Tag Archives: Edgar Allan Poe

[October 18, 1967] We Are The Martians: Quatermass and the Pit, Bonnie and Clyde, The Day the Fish Came Out and The Snake Pit and the Pendulum

October 18, 2022 Fiona Moore 2 Comments

by Fiona Moore

This month sees the release of a film I’ve been anticipating for a long time: Quatermass and the Pit, the final instalment in Hammer Film Productions’ adaptations of Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass trilogy. With a whole new cast of actors and a very different look and feel to Hammer’s earlier movies starring Brian Donlevy, The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) and Quatermass 2 (1957), this represents a concerted effort to bring Quatermass into the 1960s.

While reportedly this film was considered as another outing for Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, Andrew Keir as Quatermass and Julian Glover as Breen provide great interpretations. Keir is the most likeable of the Quatermass actors, while still managing a bitter world-weariness in keeping with the character. Rising star Glover is a bold choice as Breen, being considerably younger than Anthony Bushell in the TV serial, but this casting shifts the interpretation from an old officer too set in his ways to acknowledge the impossible, to an immature, overpromoted man falling back on rigid denials to cover the fact that he is out of his depth. Barbara Shelley as Barbara Judd is more sexy than the usual Quatermass women, wearing outfits that one would think not very sensible for an archaeologist.

Likeable: Andrew Keir as Quatermass and Barbara Shelley as Miss Judd

The basic narrative has had only a few updates. For instance, rather than a new building, the construction work which revives the ancient horrors is the digging of a new Underground extension, something which many Londoners are having to put up with right now. The story has been compressed from six half-hour episodes to a lean 97 minutes, meaning that the plot cracks along at a ripping pace without every feeling overpadded, and we lose most of Kneale’s excruciating working-class stereotype characters. On the more negative side, the film lacks the slow buildup of tension that the TV serial had. Crucially, the themes of the original are all present. Perhaps because Kneale is here adapting his own screenplay, we do not lose the sense of anger at military proliferation, colonialism, and humanity’s self-destructive tendencies.

Colonel Breen, representing humanity's negative side.

One aspect which remains unchanged, however, leads to a rather specialised criticism I have of this movie, speaking as an anthropologist. While in 1959 the dominant theory about human evolution was, indeed, that large brains would precede upright walking, more recent discoveries by Louis and Mary Leakey in East Africa are starting to move the consensus more towards the idea that the opposite was true.

The colour film and production values give the film a much more lavish feel than the austere Donlevy movies, but are a mixed blessing. The alien spacecraft is a thing of beauty compared to the crude cylinder of the serial, but this makes the idea that it could be initially thought to be a German V-weapon less credible. The simple ground-shaking effect in the TV serial when Sladden (played here by Duncan Lamont) accesses his primitive side was somehow more terrifying than the wild poltergeist activity seen here. However, the climax of the film uses its production values to build on the sense of terror as humanity succumbs to the Wild Hunt: we have a chilling scene where a group of people surround a man and beat him to death telekinetically with stones and masonry. Rather than concluding with an explanatory speech by Quatermass, the film simply lingers on the image of Quatermass and Barbara sitting among the ruins, shattered by what they’ve experienced.

Hammer's take on the Martians.

Quatermass and the Pit provides evidence both that the themes of the original Quatermass stories remain fresh and relevant almost a decade later, and that Hammer are still capable of producing a decent horror film without relying on gore and nudity to bring in the shocks. It’s a shame there’s unlikely to be a Quatermass 4.

Four out of five stars.

by Jason Sacks

Bonnie and Clyde

And while Fiona praises Quatermass and the Pit for its lack of gore, I have to praise Bonnie and Clyde for its copious use of gore.

You're probably aware of this newest film starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. In the two months since its New York premiere, perhaps you've seen the numerous newspaper articles focusing on the highly violent nature of Bonnie and Clyde, or articles which have condemned the idea that the film makes heroes of its bankrobbing protagonists.

Or perhaps you've read the rhapsodic review of Bonnie and Clyde in the latest issue of The New Yorker by their new critic Pauline Kael and possibly dismissed it because of your annoyance with Kael's now legendary condemnation of The Sound of Music three years ago in McCall's.

I've had the most amazing experience since I saw Bonnie and Clyde last weekend after it premiered at the Northgate Cinema: I've been raving nonstop to my friends about this film.

Like Kael, I was thrilled to see a film which is so bold, so intense and somehow so contemporary feeling. Despite–or perhaps because of–its setting in during the Great Depression, this film feels like a deconstruction of the myths we have told ourselves about the past. Bonnie and Clyde makes villains out of the brave federal men who chase our heroic criminals. This isn't an episode of The FBI. This is an inversion of what it means to be a hero. And in that inversion I saw myself in the faces of people who lived and died 35 years ago.

Because the world in which Bonnie and Clyde live feels like a real world. It's dusty and ugly and people wear worn clothes. Some banks have collapsed and others are near collapse and peoples' lives are miserable. In that misery, ordinary people are desperate for someone, anyone, who is able to triumph against all odds, even if the fate of those heroes seems horribly preordained.

Like all of us, the characters in Bonnie and Clyde are deeply flawed. I was especially swept up in Clyde's foibles. We're all used to seeing Warren Beatty as the smooth handsome lover in movies like Promise Her Anything and Splendor in the Grass, but here Beatty plays a man who's just not interested in love, or maybe more truthfully Clyde is a man who gets his thrills from robbery and not from women. Faye Dunaway is thus not quite Beatty's girlfriend on screen as much as she is his accomplice, fascinatingly contrary to what we expect.

With its echoes of the French New Wave and its shattering of cliche and audience expectations, Bonnie and Clyde feels like a revolution–a harbinger of the types of films I hope to see as the new decade dawns.

4½ out of 5 stars

by Victoria Silverwolf

Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts

Filmmaker Michael Cacoyannis had an international hit with Zorba the Greek a few years ago, which was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won three. With that success behind him, I guess he figured he could do just about anything he wanted. He decided to do something different.

The Day the Fish Came Out

The film starts with an unseen narrator telling us about the tragic incident last year when a B-52 bomber collided with a tanker during mid-air refueling, killing most of the crew. Four nuclear bombs fell out of the doomed aircraft, three of them landing near the Spanish village of Palomares and one falling into the sea. Since this movie is a black comedy, this frightening story is accompanied by three flamenco dancers.

They also have the ability to sing with subtitles, giving away the plot.

In the future year 1972, a plane carrying a pilot, a navigator, two atomic bombs, and a mysterious metal box crashes near a tiny Greek island. The unfortunate pair of flyboys lose their clothing, and spend most of the film in their underpants.

Colin Blakely (left) and Tom Courtenay (right) offer a little beefcake.

A bunch of military types, pretending to be folks interested in building a hotel on the island, search for the bombs and box. They get the bombs back, but it seems a local fellow found the box and thinks it has a treasure inside. Unfortunately for him, it's sealed tight and can't be opened except by a laser or a special chemical. (Keep that latter possibility in mind.)

Meanwhile, a bunch of tourists, attracted by the rumor of an upcoming hotel, flock to the island. Like almost everybody else in this movie (not including the locals or the barely dressed airmen), they wear clothes that would be rejected by Carnaby Street as too extreme. They also dance a lot.

In fact, if you get a chance to watch the trailer for this movie, you'll think it's a beach movie.

After more than an hour of this stuff, the plot gets going with the arrival of Electra Brown, played by Candice Bergen, the beautiful daughter of ventriloquist Edgar Bergen. She's supposed to be an archeologist, but the way she behaves with one of the military guys makes me think she's more interested in human biology. Bergen made her film debut as a lesbian in the classy soap opera movie The Group, but here she is very heterosexual indeed.

Electra Brown in one of her more conservative outfits.

Electra has this weird device that uses a special chemical (sound familiar?) to cut through metal in order to make replicas of ancient objects. (No, that didn't make much sense to me either.) Long story short, the guy who found the box steals the gizmo, opens the box, and . . .

Well, without giving away too much, let's just say that the depressing ending finally explains the title. This movie badly wants to be Dr. Strangelove and it fails miserably. The comedy isn't funny, the satire falls flat, and there are long stretches where nothing much is happening.

Two stars, mostly for the wacky costumes.

Stay away from this one unless you want to laugh at it. Read a book instead.

Maybe not this one.

by Cora Buhlert

Horror in the Real World

1967 is certainly turning out to be a year of disasters.

Belgium has barely recovered from the devastating fire at the À l'Innovation department store in May and now two express trains and a local passenger train collided near the village of Fexhe-le-Haut-Clocher in the French-speaking part of Belgium on October 5, leaving twelve people dead and 76 injured.

FEXHE LE HAUT CLOCHE traincrash — Aftermath of the train crash of Fexhe-Le-Haut-Clocher in Belgium.

The photos of the wrecked trains bring back memories of another terrible railroad disaster that happened only three months ago in East Germany. A barrier at a railroad crossing near the village of Langenweddingen malfunctioned. As a result, a passenger train crashed into a tanker truck, setting the train on fire. 94 people died, 44 of them school children en route to a holiday camp. The Langenweddingen train crash is the worst railroad accident not just in East Germany, but in all of German history.

Langenweddingen train crash — Aftermath of the devastating railroad crash in Langenweddingen, East Germany. Note the burned out train cars.

Horror on the Silver Screen: Die Schlangengrube und das Pendel (The Snake Pit and the Pendulum)

Compared to the many horrors of the real world, watching a spooky movie in the theatre feels almost cathartic. And so I decided to get away from the real world by watching the new West German horror movie Die Schlangengrube und das Pendel (The Snake Pit and the Pendulum) at my local cinema.

As the title indicates, the film is a (loose) adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum". Of course, we already had a very good (loose) adaptation of that story by Roger Corman only six years ago. And indeed, The Snake Pit and the Pendulum intends to be West Germany's answer to Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, the UK's Hammer horror films and the lurid horror films from Italy, all of which are popular, if not necessarily critical successes in West German cinemas. So how does The Snake Pit and the Pendulum hold up?

Snake Pit and the Pendulum 1967 — Judge Richard von Marienberg (Lex Barker in a wig) setnences Count Regula (Christopher Lee) to death.

Pretty well, it turns out. The movie starts with a bang, as a bewigged judge and a scarlet-masked executioner visit Count Regula (Christopher Lee) in his cell. The judge informs Count Regula that he is sentenced to death for murdering twelve virgins in his quest for immortality. However, the immortality elixir requires the blood of thirteen virgins and the final virgin managed to escape the Count's clutches and alerted the authorities.

Snake Pit and the Pendulum — The bodies of the twelve murdered virgins are arranged in a censor-friendly way, covering up any stray breasts.

The death sentence is to be executed immediately and a most bloody sentence it is, too. First, a bronze mask lined with spikes is nailed onto Count Regula's face – reminiscent of Mario Bava's 1960 horror movie La Maschera del Demonio a.k.a. Black Sunday. Then Count Regula is led onto the market square of the fictional town of Sandertal – portrayed by the Bavarian town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, which is famous for its medieval architecture – where his body is torn apart by four horses. Of course, we have seen similar scenes in Italian and French historical and horror movies many times, but by the rather tame standards of West German cinema, this is a remarkably bloody opening.

Snake Pit and Pendulum — The executioner is ready for action.

The movie continues in the same vein. For true to form, Count Regula has vowed bloody vengeance from beyond the grave, not only on the judge who sentenced him to death and that pesky virgin who escaped his clutches, but also on their descendants.

Vengeance from Beyond the Grave

The story now jumps forward by thirty years, from the early nineteenth century into the 1830s. A mail coach is traveling to Sandertal. The passengers are the lawyer Roger Mont Elise (Lex Barker), Baroness Lilian of Brabant (Karin Dor), her maid Babette (Christiane Rücker) and Fabian (Yugoslav actor Vladimir Medar), a highwayman masquerading as a priest. Roger and Lilian have both been summoned to Castle Andomai via mysterious letters. Roger, who is an orphan, is supposed to learn more about his parentage, while Lilian is supposed to receive the inheritance of her late mother. Both letters are signed by Count Regula, the very same Count Regula whose bloody execution we just witnessed.

Schalngengrube und das Pendel — The woods around Sandertal are certainly spooky.

En route to the castle, the coach and its passengers must not only travel through a spooky forest where the bodies of hanged men are dangling from every tree, but are also assailed by bandits intent on kidnapping the two women. Roger and Fabian manage to fight off the bandits. But even more trouble awaits them at the castle, where the undead Count Regula and his equally undead servant Anatol (played by the delightfully creepy Carl Lange) are about to make good on the Count's dying threats.

For unbeknownst to them, Roger and Lilian are the descendants of the judge who sentenced Count Regula to death and the virgin who escaped the Count's clutches (and clearly did not remain a virgin). A gruesome fate awaits them at the castle, a fate that involves a pit full of snakes and a razor-sharp pendulum.

The Snake Pit and the Pendulum is not quite up to the high standards set by Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe adaptations on the one hand and the Hammer movies from the UK on the other. However, it is an enjoyably spooky film that will send a shudder or two down your spine.

Harald Reinl is a veteran of the Edgar Wallace, Dr. Mabuse and Winnetou movie series and probably the best director working in West Germany right now. His skills are on full display in this movie and he uses existing locations such as the medieval town of Rotenburg ob der Tauber or the Extern Stones in the Teutoburg Forest to great effect.

The cast is excellent. Christopher Lee has graced many a Hammer movie and now brings his horror skills to West German screens. Carl Lange has specialised in playing dubious characters and outright villains for a long time now and his performance as a hangman forced to execute his own son in Face of the Frog is unforgettable. I'm always stunned that Lex Barker never got to be the A-list star in Hollywood that he is in Europe, but their loss was our gain. That said, at 48 Barker may be getting a little too hold for hero roles. Finally, I'm very happy to see the always reliable Karin Dor back in a West German production and with her natural brunette hair after the James Bond movie You Only Live Twice wasted her talents on a cliched femme fatale role and foisted a terrible red wig on her, too.

Almost fifty years ago, the horror film genre was born in Germany. But like so many other things, horror film making in Germany died with the Weimar Republic. Let's hope that The Snake Pit and the Pendulum heralds a revival of a film genre that was pioneered here.

Four stars

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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[July 4, 1966] The Daughters of Jane Eyre (Gothic Romances and a New Soap Opera)

July 4, 2021 Victoria Silverwolf Leave a comment

by Victoria Silverwolf

From the Castle of Otranto to Northanger Abbey

Most literary historians state that the first Gothic novel was The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole. It set the pattern for later spooky stories. You know the type; mysteries, curses, hidden passages, innocent heroines prone to fainting, etc.

All that stuff about being translated from Italian by the nonexistent William Marshal is fictional. Note that the book was very popular, going through multiple editions.

Walpole's bestseller inspired many imitations. The genre was so popular that it was parodied in Jane Austen's posthumously published novel Northanger Abbey (1817), in which a naïve young woman who reads too much Gothic fiction imagines all sorts of dark secrets behind perfectly innocent situations.

It first appeared with Persuasion, another posthumous novel.

Frankenstein Meets Dracula

One of the most famous works of Gothic fiction appeared soon after, with the publication of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. This groundbreaking work, which one might think of as the first real science fiction novel, spawned countless adaptations and imitations, in the form of movies, comic books, and so forth.

It seems odd that authors didn't want their names on their books back in the old days.

I'm sure you're familiar with the scary stories that appeared during the Victorian era, from Edgar Allan Poe's chilling tales of madness and murder, to Bram Stoker's seminal vampire novel Dracula (1897).

The cover of the first edition. Looks very modern, doesn't it?

Isn't It Romantic?

Let me back up a little bit and mention the Brontë sisters, particularly Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre, both published in 1847. Both books added a touch of romance to Gothic fiction, particularly the latter.

At least she used a pseudonym instead of being completely anonymous.

I hesitate to call Wuthering Heights a love story, although you might think it one if you've only seen the movie. The relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff in the book is more complex than simply a romance. (It's a very strange novel in many ways.)

Note that the book pretends to be a true account, and the similarity in pseudonyms. Their sister Anne Brontë used the pseudonym Acton Bell for her novels, which lie outside the topic of this article.

Jane Eyre is more obviously a romance, although it certainly contains elements of Gothic fiction as well. This blending of love and terror had an important influence on romantic novels of the current century, eventually leading to the marketing category of Gothic Romances.

(Just to make things completely clear, allow me to emphasize the fact that I am using the term Romances — note the capital letter — to refer to books sold as love stories. It should not be confused with the rather old-fashioned use of the word romance — note the small letter — to mean an imaginative tale, as in the archaic term scientific romance for what we now call science fiction.)

The most important modern Gothic Romance, I think, is Daphne du Maurier's 1938 bestseller Rebecca. The success of this novel, and the award-winning 1940 Alfred Hitchcock film adaptation, led to many similar books, which you can still find on the paperback racks of your local drug store.

The similarity to the cover of Dracula is interesting.

There are lots of these things floating around, usually with a cover depicting a beautiful young woman and a sinister building in the background. Often there's a single light in the window.

Science fiction writers sometimes produce Gothic Romances as well.

Welcome to Collinsport

I offer you this rather haphazard look at a particular category of popular fiction because the subject came to mind when a new daytime drama (that's a euphemism for soap opera) premiered on American television one week ago. Dark Shadows — even the title suggests Gothic elements — offers the kind of shuddery thrills found in the books I've been discussing. Heck, even the music played during the opening title sequence is spooky!

The first few minutes of the initial episode introduce us to the protagonist and her employers. In the tradition of Jane Eyre, our innocent heroine, Victoria Winters, is an orphan hired to work as a governess.

Victoria Winters, played by newcomer Alexandra Moltke, ponders her past and future.

She travels by train from a foundling home in New York to the fictional village of Collinsport, Maine, where she is to watch over David Collins, the ten-year-old son of Roger Collins.

Young actor David Henesy as the troubled boy David Collins. It must make it easier to have the same first name as your character.

Roger is separated from his wife, David's mother, and is living on the huge estate, including a spooky mansion, known as Collinwood with his fabulously wealthy sister, Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. Elizabeth's husband disappeared eighteen years ago, and she hasn't left Collinwood since.

Louis Edmonds as Roger Collins and movie star Joan Bennett as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. You may have seen her share top billing with Edward G. Robinson in The Woman in the Window (1944) and Scarlet Street (1945), or with Gregory Peck in The Macomber Affair (1947).

Arriving on the same train as Victoria is Burke Devlin. Like many male characters in Gothic Romances, he's darkly attractive, but obviously has some kind of secret in his past. Adding to the intrigue is the fact that Roger is upset when he learns Burke is back in Collinsport.

Mitchell Ryan as Burke Devlin, ruggedly handsome antihero.

Mention should be made of Carolyn Stoddard, Elizabeth's daughter, and her boyfriend, Joe Haskell. Joe wants to marry her, but Carolyn is reluctant. She also seems to be interested in Burke.

Nancy Barrett as Carolyn Stoddard. Women in nightgowns are a staple of Gothic Romances.

Joel Crothers as Joe Haskell, in a happy mood.

Rounding out the list of major characters are Sam Evans, an artist who appears to know something about the trouble between Roger and Burke, and his daughter Maggie, waitress at the local diner.

Kathryn Leigh Scott, in an obvious blonde wig, greets Victoria at the diner, and provides exposition for the audience.

Mark Allen as Sam Evans, who drinks a lot at the Blue Whale, which seems to be the only place to get booze in Collinsport.

After only six episodes, counting today's, we've already got a lot of mysteries. Who were Victoria's parents? Why does Elizabeth want her to work at Collinwood? Where has Burke been for several years? Why did he return to Collinsport? Why is Roger unhappy to know he's around? What does Sam know about the situation? What happened to Elizabeth's husband? Why hasn't she left the estate since he vanished? What's in the locked room in the basement?

Besides all this stuff, we've got subtle hints of the supernatural. Victoria hears unexplained sobbing sounds in the middle of the night. David claims that ghosts told him to send Victoria away. Sam tells her that Collinwood is haunted by Josette, a French woman who leapt to her death from a cliff called Widow's Hill nearly two centuries ago. Whether the ghosts will turn out to be real or not remains to be seen.

It's also unknown whether this offbeat soap opera will stick around for any length of time. It's a production of ABC (American Broadcasting Company), which is something of an upstart network, much newer than CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) and NBC (National Broadcasting Company.) In my neck of the woods, Dark Shadows shows up at four o'clock in the afternoon, and faces competition from well-established programs on the other networks.

This CBS soap opera has been on the air since 1954.

On NBC, we have The Match Game, which has been running since 1962, and is now being broadcast in color.

If none of this appeals to you, you could always read a book.

Let's see; beautiful woman with a spooky house in the background, one light in the window; must be a Gothic Romance. And guess what? My sources in the publishing world tell me that Cassandra Knye is actually the team of New Wave SF writers Thomas M. Disch and John Sladek cashing in on the trend.

If you don't feel like watching TV or reading, tune in to KGJ, our radio station! Nothing but the hits!

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[March 16, 1966] Sometimes Older is not Better (Mystery and Imagination)

March 16, 2021 Kris Vyas-Myall Leave a comment

by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Will He Get It, Son?

And we’re off! We are officially in general election season as British Prime Minister Harold Wilson hopes to gain an increased majority for his Labour government.

Harold Wilson meeting miners in the ’64 election campaign

Wilson is touting his achievements of helping to bring about social equality by such measures as the repeal of the rent act, moving towards comprehensive education and the race relations act.
Heath, on the other hand, has been concentrating “equality of opportunity” proposing to put more restrictions on unions to strike, reforming welfare to target the most in need, controlling immigration and entering the EEC.

Labour is, however, also using their budget preview to make the economic case for getting an increased majority, pushing for an increase in exports, making it easier for people to get mortgages and a plan to introduce decimal coinage by 1971.

Edward Heath campaigning in his own constituency

The Conservative’s main objection is that these measures will likely result in a weakening in pound sterling which should be the government’s first priority.

The other main flash point is over the Rhodesian crisis. Whilst Heath wants to resume talks with Ian Smith’s government and stop economic sanctions, Wilson believes that only keeping up pressure will end their racist policies.

Former Avenger, Honor Blackman, campaigning for Liberal candidates in London

The biggest question remains what will happen to the Liberal vote that seems to be in decline. With in-fighting and a lack of funds a survey has suggested up to 35% of voters are now undecided. Will these middle-of-the-road and anti-establishment voters be more interested in Mr Wilson’s interventionism or Mr. Heath’s free market approach?

Mr. Heath doesn’t appear to be helping himself so far on the campaign trail, not being able answer legitimate criticism. For example, when asked about one of his candidates being accused of taking funds from a racist organization and making inflammatory speeches, the Conservative leader simply responded that he had made his views clear and local MPs were allowed their own opinions.

Christopher Soames, Conservative MP for Bedford, (L) & Brian Parkyn, Labour candidate (R)

For myself I am out campaigning for Labour candidate Brian Parkyn to attempt to unseat Conservative Christopher Soames. All of us in the local party know it will be an uphill struggle. Soames is Shadow Foreign Secretary and Bedford has been almost continually Conservative since 1922 with a brief one term Labour MP during the 1945 landslide winning by just 288 votes.

But we still all fired up for this campaign. For many of us it is about trying to move the country forward whilst the current Conservative policies seem more interested in returning us to Victorian era.

This brings me to ABC’s latest television series, which is distinctly Victorian and is definitely not the better for it.

Mystery and Imagination

The idea behind Mystery and Imagination seems obvious. ABC’s Armchair Theatre has been a successful fixture of the ITV lineups for the last ten years showcasing a number of great plays (including the pilot of Out of This World). However, it can only run for so many episodes a year and something needs to fill the slot for the other half of the year. Last year we had a combination of mystery and suspense anthology series, none of which seemed to capture the public’s imagination.

SFF anthology series such as Out of the Unknown and import The Twilight Zone have been critical successes. Even Doctor Who to a certain extent works on an anthology format, simply having the regulars go into totally new situations each week thanks to the TARDIS. At the same time gothic horror is doing well at the cinema thanks to Hammer and Amicus productions.

Fontana’s tie-in Mystery & Imagination Anthology — Fontana’s tie-in Anthology

And Mystery and Imagination seems to have been a ratings success, with a second set of stories commissioned for later in the year. They even have released a book with a selection of stories related to the series.

However, as an audio-visual experience it was terrible. I found it even less watchable than ABC’s SF thriller, Undermind, they aired last summer (one of the few pieces of British speculative television I gave up on before the conclusion). This had all the ingredients to make something I would adore. So, let us look at the ways it went wrong:

Failure of Imagination 1: Richard Beckett

David Buck as Richard Beckett in Fall of The House of Usher

The use of a regular character to go through the series is, in itself, not a bad idea. Much like with Doctor Who, it allows for a connective thread and a reason to keep watching week to week.

The problem in this show is they do not seem to know what to do with him. Sometimes he arrives and is a passive observer of what happens, sometimes he gets involved, others he just does a Rod Serling style frame to the tale. None of these arrangements prove satisfactory. It possibly doesn’t help that David Buck does not have magnetism of either Serling or Hartnell to draw us through the tale.

But perhaps a bigger problem is that he is not allowed to develop from his adventures. Whilst The Doctor is not the same person in Ancient Rome as he is when he is trying to murder a caveman, Beckett feels like he is cut from the same cloth throughout these episodes. He is merely a foppish idiot stumbling between weird circumstances and adds nothing whether he is in the tale or merely introducing it.

Failure of Imagination 2: Poor Direction

Whilst this may be a series of plays, I think it is the role of a great television director to bring us into the story and make us feel like we are seeing into the world that the characters inhabit. For a fantasy tale this is even more important, in order that we can have a willing suspension of disbelief.

Unfortunately, I was so far outside of these tales, I almost wondered if it was a Brechtian experiment. The shots are arranged like they are on a stage, all the actors' performances are generally pitched far too over the top (even for a gothic tale) and the pacing is glacial without being intriguing.

I was surprised to find this was a significant issue as many of the directors have done work on The Avengers which has always been very good at making the action exciting and the world seem to be more expanded than the three walls of a studio set.

Failure of Imagination 3: No Atmosphere

When making gothic horror, the most important feature is surely atmosphere. Few people would read The Castle of Otranto if it was just the mystery of death by a giant helmet. Rather it is the atmosphere that Walpole creates which makes for an intriguing reading experience.

Unfortunately, Mystery & Imagination has little to none of that. The setup feels more like I am watching an episode of Code of the Woosters, wondering if it is meant to be played for laughs. The only acknowledgement for horrific setup is the music, which is near-constant, blaring and more distracting than anything else.

Rather than terror, the only emotion it evoked in me is boredom.

Failure of Imagination 4: Unimaginative Reinterpretation

Mystery & Imagination Usher — Roger Corman’s version of House of Usher vs. Mystery & Imagination’s interpretation

Perhaps the biggest issue of all is that no real effort seems to have been made in reinterpreting these stories for the screen. The original pieces are usually very short, rich on atmosphere but not so on character and plot. If you are not able to do any good with the direction or feel, you at least need to make sure there is enough happening to fill up the 50 minutes we are meant to be paying attention. Instead characters regularly repeat themselves, wander around the same sets and just seem to be killing time until the next occurrence in the script.

By comparison Roger Corman has been spending this decade adapting Poe’s stories, but he has been combining them, changing them and giving us new ideas based on the texts whilst still staying true to their spirit. Hammer has also been at its best when it is willing to take risks with its monster stories rather than slavishly following the originals. Maybe the writers of Mystery & Imagination could try taking some lessons from the silver screen?

Neither Mysterious nor Imaginative

And so I remain fully unsatisfied by this run of episodes. Beckett will be returning later this year to lead us through another set of gothic tales, but I do not believe I will be watching. Saturday evening we will instead turn off the box after Morecambe and Wise and settle in with some good books.

May I suggest people pick up M. R. James’ original Ghost Stories of an Antiquary or Panther’s collection Tales of the Supernatural? Try reading read some of the original masters of horror and hopefully these books will scare you with quality writing, rather than merely deafen you with blaring music!

The Journey is once again up for a Best Fanzine Hugo nomination — and its founder is up for several other awards as well! If you've got a Worldcon membership, or if you just want to see what Gideon's done that's Hugo-worthy, please read his Hugo Eligibility article! Thank you for your continued support.

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Movies

[December 16, 1965] Two Creepy Terrors (Die Monster Die! and Planet of the Vampires)

December 16, 2020 Jason Sacks 1 Comment

By Jason Sacks

Last weekend I took my girlfriend down to our local drive-in theatre, the good ol' Puget Park Drive-in, to catch a delightfully moody double feature of sci fi scares. Die, Monster, Die and Planet of the Vampires are perfect drive-in fodder. Both films offer atmospheric adventures accentuated with dread and tension, presented in vivid color that adds to the fear created in each scene. We were surprised by how much we enjoyed both of these flicks and I hope I can persuade you to catch them when they come to your town.

The Puget Park Drive-in. It doesn't look like much, but it's brought plenty of thrills over the last few years.

Die Monster Die!

The first movie on our double bill was Die Monster Die! This flick, released by our good friends at American International Pictures, is apparently a loose adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft story "The Color Out of Space" and co- stars a cadaverous Boris Karloff along with Nick Adams and Suzan Farmer in a thoroughly entertaining, moody tale that has some powerful moments influenced by the horror master of Arkham, Massachusetts.

When American Stephen Reinhart (Adams) travels to Arkham, England to visit his fiancée Susan Witley at her family's strange mansion, he clearly has no idea the kind of bizarre adventure he will find there. From the moment Reinhart leaves the train, he meets surprising resistance to his getting to the Witley home. A taxi driver refuses to take his fare, a bike shop owner refuses to rent him a bike, and Reinhart is snubbed by villagers for even suggesting he wants to travel to visit his fiancée's family. The countryside around Arkham is scorched with a deep crater, and it's pretty clear the crater has left scars in the villagers' minds along with their town. Is the crater related to the fear of the pariah Witley family? As we'll soon discover, there is ample reason for the villagers' fears.

Stephen marches to the Whitley mansion on foot. When the intrepid American finally arrives at the house, he begins to understand why the villagers think him crazy for wanting to spend time there. The once-stately home has fallen into a state of deep disrepair. Its gate is rusted, plants grow wild in the yard, and the whole place seems to need a new coat of paint. This slow unfolding of deepening confusion transitions the viewer into a sense of dread about what Stephen will find at the house, and makes the viewer concerned about the people living there.

Meandering quietly into the house, Reinhart nearly stumbles over the wheelchair-bound patriarch Nahum Witley (Karloff), who tries desperately to frighten our American hero away. Karloff is wonderful here, with a deep sense of gravitas, but he also carries some real sadness, as his advanced age and significant medical problems are clearly on display. Nahum keeps his reasons vague, but his words make it clear that there are true horrors there, including dread creatures that imperil everyone. Just as it seems Nahum is ready to literally push Stephen out of his house, his lovely daughter intervenes. Susan Witley (Farmer) is the opposite of her father: welcoming, kind and optimistic.

It's obvious from the first moment we meet Susan that she and Stephen will soon find themselves in opposition to Nahum. Less obvious is the looming presence of Susan's mother Letitia (Freda Jackson), a woman seemingly at death's door who speaks to Stephen in foreboding murmurs about meteors and monsters, bewildering descriptions of seemingly indescribable objects and events that leave our hero deeply confused. Letitia's body also appears to be rotting away, and perhaps Stephen wonders if her mind is rotting as well. To show her physical rot, we get a few weird glimpses of Letitia's body, including a hand that seems to lose its flesh the longer we watch it.

Good ol' Boris Karloff, trying to scare Stephen away from his house. Run away, Stephen!

The movie cuts from Letitia to Nahum and his trusty aide Merwyn (Terence De Marney) as they wander into the basement of the mansion — and it is in this scene that the horror starts to become clear. Amidst smart set decorations of distended faces and glowing neon colors, it's clear that Nahum and Merwyn have a deep and dreadful secret, tied to the strange glowing thing locked in that basement, the thing that alternately scares and interests Nahum.

From there, the movie begins to really take off into its own creepy territory, a smart mix of Lovecraft with the darkest work of Edgar Allan Poe along with a few AIP stylistic flares. If you've seen the trailer for Die Monster Die!, you've seen the wonderfully strange monster below which indeed seems to come right from the typewriter of the great Mr. Lovecraft.

This definitely looks like something out of Lovecraft

I was legitimately creeped out by that otherworldly monstrosity and the eerie keening noise it made. As the secrets of Nahum's home become more and more evident, this monster proves to be just one of the many horrors living there. We encounter living plants, see a shockingly dark end to Letitia's life and eventually get another chance to see the great Mr. Karloff made up to be a frightening killer. By the time we witness a strongly Poe-influenced ending to the film, viewers have witnessed some real strangeness on screen.

My girlfriend and I both really enjoyed this flick. Karloff is at his classic best here, providing his character with real depth and pathos. Despite his obvious illnesses, Karloff frankly thoroughly out-acts his counterparts on the screen. Adams and Farmer are an attractive couple, but they are two-dimensional. We learn little or nothing about either one of them, and Stephen mostly exists in this film as a plot device rather than a real character. Similarly, Susan was a character with great potential as a woman with one foot in the supernatural world and the other in our human world, but she is never given much to do beyond being Stephen's sidekick.

I also would have loved to see more about the villagers' fears, and explore the meteor's impact more, but all of my complaints about depth are kind of moot here. As the front half of a double-bill, Die Monster Die! had to be about an hour and fifteen minutes long. And as a movie of that length, it triumphs. The photography is excellent, Karloff is loads of fun, and the monsters are spooky.

Planet of the Vampires

After grabbing some popcorn and jujubes, we got back in the front seat of my Mustang for the second film of the evening. Planet of the Vampires was the perfect film companion to Die Monster Die. Both movies are spooky, atmospheric tales with lovely colors and intriguing acting.

Nothing on this poster matches the movie but I didn't mind!

In fact, most everything I enjoyed about Die Monster Die! is done even better in Planet of the Vampires. The great Italian director Mario Bava (maybe best known in the US for his brilliant and terrifying debut film Black Sunday) journeys into space to deliver one of the most deeply upsetting movies I've seen in a while.

Two ships, the Argos and the Galliot, are exploring deep space together. When the rockets receive a distress signal from a nearby planet, they must land on that planet to investigate. On the way down to the planet, the ships' crews begin to go crazy, as if possessed by an alien force, and try to kill each other. The captain of the Argos, Captain Markary (Barry Sullivan), keeps his wits about himself and is able to force sanity and stop the fighting on his ship. The other ship… well, we shall soon see their fate.

The Argos lands on a strange planet. Dig that colorful sky!

Both ships land on the surface of the planet, and what a strange surface it is. Eternally shrouded in fog, with glowing rocks and mysterious sounds, the planet seems wrapped in deep mystery, and as the crew investigates the planet and the fate of the Galliot, terrible horrors begin to bedevil both crews in their ships and on the planet itself. We soon discover the bodies of the Galliot's crew, shredded and bloodied. But despite their seemingly life threatening damage, the bodies rise again and begin walking around. The bodies even go outside the spaceship and spread their terror to both crews.

Bava does a brilliant job with many elements of this movie, elements which add smartly to the viewer's deep feeling of disquiet. The astronauts' uniforms are beautiful. The cast wears well-fitting leather jumpsuits with high collars that seem practical but also strange. The cockpits of the ships are surprisingly spacious, with a lot of open space on them, which gives a strange sense of alienness to anyone used to cramped rocket capsules. The film is also deeply, eerily quiet, with just a few electronic noises to accentuate the horror. The deep silence seems to accentuate the tension, making viewers feel a deep sense of unease.

I think these uniforms are about the most beautiful in sci fi.

There's one sequence in which Bava's artistry really shines. In one intriguing set-piece, Captain Markary and his right-hand assistant Sanya (Norma Bengell) discover an enormous spacecraft which appears to have been trapped on the planet for seemingly thousands of years. Bava does brilliant work with perspective in these scenes, emphasizing the miniscule size of the humans in the midst of this bizarre alien craft. And as befits a master of horror films, Bava presents the craft as looking incredibly strange and dislocating for both the viewers and the crew. It's old and looks decayed, with paint peeling and nature taking over the edges of the ship. Their exploration leads to a fascinating deathtrap unlike any I've seen before in film. It also makes the viewer wonder, profoundly, that if creatures this large can be killed by the residents of this planet, what chance do humans have?

The giant alien on the strange abandoned ship

The creatures on this planet aren't vampires in our usual sense of the word (perhaps they're energy vampires or body possessors or something else slightly ineffable). But that lack of definition makes the creatures more frightening. These vampires are a constant, eerie threat that both viewers and crew can't quite understand. We all know a cross and stake will kill Dracula, but we have no idea how to kill these vampires. That uncertainty makes the film more frightening. There seems to be no easy way out, and the ending helps reinforce that concept.

In fact, Bava and his crew also do something delightful in this movie: they deliver a twist ending, then another twist, and then yet another twist. Each of the twists feel earned because they are well foreshadowed and yet completely surprising. I want you to be surprised, too, so I won't ruin the fun. I will say this, though. For my money the best twists are the ones that leave the viewers giggling, and my girlfriend and I laughed our heads off at the twists.

The alien planet looks spookier because of all the fog

It seems the budget for this movie was incredibly small (a piece in last month's Famous Monsters reports it cost roughly $200,000 in American dollars to film this movie in Italy). It's intriguing how director Bava worked with his international cast. There are actors from Brazil, Italy, the US and Spain, and each spoke their native languages on set. Bava's team then dubbed their lines in the local language for prints distributed around the world. Brazilians heard Portuguese, Spaniards hear the movie in Spanish and Americans in English. Because everyone spoke a different language on set, the movie has an often dreamlike feel, as if the actors are speaking around each other. That feel helps give this film its unique and wonderful energy.

And though Bava didn't spend a lot on the sets or ships, he gets real value for his lira. Maybe it's the eternal fog that makes the planet surface so compelling, or maybe the colored lights, but the planet of the vampires looked way better than it should have. I felt pulled into the mystery of this movie because of its low budget. Now I want to see more Bava films!

Driving Home
On our way to her home from the drive-in, my girlfriend and I couldn't stop laughing about all the fun we had watching these movies. There's a certain thrill to finding out a movie is way better than you expect it to be. In fact, we had that excitement with both movies last weekend and I think you will, too.

I don't care how popular they are. I love my Mustang!

Hop in your Chev, Plymouth or Pontiac and catch these flicks at your local drive-in while you still can.

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[June 24, 1965] Wasps, Warriors and Aldiss (Science Fantasy and New Worlds, July 1965)

June 24, 2020 Mark Yon 10 Comments

by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again!

Do you remember in my article last month when I summed up by saying that Science Fantasy was all new writers of limited readability and New Worlds relied on its cohort of now fairly well-established writers?

Well, the Editors were clearly listening to me (as if!), as this month they've swapped positions. We have some major changes this month in both magazines.

Let’s start with the issue that arrived first in the post this month: the July issue of Science Fantasy.

Well, it is Summer here and the latest cover by the prolific Keith Roberts reflects that.

I must admit that (for a change) I actually like the painting of this cover, although the subject matter is one I personally dislike – I hate wasps. But it does what the cover is meant to do, which is make you interested in the issue. It also refers to Mr. Roberts’s new novel, the first part of which fills this issue. More later.

Onto the editorial, which continues the discussion Kyril started last issue – which was “The job of a critic consists of knowing when he is being bored, and why", or rather that of the importance of readability when discussing or – heaven forbid! – criticising prose. In this issue we get more to the point, when Kyril suggests for the SF community “our sort of fiction has its roots firmly in the pulp magazines and since these survive by the casual, non-enthusiast readers and not by the relatively few ‘fans’, readability must be a major consideration.” I think he has a point, although the New Worlds way, currently under the guidance of Mike Moorcock seems to want to change that by producing more challenging and less linear prose than that. Some might say less readable.

He then goes on to say that science fiction is shackled by its own conventions in as much of a way as the detective novel is. He finishes with a gloomy prophecy, that “…when I look at the future through the bottom of my ale-glass I can see about as much hope for the future of science fiction as we have known it as there is for the detective-novel unless this insistence on novelty relaxes. It cannot hope to be accepted as part of the mainstream whilst bound by the conventions more rigid than the ones it claims to be destroying.”

So: we must change, or die, move on from the past to form a new future. Yet remain readable. There’s a rallying manifesto for the New Wave if ever I saw one. It’s been said before by both Kyril and Moorcock but this lays itself out clearly, presumably for those new readers.

To the stories themselves.

The Furies (Part 1 of 3), by Keith Roberts

You might have noticed my comments about Roberts in the past few months, whether under his own name or a pseudonym (I’ll come back to this later.) As I’m being favourable it must be said that we’ve seen a variety of stories in terms of style – post-apocalyptic ones, scary ones, humorous ones, and ones of Fantasy, such as the Anita stories, as well as science fiction, all of varying quality and success.

This, however, is Mr. Roberts’ first novel, in the first of three parts. There’s clearly some confidence being shown here, as it takes up nearly 100 pages of the 130-page magazine. As the cover shows us, it is a story of wasps. It begins relatively innocently. Bill Sampson, a cartoonist, has bought a building in the rural village of Brockledean, Wiltshire. He’s very happy working, visiting the local pub and generally getting on with life with his Great Dane Sek.

One day his teenage neighbour Jane Beddoes-Smythe (how British is that name?) wanders in to say “Hello”. They build a platonic relationship whilst Jane is staying in the area for the Summer holidays. During this time there are reports of attacks by wasps, which seem a little far-fetched but really of no consequence. More urgent is the global testing of nuclear weapons currently going on under the seabed.

When our heroes are attacked by a swarm of the afore-mentioned wasps, they soon find that the insects in this case are different to the normal. These are three feet in size, can fly through brick walls and windows, have a sting that can punch through steel plate and mandibles strong enough to decapitate a person. (There are some gruesome descriptions in this story to make that point.)

And if that wasn’t enough, whilst being attacked by the wasps there are earthquakes. The nuclear tests have caused them, destroying Bill’s house. When they eventually escape, they find very few survivors – it seems that whole villages have been destroyed by either the earthquakes or the wasps. Bill and Jane meet an armoured patrol car commanded by Lieutenant Neil Connor, and with Sergeant Ted Willis, the group make a run for the coast. Much of the rest of this part of the story is about their journey towards Weymouth and the challenges they face.

Even if I didn't hate wasps, this story is quite chilling. Whilst my initial impression was that it was going to be in the style of a British Horror B-movie, the story is subtler than that. Roberts sets up a British rural idyll – Sampson living a contented life in the British countryside in a converted public house – and then turns it into something horrendous. Though the added complication of earthquakes happening at the same time as the wasps appearing may be a little too far-fetched, the story is quite shocking in its depiction of the havoc caused by the wasps. Are the wasps a result of the nuclear tests, or are they just taking advantage? It’s not clear (yet.) They are fierce and clever, which leads to some discussion of insect intelligence, which may be as strange as any alien intelligence we ever encounter.

Perhaps the story’s strength is how it visualises the British rural landscape. Roberts has always used descriptions of nature in his work and the Wiltshire setting is nicely done, which makes the impact of this unusual threat all the more jarring. This is a story of 'normal' people trying to survive against adversity.

Despite the appearance of a Granny Thompson-like old lady, in the form of Mrs Sitwell, this is by far Keith Roberts' best work to date. And a great cliffhanger ending. 4 out of 5.

A Distorting Mirror, by R. W. Mackelworth

The second story in two months by Mackelworth, after his story Last Man Home in New Worlds last month. A Distorting Mirror is a story of drug-induced murder in order to climb the occupational career ladder, or at least gain access to housing. The mega-Corporation uses the drugs to determine an employee’s desires, which allows lots of weird-looking goings on and in this case causes the main character to murder his wife when he realises that a) she is competition, and b) he cannot give her what she most desires. All a bit far-fetched for me. 2 out of 5.

The Door, by Alastair Bevan

This one’s a little sneaky, as if you’ve been following closely over the past few months you may have noticed me saying that “Alastair Bevan” is actually…. Keith Roberts!

The ‘Door’ of the title is that which connects the underground Orange City with the world outside. Naylor is attempting to break through it, as it hasn’t been opened for years. A one-point, twist-in-the-tale story about what Naylor discovers once he has broken through. This is a weaker Roberts effort, which makes me think of what an inferior version of The Twilight Zone would be like.
2 out of 5.

The Criminal, by Johnny Byrne

And lastly, a very short story from Mr. Byrne. His return (Johnny was last seen with the very odd Harvest in the January/February 1965 issue) will be greeted with enthusiasm by some readers, although not usually by me, as I find his stories generally too strange for my personal tastes.

However, this very short story is more accessible. A naked man is unceremoniously dumped by a spaceship outside a supermarket. The man explains that this is a punishment because he has been found guilty of a crime. The inevitable twist in the story is who the man says has appeared on Earth as a punishment before him. This short-short story makes its point, then leaves, quickly. 3 out of 5.

Summing up Science Fantasy

And that’s it from Science Fantasy this month – a mere four stories, a bit of a shock after the seven of last month. And two of those are by the same author. But The Furies is shockingly good and may even deserve the generous space given to it this issue.

Let’s go to my second magazine.

The Second Issue At Hand

Look! No squares, blur or abstract shapes! This month’s cover, by artist unknown, has a picture you can actually recognise, and it is connected to one of the stories! It still looks pretty basic, admittedly, (compare it with those US covers you get!) but it shows some idea of y'know, relevance. That can only be a good thing, can’t it?

Having tackled the idea of “What is Science Fiction?” last month, Mike Moorcock continues his rhetoric with a debate about whether SF should be about “Space stories” anymore. It has come up in the Letters pages before. Under the title Does Space Still Come Naturally?, Moorcock uses the editorial pages to say that it has but should also make way for the ‘new’ Science Fiction, that of inner space and changing states. He sums it up thus: “Unless a magazine is to become nothing more than a collection of popular engineering articles thinly described as fiction – as has happened to at least one magazine in recent years – then it must look around for something fresh, must encourage something fresh.” I wonder which magazine he is describing? Hmm.

I’m not a gambling person, but after his comments last month, I’m thinking it must be John W. Campbell’s Analog myself. You can, of course, suggest your own.

Both New Worlds and Science Fantasy seem to be putting forward a united front on this idea of the need for fresh new ideas this month. Clearly both Editors feel the eyes of other Editors on them at the moment, and this is them setting out their respective stalls.

Moorcock takes this one step further:

A Moorcock rallying call – I'm not sure I agree with the bold statement he's making, but it is impressive.

Remember last month when I said that New Worlds seems to be relying on using its well-established repertoire of writers?

Moorcock ends with a not-so-subtle musing: should the magazine expand its size? This is followed by the point that to do so, it would have to raise its price from 2s. 6d to 3s 6d. I await the response in the Letters pages.

To the stories!

Illustration by James Cawthorn

The Lone Zone, by Charles Platt

After Mr Platt’s amusingly grumpy review of Brian Aldiss’s Earthworks last issue, we now have fiction of his own. It’s a story of inertia and decay that verges on the Ballardian. In the future we have had huge Linear Cities built, but not the population to fill them. Large areas of the cities are now Lone Zones, where abandoned people are left to fend for themselves.

The depressing drabness and sense of decay throughout makes it all feel like a city in a Communist state to me, but the Loners scavenging the buildings for food and everything they need seem like young rebellious types. At the other social extreme, we have Civics, living in an ordered world where everything they do is provided for, organised and programmed.

This story is about what happens when Johnson, a Civic, appears in the Lone Zone of Linear City 7, wanting to live like the Loners and learn about how they live. It’s not an easy choice – the last Civic that did that was hanged in a matter of days. Johnson meets Vincent, the leader of a group of Loners, and tries to tag along with the group.

This is treated with some degree of wariness on the group's part, because other Loners may see them as ‘Civic-Lovers’ and mark them as a target for attack. However, most of the story is about what Johnson discovers about how the Loners live and the deserted decrepit city where they live. It doesn’t end well.

It’s not a bad story, that basically compares the generational differences between the lives of young and old. You could see it as a metaphor story of future free-wheeling hippies versus the staid establishment, if you like. But it is all a bit depressing, and the ending reflects that. 3 out of 5

The Leveller, by Langdon Jones

Illustration by Gilmore

And now it is the Assistant Editor’s turn, with another tale of Inner Space. A man wakes up in a hospital room, aware of his surroundings but is unable to communicate with the world around him. Looking around him, he seems to have left his dying physical body. Whilst watching he finds himself talking to a range of odd creatures – a toad, then a swordsman and then to an ex-lover – in some kind of delusional psychedelic experience just before the body seems to die. The twist in the tale is as predictable as it could be. Again, not bad but nothing particularly revelatory. 2 out of 5.

The Silent Ship, by E. C. Williams

This one has a touch of Quatermass about it. A spaceship returning from Ceres crashes on Earth after no contact is able to be made with the pilot, Grasp. A representative of the firm he is working for is sent to investigate. The pilot is alive but babbling and is taken to hospital. When the ship is studied there is nothing else onboard but some silica rocks.

Tests at the hospital show that Grasp is dying and has no white corpuscles left in his body. The last half of the story shows us what has happened to Grasp. Out on Ceres he has found microscopic life in the rocks. After observing them, Godlike for a while, the ‘fleas’ (as he calls them) invade his body. Grasp is driven by the fleas to return to Earth, where the infection dies upon exposure to Earth’s microbes and kills Grasp. Good old H G Wells!

It’s OK, though I thought the idea of micro-civilizations had gone out with Superman’s Kandor. 3 out of 5.

A Funny Thing Happened, by Dikk Richardson

Oh no. Just the title… this is going to be one of those stories that tries to be funny, isn’t it? A one-page shaggy dog story that involves the Easter Island statues. Awful. 1 out of 5.

A Light in the Sky, by Richard A. Gordon

A debut story which, like a few others recently, channels Edgar Rice Burroughs or Robert E. Howard with Arabian panache before revealing something more science-fictional. It’s OK but I saw the end coming a long time before I read it. 3 out of 5.

Supercity, by Brian W. Aldiss

Ah, now that’s more like it! Good old dependable Brian. (Have I said in the last few minutes that he will be Guest of Honour at next month’s Worldcon in London? No? I am slacking!) Ah – hang on. This is a reprint, a story that was first published in 1957. The third word in the story gave it away to me, being part of the title of an early Aldiss story collection. Just to put that in perspective, 1957 was the year of the first Sputnik. (Yes, that long ago!)

This is an Aldiss story that playfully satirizes societies and plays with language. This even happens with the title, because Brian is at pains from the start to point out that Supercity is not what most readers would expect from the word – a story of Trantorian urbanisation (super-city) – but is instead su-per-city – “the art of becoming indispensable through being thoroughly useless”. It is a story of bureaucracy and how ineptitude can sometimes get you to the top of the pile. Its wryly amusing, fast paced and quite irreverent – just what you need in a Worldcon Guest of Honour!

As good as Supercity is, the issue for me here is that this is not a new story. I suspect the main reason Supercity is here is to remind us what a top-class author Brian is. (Have I said in the last few minutes that he will be Guest of Honour at next month’s Worldcon in London? Really?)

Gloriously ridiculous and yet somehow, for all of its silliness, it has a ring of truth about it. Worth a reprint. 4 out of 5.

The Night of the Gyul, by Colin R Fry

A post-apocalyptic story where some sort of devolved human meets a Boi and a Gyul who wish to travel in a Bote to Frahnts, where lies Paradise.

One of those stories that talks a lot and plays with language in a way that Moorcock seems to love, but actually doesn’t have a lot to say. Once you’ve got your head around what the characters are talking about, there’s not a lot of importance there. I lost interest quite quickly. 2 out of 5.

Book Reviews, Articles and Letters

This month there is one film review and a good few Book Reviews. There is no sign of a Science Article, though – perhaps they have died a death…

For films, Al Good examines Roger Corman’s latest take on "Edgar Allen Poe" (as it says on the back cover), The Tomb of Ligeia before looking at Corman’s work in general. Although The Tomb of Ligeia is not Corman’s best, the Corman versions of Poe’s work are better movies than our British Hammer Horror movies because they stay close to the spirit of Edgar’s writing.

George Collyn comments on Brian Aldiss’s Greybeard (not the best Aldiss has ever written), JG Ballard’s The Terminal Beach (an author in danger of disappearing into himself) and Journey Beyond Tomorrow by Robert Sheckley, which he is much more positive about.

After praising the work of Cordwainer Smith and Kurt Vonnegut, in Collyn’s opinion, Sheckley is seriously underrated, and his work, as well as that of Smith and Vonnegut, reflects the difference in reading material between UK and US readers at the moment. Like Aldiss and Ballard, they are writers prepared to push the boundaries of what we see as science fiction, unlike the majority published in American magazines. Sheckley’s Journey Beyond Tomorrow is “the most important unnoticed event of 1964 as far as SF is concerned.”

James Colvin (aka Mike Moorcock) hands in a more detailed review of The Best SF Stories of James Blish. Taking each story in turn, he eventually puts forward the idea that Blish as an author may be overrated and that other writers such as Cyril Kornbluth and John Brunner deserve to be published as frequently as Blish.

Speaking of Kornbluth and Brunner, Langdon Jones praises their stories in his review of Spectrum IV, edited by Kingsley Amis and Robert Conquest. The collection is dissected in some detail as a “good buy” collection, whilst Poul Anderson’s Trader to the Stars is dismissed as a Wild West story set in Space and Robert A Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky is a juvenile masquerading as an adult novel, and as such is “readable if slight.”

The Letters pages continue to debate the ongoing issue of what is science fiction, and therefore what should or shouldn’t be included in New Worlds. Suggestions this month include dropping the 'SF' on the cover, and sticking to traditional idioms is too limiting. The debate continues.

In terms of Ratings, no great surprises for the Star issue from April, other than it is a reprint that gets top billing. Ballard is lower than I expected, but then I thought myself that this was a lesser work. Bearing in mind what George Collyn has said about JG in his reviews this month, does this suggest that the Ballard bubble has burst?

Summing up New Worlds

Another ‘up and down’ issue, with some good and others not so. Moorcock should be praised to trying to nurture new talent, but the results are variable. I enjoyed most the Aldiss reprint, but the issue also gained my lowest rating so far for a story. It’s a good effort but a C+ overall.

Summing up

This month’s issues are difficult to compare as they are so deliberately different. New Worlds has gone for new talent and a range of stories of variable content, whilst Science Fantasy has gambled on one big story dominating the issue, with lesser efforts from Science Fantasy regulars. In the end, the dominance of The Furies means that this month’s best issue for me is Science Fantasy. It’s not perfect, but I think I’ll remember that story for a long time.

And that’s it for this time. Until the next…

Here's those Beatles chaps, celebrating the arrival of Summer with squinting eyes

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Movies

[June 24, 1964] Death Has No Master (Roger Corman's The Masque of the Red Death)

June 24, 2019 Rosemary Benton 3 Comments

by Rosemary Benton

I feel sorry for those who rely entirely on the words of critics to determine whether or not a film is worth seeing. It's so easy to miss out of some of the most absurd and fun movies out there if the viewer approaches them with too analytical a mindset. For instance, those who read The New York Time's review of The Comedy of Terror really missed out on the humor of seeing the iconic actors of horror from the 30s and 40s satirize their own legacies.

In anticipation of the June 24th release of Roger Corman's new movie, The Masque of the Red Death, I dared to take a look at an advanced review of the film from Variety Magazine. Since seeing the film after its premier in Los Angeles, I can sympathize with some of the negative points in the above mentioned article, but it still annoys me that there will be people who will avoid this new Edgar Allan Poe tribute film simply because the Variety review and others seem to be approaching it with a lukewarm reception. Yes, The Masque of the Red Death has its faults, but for a horror movie that takes itself seriously in a time when classic horror themes have become passé, this is a very competently done and memorable movie.

Prince Prospero (Vincent Price) is a malicious yet pragmatic and cuttingly frank man whose province in medieval Italy has all but succumbed to the fictitious disease, the Red Death. Although a proud and evangelical self proclaimed Satanist, the Prince is able to rationalize his beliefs in Satan as an all powerful living God by drawing direct inspiration from the morally dubious nature of humanity and the ever present suffering of the world. Taking a woman named Francesca (Jane Asher) from one of the nearby villages after she pleads for the life of her fiancé and father, Prince Prospero makes it his mission to convert her from a believer in God to a hand maiden of Satan, and consequently a hand maiden to himself as a sort of high priest to Satan.

His harsh lessons ultimately culminate in a grand celebration at his palace where his “friends” and followers within the Italian aristocracy plan to feast and revel in a masquerade. All must dress in any human like garb they wish, but per his orders none are allowed to wear red. When a lone figure arrives in towering red robes, Prince Prospero angrily pursues him. The intruder is nothing that he expected, however, and bears a message that he is horrified to hear.

Roger Corman has drawn inspiration from the dark elegance of Edgar Allan Poe's bibliography for years now. Since his production and direction of the 1960 gothic horror film House of Usher, Corman has had at least one Poe-themed film released every year, all of which have been financial successes, if not necessarily critically received. In The Masque of the Red Death Corman once again captures the grandiosity and bleak horror of Poe's writing with the aid of his favorite go-to villainous gentleman, Vincent Price.

The Masque of the Red Death is unique in Corman's work to date. In the 1950s the young and ambitious schlock producer gained a name for himself by churning out many of the low budget, drive-in titles that we grew up on – The Fast and the Furious (1954), Day the World Ended (1955), and Machine Gun Kelley (1958). Using his growing reputation as a Hollywood force who could corral the crew, shoot a film in as little as five days, and still present a profitable final product, Corman swiftly moved on to producing and directing.

His subject matter has included some very interesting forays into edgier territories within American film since the enforcement of the Hayes Code in 1934. Of particular note I would point to the agency of the female characters in The Wasp Woman (1959), the self-aware satire in A Bucket of Blood (1959), and the rage of white racists against school desegregation in The Intruder (1962). In The Masque of the Red Death the topics of the film's plot are not so much unique as they are distinct for being so well interwoven.

The screenplay is credited to Twilight Zone writer Charles Beaumont and R. Wright Campbell (who wrote the screenplay for the 1957 film Man of A Thousand Faces). Their combined effort added an immense amount of humanity and depth to the original sparseness of Poe’s writing. Although the title clearly states that the movie is an adaptation of Poe's 1842 short story "The Mask of the Red Death: A Fantasy", the film is actually a merger of “Mask” with another Poe short story from 1849 titled, "Hop-Frog; Or, the Eight Chained Ourangoutangs". Given that the story of “Mask” is so sparse in characters outside of the protagonist Prince Prospero and the plague personification in The Red Death, the film was obviously in need of other characters to flesh it out into a feature film. The end result penned by Beaumont and Campbell is so perfect that it could easily be believed that the two stories were originally written as one.

The visuals in Corman’s Poe movies are likewise a stark departure from the static and clunky cinematography of his 1950s productions. Working with cinematographer Nicolas Roag (best known for his work on David Lean's 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia), The Masque of the Red Death kept the sharp colors and excellent sets of Corman’s earlier Poe movies. Roag's artistic eye brought it above and beyond that, however. The movement of the camera and the actors achieves a flowing and poetic feel that is new to Corman’s movies. The scene of The Red Death gliding through the revelers at the climax of the film is particularly gripping, as is the creative decision to have the end credits consist of a red and black dichromatic color scheme with the credits appearing in white around slowly placed tarot cards.

It’s a pleasure to see that as Roger Corman gains momentum in the film world he is readily making use of the network of talent opening up to him. Meanwhile, those he has relied upon for previous projects, particularly Vincent Price and R. Wright Campbell, seem to be flourishing under his more experienced directorship and heavier production budgets. My final thought on the film is that as a long time fan of Vincent Price I was thrilled to see that the poor performance I witnessed from Price in The Last Man on Earth was not indicative of a downward spiral for him. While he looked old and brittle in his role as Dr. Robert Morgan – a lonely, despondent, and disillusioned scientist – Price sprang to full vibrant life in a role that really allowed him to channel his inner devil – that of a swarthy, learned, arrogant, pompous and cruel classic villain. No matter what viewers might hear in the critical response to this film, it is a work that is absolutely worth the cost of admission. Of Corman's current bibliography this is a four and a half out of five stars. If Roger Corman continues to assemble and wield his creative team this well in his future projects then he is going to become a force to be reckoned with.

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55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction