra (THE GREAT MCGINTY), and as Western bad guys (UNION PACIFIC, DESTRY RIDES AGAIN), or a foreign legion bad guy (BEAU GESTE), or his later work in the Quatermass Hammer Films, Jerry Lewis’ THE ERRAND BOY, CURSE OF THE FLY, and, in failing health, GAMMERA THE INVINCIBLE, will be delighted to own this collection. Did you know that his interests outside of acting were gold-mining and writing poetry, or that until his death in 1972 he was married to Bela Lugosi’s ex-wife, Lillian?

VAMPYR (Criterion)

Ever wonder what a Carl Dreyer vampire film would be like? Well he did one, in 1932, and it’s not like anything that he did before or since, or that anyone else has ever done. Unique and experimental, this early sound film, which focuses strictly on sound, not dialogue, has been labored over by the Ceneteca di Bologna, and presented by Criterion in a mega-box of treats almost too spectacular for its substance. Two discs contain the film, a ’66 doc on Dreyer’s career, a radio broadcast from ’58 of Dreyer reading an essay on filmmaking, and a book which contains Dreyer’s and Christen Jul’s original screenplay as well as Sheridan le Fanu’s 1872 story “Carmilla” which was one source for the film. Which impels me to mention another film with even closer ties to le Fanu’s story – BLOOD AND ROSES (Look for the upcoming February Camp David with more information on this fairly lost classic). Where is it! How about it, Criterion – if Paramount won’t step up to the plate, why don’t you track down the original elements, clumsily edited for the US release in 1958, and give us back roger Vadim’s lyrical lesbian vampire trendsetter.

DON QUIXOTE (Image)

Bereft of any supplements, Orson Welles’ long-in-production morphing of the great story finally sees the light of day, cut together – probably longer than Welles would have liked, by AD Jess Franco (?!), the most important work the exploitation filmmaker has ever contributed to celluloid. Slow and enjoyable, the film really takes off at warp speed when Welles appears as himself within the narrative.

“DEXTER” Season Two (Paramount Home Entertainment/Showtime/CBS)

Everything they got wrong in Season One has been rethought and revitalized in this superb cable series. Even the makeup and lighting on star Michael Hall, which made him seem smarmy the first time around, has been revamped for these 12 episodes. The writing is great – probably the best of the year, including its only feature film competition, APPALOOSA – with character insights, dialogue, twists, and gallows humor galore. Can’t wait for Season Three, since I don’t get SHOWTIME.

SHE (Kino International & Legend Films)

This is Ray Harryhausen’s colorization of a criminally disastrous 1935 production involving filmmakers who were mentors to his career – Merian C. Cooper and Max Steiner, two of the creators of KING KONG. This one bit the dust the minute RKO changed their mind about making it in color. Now, with Legend’s latest colorization technology, and Harryhausen’s research into what the color palette should have been, down to costumes, etc., it’s a very good film, often mesmerizing, never boring, and artistically satisfying. For die-hards who can’t abide the idea of adding color to films originally shot in B&W, this is the enduring argument in favor of the process. There are also supplements, including a Harryhausen commentary, and the original B&W version, which is utterly worthless except for comparison’s sake, illustrating how miraculous the new version is.

EL CID (Genius Products, Inc)

Finally! This is one of the best of the Epics from the late 50s/mid 60s, one of the three or four best, really, and it’s been a long time coming. We’re given a good transfer, and a fine big box packaging, in an ivory case with gold lettering. On disc one is the film – a three+hour telling of the epic Spanish poem. Charlton Heston slips easily into the Cid’s armor, and Sophia Loren looks the most beautiful of her entire career. Anthony Mann does a fine job of directing (not a Noir moment, but maybe some Western influences), Philip Yordan’s and Ben Barzman’s screenplay is sophisticated and stirring, and Robert Krasker’s framing is heavily Eisensteinian. Miklos Rozsa’s score is arguably the best of his career. Gloria Musetta’s wardrobe direction – my goodness…! I suggested to Editor Robert Lawrence that the film could have used a bit of tightening – my only problem with it – and he quickly disagreed, but later I heard that he came around on that point. And there’s a commentary track featuring Producer Samuel Bronston’s son. If I haven’t convinced you that you should own this DVD, I don’t know what else I can say (though I do think the BluRay transfer might be even more awe-inspiring). Inside are some stills, and the reduced souvenir book, which was sold in theaters where the film played roadshow on its initial release dates. A second disc contains interesting docs about the making of the film. (Later in the year, Mann’s miasma of an epic, THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, with a dreadful script, deadly pacing, lackluster music, and plagiaristic action sequences, was also given the grand DVD release by the Weinstein company. I can’t recommend the film on any level, but the transfer and packaging are certainly great.)

AND FOR MY BEST THEATRICAL FILMS OF 2008

RAMBO ; JAR CITY ; THE BANK JOB ; FUNNY GAMES ; THE VISITOR ; CLOVERFIELD ; STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE ; IRON MAN ; DREAMS WITH SHARP TEETH ; A GIRL CUT IN TWO ; RED ; TRAITOR ; LET THE RIGHT ONE IN ; APPALOOSA ; BLINDNESS ; TELL NO ONE ; SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE ; GRAN TORINO ; MAN ON WIRE

Continue to Glenn Andreiev’s picks…

NOWHERE TO RUN
I want to be happy I want to be gay / I want to be normal in every way / But a mushroom cloud hangs over my dreams / It haunts my future and threatens my dreams
- ‘A Mushroom Cloud’ – Sammy Salvo (1961)

In 1942, Time Magazine announced that death rays “missed the bus for World War II,” and promised, “If a method is developed to concentrate nuclear radiations into a narrow beam, death rays may be available to enliven World War III.” [1] Scientists wished to achieve the degree of precision that would “kill small animals at 5,000 feet in three seconds,” but while these were still in the works [2] , salvation took the shape of a mushroom cloud.

Salvation quickly turned to threat when president Truman announced on September 23, 1949, that the Soviets detonated their own atom bomb. As the nations raced to create more destructive bombs, and with the rise of senator McCarthy and the House Committee of Un-American Activities, fear and paranoia were sifting through the cracks. WWIII, it seemed, would be the war to end all wars (literally, this time around). Annihilation, obliteration, eradication… nuclear bombs and radiation promised not just the end of life but the end of death.

Bert the Turtle is about to Duck and Cover

Susan Sontag recognized the trauma suffered by people in the mid-20th century: “it became clear that from now on to the end of human history, every person would spend his individual life not only under the threat of individual death, which is certain, but of something almost unsupportable psychologically – collective incineration and extinction which could come at any time, virtually without any warning.” [3]

And it did seem like there was nowhere to run or nowhere to hide, the “lying, dirty, shrewd, godless, murderous, determined” [4] communists were able to destroy the United States either from above, in the form of a military attack, or from within, by infiltrating culture and government. A nuclear attack, according to the educational film, DUCK AND COVER, could take two forms: With Warning and Without Warning.

Kids and teenagers were exposed to an adult world of horrors. They watched the educational films, took part in emergency exercises at school, carried around metal identification tags (‘dog tags’) [5] , watched the McCarthy hearings on television, and listened to detonations of atom bombs on the radio. Lewis Frumkes, Director of the Writing Center at Marymount Manhattan College, recalls being horrified at the age of 13, in 1953, listening on the radio to the execution of Ethel Rosenberg, who was charged with espionage: “I remember to this day with horror as they described Ethel Rosenberg being strapped into the electric chair. They said after the voltage went through her, blue smoke arose from her head. And as the voltage went through her body she shook and convulsed… it was so horrifying.” [6]

In April, 1954, defense was proposed as a school subject in New York. In classes like Home Economics for example, emergency cooking in preparation for a possible disaster could be taught. “Only if our youth is made fully cognizant of its added responsibilities as citizens in the newly evolving atomic era can we be assured of the will of our people to resist aggression and the ability of our people to survive its disastrous effects.” [7]

Middle-class economy was flourishing in the 1950s and the decade saw a great boom in teenage culture. Young Americans enjoyed financial freedom as their average weekly income quadrupled between 1944 and 1958 [8], by which time teen spending reached an estimated $9.5 billion yearly. This newfound freedom, and the changing system of film exhibition, lead to the explosion of genre cinema, and in the heart of it…

…THE ATOMIC SPECTACLE

Lee Merlin, the Last 'Ms. Atom Bomb', 1957

Pop-culture adopted the ATOMIC idea. Everybody joined in the fun: Elvis was billed as ‘The Atomic Powered Singer’; Gene Vincent was ‘The Hottest Thing Since the Hydrogen Bomb’; Miss Atomic Bomb was crowned in Las Vegas; Atomic candy was sold to kids; and an Allied Artists ad proclaiming their ‘New Box Office Power’ had a mushroom cloud as its background. [9]

The ‘Paramount decision of 1948’ separated the film studios from their theaters, resulting in their loss of control over both exhibition and audiences in the United States. Drive-In cinemas popped up all over the country, catering mainly to teenagers. This brought a slew of low-budget science fiction, horror, juvenile delinquent and rocknroll films.

This type of ‘exploitation’ cinema was a new breed between the Poverty-Row ‘B’-movie and the ‘classic exploitation’ film – alternative independent productions that relied on forbidden spectacle, namely drugs, sex, and violence – to set them apart from Hollywood product. The new producers decided that instead of being a ‘B’ to a Hollywood ‘A’ movie, they could produce their own double features and gain more capital. Their product was so popular that many of the studios hopped on the genre bandwagon as well, either by producing their own or distributing independent productions.

Many of the productions revolved around atomic fear, the consequences of radiation, and alien invasion. They offered visions of space travel, radiation-induced-giant-insects, monsters, mind control and post-nuclear worlds: “SEE! The World Ended By Atomic Fury! SEE! Fantastic World of Death and Horror!” announced ads for Corman’s DAY THE WORLD ENDED (1955). That film was so successful that after only two months in release it earned $400,000 on a budget of $65,000. [10] Susan Sontag theorizes that fantasy of destruction can normalize what is psychologically unbearable; it beautifies and neutralizes the world. [11]

Beverly Garland with a close personal friend of Lee Van Cleef's

The Alien-Invasion films often tapped into the Red-Scare, with aliens attacking earth from above but also undermining humankind from within. In Roger Corman’s IT CONQUERED THE WORLD (1956), Dr. Tom Anderson (Lee Van Cleef) is convinced that an alien invader (whom he calls “a personal friend of mine”) wants to help humans by eliminating their hate, bitterness, dreams and emotions. When the alien starts taking over the minds of the people, hysterical realists assess that they are “in the middle a communist uprising.” A logical assumption, as certain towns in the US performed security exercises that simulated a communist takeover of the town.

Even that genre was inseparable from a notion of atomic threat. Roy Frumkes, the editor of Films In Review, remembers: “The fact that they were all set in the desert really worked on my subconscious, because that was where I had heard all the bomb tests were. So when I saw a Sci-Fi film like IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE, it wasn’t about atomic war but it was set in the desert and it added this extra chill.” [12]

Aliens sometimes could cause destruction by taking over the minds of atomic scientists and researchers to use our own power against us. The Kronos (KRONOS, 1957), an alien machine described by one reviewer as “a cross between a futuristic skyscraper and a present-day kitchen appliance,” [13] sets itself on Earth and grows as it absorbs atomic energy. With every H-Bomb the government launches at it, Kronos causes more and more destruction.

Roger Corman is one of the most prolific producers and directors of these genres, and his vision, as would be discussed later in the article, is unique. Among his nuclear-related films: NOT OF THIS EARTH (1957), ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS (1957), TEENAGE CAVEMAN (1958), and LAST WOMAN ON EARTH (1960). In 1945, Corman himself was training to participate in the invasion of Japan, when the bomb went off: “I’m part of that group that said, “Thank god for the atomic bomb.” It very possibly saved my life. But at the same time, I also had to say, “My God, what a monstrous, terrible thing!” [14]

“THE MAINSPRING OF CIVIL DEFENSE”: FAMILIES AND SHELTERS

“The family is the mainspring of Civil Defense. Get your family to work as a team in preparing for emergencies,” instructed a 1955 leaflet by the Federal Civil Defense Administration. [15] On July 25, 1961, President Kennedy said in a televised address: “In the event of an attack, the lives of those families which are not hit in a nuclear blast and fire can still be saved – if they can be warned to take shelter and if that shelter is available. We owe that kind of insurance to our families – and to our country.”

PANIC IN YEAR ZERO (1960), directed by Ray Milland for American International Pictures, offers the best portrayal of defined roles in the family unit in the midst of a nuclear crisis. While on a family trip, Henry Baldwin (Ray Milland) and his family find out that their home, Los Angeles, has been wiped out by a nuclear attack. Immediately all hell breaks loose, California turns into a Wild West where law is meaningless and people have to defend themselves in its absence.

Henry knows just what to do. He equips his family with enough food to last them a few months and weapons for self defense. His son, Rick (Frankie Avalon), learns from his father about protecting the family, in preparation for his role as a future patriarch, “I want you to use that gun,” says Henry, “But I want you to hate it.” When the family functions in the normal world at the beginning they are defined by age: the kids, Rick and Karen (Mary Mitchel), are in the back seat while the parents are in the front. After the bomb drops and danger arises, the mother, Ann (Jean Hagen) moves to the back and Rick sits in the front with his father, separating roles by gender.

Henry shelters his family in a mountain cave and it is a classic fallout shelter in many ways, having enough products to last them for a long time underground while being surrounded by the immediate family. The men must hunt and the women take care of their needs, reverting to an old way of living, typical of the American Western. Although Henry’s views of society are grim to say the least (“Our country is still full with thieving, murdering patriots”), the reaffirmation that “there must be no end – only new beginnings,” prevails.

Milland and Avalon: I want you to use the gun, but I want you to hate it.

Family and shelters are inseparable and stress the importance of being informed, especially by the head of the family. When a number of individuals who don’t form a family occupy a shelter, distress and conflict arise. In DAY THE WORLD ENDED the father secures his house, measures radiation, and is handy with a gun, for the protection of his daughter. A group of strangers invade their shelter, causing violent conflict in which the only survivors are members of the existing family or soon-to-be family (the daughter’s future husband); Roger Corman’s LAST WOMAN ON EARTH (1960) suggests deep sea as a shelter but the 3 who survive the blast, a dysfunctional husband and wife and their friend, end up in a deadly conflict in which only the married couple prevails.

A police officer forms an unnatural community out of a group of strangers in THIS IS NOT A TEST (1962). Warned of a coming attack, he stops a number of cars and forces everyone to take shelter in the back of a truck, which leads to their descent into madness, murder, suicide, animal cruelty and terrible paranoia over the futile situation and the useless role of the law in the wake of a nuclear attack. When the bomb drops, the truck and everything around it is instantly wiped away.

In 1959, a contest set by Bomb Shelters, Inc. prompted newlyweds Melvin and Maria Mininson of Miami, Florida to spend a two-week honeymoon in a fallout shelter, for which they were rewarded with a real honeymoon. The Parkers of southern California did the same later that year and nine months later had a child conceived in the shelter. [16] The shelter was culturally tied to the concept of family, encouraging conformism for the sake of protection.

Bomb shelter construction must have been a mighty profitable business, but since the products were never put to the test, their real value is questionable. This is parodied in hindsight by the Happy Days episode, ‘Be the First on Your Block’ (original airdate 5/7/1974) in which Howard Cunningham buys into the pitch of a sleazy salesman and announces the building of a shelter for his family. Soon the whole neighborhood is trying to secure a spot inside it in case of an attack. In Joe Dante’s MATINEE (1993), exploitation film producer Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman), cracks open the door to a fallout shelter using a crowbar and jokes, “boy, am I in the wrong business?” comparing the cheapness of his productions to the cheapness of the shelter product.

Photo by Dennis Daniel

My dear Films In Review readers…my fellow film lovers…my cinematic adoring brothers and sisters…it is with great pride and happiness that I herein present four words I’m sure you, as fellow cinema lovers, will surely appreciate…four words that I never thought I’d ever be able to utter in this lifetime:

I met David Lynch.

I not only met him, I was able to sit and have a nice chat with him, on camera. More about where you can see that later.

First off, I’d like to speak about…adjectives.

Imagine the level of genius it must take to create work of such originality, beauty and complexity, your work becomes so iconic and associated with you that your very name becomes an adjective!

As far as I know…there are only two directors who have accomplished this: Federico Fellini with “Felliniesque” which is defined as: Blending reality and fantasy as Federico Fellini does in his movies…and David Lynch with “Lynchian,” defined as: Having the same balance between the macabre and the mundane. A juxtaposition of perversion with Americana. [Editor's note - admittedly it goes much further back into film history, but "Chaplinesque" was an oft-used cinemadjective as well…]

Perversion and Americana. The macabre and the mundane. Yep. That’s ol’ David alright.

As a true lover of his work, I often wondered how Lynch mixed and matched these various concepts. What train did he catch that brought him to these destinations? The answer is quite surprising…

Transcendental Meditation.

In fact, TM is the springboard that allowed me the chance to meet Lynch. Although he has pretty much shied away from publicity and public speaking for most of his career… the current state of the world, along with a strong desire to share how TM can be a wonderful addition to educational programs, has moved Lynch onto the lecture circuit. His lectures are a fascinating combination of questions and answers about his films and his art, mixed with his heartfelt belief in the healing and transcending power of TM, and how it can truly help the world be a more peaceful place.

Lynch recently gave a lecture at the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, Long Island…and it is here that I was able to experience the epiphany of actually getting to speak one on one with one of the most iconic filmmakers of our time.

Drawing by Richard Pascucci

But still…David Lynch and TM? I mean…let’s face it… Lynch, whose unconventional mind has brought us such cinematic puzzle boxes as ERASERHEAD, BLUE VELVET, WILD AT HEART, LOST HIGHWAY, MULHOLLAND DRIVE, and the off-kilter TV series ‘Twin Peaks”, is not the first guy you’d associate with the image of someone at peace with his inner self…meditating in a state of bliss, calm and happiness. Yet the inner well from which his creativity is drawn springs from his practicing the technique of Transcendental Meditation, twice a day, for the last 32 years and counting. I say “technique” because that is exactly what it is. A very simple, very precise way of focusing within to help expand the mind’s ability to function with infinite creative potential.

At first, Lynch wasn’t even interested in trying. “When I first heard about meditation, I had zero interest in it. I wasn’t even curious. It sounded like a waste of time.” But, like all great artists who are constantly searching for inspiration, he decided to give it a try. “What got me interested was the phrase ‘true happiness lies within.’ It had a ring of truth…and I began to think that maybe meditation was a way to go within.”

Lynch so firmly believes in the transcending powers of TM, he’s even written a book entitled, “Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity.” In it, he describes how TM has helped him stay creative and healthy for the past three decades. “It sounds strange at first,” said Lynch, 62, “But then, when you start doing it and seeing your life getting better and better, you can’t believe it. You had anger, and it goes away. When that blanket of fear, stress and anger starts lifting, this is freedom.” It is this expansion of the mind that provides the necessary room to see the world differently. Lynch acquaints this newfound mind expansion to “diving within” and “catching ideas like fish.”

To the uninformed person, Transcendental Meditation may seem like some kind of crackpot religion or cult. Images of the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, The Beatles, flower power, and gurus trying to float while meditating, may come to mind. Point of fact, the TM program is the most thoroughly researched and widely practiced program in the world for developing the full creative potential of the brain and mind, reducing stress, and improving academic outcomes. A number of scientific studies have also confirmed Transcendental Meditation’s overall health benefits. There is plenty of well-documented research showing that it’s effective for a variety of problems, from helping to reduce stress to helping to reduce cholesterol and high blood pressure.

It is because of Lynch’s belief in all the benefits that Transcendental Meditation can provide to the world, that this relatively reclusive artist, (with a fear of public speaking, to boot) has committed his mind, heart and soul into launching a major world lecture tour, to spread awareness of TM, while also trying to raise 20 million dollars in funds for the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace, to help teach TM to inner-city schoolchildren and to college students to provide consciousness-based education as a way to lower stress and help expand learning and retention abilities. Ultimately, he hopes to raise $7 billion to create and endow seven “universities of world peace.” Lynch adds, “Consciousness-based education is not a luxury. For our children who are growing up in a stressful, often frightening, crisis-ridden world, it is a necessity. ”

His devotion to this cause is so personal and heartfelt, he has practically devoted the last two years of his life to lecturing all over the world about the benefits of TM, while helping to raise money and awareness for his foundation. “We want to ensure that any child who wants to learn and practice the Transcendental Meditation program can do so, ” says Lynch. “We provide scholarships for students to learn the technique and to receive the complete follow-up program of instruction throughout their student year.”

Since Lynch’ films have a reputation for portraying very violent and surreal images, it was only natural that someone during the lecture would pose the question, “If you’re a person who is at bliss, why are your films so full of terror and violence?” Lynch just smiled and said, “You don’t have to suffer to show suffering.”

Fair enough.

CLICK TO SEE THE DENNIS DANIEL INTERVIEW WITH DAVID LYNCH, AS WELL AS HIS VIDEO INTRO

TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT LYNCH’S TM FOUNDATION: www.davidlynchfoundation.org

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CINEMA ARTS CENTRE: www.cinemaartscentre.org

With the release of INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL I thought it high time for a retrospective of the series as a whole; its original concept, its ethos, its influences, and of some of the people behind the scenes that, literally, got the ball rolling in the first place. Much of this has of course been covered before in the intervening, and astonishing, 27 years since RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK hit our screens, nevertheless, I’m sure if you persevere with me, you may discover, or rediscover, like Indy himself, a wealth of treasures. Unlike Indy however, we’ll just try not to wreck everything on the way…

It’s well known that George Lucas had a thing for 1940s movie serials with their cliff-hanger endings. His idea for an Indiana Jones type character came around at about the same time as that for STAR WARS. The latter won and our intrepid explorer (originally called, incidentally, Indiana Smith, but Spielberg didn’t like it), was put on the back burner. STAR WARS was in itself another tale in the serial mold which stemmed from Lucas’s desire to make a new FLASH GORDON movie. Unable to acquire the rights, he wrote his own adventure, though borrowed heavily from the earlier serials. This is from my own review of FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE (1940)(qv):

‘The heroic theme music strikes up, the chapter number and the ‘story so far’ prologue scroll up the screen and into the distance, and we are thrust into a new adventure where our hero and his companion, now disguised as Imperial Guards, having entered the stronghold of their enemy by spaceship, are about to rescue the beautiful Princess from his evil clutches! Elsewhere in the complex our hero’s elderly mentor, dressed in his hooded wizard-like robes, also works to thwart the villain’s dastardly plans…

Sound familiar? Yes. Of course it does, for this is FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE…’

We even have Imperial Spaceships bombarding our heroes on an Ice Planet and a battle on a Forest Moon. There are many other elements too that eventually made their way into Lucas’s epic saga. So, George is clearly not averse to pinching the odd idea or… three.

To give the RAIDERS crew an idea of what they were aiming for with the film, Lucas and Spielberg reputedly screened two movies. One was an Alan Ladd vehicle called CHINA (1943), and more importantly, the other was the Charlton Heston adventure SECRET OF THE INCAS (1954).

In CHINA Ladd plays a character called ‘Mr. Jones’, an American opportunist in that country during the Japanese invasion, who gets roped into the rescue of twenty young girls and their schoolteacher (Loretta Young) who want to get to safety before the Japanese arrive. A perilous trip in a very familiar looking canvas-backed army truck ensues, with action a-plenty as the reluctant, machine-gun toting hero ‘Jones’ protects his young charges from the nasty Japs.

SECRET OF THE INCAS has Heston as ‘Harry Steele’, a fortune hunter looking for Inca treasure among the ancient ruins of Machu Picchu. ‘Steele’ has a mysterious metallic disc which he discovers holds the key to the location of the treasure. In a certain room in the ancient city, if the disc is placed in a specific place, a beam of light reveals where the treasure is hidden (I’m sure I’ve seen that somewhere…). When Steele and his love interest first arrive in the jungles of Peru (twice now visited in the INDIANA JONES series), there’s a segment where they go downriver in a big yellow inflatable which is similar to that in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM.
But the most obvious thing to come from these movies is the heroes’ attire; both Ladd and Heston sport fedoras, leather jackets, khaki trousers and a pistol. The fedora in itself was not unusual in 40s and 50s movies, think of Bogart and Cagney; in fact most men wore them around that time. Around 1960 the trend very quickly, and oddly, died out. There is a myth that JFK’s not wearing a hat at his inauguration led to American men thinking ‘Well if the President ain’t gonna wear one, why should I go to the trouble to?’, but in fact Kennedy wore a top hat to his inauguration, removing it only to deliver his speech. Perhaps a fashion statement best left alone, as obviously most American men did. Anyhow, back to the 1940/50s fedora; maybe it was a post-war combination of military fatigues, flying jacket and civilian hat, but that combination became the hallmark of an adventurer. Harrison Ford comments on the costume:

“I didn’t have time to have any input into the costume. It’s a bizarre costume if you consider it, a man wearing a leather jacket in generally hot locales. But I understood that if he’s carrying a whip, he might as well be wearing a leather jacket, because it doesn’t make any f***ing sense anyway”

Heston’s ‘Steele’ was no archaeologist either, just a treasure seeker, and I can’t help but think what a great antagonist he would have made for Indiana Jones. Heston could have still done it too in back in 1981. Both films were Paramount pictures, so, no worries about the copyright on the costume then…
The pace of both films is considerably slower than your average Indiana Jones flick of course, but take the basic concept of the freewheeling, loose cannon of an adventurer in exotic locales, saving beautiful gals, fighting stereotypical villains and superior odds; toss in the search for buried treasure, then add the freneticism of a Saturday Matinee serial and, well, there you have it. Sounds simple doesn’t it? But somebody had to think it up. Stealing ideas is one thing; knowing what to do with them is another.
As a side note, SECRET OF THE INCAS was released 27 years before RAIDERS; KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL 27 years afterward.

Another classic movie plot device used in all the Indiana Jones movies is what Alfred Hitchcock called the ‘maguffin’. It didn’t matter what it was; all that mattered was that everybody was after it. In NORTH BY NORTHWEST it was a statuette containing microfilm, the contents of which were never disclosed; in THE 39 STEPS it was, well the meaning of the 39 Steps; in THE LADY VANISHES it was a whistled piece of music that was in turn a code; in THE MALTESE FALCON it was that very same titular avian statue. There’s plenty more. In the Indiana Jones movies they are of course the Ark of the Covenant, a mystical Sankara Stone, the Holy Grail and now a Crystal Skull. What these individual items do doesn’t matter, it’s the chase and drama involved in obtaining them before the bad guys do that creates the adventure.