Just to let my faithful readers know, the next update will come day-after-tomorrow. Things are just too busy in beautiful Japan, but I will have plenty of time as I wait at the airport. After that, I will be back to my usual every-other-day (for the most part) schedule. I understand several space launches are due next week, and I'll have the F&SF and other items on which to report.
Stay tuned, and thanks for bearing with me during this time of extraordinary travel!
If you hail from California, particularly the southern end of the state, you might find foreign the concept of seasons. I know I expect mild, sunny days every time I step outside. We have a joke around here that the weather report is updated once a week, and that's just to give it a fresh coat of paint.
Japan, on the other hand, is a country rooted in seasonality. Every month brings a new package of delights to the denizens of this Far Eastern land. Now, usually I'm a smart fellow, and I only travel here in the Spring for the cherry blossoms, or the Fall to see the fiery colors of the wizened leaves. Only a madman would visit in the Summer, when the heat and humidity are ferocious, and when neither is mitigated by the constant rain that characterizes the immediately prior Typhoon season.
This year, I joined the crazy persons' club.
Thankfully, the new set of trains seems to be consistently equipped with air conditioning, and in any event, one can often get a nice breeze from the frantic hand-fannings of one's neighbors. And this country is lovely enough, and its people such good company, that one can tolerate a little physical discomfort. For a while, anyway.
Osaka has always been a particular favorite of mine with its regional delicacies and colorful local dialect (virtually unintelligible if all you know is schoolbook Japanese). This city has an independent streak, refereshing after the aggressive servility that characterizes Tokyo, and, perhaps not coincidentally, we have a great number of friends in this area.
Of course, social obligations keep my leisure time to a minimum, but I've managed to steal a few hours between shopping, taking tea, and visiting landmarks to finish the September 1960 Analog. Here is my report:
I've already told you about the fantastic The High Crusade, penned by Poul Anderson. This is not his only contribution to this issue. In addition to the conclusion of his serial novel, there is also (under the pen-name, Winston Sanders), Anderson's short story, Barnacle Bull, in which a Norwegian four-man spaceship sails on an eccentric orbit through the asteroid belt on a mission of reconnaissance. Their aim is to lay the foundation for a nationalized asteroid mining concern. There are two snags–one is the density of micrometeoroids between Mars and Jupiter. The other is the existence of a space-borne life form that grows magnificently on the hulls of spaceships, fouling radars and antennas, not to mention spoiling the clean lines of a vessel. It turns out that the two problems nicely cancel each other out.
It's well-written, and no one portrays Scandinavians like Viking Poul, but the story is a slight one. I give it bonus points for its realistic portrayal of near-future spaceflight, however.
Easily the worst story in this issue is Randall Garret's By Proxy, in which a young, brash scientist announces his intention to launch a ship powered by some sort of intertia-less drive, but is oppressed, by turns, by the government, the military, and a cynical press. Of course, the thing works. I'm not sure if Campbell specifically asked young Randy for a bespoke story on this, one of Campbell's favorite subjects, or if Randy chose this topic because it ensured him a sale. Either way, it is not only a bad story, but the quality of writing is at the low end of the author's range. About the only good thing about the story is it features no women. Given Randy's reputation, that's a blessing.
H.B. Fyfe, a grizzled veteran of the pulp era, comes out of retirement to offer up A Transmutation of Muddles, a sort of sub-par Sheckley story about the four-cornered negotiations between a marooned space merchant, his insurance adjustor, the aliens on whose sacred land he crashed, and the government. It's inoffensive, unremarkable.
The last fiction entry is Everett Cole's Alarm Clock, about the pressure cooker of a situation a canny military drop-out is thrust into in order to awaken his peculiar talents so that he can join the legendary Special Corps. It's the sort of thing I like seeing from Harry Harrison. Cole isn't as good as Harrison.
Last up is Asimov's fine article on the extent of the solar atmosphere, and how it interacts with the tenuous outer regions of the various planetary atmospheres, producing brilliant auroras and the deadly Van Allen Belts. It's amazing how much we have learned about the subject in the last two years, a revolutionary period for interplanetary physics.
All told, we've got a just-under 3-star issue. Once again, the great serial and non-fiction pieces balance out the mediocre short entries. And the less we speak of Campbell's editorials, the better…
See you in a few, likely from sleepy Fukuoka!
Analog (formerly Astounding) has tended to be the weak sister of the Big Three science fiction digests. This can be attributed largely to Editor John Campbell's rather outdated and quirky preferences when it comes to story selection. There seem to be about five or six authors in Analog's stable, and they are not the most inspiring lot.
On the other hand, at least since last year, Analog has reliably produced a number of good serial novels that have elevated the overall quality of the magazine. This month's issue, the September 1960 Analog, contains the conclusion to Poul Anderson's The High Crusade, and it continues this winning streak.
Anderson is an author with whom I've had a rather stormy relationship… a one-sided one, of course. I was captivated by his early novel, Brain Wave, and generally disappointed by most of his output since. And then, about a year ago, he started writing good stuff again. His latest novel is excellent, far better than it has any right to be.
The set-up is ridiculous, and smacks of Cambellian Earth-First-ism: a crew of alien invaders visit 14th Century England, bent on adding Earth to the sprawling galactic imperium of the Wersgorix, only to be defeated by the retainers of the canny Baron, Sir Roger de Tourneville. Sir Roger, realizing that the repelled spacers represented only a scouting contingent, seizes their vessel and takes his entire barony on a trip to the nearby Wersgorix colony, Tharixan. His goal is to take the fight to the enemy before more come to Earth. Thus ends Part 1.
The fight for Tharixan comprises the whole of Part 2. Using a combination of medieval and captured weaponry, and aided by the aliens being somewhat out of fighting trim, their empire having lacked serious conflicts with which to blood their soldiers (while the feudal warriors of Europe spend most of their time fighting or planning for war), Sir Roger's forces are triumphant.
Nevertheless, a single world would hardly stand a chance against the fleets and armies of the aliens. Thus, Sir Roger unites the subjugated races of the empire together in a Crusade against the Wersgorix (Part 3). The success of this venture, and the individual machinations of his strong-willed wife, Catherine, and his wily subordinate, Sir Owain, I shall leave for the reader to enjoy.
And enjoy you will! Anderson clearly knows his medieval history and, more importantly, he adopts an authentic archaic writing tone which is, at once, evocative and yet perfectly readable. Using the clever artifice of telling the story through a chronicler, Brother Parvis, Anderson captures nicely the attitudes of medieval persons thrust into a futuristic universe. One technique I particularly admired (and, again, which I think could easily have been botched), is the narrator's recounting of scenes that he, personally, could not have witnessed, but rather reconstructed after the fact. It is a clever way of transitioning from 1st to 3rd person without jarring the reader.
Anderson's biggest coup, though, is that he can make such a silly story at once plausible and seriously executed. Strongly recommended — 4.5 stars out of 5.
(and for those following along as the Journey zips across Japan, I am now on the train from Nagoya to Osaka, this country's third and second cities, respectively. Osaka is one of my favorite cities, and I look forward to relaxing pool-side and typing my next article on the rest of the September 1960 issue. Stay tuned!
The results of the Republican National Convention, held in Chicago this year, are in. They should hardly come as a surprise to anyone: Vice President Richard M. Nixon is the Republican candidate for President of the United States.
I say that this news is unsurprising with good reason–namely, that Nixon essentially ran unopposed. Oh, sure, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater was putatively in the race, and New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller has been front and center in the headlines over the past two months, but the former never had a chance, and the latter never formally threw his hat into the ring. In fact, it appears that "Rocky's" blistering rhetoric, put forth in print as a set of polemics, was intended to influence the Republican platform rather than propel him into the candidacy. Well, Rockefeller can certainly boast this season–he got Nixon to come to his parlor on bended knee, and much of what Rockefeller espoused made its way into the platform and Nixon's agenda.
In fact, given the rather moderate tone of the GOP platform, voters may have trouble choosing between the two parties' men come November. One thing I noted, comparing Nixon's acceptance speech to Kennedy's, I would give the inspirational and demagogic nod to the latter. While Kennedy poetically described the New Frontier of the 1960s, challenging us all to become its pioneers to make the nation and the world a better place, the main thrust of Nixon's message seems to be, "We're better than the Communists." Well, no one doubts that, but as a wise person once said (this quote is attributed to Ernest Hemmingway, but it predates him), "There is no nobility in being superior to someone else; true nobility comes in being superior to one's former self."
The only real mystery of the convention was Nixon's choice for his running mate. Interestingly, the Republican Vice Presidential candidate is Henry Cabot Lodge, the Massachusetts Senator whom Kennedy defeated in 1952 to begin his career in the upper division of Congress. Now ambassador to the United Nations, and a strong advocate for that body's peacekeeping capabilities, I believe he is a good selection for the No. 2 spot. He will, however, not help Nixon sway the South from the Democratic grasp anymore than Nixon's rather progressive stance on racial issues. I expect this election to be a tight one, fought largely in the relatively liberal areas of the North East, the Great Lakes, and the West Coast.
For those who follow my travels, I am currently on the train to the industrial city of Nagoya, a few hours west of Tokyo. Here are some pictures of the Shinjuku area of Japan's capital, which is currently experiencing something of a revitalization in anticipation of the Olympics, time after next. For anyone who was worried for our welfare, there were no signs of unrest, and we have been treated with courtesy, even warmth. We had a great time in Kabukicho and Nihonbashi–in the latter, we supped at an excellent little jazz club where someone had set up a mobile projector and was showing old Felix the Cat cartoons. The best part of travel is the serendipitous pleasures.
In other, Journey-related news, the month of July is over, and it's time to see how the Big Three digests fared, quality-wise. It's a tough choice between Galaxy and F&SF this month. Both clock in at a little over three stars. I think I'll give the nod to the former, for being longer if nothing else. My favorite story this month was probably Stecher's An Elephant for the Prinkip, though none stood out prominently. Only one female writer made an appearance this month: Rosel George Brown.
As for next month, I didn't see any new books of interest, but I will be watching the films Dinosaurus and The Time Machine. Also, expect coverage of a number of exciting, recently announced satellite launches, both military and civilian. I've also just finished the final installment of Anderson's The High Crusade, and it was excellent. I'll have a review for you next time around.
Stay tuned!
Perhaps the primary perquisite of being a writer (certainly not the compensation, though Dr. Asimov is the happy exception) is the ability to take one's work anywhere. Thanks to 'faxes and patient editors, all of this column's readers can follow me around the world. To wit, I am typing this article in the lounge of my hotel deep in the heart of Tokyo, the capital of the nation of Japan.
Japan is virtually a second home for me and my family, and we make it a point to travel here as often as time and funds permit. Now that the Boeing 707 has shrunk the world by almost 50%, I expect our travels to this amazing, burgeoning land will increase in frequency.
Tokyo, of course, is one of the world's biggest cities, and the crowds at Shinjuku station attest to this. And yet, there are still plenty of moments of almost eerie solitude–not just in the parks and temples, but in random alleyways. There are always treasures to find provided one is willing to look up and down (literally–only a fraction of Tokyo's shops is located on the ground floor!)
Gentle readers, I have not forgotten the main reason you read my column. In fact, the timing of my trip was perfect, allowing me to take all of the September 1960 digests with me to the Orient. But first, I need to wrap up last month's batch of magazines. To that end, without further ado, here is the August 1960 Fantasy and Science Fiction!
Robert F. Young has the lead short story, Nikita Eisenhower Jones. I'd liked his To Fell a Tree very much, so I was looking forward to this one, the story of a young Polynesian who finagles his way onto the first manned mission to Pluto only to find it a lonely, one-way trip. Sadly, while the subject matter is excellent, the tale is written in a way that keeps the reader at arm's length and thus fails to engage in what could have been an intensely powerful, personal story.
The Final Ingredient is a different matter altogether. Jack Sharkey had thus far failed to impress, so I was surprised to find him in F&SF, a higher caliber magazine, in my opinion. But this tale, involving a young girl whose efforts at witchraft are frustrated until she abandons love entirely and embraces wickedness, is quite good indeed.
John Suter's The Seeds of Murder, a reprint from F&SF's sister magazine, Ellery Queen's Mystery, is about telling the future through regressive (or in this case progressive) hypnosis. It's cute, but something I'd expect to find in one of the lesser mags. I suppose this should come as no surprise–this is Suter's first and only science fiction/fantasy story, so far as I can tell.
Rosel George Brown is back with another dark tale: Just a Suggestion. When aliens subtly introduce the idea that the way to win friends and influence people is to be less impressive than one's peers, the result is economic downturn and, ultimately, planetary destruction. Obviously satirical; rather nicely done.
This brings us to Robert Arthur's novelette, Miracle on Main Street. A boy wishes on a unicorn horn that all of the folks in his small town, good and bad, should get what they deserve. There is no ironic twist, no horrifying consequences. It's a simple tale (suitable for children, really) that very straightforwardly details the results of the wish. It should be a vapid story; Arthur goes out of his way to ensure there are no surprises. Yet, I enjoyed it just the same. I suppose a little unalloyed charm is nice every so often.
The Revenant, by Raymond Banks, is a fascinating little story about human space travelers who explore a planet less fixed in sequence and probability than ours. Their lives are far less dependable, but infinitely more varied and interesting. The closest approximation would be if our dreams were our waking lives and vice versa (and perhaps this was the tale's inspiration). Good stuff.
Avram Davidson has a one-pager, Climacteric, about a man who goes hunting dragons in search of romance. He finds both. It is followed by G.C.Edmondson's Latin-themed The Sign of the Goose, a strangely written story about an alien visitation that, frankly, made little sense to me. It stars the same eccentrics as The Galactic Calabash.
Asimov has an article about the Moon as a vacation spot whose main attraction is the lovely view of Earth. Catskills in the Sky, it is called, and it's one of his weaker entries.
Finally, we have Stephen Barr's Calahan and the Wheelies, about an inventor who creates a species of wheeled little robots with the ability to learn. The concept is captivating, and the execution largely plausible. Sadly, the story sort of degenerates into standard sci-fi clichés: the robots, of course, become sentient and rather malicious. It's played for laughs, but I can just imagine a more serious story involving similar machines being put to all sorts of amazing uses. Imagine a semi-smart machine that rolled around your house vacuuming and mopping your floor. Or a programmable dog-walker. I like robots that don't look like people or act like living things, but which are indispensible allies to humanity. I want more stories featuring them.
All told, I think this issue clocks in about a shade over 3 stars. A thoroughly typical F&SF, which is no bad thing.
See you in a few days with more from the Land of the Rising Sun!
Every week, Rod Serling talks about the "Twilight Zone" between fear and knowledge, science and superstition, light and dark. He might have added sublimity and schlock. Every few weeks or so, my daughter and I plunge into that twilight zone known as the cinema. Sometimes, we find quality in the lowest budget movies. Other times, we leave an A-rater in disappointment.
This time, we found ourselves truly in the middle ground. Beyond the Time Barrier hardly has the luster of a high-budget production, but neither is it the worst of the C-rate sludge.
First, a summary:
Major William Allison is a modern-day Air Force test pilot. At the zenith of his first suborbital flight in the "X-80" (looking suspiciously like one of the new F-102 interceptors), he finds himself hurled forward some 64 years. He does not discover this immediately–when Allison arrives at the decayed ruins of "Sands Air Force Base," he hasn't a clue what's happened. This bit is nicely done and strongly reminiscent of the debut episode of The Twilight Zone, even to Allison's shouting of its title: "Where is everybody?"
We soon find out. Allison is shot unconscious by a ray gun controlled by the Security Captain of an underground citadel. When the pilot comes to, he is in the custody of several armed guards and one lovely young maiden. After a brief questioning by the Captain and his boss, the citadel's "Controller," and a stint in the city dungeon, populated by bald mutants, Allison is given free run of the city. It seems that Trirene, the Controller's granddaughter, has taken a liking to Allison. The pilot finds the city a strange place, beautifully constructed, but its people are all deaf-mutes with the exception of the Controller, his Captain, and the insane-seeming mutants. Trirene is a special case–she is a telepath, which makes things awfully convenient for Allison.
There is one other group of humans in the city: the Escapes. Like Allison, they are people who flew their spacecraft fast enough, and in the right trajectories, to end up in the future. Two are scientists from 1994, residents of planetary colonies. Another is a Russian space pilot from 1973. They inform Allison that the Earth has been doomed by atomic testing, which has destroyed the atmospheric/magnetospheric layer that protects the surface from hard radiation. All the people left are sterile or mutated. Allison is wanted so that he can mate with Trirene and foster a new generation.
Lucky Allison! But he is persuaded by the Escapes to try flying back in his rocket plane on a path that will take him back to 1960 in the hopes that he might warn the world of their impending doom. The Russian pilot frees all the mutants as a distraction–they ravage the city, pouncing on the fleeing citizens and eating them alive. This is the scene the trailers boasted as making the film "the scariest ever made!" More on this later.
Then the plan goes to Hell. Each of the Escapes, in turn, betrays Allison for a chance to fly back to their own time. Trirene is killed in a scuffle with the last one. The Controller, bereaved, wishes Allison luck and sends him on his way.
My daughter observed at this point, "I don't know how they got the cameraman up there… but they sure aren't going to be able to bring him down!"
Allison makes it back, and he is able to warn his colleagues, but the movie has a twist: Allison has returned an old, feeble man–the consequence of Breaking the Time Barrier.. backwards, I imagine.
The End
I'll be honest in my admission that i enjoyed the film, though I likely would not remember it a year from now if not for the commiting of my thoughts on it to print in this article. There is uneven pacing, some truly bad acting (particularly the Captain), ridiculous science, and plot holes big enough to plunge an X-80 through (for instance, if the scientists who drew up Allison's flight plan all wanted to go back to their own time, how can Allison use that plan to get back to 1960?). The special effects are of the crudest sophistication. I can take or leave the "atomic testing will doom us" plot. I find that reviewers often praise a movie for its moralizing messages, but this one falls flat for me.
But the citdael is lovely, with a fine unifiying triangular motif. I have since learned that the "set" was actually a model city of the future built for the Texas State Fair in Dallas last year. There are two female characters of note: the truly lovely and charming Trirene and the canny Russian pilot, Markova. I thought the scenes depicting the mutant attack were effective, though my daughter cared too little about the citizens to be disturbed by their grisly deaths. I appreciated the lack of antagonists through much of the movie.
My daughter called the film "mediocre." She may be right, but the film won't be a total waste of your evening, particularly if the popcorn is extra tasty.
I'm off to Japan, tomorrow! Expect updates to be slightly delayed, but with exciting photographic supplements.
Thanks to Galaxy's new oversized format, we can read serials over just two issues rather than seeing them spread across three or four. Of course, there's a longer gap between installments now that Galaxy has gone bi-monthly.
As a result, I'd completely forgotten that Fred Pohl had left Drunkard's Walk half-finished as of the end of the June 1960 issue. It's a good thing magazines provide synopses!
Actually, it all came back to me reasonably quickly. Drunkard's Walk is a good read, like much of what issues from Pohl's pen. Here's the skinny:
About a century from now, Earth has become comfortably overcrowded. College-level education courses are universally available, via television programming, but only a very few may actually attend universities and subsequently apply their knowledge in any meaningful way. Outside the rarefied campus setting, the average person lives in relative squalor, though free from significant wants. Disease and hunger have been eradicated. Space is at a premium, on the other hand, with significant populations inhabiting artificial off-shore platforms called "texases."
That's the backdrop. The story is a fairly straightforward thriller. A brilliant professor, by name of Cornut, finds his life in great peril as, whenever he is on the verge of waking, he is compelled to attempt suicide. Since there is nothing wrong with Cornut's life (quite the opposite), he comes to the conclusion that someone or some group wants him dead. It turns out that Cornut is just one of many under insidious attack.
Who would want Cornut dead? How is the compulsion conveyed? And why are there reported outliers to the normally flawless "Wolgren Equation," which determines the maximum possible age of the members of any given group of people?
Well, I certainly won't spoil it for you…
I will say that Pohl spotlights a lot of interesting questions, but he doesn't quite explore them fully, preferring to focus on the page-turning aspects of his story. Also, there seems to be a gap of some 20-30 pages about two thirds through the story, perhaps edited for space. Maybe we'll see them again if the story is novelized. Still, Drunkard's Walk kept me interested, through both of its parts.
Four stars (of five).
Just a quick note that, if you look at my last article on the August 1960 Galaxy, you can read copies of the stories reviewed. Enjoy!
Last year, Galaxy editor Horace Gold bowed to economic necessity, trimming the length of his magazine and slashing the per word rate for his writers. As a result (and perhaps due to the natural attrition of authors over time), Galaxy's Table of Contents now features a slew of new authors. In this month's editorial, Gold trumpets this fact as a positive, predicting that names like Stuart, Lang, Barrett, Harmon, and Lafferty will be household names in times to come.
In a way, it is good news. This most progressive of genres must necessarily accept new talent lest it become stale. The question is whether or not these rookies will stay long enough to hone their craft if the money isn't there. I suppose there is something to be said for doing something just for the love of it.
As it turns out, the August 1960 issue of Galaxy is pretty good. I'm particularly pleased with Chris Anvil's lead novelette, Mind Partner. It's a fascinating story involving a man paid to investigate a most unusual addictive substance, the habit of which its victims are generally unable to kick. Those that manage to break free retreat into paranoid near-catatonia or explode into random streaks of violence.
Chris is a fellow who has churned out reliably mediocre tales for Astounding (now Analog) for years, yet I've always felt that he was capable of more. Just as a good director can coax a fine performance out of an actor, perhaps Anvil just needs a better editor than Campbell.
William Stuart is up next with, A Husband for My Wife, a rather conventional, but not unworthy, time travel story involving the heated competition for affection and success between two friends/nemeses, one exemplifying brains, the other brawn. The brainy one jumps off into the future with the brawny one's girlfriend leaving the latter stuck with the brainy one's domineering wife. But the meathead and the shrew will be waiting when the brain returns…
Stuart was the new author who penned the pleasant (though ultimately dark) Inside John Barth in the last issue. His sophomore effort is not quite as good, but I can definitely see why Gold keeps him around, and he clearly has time to write!
Non-fiction writer Willy Ley is back to his old standard, I think, with his article on the origin of legends: How to Slay Dragons. I was particularly interested to learn that the mythical dragon, at least in the West, only goes back to the Renaissance. Apparently the notion of winged lizards cavorting with medieval princesses is anachronistic.
Back to fiction, The Business, as Usual is Jack Sharkey's second story in Galaxy, and it's about as bad as his first. Set in 1962, it portrays, satirically, the top brass of our nation figuring out what to do with a new stealth aircraft. It's all a set-up for a groan-worthy last line.
Sordman the Protector is an interesting, ambitious novella by serviceman Tom Purdom about a class of psychically gifted "Talents" who are both prized and reviled for their abilities. The story is praiseworthy both for its innovative portrayal of future culture and the taut whodunit it presents. It is clear that the author put a lot into developing the tale's background universe. I wonder if he intends to expand it into a novel.
Neal Barrett's first tale, To Tell the Truth, has a cute title and an interesting set-up. In an interstellar war where security is of paramount importance, combatants are given pain blocks against torture and suicide triggers that trip if their owners are on the verge of divulging sensitive information. This provides strong protection for secrets when soldiers get captured. But what if the secrets were never true to begin with?
Finally, we've got L.J. Stecher's An Elephant for the Prinkip, a rather delightful piece about the difficulties of transporting pachyderms across the stars. It's one of those stories that shouldn't work, being all tell and no show (literally–its narrator is a salty old captain recounting the tale at a bar), but it does. But then, I've always had a soft spot for stories involving interstellar freight.
That leaves the second and final part of Fred Pohl's short novel, Drunkard's Walk… but I'll cover this one separately.
Stay tuned!
Let's play a name association game. When I say "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle," what comes to mind? Sherlock Holmes, I'll wager. But did you know that, in addition to being a quite accomplished non-fiction writer (his The War in South Africa: Its Causes and Conduct won him a knighthood), Conan Doyle was also a science fiction writer? Contemporary with Edgar Rice Burroughs, Conan Doyle wrote a series of adventures starring the irascible Professor Challenger.
The first one, The Lost World, involves a trip to a remote South American plateau where dinosaurs still thrive. This was the sort of conceit one could get away with in Edwardian times, back when there were still blank areas on the map where dragons might reside. Burroughs, for instance, placed an entire mini-continent in the Pacific Ocean, also populated with dinosaurs, in his Caspak series.
With giant lizards festooned with costume accoutrements now a fad (e.g. Journey to the Center of the Earth), it is no surprise that Hollywood is looking for vehicles to showcase this new advancement in special effects. Hence, The Lost World has found its way onto the silver screen.
Now, I'd been looking forward to this flick, in large part because I mistakenly thought it was going to be a movie about Burroughs' Pellucidar series (sort of an updated Journey to the Center of the Earth). I don't know where I got that impression. Nevertheless, Lost World is in color, and it's a lovely Cinemascope production, so I kept my cinema tickets and, with little difficulty, enticed my daughter to join me for a night at the movies.
Would that I could turn back time.
Every movie starts with a reserve of good will. In this case, Lost World had its esteemed provenance and an exciting premise going for it. It then proceeded to squander this reserve by engaging in an interminable scene in which Professor Challenger announces his discovery of dinosaurs in Amazonia and his intention to launch a second expedition. This takes up nearly a tenth of the movie.
At first, the Professor rejects the few volunteers he receives, with the exception of Lord John Roxton, a (putatively) British adventurer with a California accent. Challenger is later induced to accept reporter Ed Malone at the urging of Malone's editor, who offers $100,000 to fund the expedition. Challenger's plummy associate, Professor Summerlee, also tags along.
This meager group is augmented upon arrival in South America by the craven, bearded Costa, and the suave Manuel Gomez (Fernando Lamas). Gomez, despite his unconvincing guitar-playing skills (which the movie showcases as often as it can), is easily the most compelling character in the movie.
The Challenger expedition also expands to include Malone's editor's two children, Jennifer and David Holmes. As in Journey to the Center of the Earth, much is made of Jennifer's gender. Sadly, unlike the strong female lead in last year's movie, Jennifer is largely relegated to mooning over Roxton, falling in love with Malone, and generally ending up in distress.
Thus completed, the party embarks on a helicopter trip to the prehistoric plateau. Thankfully, the vehicle is far larger on the inside than on the outside, and also whisper-quiet, so the expedition suffers few of the difficulties of associated with air travel.
Upon arriving, we learn that Jennifer has brought along a companion, which my daughter immediately dubbed "Gertrude." Once again, this character compares poorly to its Journey counterpart, the plucky waterfowl that was several times the Lindenbrook Expedition's salvation. Gertrude the dog is just an accessory, like a purse or scarf.
That night, Challenger's camp is assaulted by a rampaging "Brontosaurus," which looks suspiciously iguana-esque. Gomez' helicopter is destroyed, stranding the expedition on the plateau. This does little to dampen Challenger's spirits, however, and the next morning, he leads his party deep into the jungle in search of more prehistoric beasts.
His search soon leads to fruition, though I am beginning to doubt Professor Challenger's academic credentials. I am reasonably certain, for instance, that dinosaurs were not lizards.
Soon after, Challenger finds a lovely native girl. She is, of course, captured by the party, presumably for later dissection and display, or perhaps as insurance against when provisions are exhausted. The native falls in love with David, though there is never an indication as to why.
The plot thickens slightly upon the discovery of evidence that another expedition preceded Challenger's. It turns out that Roxton was a member of that party, which had come to the plateau in search of the famed treasure of El Dorado. All but Roxton perished in the endeavor, including a fellow named Santiago. It seems Roxton abandoned Santiago, with whom Gomez had a strong connection. The helicopter pilot even carries a locket with Santiago's picture. At first, I thought this was going to be a particularly daring film, but it later develops that Gomez and Santiago were brothers.
The remainder of the film is a sequence of unrelated, action-filled vignettes of unbearable length. First, we are treated to an interminable clash of dinosaurs, exhausting any remaining hopes the audience might have entertained that anything resembling a real dinosaur would appear in the film.
Then, the party is captured by cannibals, who imprison them in their cave pending an invitation to dinner.
The party escapes with the aid of the smitten native girl as well as a member of Roxton's first expedition, who turns up alive but blind.
But they're not out of the woods yet. First, the party must spelunk endlessly through the chambers of an active volcano.
And then, on the brink of safety, Gomez brandishes his pistol and vows to avenge his brother. The Argentine is easily subdued, but the party is then visited by another saurian attack. Costa is gobbled up, but Roxton saves Gomez from a similar fate. The balance books now even, Gomez sacrifices himself for the good of the party, killing a dinosaur with a handy lava flow.
The party seems less than aggrieved by the loss of its latin companions. Rather, they delight in having escaped with their lives, a significant number of roughcut diamonds, and a newly hatched "Tyrannosaurus." The End.
It really is fascinating to compare Lost World to Journey. On the surface, they are surprisingly similar films. Yet the level of craftsmanship is so poor in Lost World, with the possible exception of the cinematography. It just goes to show that "A" status is no guarantee of a movie's quality, just as "B" status does not necessarily reflect an unworthy effort (e.g. The Wasp Woman).