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Science fiction and fantasy movies

[September 16, 1966] Is Censorship Heating Up? (Fahrenheit 451)

September 16, 2021 Kris Vyas-Myall 4 Comments

by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Once thought to have died after the Chatterley trial, it looks like the Obscene Publications Act has risen from its grave and is out for fresh blood. Its latest target? Hubert Selby Jr.’s controversial Last Exit To Brooklyn, which has finally made its way over to Britain.

Last Exit to Brooklyn — British Hardback edition from Calder and Boyars Ltd.

A favourite novel of beatniks like Ginsberg and Burroughs, it tells unvarnished tales of lives of the poorest in New York in rhythmic prose. I really liked it myself, but it was clearly going to provoke a response. Australia had already banned its import last year, and Anthony Burgess said “American books like Last Exit to Brooklyn…go about as far as fiction may be expected to go.”

What is perhaps surprising is it did not come through the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney general, but rather is a private prosecution by Cyril Black, MP for Wimbledon. A Conservative and strict Baptist, Black has recently spoken out against Premium Bonds, decriminalizing homosexual behaviour and changing Sunday trading laws.

The trial is set for next month but, whatever the result, the debate over what is allowed to be published continues. This makes a new film release well-timed, the adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451:

A Metropolitan Setup

Ray Bradbury is probably the most popular living science fiction writer, with his works being adapted for numerous television shows and even being able to demand higher rates for them than contemporaries such as Asimov, Pohl or Wyndham. There has even been an unofficial television adaptation Fahrenheit 451 which resulted in a lengthy lawsuit. However, his feature film works have been limited to the monster films of the 50s. As such there has been much excitement around putting his only adult (non-fixup) novel on to the big screen.

This is not, though, an American production, rather the result of a hodge-podge group of Western Europeans. The film is directed by French New Wave figure Francois Truffaut (most famous for The 400 Blows) with a script by French Actor/Writer/Director Jean-Louis Richard (who previously worked with Truffaut on Soft Skin). Given that we have also recently seen Goddard’s Alphaville and Marker’s La Jetee, there appears to be something about Dystopic fiction that attracts the French New Wave (maybe we will see Claude Chabrol making a version of The Drowned World in a few years?).

Unlike these productions, however, this is a British film production, made at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, with the hottest (pun-intended) British actress of the moment, Julie Christie, playing both the leading women. Already known to British SF fans for her wonderful performance in A For Andromeda, she led two of the most acclaimed films of last year, Darling and Dr. Zhivago.

Opposite her is the similarly acclaimed Austrian actor Oskar Werner. After appearing in Tuffaut’s previous beloved production, Jules & Jim, he last year appeared in both The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and Ship of Fools. Add to this an equally impressive supporting cast, we have a confluence of talent from disparate sources.

Into The Fire

aerials in opening titles — The unusual opening credits

Rather than going for a point-by-point comparison of novel to film, I want to largely consider it as a work in its own right. I will touch on some changes where they deserve analysis but let us start with what actually happens in this movie.

After the credits being read aloud over a series of vibrantly lit TV aerials we see a group of firemen travel out to a flat in what appear to be very modern tower blocks. However, there is no fire, instead they are raiding the property for books to burn. We learn that in this world reading is banned and the role of firemen is now to raid properties (largely with the aid of informants) for this contraband and then burn it.

Werner plays Guy Montag, a fireman on his way to promotion. His wife Linda (played by Christie) seems to be mostly obsessed with the interactive soaps on the TV and is regularly taking high amounts of medication. On a train he meets Clarisse (also played by Christie) a teacher who questions the world around her.

One day, curiosity gets the better of him, and Montag takes a book and begins to read it. Fascinated, he starts stealing more and more. One day he has to go to raid Clarisse’s house and finds her family have a secret library. A woman, possibly related to Clarisse, chooses to burn with the books rather than leave.

Horrified, he meets with Clarisse, who tells him he can run to The Book People, but Montag says he wants to take down the system from within. Unbeknownst to him, Linda has informed on him, and the firemen go to burn down his house. They order him to burn all his books but he keeps one and burns the other firemen.

Eventually fleeing to The Book People, he discovers each of them memorizes one book and become the living text of it so it cannot be destroyed. He does so with the book he stole and remains among The Book People with Clarisse.

Mixed Messages

The first question that arises is what is Truffaut trying to satirize with this? When I first started watching I was instantly reminded of the posters of workers I have seen from the Soviet Union. And the end with The Book People brings to my mind Anna Akhmatova’s Requiem, which survived Stalin’s censorship by by her teaching it as a spoken poem to her friends.

Montag's secret collection of books is burnt

But then there are definite allusions to contemporary capitalist culture. The profusion of television aerials appearing on otherwise picturesque houses, for instance. Further to this point about the profusion of television is the character of Linda, the soap obsessed and heavily medicated housewife. This is a dig not only at the prevalence of television, but the current phenomenon of the isolated housewife. In addition, in the shots of books burned, a number of works are shown that have only recently come out of censorship in our world.

Additionally, the self immolation scene will surely remind most contemporary viewers of the death of Thich Quang Duc, who set himself on fire protesting the treatment of Buddhists in South Vietnam.

To add to the confusion, there is a reactionary point present here. When Montag and Beatty walk around the secret library, Beatty tells him that this all started because people were getting offended, citing complaints by minority groups about Nietzsche and Defoe (also including a copy of Mein Kampf in shot). This is further enforced by the TV screen, where the host is at one point emphasizing the importance of tolerating minorities and making sure they do not feel excluded. As a tool of the repressive state Montag and Clarisse are apparently fighting against, it seems logical that we are meant to take their pronouncement as wrong.

f451 hitler mein kampf — Sometimes this film is subtle. At other times… less so

I find this is a bit of an odd statement (and I found it so when I read it in Bradbury’s novel as well) as I have not come across the NAACP or the Anti-Defamation League leading the charge of banning books. Instead, it has seemed to be conservatives (like Cyril Black) who have been leading the charge out of prudishness or political beliefs.

Perhaps it is best to see it as a general libertarian argument about censorship coming from all sides and the need to be watchful for it. However, this does make the point more of a blunt one. And this bluntness extends to other areas of the production.

Translation Errors

I have heard much about Julie Christie’s performance in this film being poor, but I would push back on that somewhat. I think she is fine in the role of Clarisse, but for Linda she works hard to differentiate her characterization, playing it in a more heightened manner. This does make sense for Linda’s role in the story but it just seemed out of place as everyone else is so incredibly sedate.

One other complaint is that the picture is dull. I found it engaging enough, but I can see where this is coming from. Partially, I think this is the sedateness in performance I just mentioned along with Truffaut’s restrained film making. Against beautiful scenery, Fahrenheit 451 can feel more like looking at a painting than a motion picture. Partially it is trying to spend much of the time conveying the experience and the joy of reading, which can mean many scenes of people just reading books.

Then it is not aided by some of the dialogue, which can feel very unnatural at times. Apparently, this is the result of Truffaut not being strong in English and so some elements did not translate well.

A Case of Self-Censorship?

Like the informing neighbour, is this film helping to censor itself?

One change from the book that I feel needs to be called out is the book that Montag memorizes — literally becomes — at the end. In Bradbury’s novel it is the Book of Ecclesiastes, but in the film it is Edgar Allen Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination. The change to a horror collection likely makes it more acceptable to a speculative fiction audience, but it is also a less interesting choice. Ecclesiastes, as many critics have noted, highlights the parallels between Montag and Solomon. If there is similar significance to Poe’s tales I cannot appreciate it.

Removing the references to the Bible means the filmmakers did not have to entertain complaints that might have arisen from both sides of the religious debate. A holy book at risk of being burnt that may upset some religious people, whilst having the person in pursuit of knowledge come to it through a book of belief might upset atheists.

But in a story about censorship, making a decision that is less brave feels disappointing and weakens the message of the film.

Accentuate The Positive

I have been predominantly critical so far, but it should be said there are some great parts to it.

Whilst a little confusing at times, the world Truffaut depicts is vivid and extremely intriguing. There are many great moments of the uncanny that are able to unsettle us. For example, the women who believe only “other people’s husbands” die in wars, or the neighbour who notes that Clarisse’s family are not really like them.

Many of the shots in it are also beautiful. One that stands out in my mind is when we see people on the monorail just silently running their hands over their bodies, as if they are looking for a connection they cannot find.

And the plot itself is engaging and pulls you through. So overall it is a good film. It is just it comes so close to being something great and reeks of a missed opportunity.

A high three stars

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Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[August 24, 1966] Fantastic Voyage lives up to its name!

August 24, 2021 Jason Sacks 8 Comments

by Jason Sacks

It’s finally here! And it was worth the wait. Fantastic Voyage has reached the big screen, and it’s spectacular.

Fantastic Voyage may be the most advertised science fiction film ever made, with intriguing articles in Life and Look, a novelization published in The Saturday Evening Post and about a zillion articles in Famous Monsters in Filmland. And despite this endless campaign – or maybe because of it – I'm delighted to tell you this audacious film deserves its media ubiquity.

Fantastic Voyage starts like a super-spy film. Genius Eastern Bloc scientist Dr. Jan Benes defects to the United States, established in a dramatic scene of Benes landing on the tarmac of a Los Angeles-area airport. However, on the journey from a Los Angeles-area airport to a safe house, the scientist is attacked by a group never identified to us but who likely are agents from the same Eastern Bloc country. During the battle, Benes receives a near-fatal brain injury, and he is rushed to a secret military base. In the base, a top-secret and nearly impossible operation must be conducted to save Benes: a journey into his own bloodstream to destroy the cause of his injury.

That initial sequence took me by surprise. The first ten minutes of Fantastic Voyage contain no dialogue and no exposition. The viewer isn’t given any context around what is happening, and the events have a surprising absence of spy thriller heroism. This isn't James Bond battling SPECTRE in Thunderball. In fact, the film cuts away from a gun battle for us to follow the scientist to the secret base. This is an audacious decision by director Richard Fleischer which keeps viewers focused on the important aspects of the film, not the extraneous fluff which seems exciting but wouldn't add any necessary drama to the film’s events.

In a delightful bit of casting, our point of view character here (named Grant) is played by Stephen Boyd. In real life, Boyd was born in Ireland and apparently was a finalist for the role of James Bond in Doctor No. Boyd resembles Sean Connery, with his rugged facial features and strong chin. The resemblance makes the next sequence of this film more fun.

Grant himself is brought to the same secret government facility in which Dr. Benes is convalescing. As viewers soon discover, the facility is buzzing like a hornet’s nest, full to the brim with important-seeming people wandering to and fro in golf carts in order to do their jobs. This agency, the CMDF, has somehow developed the ability to shrink humans to the size of a cell, and is able to inject Grant and four explorers into Benes’s bloodstream to destroy the blood clot in his brain.

The CMDF is a clever inversion of the great work NASA is doing these days: yet another government institution devoted to exploring inner space rather than outer space. Of course, users have to suspend their disbelief to appreciate the CMDF, but there's plenty of suspension of disbelief required to enjoy this movie.

The group of explorers includes a noble doctor and his brave assistant (who, as you undoubtedly know, is played by the gorgeous Raquel Welch), a stalwart pilot, and a treacherous scientist played by Donald Pleasence. None of the characters are very subtle in this movie; all are cardboard in a way reminiscent of the worst Bond pastiches. For instance, Cora, portrayed by Welch, has a moment of feminism but soon becomes a traditional kind of weak female cliché. And anyone who doesn’t immediately suspect that Pleasence's character, Dr. Michaels, will turn Benedict Arnold on the crew is simply not paying close attention.

But this is not a character movie as much as an adventure movie. We don’t expect deep characters in a film like this one, and their characterization is secondary to all the other events we witness.

Fleischer takes pains to spell out the miniaturization process and the way the bloodstream submarine works. The multistage segment in which the sub is shrunk feels a bit laborious, though the scenario seems intentionally set to remind viewers of the way our beloved Mercury and Gemini rockets work.

Padding aside, I felt myself leaning forward in my seat at the Northgate Cinemas, anxious to see what would happen as the sub was injected into Benes's body. And of course, as the color spread in Look shows us, this is when the movie begins feeling truly full of splendor. The scenes of the submarine traversing veins, arteries and capillaries are perfect contemporary action scenes for a 1966 movie. Reportedly many of these scenes were filmed in giant soundstages, with a full-sized version of the submarine along with several miniatures.

This is where the big budget backing of 20^th Century Fox makes the film much stronger. The level of detail portrayed here is impressive, with the giant, almost prison-cell-like blood corpuscles feeling like an ever-present danger.

There’s a major sequence of the film in which the Boyd character gets lost in the scientist’s lungs. As I read several times in Famous Monsters, this sequence was actually filmed in two soundstages on the Fox lot. When Boyd pierces one of Benes's lungs, the breath flings Boyd a long distance. Viewers absolutely see and feel the distance Boyd is flung. This drama would have been impossible to simulate without the giant stage setting, giving viewers a strong sense of space.

As the explorers work their ways through the body, doctors and military men watch. It’s clever how sometimes the watchers are helpless – there’s a funny series of moments when the Arthur O’Connell character, Col. Donald Reid, drinks cup after cup of sugary coffee due to his stress.

Other times the observers are active participants in the drama, as when the explorers make their way to the scientist’s ear, which demands absolute silence. When one nurse accidentally drops a pair of scissors, real chaos ensues – and delivers one of the most thrilling moments of the film.

Though much of Fantastic Voyage is predictable, its special effects, coupled with the dramatic score by Leonard Rosenman, make the voyage exciting and often thrilling. Director Fleischer, who directed the similar 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea back in 1954, has a steady hand and clearly understands how to keep the viewer engaged in the story he is telling.

Of course, not a bit of this film makes sense once you start to contemplate its ideas. Isaac Asimov’s adaptation of this movie in the February 26 and March 3 editions of The Saturday Evening Post fills in many of those gaps, and I just saw the collected version of Asimov's adaptation at my local Korvette’s. I highly recommend the novelization because Asimov addresses many issues — including naming Dr. Benes.

But logic and reason aren’t the reason to see a film like Fantastic Voyage. For sheer gosh-wow spectacle, presented in full CinemaScope glory, Fantastic Voyage is well worth your buck twenty-five admission.

Four stars.

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Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[August 12, 1966] Dr. Who And The Slightly Better Sequel (Daleks’ Invasion Earth: 2150 AD)

August 12, 2021 Jessica Holmes 4 Comments

By Jessica Holmes

We’re between series of Doctor Who on the television, but you aren’t escaping my rambles that easily. 'Dr. Who' is back on the big screen, so I ventured to the cinema to see if Daleks’ Invasion Earth: 2150 AD is any good. Directed by Gordon Flemyng and written by Milton Subotsky, this film is a follow-up to last year’s Dr. Who And The Daleks. Like the first film, this is also based on a Doctor Who serial, that being The Dalek Invasion of Earth.

To spare us all a lot of waffling, I’ll skip the play-by-play rundown. In broad strokes, it’s the same story. Dr. Who (Peter Cushing) in his Tardis goes to future London, finding it overrun by Daleks. He joins up with the human resistance, everyone goes to Bedford, the Daleks try to turn Earth into a spaceship by blowing up the core. Dr. Who hatches a plan to stop them doing that by deflecting the bomb, then boom! A volcano blows up, Daleks all die, Earth is free, Bedford gets a new tourist attraction, yada yada yada.

The plot is almost identical to the original serial. I did think for a moment about just copying my previous article and changing a few names, but it does have a few differences.

The Black Dalek no longer makes an appearance in the story, and nor does its pet, the slightly rubbish Slyther, but I didn’t particularly miss them. Most of the rebels have been condensed into one single character, Wyler (Andrew Keir), and many smaller, less important scenes have been removed to streamline the plot.

Most significant among these differences is that with Susan in this continuity being much younger than her television counterpart (with Roberta Tovey reprising her role), there is no romantic subplot.

Instead of Ian and Barbara we have a bumbling policeman called Tom (Bernard Cribbins) and the Doctor’s niece Louise (Jill Curzon). They do not have personalities. You can look at the plot outline of the original serial, scribble out each instance of ‘Ian’ and replace it with ‘Tom’, then do the same for Barbara/Louise, and you’ll get an impression of the impact these character changes have on the plot.

Actually, now I come to think of it, you also have to replace all of the cool things Barbara does in the original (like running over a Dalek with a truck) with blank space, and give all those cool deeds to whichever male character happens to be nearby at the time.

I think it would have strengthened the emotional core of the story to give Louise the romance plot (though I would also have issues with her only being in the plot for the purposes of providing a love interest). At least it would have given her something to do instead of being shunted about from one location to another in a state of total passivity. In the original, the romance subplot was a major component of giving the story emotional depth.

This film, however, is empty.

The characters might as well be cardboard cutouts, and though the film follows the plot of the serial, it’s devoid of the sense of horror and despair that the original had. In the original, it felt very much that the resistance was fighting a losing battle, one grounded in reality. They were tired, they had very little hope left.

Here? It’s all just set dressing. With characters so flat they vanish if you look at them sideways, I just don’t care what happens to them. Nobody forms any real bonds, so there’s no sense that anyone has anything personally to lose. None of the deaths land with an impact. I don’t feel like the characters care all that much, so why should I? The Daleks might as well just kill them all.

The Daleks don’t even feel particularly Nazi-like as they did before. In the original, the resemblance was strong enough that it made the Daleks feel grounded in reality, and that much more threatening. This film feels a lot more light-hearted, so I suppose there is the silver lining that the plot to turn the planet into a (groan) spaceship doesn’t feel quite as silly compared to the rest of the story.

It’s just really hard to find things all that grim when every fight scene is accompanied by jaunty jazz numbers. There are some attempts at comedy, mostly revolving around Tom, particularly when he’s hiding on the Dalek ship. It might make a child laugh, but I wouldn’t count on it.

The acting is decent enough, nothing glaringly bad, but nothing great either. Cushing is entirely wasted, having been given no real chance to show Dr. Who’s character. He exists purely to poke the plot with a stick from time to time to keep it moving. It’s all quite mechanical. Everyone’s competent, but nobody feels like a real person. In streamlining the plot, the writer has jettisoned a lot of scenes that gave the characters room to breathe.

In the end, there’s a load of pointlessly complicated nonsense about deflecting the core-destroying bomb to make a big explosion of magnetic energy that will pull the Daleks into Earth’s core. Apparently the confluence between the north and south magnetic poles is under Bedford. I am not going to even bother picking that apart. It makes no material difference. Honestly, I think it just confuses things. Stick with the volcano!

Still, it’s quite funny when the Daleks go flying through walls like something off Looney Tunes. I’ll give it that.

With all this being said, would you believe me if I told you it’s better than Dr. Who And The Daleks? It’s perfectly watchable, if you’re looking for something to do for a little over an hour and have a handful of shillings to spare. I think kids would probably enjoy the adventure. There are plenty of exciting bits such as the chase out of London, and the art team did a great job on the special effects. I particularly liked the Daleks’ flying saucer, which is a wonderful model with moving parts. The eruption at the end isn’t bad, either.

So, what’s the verdict? Well, I wouldn’t rush back to the cinema to watch it again, but I don’t consider my afternoon entirely wasted. It’s a relatively decent but unremarkable science fiction adventure that in my opinion could have been so much more.

2.5 out of 5 stars

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Movies

[July 26, 1966] Along for the Ride ( This Island Earth)

July 26, 2021 Robin Rose Graves 7 Comments

by Robin Rose Graves

Sunday night and nowhere to go with heavy rains keeping me housebound. Luckily, I was in good company, my equally single bosom friend warming the couch besides me. We split a bottle of wine as the tube lazily played before us. We weren't paying the screen much attention until red credits superimposed over a starry background displayed the title of the rerun movie of the night.

This Island Earth originally showed in theatres in 1955. Being that I was only sixteen at the time and hadn’t quite yet discovered my passion for science fiction I missed my opportunity to view it then. Later is better than never, right? I knew nothing of what awaited; I’ve yet to read the book that inspired the film and our TV guide remained folded and ignored on the coffee table. The title and design of the opening credits suggested it was a science fiction film, though of what type, I did not know. We wished to let the story sweep us away with no hint of what was to come – which meant I went in with no pre-formed assumptions of the movie.

The first hint of any unusual activity occurs right off the bat, when main character Dr. Cal Meacham’s plane fails, only to be rescued by a mysterious green light. This was the first suggestion of alien intervention in the movie, but the strangeness only continues from there.

Now at his lab, Dr. Meacham receives peculiar mail from an unknown sender. Parts and instructions to build a device called an “interociter.” Upon assembling the device, a not-quite-human face appears on the screen. Exeter, the man is called. He informs Dr. Meacham that he has passed his test, and offers him a job working with other scientists deemed worthy, with the noble goal of ending war.

This phrase rang a bell of familiarity. I had seen the chilling Twilight Zone episode “To Serve Man,” in which aliens came to Earth; in an attempt to uncover the aliens’ motivations, their book was translated into the titular phrase “To Serve Man”, promising something more noble than their true intent.

I thought, what could these aliens really mean when they say they want to end war? What was in it for them?

A windowless plane arrives to take Dr. Meacham away. Inside, the plane is empty, with no one to pilot. Dr. Meacham is curious enough to board the vehicle and allow it to carry him away. He is greeted upon landing by Dr. Ruth Adams. Dr. Meacham recognizes her as an old flame. She insists she has never met him before – at this point, my suspicion was through the roof. Mind control? I thought. Brainwashing? There was definitely more to be seen and this thought was further supplemented by the odd appearance of the assistant lab workers – all looking similar to Exeter.

Dr. Meacham notes every scientist chosen to work on this project is involved with uranium. His point being that if this project really was to end war, wouldn’t they need scientists of other specialties as well? I found myself nodding in agreement and worried that what the aliens really wanted was to build an ultimate weapon of destruction.

Together with Dr. Adams and another doctor who isn’t worth mentioning by name (for he quickly is killed off) they escape the facility, pursued by a disembodied laser I could only associate with the aliens. Dr. Meacham and Dr. Adams make it to a plane, which the former flies in an attempt to outrun the aliens. It’s then they witness their facility destroyed in an explosion, and their plane becomes trapped in a tractor beam.

This is where the movie truly got exciting.

Exeter reveals to the two surviving scientists that he is an alien (I knew it) and explains his true motivations. His planet, Metaluna, is caught in a losing war with another species of aliens called the Zargons. Metaluna is protected by a failing ionization layer. It requires uranium to fix. Here, I became sympathetic to the Metalunans and thrilled as the movie ventured out into space.

My intimate friend and I are fortunate to both be college educated women, and thus took issue with some of the “science” in this part in the movie. Namely, magnetic handles that restrained Dr. Meacham's and Dr. Adams' hands. Science was not my major, but I am confident magnets do not have that effect on human flesh.

Once our heroes make it to Metaluna, the reality of the aliens’ situation is put on display. Zargons attack the planet by guiding meteoroids into collision with Metaluna. I was simultaneously horrified and stunned by the setting of this alien world. The background was richly done and absolutely convincing.

With a nonstop shower of meteorites falling in the background, our heroes meet the alien in charge: the Monitor. All hope for a peaceful ending flies out the window as the Monitor reveals his plan to abandon the doomed planet Metaluna and instead take the Earth, brainwashing all human inhabitants into submission – starting with Dr. Meacham and Dr. Adams. Fortunately for our heroes, the time Exeter has spent on Earth has caused him to grow fond of human beings. He initially resists his order to brainwash our heroes, until a brutishly strong Mutant appears.

I didn’t know whether to laugh, scream or cry with the appearance of this bug-eyed monster. One thing was for sure, its presence jump-starts a series of intense action scenes right to the end of the film, as the doctors, accompanied by Exeter, make for a hasty exit from the dying planet, with the mutant in pursuit.

The movie ends on Earth, somewhat triumphantly (depending on which character you ask). I shan't give away anything, but I can say that I was left with a somber feeling, knowing I had witnessed something horrifically tragic. I could only be thankful this was a movie and not reality.

Except this science fiction tale did not come from nowhere. Earth’s role in the story, claims author Raymond F. Jones, was inspired by the way Pacific Islands were used as bases and transshipment points during World War II. This also explained the way human characters are utilized in the story. Our heroes do nothing heroic except survive. In fact, characters Dr. Meacham and Dr. Adams offer little to the plot except to serve as witnesses for a greater story they only know a small part of.

While some of the science veered too close to the farfetched for me, I found the storytelling to be deep and compelling, with a backdrop of brilliant special effects that still hold up a decade later! It was truly a treat for a rainy day.

Four stars.

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Movies

[July 6, 1966] Baillie's Bailiwick–the Other Castro Street

July 6, 2021 Vicki Lucas Leave a comment

by Victoria Lucas

Experimental movies on the rise

Mel and I like this little tiny independent theater off Broadway in San Francisco where we're now living. We've seen some great experimental films there, funny and not so funny. From where we live it's only a few blocks to walk, they only show films on weekends, and they don't charge a lot because it's not a tourist attraction, so it's not a big expense or far to go. Many of the movies we see are shorts, as is the one I discuss here.

I just have to tell you about a film we saw there. They show films from Canyon Cinema and other experimental shorts and foreign films. We haven't been to a mass-production movie theater I think since we met. It's been live theater, foreign films, experimental films, or nothing. Neither of us is fond of Doris Day.

The other Castro Street

Anyway, the film is called "Castro Street." Like the music of John Cage, it changed my life. Whereas Cage taught me to listen, Bruce Baillie, the filmmaker of this wonder and founder of Canyon Cinema, taught me how to look *and* listen together, immersing myself in my environment and watching it cinematically, listening to the music life makes (or whatever is in my head). There is music in "Castro Street," bits of Erik Satie, one of my favorite composers, often in my head.

Just in case you're wondering, "Castro Street" has nothing to do with the Castro Street neighborhood in San Francisco, famous home to differently sexed people whose lifestyle is still not legal and still excoriated. This Castro Street is one in Richmond, home to oil refineries and railroads.

Another still from "Castro Street"

Musique Concrete means "Found Sound"

That is what we see and hear in "Castro Street," trains and industrial facilities, but not as in a documentary. There is no narrative, no story, no voices at all, not even anything to hang a story on. Even Canyon Cinema member Stan Brakhage's 1959 film "Window, Water, Baby, Moving," at least has a birth as a bit of a narrative. This particular thing is happening. Whereas, with Baillie, nothing is happening, or, as Cage said in his "Lecture on Nothing," "I have nothing to say (pause) and I am saying it." I like nothing.

It's only 10 minutes. See if you can find "Castro Street" and watch, listen to it. How many stars for this movie? All there are. There's a new one of Baillie's out, "All My Life," and the Ella Fitzgerald soundtrack is fine, but the visuals stand alone without it.

Bruce Baillie

"24 realities per second"

About another one of his films made this year, the 2-minute "Still, Life," Baillie is reported to have written to Brakhage, "The film manages, I think, to suggest how light itself is movement, how color is movement, and how the combined play of light and color reveal that this tableau represents not only a single reality but 24 realities per second. Being is seen as transitory; everything is in the infinite process of becoming." Yes. Oh, yes.

Live long, Bruce Baillie. I'm sure you have a lot more films in you.

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[May 28, 1966] Destination The Movies (Destination Inner Space)

May 28, 2021 GalacticJourney 1 Comment

by Dana Pellebon

In my quest to expand my repertoire of sci-fi films, I was especially excited to see Destination Inner Space, currently playing in my local cinema as a part of a double feature with Frozen Alive (which I didn't have time to see). The idea of being visited by creatures from another planet is an exciting one. This movie explores what that could look like and what our reactions might be.

Opening on an underwater sea lab, the movie starts by establishing that there is important scientific work happening all around us, even on the ocean floor. An interesting cast of characters in the lab helps keep the interest up, and immediately there is tension with a new person being introduced into the mix. US Navy Commander Wayne has been dispatched to the undersea outpost because there is an unidentified object circling the lab. The researchers were already trying to approach the object to determine what it was and how to study it. The movie then explores the mystery behind what is in the unidentified object.

What is striking about this movie are the complicated relationships between members of the crew. Obvious tension between the doctors on board, and a scandal that happened long ago between the Commander and the head diver, allow for a depth in the story beyond just a creature feature. Despite some good storylines happening between the leads, there are some throw away characters that are wasted. There is an attempt at comic relief with the cook, Hong Lee. The movie treats Lee like a caricature, which is woefully out of place with the tone of the movie. This is also Sheree North's first foray back into films after spending the last 10 years on television. But she plays the Nurse, who doesn't seem to do much except bicker with Dr. Lassiter — until a surprise ending for the two of them comes out of nowhere.

While I have never been to an underwater base, what little I do know about oceans and pressure suggests that several things in the movie don't add up scientifically. Deep sea diving with minimal gear and body protection seems needlessly dangerous. Similarly, open holes to the water that serve as entrances into both the lab and the unidentified object don’t make sense. There's an open water propelled human exploration ship that at one point is slower than a diver just swimming alongside it, which led me to question: why have the ship in the first place? And there are moments of beautiful cinematography in the water with the fish and the ocean floor, which made me wish that they had been featured more prominently.

The real story of the movie involves the alien spaceship that somehow found its way to the sea floor. Sparse in decoration or life form at first, the ship is innocuous with the exception of a small door opening and releasing a hand sized cylindrical tube, and the notably chilly temperature inside the ship. When the tube is discovered by the exploratory team from the lab, they immediately pack it up to bring back for study. As any good horror movie fan knows, this will lead to disaster.

Once the tube is back at the lab, it starts to heat up in the warmer environment and a noxious gas is released, overcoming the team. Then, out from the gas jumps a human-sized amphibian fish-like creature that starts attacking the crew. It is startling (dare I say, 'impossible') that a life form could transform so fully and quickly. I would have liked to have seen a gradual transformation instead of an outright jump from tube to six foot amphibian.

The creature itself is frighteningly coherent for having spent just minutes as a sentient being on the earth. It knows to attack both the sea lab and the above ground lab communications persons. It is able to recognize what a padlock is, what it is used for, and how to lock people in a space with it. All while using fins with no opposable thumbs. This creature proves that alien life forms are definitely advanced!

It is not unusual for an actor to don a suit to play a creature such as this. But, unlike the Godzilla movies which showed the creature with a specific, characteristic gait, this creature moves not like an amphibian or fish but like a human in a fish suit. There could have been more effort to make the creature more compelling with subtle things like movement. The suit itself was well made and colorful, though.

After it wreaks havoc on the crew and ships, the Commander and head diver decide to lay a trap for the creature. At this point, I didn’t know who to root for. This creature was destructive but it also was an alien life form that didn’t have its bearings and was brought into an environment to be studied by lifeforms it didn’t know. The humans, however, needed to be able to defend themselves as the creature had killed a couple of crew members. It was a no win situation.

Weapons and eventually dynamite are used to kill the creature with the sacrifice of the head diver who had demons to exorcise from an earlier incident where he'd abandoned his crew. This time he saved the day and lost his life. The movie ends with the crew taking stock of what they are going to say to the President about this incident. It is heartening that the Commander wants not to focus on what went wrong but instead prioritizes the point that we have had contact with alien life and that we need to learn how to better communicate with them moving forward. It is a bit of self-reflection I didn’t expect coming.

Even though I had some issues with the coherence of the movie as a whole, I did enjoy watching the calamity unfold. Monster movies are not usually about depth of meaning or accuracy of science. Mostly, they are fantastical stories that make you jump from time to time. Destination Inner Space did just that. I never knew what to expect and ended up having empathy for everyone around. It was a fun flick and I look forward to more creature features!

While you're waiting for the next creature feature, tune in to KGJ, our radio station! Nothing but the newest and best hits!

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Movies

[May 14, 1966] Seeing Double (The She Beast and The Embalmer)

May 14, 2021 Victoria Silverwolf Leave a comment

by Victoria Silverwolf

Two For The Price Of One

The tradition of double features in American movie houses goes back at least as far as the early 1930's. Under the old system, theaters were forced to purchase a lower budget movie (the B film) in order to be allowed to purchase a higher budget movie (the A film.) Often, there would also be cartoons, newsreels, short subjects, and so forth.

A typical double feature from 1934.

That began to change with the court case United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. (1948.) The United States Supreme Court decided that the practice of studios owning their own theaters, and having full power over what films a theater could show, violated antitrust laws.

As a result, major studios no longer had an incentive to produce B movies. Audiences still wanted double features, so smaller studios supplied low budget films that could be shown with A movies from the big companies. Eventually, theaters started showing two B movies together.

A typical double feature from 1955.

Doubled And Redoubled

Once I saw the trailer for a double feature of horror movies that opened early this month, I knew I had to rush out and see it. It turned out that each film was, itself, something of a double. I'll explain what I mean when I discuss them in turn.

Do you prefer Horror or Terror?

Nerves Of Steele

I've spoken elsewhere about the striking British actress Barbara Steele, who has appeared in a number of horror films, particularly in Italy. Her latest starring role is in The She Beast, a British/Italian co-production, filmed in Italy and Yugoslavia.

The Italian title, which even I can translate.

We begin with pretty simple opening titles, accompanied by the usual scary music.

Simple, but at least you know you're watching the right movie.

The words Transylvania — Today pop up, setting the stage. This helps, because the first thing we see is a nifty bright yellow motor car that looks like it rolled right out of the 1920's. Add to that the fact that the driver, an older, professorial type, with gray hair and beard, is wearing the kind of shortened trousers that I believe are known as plus fours, and which I associate with golfers of the same era.

This fellow drives up to a cave and enters, where he picks up a very old book and starts reading. (It turns out that this is the man's home, complete with a skull here and there to add the proper mood.) This conveniently gives us our back story in the form of a flashback.

Cut to the late 18th century. Some folks are at an open-coffin funeral, when a young boy rushes in to say that she has taken his brother. Everybody seems to know exactly who she is; the local witch, who looks more like a monster than a human being.

Jay Riley as the She Beast. Yes, she's played by a man, under very heavy makeup.

Depending on who's talking about her, the witch's name is either Vardella or Bardella; it's hard to tell. Anyway, a typical mob of villagers, carrying torches and pitchforks and such, grab the witch and strap her into the seat of a wooden thing that kind of looks like a catapult. After driving a long metal spike through her body, which you might think would be enough punishment, they dunk her into the adjoining lake several times.

A couple of guys watch the fun going on below.

Cut to 1966. A couple of young folks are driving around in a black Volkswagen. They're newlyweds, who have decided to spend their honeymoon in Transylvania. (Obviously, they've never seen a horror movie.) They discover that a highway to Bucharest shown on the map doesn't actually exist, so they're stuck here for the night.

Barbara Steele as Veronica and Ian Ogilvy as Philip.

A local fellow directs them to the only hotel in the vicinity. It's run by a creepy guy who gives them tea with garlic bulbs in it.

That bit of goofiness gives me the opportunity to explain what I mean by this movie having a double nature. It constantly makes wild changes in mood from deadly serious to silly, as if it can't make up its mind if it's a spoof or not. This goes far beyond the occasional touches of comedy relief often seen in this kind of film, and is rather disconcerting.

Mel Welles as Ladislav Groper, the innkeeper. Hey! He was in The Little Shop of Horrors, too!

The fellow we saw at the start of the film shows up and starts chatting to them. It turns out that he's Count Von Helsing, the scion of a local family of aristocratic exorcists. Veronica jokingly asks if he knows the Draculas, and he replies that his ancestors exorcised them. We'll find out later that he lives in a cave because the Communist government took away his ancestral castle.

John Karlsen as Count Von Helsing. Hey! He was in Crack in the World, too!

Mister Groper — the surname seems to be a deliberate reference to his lechery — gets his kicks by peeking at the newlyweds during a moment of intimacy.

What the butler — I mean, the hotelier — saw.

Philip beats the guy up badly — we even see a big blood stain on the wall after he bashes the voyeur's head against it — and the couple decides to leave early the next day. Apparently, Groper fiddled with their Volkswagen, because it doesn't start at first. Once they get it running again, it turns out that the steering wheel doesn't work. They nearly run into a truck, and wind up crashing into the lake where the witch was killed.

Von Helsing rescues Philip, but Veronica appears to be drowned. Dredging up what they expect to be her body, it turns out to be the witch instead. Barbara Steele fans, among whom I count myself, will be disappointed to find out that she disappears from the film until the very end. Rumor has it that she only worked on the movie for one grueling eighteen hour day.

If I was able to follow the plot correctly, it seems that the only way to bring Veronica back is to revive the dead witch, then exorcise her and drive her back into the lake, where the body exchange can take place again. Von Helsing brings the witch back to life, but she attacks him and escapes.

The witch starts killing people. In particular, she slices up Groper with a sickle. (We've just seen him attempt to rape his niece — see what I mean about changes in mood? — so you won't feel too sorry for him.) In the movie's most outrageous joke, the sickle falls to the floor, right on top of a hammer, forming a perfect image of the famous symbol of Communism.

Comrade!

Philip and Von Helsing drug the witch into a coma, then stick her in a refrigerator. The local cops find her, so it's up to our heroes to steal her back, while also absconding with a police van. The cops have to use Von Helsing's yellow roadster. At this point, the movie becomes pure farce, with the police acting as the Kommie Keystone Kops.

Our heroes in the police van.

The cops in the roadster. Note that the same guy on a motorcycle passes them both.

After this slapstick interval, Philip and Von Helsing dump the witch in the lake and Veronica returns, apparently without any knowledge about what happened, and surprised to find herself soaking wet. Then the movie concludes with one of those Is it really over? kind of endings.

Besides failing to decide if it's a comedy or a thriller, this movie suffers from a lack of Barbara Steele. Despite having top billing, she has less screen time than any of the other main characters. I just hope that the thousand bucks she reportedly earned for a hard day's work makes up for what this mixed-up little film might do for her reputation.

Canals of Carnage

Our second feature is The Embalmer, an Italian film from last year, just now making its way to the New World.

The original Italian title, which is also easy to translate.

After a brief introductory scene showing our title character at work, we get the opening titles.

Nice blood-dripping effect.

The movie establishes the basic premise right away. Some kook, disguised in a monk's robe and skull mask, kidnaps young women and drags them to his underground lair, where he embalms them with a secret formula in order to preserve their beauty. (We learn all this because the lunatic constantly talks to himself.)

One tube of embalming fluid, coming right up!

Because the setting is Venice, the way he does this is by swimming around in the canals while wearing a scuba diving outfit and pulling his victim into the water.

What the well-dressed maniac wears, when not scuba diving.

Lucky for him, there are plenty of young women walking along the canals all alone late at night.

She should have taken a taxi — I mean a gondola.

Even though more than one woman disappears this way, the police think they just fell into the canal. Only our protagonist, the usual heroic newspaper reporter, thinks there's a killer at loose. Meanwhile, the embalmer adds to his collection.

What the well-dressed victim wears, after embalming.

After all this scary stuff, the movie slows down for quite a while, as we introduce more characters. Besides the reporter, we've got his boss, the cops, a couple of comedy relief canal workers, and a few others. A group of young female tourists shows up. The reporter starts smooching on the very slightly less young chaperone of the group pretty quickly. There's also an older woman and her nephew, who is interested in antiquities.

In one of many time-wasting scenes, aunt and nephew do the Twist.

Along the way, we'll get a hotel worker who uses a one-way mirror to spy on one of the tourists while she's undressing, and an Elvis-like singer who starts his act by coming out of a coffin. The main reason we have so many minor characters is that somebody has to turn out to be the murderer.

That reminds me of why this movie also has a double aspect. The premise of a mysterious figure in disguise, who will later be revealed as somebody we've met before, is very similar to the sort of thing that comes up in the German krimi films adapted from the works of Edgar Wallace. (My esteemed colleague Cora Buhlert has discussed these movies a couple of times.)

On the other hand, the emphasis on horror rather than mystery suggests a new kind of Italian thriller, best exemplified by the recent shocker Blood and Black Lace. Although this is a very recent subgenre of horror, some folks are calling such movies giallo films. (The word just means yellow in Italian, and comes from the fact that mystery and suspense novels often have yellow covers in Italy.)

The Embalmer has aspects of both krimi and giallo, I think, and maybe it points the way to future combinations of the two.

Back to the movie at hand. In parallel plots, both the reporter, via the canal, and the chaperone, via a secret panel, make their way to the embalmer's lair. (I forgot to mention that the nephew also found it, but paid for the discovery with his life. Oops! I gave away the fact that he wasn't the killer. Sorry about that.)

The comedy relief guys help the reporter find the embalmer's hideout. At the risk of ruining the suspense, neither one of them is the killer either.

Near the end, the movie moves along at a rapid pace, as the chaperone finds herself trapped with the embalmer, and the reporter desperately tries to save her. After a surprisingly downbeat ending, the identity of the killer is revealed.

The chaperone with one of the embalmer's companions.

There's quite a bit of padding in the film, because the plot is very simple. There's some nice black-and-white cinematography, and the climax is exciting, if you have the patience to wait for it.

Coming Attractions

Although this wasn't the greatest double feature I've ever seen, I'm sure that I'll slap down my dollar (movie ticket prices are getting out of hand!) the next time a similar one comes around. Maybe it'll even be a new color film paired with an older black-and-white import, just like this time.

Coming soon!

I understand that this two-year-old German black-and-white film will show up on a double bill with the one above it.

After your trip to the movies, tune in to KGJ, our radio station! Nothing but the newest hits!

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Comics, Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[May 6, 1966] Blaise-ing Wreckage (Modesty Blaise)

May 6, 2021 Kris Vyas-Myall 5 Comments

by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Eye Spies

Spies are everywhere these days. James Bond is now just one of many secret agents dominating cinema.

On TV you are spoilt for choice, whether you prefer John Steed, John Drake, Richard Cadell, Napoleon Solo or even Amos Burke.

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, Funeral In Berlin, Somewhere In The Night — Just a few of the spy books that dominate UK bookshelves

You can go to any bookshop and pick up the latest thriller from people like John Le Carre, Len Deighton or even by Michael Moorcock (under one of his many aliases).

But also, in real life news. A 92-page document was made public in Vancouver yesterday, detailing the allegation that George Victor Spencer, recently deceased, had been assigned to look into farms near the US border in order to find a suitable property to set up a site that could possibly have been a base for Soviet intelligence operations.

Mr. Spencer had denied these allegations and called for a public enquiry before his death. I imagine the debate about whether he was really a Russian agent or just a falsely accused man will continue for some time.

With all this intrigue happening around us, it is perhaps unsurprising that the first ever British comic book adaptation is another spy tale: Peter O’Donnell’s Modesty Blaise.

An Unlucrative Medium

Comic books have not been ones for adaptation in Britain. We did not have the 30s/40s film serials like the United States, so we did not get a Garth Conquers The Universe or The Return of Buck Ryan.

Nor is there a strong enough animation field to produce The Adventures of Dan Dare or The Rupert The Bear Show.

Whilst comics remain popular the idea that we would ever get a Roy of the Rovers or Bash Street Kids film would seem beyond remote. But Modesty Blaise has changed that.

A Pop Culture Icon

Modesty Blaise Novelization — Peter O’Donnell’s “novelization” of the film script

The first strip of Modesty Blaise was only released 3 years ago, but she has already become a massive success. So before talking about the new movie I think it is important to talk about the original strip.

Romeo Brown Strip — A Romeo Brown story in which he gets hit with a golf ball and loses his memory

At the same time as working on the beloved adventure strip Garth, the Daily Mirror further employed Peter O'Donnell to takeover Romeo Brown, their comedy comic strip about a bumbling detective, usually involved in silly situations with various young women. The quality of the strip is not that memorable, but it is there he began collaborating with Jim Holdaway.

After Romeo Brown finished, Peter O’Donnell decided to create a more serious strip where a woman would be a capable hero rather than simply an object of desire or a damsel for the man to rescue. Apparently inspired by an orphan girl he met when stationed in Persia during the war, he teamed up once again with Holdaway to create Modesty Blaise.

Modesty & Marjorie — Modesty reassures Willie’s girlfriend Marjorie that she has no romantic feelings for him.

Starting in 1963, Blaise feels like a totally new type of hero. Both Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin (her loyal sidekick) are both former criminals neither from privileged backgrounds. Modesty grew up in refugee camps in Persia and other Middle Eastern countries, whilst Willie is very much a working-class character. There is also no suggestion that she has any romantic interaction with Willie, instead they are loyal professional colleagues.

Modesty Blaise Action — An excellent action sequence where Willie rams a lorry into Gabriel’s mansion

It is not just the initial concept that is fresh, the quality of the strip feels ahead of anything else I could easily pick up. O’Donnell’s plots feel fresh and complex, varying significantly from story to story. One week she will be investigating drug running in the Vietnam war, the next dealing with psychic espionage. These are combined with characters that feel deep and real. O’Donnell’s writing and Holdaway’s art also come together to give a really cinematic presentation with a real eye for direction.

The Daily Express’ James Bond strip: A more old fashioned kind of spy story

Whilst it can often feel like comic books lag behind literature (most science fiction strips seem to be barely coming to grips with the Golden Age), Modesty Blaise often feels like it is closer to the new wave of British espionage literature. Rather than the old-fashioned heroics of James Bond, Blaise owes something to the George Smiley tales or The IPCRESS File, with a certain level of cynicism about intelligence operations.

Modesty comforts Weng after he shoots his sister

The prospects for the film seemed good at first. Peter O’Donell wrote the initial story for the film, although it was changed significantly for the screen (his novelization is based on his script rather than the finished product) with the main writer and director representing a reunion of Joseph Losey and Evan Jones, the team behind the brilliant Hammer Film The Damned.

So, I went in to see it on the first day of release quietly confident…

An Outrageous Mess

…and I am honestly not sure what I got. It is almost like every scene was made by a different director, none of whom talked to each other, and all footage edited together in five minutes at midnight.

It is quite an experience to watch and hard to believe it was ever released. Is the intention meant to be satirical? Artistic? Serious? I cannot see it particularly working with any reading.

Modesty Blaise Fashions — Just a few of the numerous outfits on display (along with her magical color changing hair)

If I were to praise anything about it, it is the look. The design work in it is beautiful, taking full advantage of being in colour to showcase bright locations and fashions. But even that gets wearying quickly. I believe Modesty changes outfit in almost every scene, only briefly wearing her iconic comic outfit for the sake of a cheap joke about how to change out of it. At times it feels less like they consider Blaise to be a spy than a model for Marissa Martelli’s designs.

Rather than the serious tone of the newspaper strip, Losey’s film has a large dose of comedy inserted into it. Some is absurdly silly, some is satiric, some is very dark. None of it really landed for me.

One of the core points of Modesty's character is how skilled a fighter she is. Here the only evidence we see of that is a really poorly choreographed fight scene. For much of the film she is reduced to being a damsel in distress. This is a common problem in British media, I am aware, but that doesn’t make it any less disappointing to see here.

Modesty and Willie discuss their romantic feelings through the medium of song.

Willie now seems to have transformed into some Alfie-like lothario in a modish bachelor pad rather than an ex-criminal who runs a pub. They also break one of the most interesting elements of the original strip by involving them in a romance. Inexplicably told through musical numbers taking place in between or during action scenes.

Gabriel was previously a Moriarty style figure with an enlarged forehead and walked with a limp. Much like Lex Luthor is to Superman, he seems designed to be the brain to match Modesty and Willie’s brawn. Yet in the film he just appears to be an eccentric, upset about any snag in his plans whilst launching rocket missiles that shoot lasers.

The movie also uses scenes from the original comic but without any real explanation or context. The opening scene appears to be taken from The Gabriel Set-Up but whilst there it is a key plot-point about a device to extract people’s secrets, in the film it appears to be an advanced printer which, in another attempt at humor, is unable to give information she requires and has no relation to the rest of the story.

At the start of this section, I said trying to get a read on what this film is trying to do is tough. As an adaptation it has barely any faithfulness. As a silly comedy the jokes are not directed well enough to land.

If it is a satire I am not sure what of? Imperialism? It is more imperialist than anything. Spy films and TV? The meta-fictional jokes don’t really make sense for that. I never thought a problem with all the espionage thrillers coming out is that they have obvious continuity errors, break out into musical numbers at random or even that they take themselves too seriously. The awful carry-on films do a better job at mockery of popular media than this.

I have heard it is trying to be artful but, honestly, I am not convinced by that either. I am fan of the cut-up approach of Burroughs, Ballard and their ilk but they do this to tell a story as a whole in an interesting way, not to make something non-sensical. Whilst we can debate the true value of Duchamp’s Fountain, I can see the point he was making. The only point here seems to be it is a plainly bad film.

The End…Thankfully

Modesty Blaise End — As the Sheikh’s troops advance on Gabriel’s stronghold, Willie and Modesty sing once again.

I do not even know if you can truly rank this on a star system. I cannot even be sure what I just watched was actually a film. The only evidence seems to be I paid money to see it in a cinema. The whole thing, whatever it is, is almost worth seeing in order to appreciate how bizarre an experience it is.

However, I come down on the side of staying at home instead. There you can spend your time reading O’Donnell and Holdaway’s wonderful comic strip in comfort. Find out if a newspaper anywhere near you is syndicating it, I hear that it has been picked up all over the world and it is one of the true greats.

Unlike the shambles Losey served up.

One Star

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Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[April 22, 1966] No Man's Land (Women of the Prehistoric Planet and Further Female Filled Fantasy Films)

April 22, 2021 Victoria Silverwolf 3 Comments

by Victoria Silverwolf

Where The Boys Aren't
With apologies to Connie Francis.

One of the more unusual themes of science fiction and fantasy is a society entirely made up of women. I won't claim to have discovered the origin of this idea, but digging deep into old bound periodicals reveals that the early feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman dealt with it as far back as 1915, in Herland, a novel serialized in her own magazine, The Forerunner. Flipping carefully through these old, dusty pages, I found out that it deals with a group of male explorers who come across a remote land populated only by women.

Maybe someday it will appear in book form. Until then, good luck tracking it down.

(If you know Perkins at all, it's probably because of her classic psychological horror story The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), which has been reprinted many times.)

Jumping forward in time, we find Philip Wylie dealing with a similar theme in his 1951 novel The Disappearance. Notably, this work not only features a world without men, but also one without women.

If memory serves, the question What Happened? is never answered.

Another important example is the novella Consider Her Ways (1956) by John Wyndham, in which a modern woman travels mentally to a future time when all men died from a virus.

It was even adapted into an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

A few years later we got a couple of examples from authors who are probably better known to science fiction fans than the general public, unlike Wylie and Wyndham.

World Without Men (1958) by Charles Eric Maine takes place in the far future, long after no male babies have been born. The women of this time discover a frozen man from the past, kept in suspended animation by the extreme cold.

They may have forgotten men, but they remembered hair dye and lipstick.

In Poul Anderson's novel Virgin Planet (1959), a man arrives on a world that has not seen one of his sex for many centuries.

He doesn't seem upset by the situation.

I'm sure there are many other examples of which I am not aware (and I'm deliberately ignoring an old story uncovered by my esteemed colleague John Boston a while ago). Let's turn our attention to cinematic versions. It turns out that we can divide them into two types.

Just Some Old Fashioned Girls
With apologies to Eartha Kitt.

First of all, we have movies about women in prehistoric times, or, in a similar fashion, primitive tribes of women dwelling in some remote part of the globe. For some reason or other, these nontechnological ladies have become separated from their menfolk, either deliberately or by chance.

The earliest example of which I am aware is Prehistoric Women (1950). The film has no English dialogue, only some kind of cavewoman language. A helpful narrator tells us what's going on. A group of tough cookies decide they would rather live without men, only capturing them when they're needed for mating. Our movie's hero teaches them the error of their ways, while taking the time to invent fire making.

Apparently the women invented makeup, hair styling, and the miniskirt.

Coming up fast on its heels was Wild Women (1951), demonstrating the other variety of primitive women flicks. In this case, the isolated females exist in modern times, somewhere in darkest Africa (although they're all Caucasians.) They run into a safari of male explorers, and hijinks ensue, as well as a lot of stock footage.

As you can tell from this poster, the movie has a much more interesting alternate title.

Slightly different in theme, but so utterly goofy that I feel compelled to mention it, is The Wild Women of Wongo (1958). Introduced by Mother Nature herself, this bizarre film deals with two primitive tribes. One consists of good-looking women and unattractive men; the other has the opposite problem. When yet another group shows up, this one made of of ape-men, the two tribes finally get together and trade partners.

Did I mention the talking parrot who provides a running commentary?

Planet of the Dames
With apologies to Pierre Boulle.

Next we have a surprisingly large number of movies in which astronauts wind up on another world full of women. The oldest one I know is, perhaps not surprisingly, a comedy.

Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953) sends the two comics to Venus. That's right, Venus. At no point does anybody go to Mars. Go figure. Anyway, the planet is full of beautiful women, and no men.

Featuring the Miss Universe contestants seems appropriate.

The same year brought us the more serious, but just as silly, Cat-Women of the Moon, in which the title characters are the sole survivors of the ancient Lunar civilization. There are also a couple of big spiders.

The resemblance of the Hollywood Cover Girls to felines is minimal.

Not to be outdone, the British demonstrated that they can make movies just as goofy as American ones. 1956 offered Fire Maidens from Outer Space, set on the thirteenth moon of Jupiter (whichever one that might be.) Adding a touch of class is the presence of classical music on the soundtrack. As you'd expect, the Fire Maidens wear miniskirts, but these are inspired by ancient Greek designs.

In the United States, from was changed to of, for no good reason I can see.

A couple of years later, we got what is probably the most expensive movie yet of this specific kind. Queen of Outer Space (1958) was written by Charles Beaumont, later to pen several episodes of Twilight Zone, from an idea by the noted playwright Ben Hecht. With those big names at the typewriter, you'd think it would be something other than just another variation on the same old theme. Not so, although Hollywood scuttlebutt has it that it was intended as a spoof. Anyway, the plot has astronauts journey to Venus, where they find a bunch of beauties ruled by a tyrannical monarch.

Contrary to popular belief, Zsa Zsa does not play the Queen of Outer Space.

Probably not last, but maybe least, the same year somebody decided to remake Cat-Women of the Moon and call it Missile to the Moon. Words fail me.

More emphasis on the giant spider, less on the feline females.

Double Trouble
With apologies to Otis Rush.

With all of that background in mind, let's take a look at a newly released film with a title that seems to promise a combination of the two kinds of movies discussed above.

Assuming anything in this poster is at all accurate, it's hard for me to see how a skirmish between savage planet women and female space invaders is the battle of the sexes.

We begin aboard the good ship Cosmos One, which looks like a golden flying saucer zooming through interstellar space. In command is Admiral David King, who provides the audience with some helpful exposition by dictating his log entry for the day.

Wendell Corey as Admiral King. Hey! He was in Agent for H.A.R.M. too!

It seems that the admiral's flagship, as well as Cosmos Two (never seen in the movie) and Cosmos Three are on their way back from Centaurus, carrying refugees from a failed colony world. (I'm guessing this is supposed to be Alpha Centauri.) We'll soon find out that the Centaurans are all played by actors of Asian ancestry. (Was the colony founded by Asian space explorers? The film doesn't say.) The crews of the starships are all played by Caucasian actors.

Aboard Cosmos One are some male officers, a couple of female communications technicians (who wear very tight trousers), and a couple of engineering guys, one of whom, to my horror, proves to be our movie's comic relief. There is also one Centauran, a young woman named Linda. (All the other Centaurans we'll meet have Asian-sounding names. Why is Linda different? Because, as we'll learn later, she's actually only half-Centauran. I guess that's why she's on the flagship.)

Irene Tsu as Linda. Hey! She was in How to Stuff a Wild Bikini too!

In the first of many painful scenes involving our would-be comedian (Lieutenant Red Bradley, if you must know), he does some clumsy flirting with the communication gals. After being rebuffed, he makes a remark about how they shouldn't treat him like a Centauran. Oops. Linda happens to be standing right there, and Bradley has to make a feeble apology for his prejudiced remark.

Paul Gilbert as Bradley, with a typical expression.

The incident introduces the film's theme of discrimination, albeit in a ham-fisted fashion. This is brought out more forcefully aboard Cosmos Three (using the same set as the interior of Cosmos One but with different actors.) The Centaurans, accusing the crew of treating them like slaves, take over the ship.

A communications officer tied up by the rebels. Later she'll reveal that she hates all Centaurans. Admittedly, this is after the mutiny, and when she has a broken arm.

The hijacked spaceship hurtles towards a star called Solaris, if I heard the dialogue correctly. (I understand there's a Polish SF novel with the title Solaris, by one Stanislaw Lem, but it has not yet appeared in English translation. If this is an allusion, it's a darned obscure one.)

Cosmos Three crashes into, you guessed it, a prehistoric planet. Among the survivors is a Centauran woman who happens to be married to one of the ship's officers. (At least not all the folks among the crew are bigots.)

From left to right, the Centauran woman, some guy with an injured head, the woman's husband, and the woman who hates Centaurans.

One of the Centauran rebels shows up and attacks the officer. It turns out to be the Centauran woman's brother. In what must be an incredibly painful moment of decision, she shoots her brother (with a plain old gun, not one of the blasters we'll see later) to save her husband.

Back at Cosmos One, Admiral King defies his commanders at home by turning back to search for survivors of the wreck of Cosmos Three. (The implied subplot of King risking his career leads to nothing, so don't worry about it.)

At this point we introduce the idea of time dilation at velocities near the speed of light, a pretty sophisticated notion for a low budget sci-fi flick. The journey to the prehistoric planet will take three months of ship time, but eighteen years of planet time. I was impressed by this plot element, but they ruin it later by claiming that the time difference has something to do with how quickly the planet rotates.

Anyway, the crew explores the planet, running into things like a giant lizard, which they quickly wipe out with a blaster. (I told you it would show up.) They also have to cross a pool of some kind of deadly liquid on a log. Unfortunately, the way this is filmed, you can tell that they could have easily walked around it.

Worst of all, the movie comes to a complete stop as we endure a comedy routine from Lieutenant Bradley. In addition to relating an anecdote that only leads up to a very weak pun, he demonstrates his supposed karate skills. He manages to do a really impressive forward flip during this scene, landing flat on his back, so I'll admit the actor is quite agile. If nothing else, I have to say that I've never heard anybody make the exact same kind of karate shout.

HI_KEEBA!

Due to all the planet's dangers, not counting the comic relief, Admiral King doesn't allow any of the other crewmembers to take shore leave. Security on Cosmos One must be pretty lax, because Linda, who is sick of being cooped up inside, escapes. She quickly gets in trouble, but is rescued by a local inhabitant named Tang. (The fact that he has the same designation as a brand of drink mix doesn't seem to have occurred to any of the filmmakers.)

Roberto Ito as the unfortunately named Tang.

Tang takes Linda back to his cave and covers her with furs. When he reveals that he had to remove her wet clothing, she slaps him silly. Not to be outdone, he slaps her back. Naturally, this leads to them smooching.

An intimate moment in Tang's bachelor pad.

It turns out that Tang is the son of the Centauran woman and her officer husband. (Remember them?) Weirdly, he's got their bodies frozen in perfect condition in an ice cave. You might think this would put a damper on his burgeoning romance, but Linda doesn't seem too upset.

The folks on Cosmos One are worried about Linda, so they set out to find her. We learn that Linda is actually Admiral King's daughter. This doesn't come as a big surprise, as it was already hinted at by Jung, an older Centauran man on the ship.

Kam Tong as Jung and Merry Anders as Lieutenant Karen Lamont share a moment of concern with Admiral King.

Let me pause a moment to describe a pointless scene that occurs somewhere around here. One of the communications officers puts on some cha-cha music and starts dancing in a hip-swaying manner. (Remember those very tight trousers.) Of course, this draws the attention of the lecherous Lieutenant Bradley. It's a really odd moment, that doesn't have anything to do with anything else.

Out of the blue, some cavemen we've never seen before attack Tang and Linda. The rescue team happens to be right there, and they stupidly injure Tang with a blaster. They grab Linda so they can drag her back to the ship, and Tang runs off.

Linda screams as she sees Tang leave. By the way, she's wearing a dress that belonged to Tang's mother, which is in amazingly good condition and fits her perfectly.

Oh, if you're wondering when we're going to see the women of the prehistoric planet, you might as well relax. Unless you count the female survivors of the crash landing, or Linda, there aren't any. From what I've been able to learn, some scenes involving cavewomen will be added to the slightly racier European version of the movie.

Not for innocent American eyes.

Linda isn't very happy to be back aboard Cosmos One. Admiral King eventually agrees that his daughter would be happier with Tang, so off she goes. (I forgot to mention the big volcanic explosion, courtesy of stock footage, that adds some drama, but doesn't alter the plot in any way.)

Linda temporarily returns to the ship. Note that she is now wearing the fetching mini-sarong that Tang gave her.

We then get the film's shocking twist ending, which you'll see coming a mile away. (Stop reading if you want to be surprised, which you won't be.) As Cosmos One heads out into space, Admiral King looks back at the prehistoric planet, and tells us that it is called Earth. That's right, the oldest and corniest plot in science fiction. I guess Tang and Linda are supposed to be Adam and Eve (although I don't know how the briefly seen cavemen and the unseen-in-America cavewomen figure into things.) It just goes to show you that you shouldn't monkey around with worn-out clichés.

Also not in the American version, although Tang does have a chimpanzee companion.

Well, so much for sticking with the topic of this article! The title of this cheap little picture, best suited for mocking, led me down the garden path. No tribe of primitive women isolated from men, no astronauts landing on a planet full of lonely females. I guess I'll have to wait for the next cinematic example of the genre.

Coming soon!

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Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[April 14, 1966] A New & Clear Bombshell (The War Game)

April 14, 2021 Kris Vyas-Myall 3 Comments

by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

The War Game

Not since The Chatterley Trial has there been a piece of media more debated in the UK than Peter Watkins’ The War Game. After being pulled from the air in October I finally managed to see it at the National Film Theatre last night.

Before I get into my review, I think we need to look back at how a 48-minute BBC pseudo-documentary about one of the most discussed contemporary issues became involved in such a storm of controversy. For that we will have to start by travelling back over 300 years to the fields of Culloden.

Culloden

After doing a series of well noted amateur short films, Watkins came to general attention with his 1964 BBC documentary\reenactment\drama Culloden. It is extremely hard to define precisely as it is a style I have not seen elsewhere before. Whilst going into a historic event, he presents it as if it is a contemporary documentary on the event, combining narration, action and scripted interviews with various people involved in the battle.

In itself this would be enough of a leap to get it on people’s radars, but Watkins also went further. Firstly, he used an all-amateur cast, in order to get a sense of reality into what we were seeing. Secondly, almost all the shots are done with a handheld camera, getting us further away from the idea we are watching a carefully staged play. Next, he refuses to sanitize the level of violence, both in explaining in the events and showing us the gore of those wounded in both the battle and its aftermath.

Perhaps, most radically of all, he does not give it a comfortable narrative. Among Scottish Nationalists it is often seen as the last flowering of the independent Scotland. Among Unionists it is often seen as the last rebelling of an invasion or major insurrection on British soil. This goes to lengths to show us this was a horrendous situation, where ordinary people were often press ganged into fighting, generals made an awful mess of every decision and so many suffered for pointless reasons.

It is a really affecting piece of television and received both a BAFTA and a British Screenwriters Award. So, it should be no surprise the BBC were interested in getting more work from Mr. Watkins. Though, given the contents of Culloden, they really should not have been surprised at what they got next.

A Political Game?

Watkins’ next project was to try to move away from his historical critiques (aside from Culloden, his short films include such subjects as The American Civil War, World War One and The 1956 Hungarian Uprising) to something more contemporary, a realistic account of what would actually happen if Britain were attacked by a nuclear strike, rather than the government propaganda films or SF adventure stories.

Apparently originally designed for the 20th anniversary of Hiroshima, it was then scheduled for an October broadcast, then unceremoniously pulled from our screens. The reasoning being that:

the effect of the film has been judged by the BBC to be too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting.

This has raised some question as to whether this was legitimately the reason. On the face of it this film is genuinely horrifying and, whilst the BBC has also broadcast material that could be argued to be equally harrowing (e.g., the aforementioned Culloden or their recent documentary on Belsen), there is always a difference between what has happened historically and what could happen to the viewer next week.

However, what else did the BBC expect from a project Peter Watkins would do on nuclear war? Why not demand changes earlier? Or air it in a late-night slot with a warning beforehand that it is not for those of a weak disposition?

Whilst the Prime Minister has fully denied any government involvement in the House of Commons, many people (myself included) fail to believe there is not either some political pressure put on the BBC or self-censorship on the part of Director-General Sir Hugh Carlton Greene.

Either way, some of us have been lucky enough to see the final product, thanks to a limited theatrical release. It is both exactly what you would expect and something even more amazing.

A Different Frontier

In science fiction there has been a tendency to treat the result of nuclear war as a chance for a new kind of western or sword & sorcery tale. Consider, for example Andre Norton’s Star Man’s Son or George Pal’s The Time Machine, where the destruction of civilization allows for a form of old-fashioned adventure not available in contemporary society. Even two of the bleakest post-nuclear films so far fall into this trap.

In On The Beach, the destruction of the rest of the world allows for a kind of morose luxury, as those last survivors expecting to die are allowed to choose how things would end and what they want to do with the remainder of their lives. We never see the effect of the radiation clouds coming on the survivors, instead the film merely cuts from people in the streets of Melbourne to their absence.

Whilst in Panic In Year Zero the family are already outside of the cities when the bombs fall, manage to eke out a survival in the wilderness and then are able to rejoin society afterwards. You could easily make a few changes to the script and make it about a settler family travelling west in the 19th Century.

Peter Watkin’s The War Game does not allow for any shred of optimism. The situation is that China invades South Vietnam, this in turn results in the US threatening to use nuclear weapons to stop them. In solidarity the East German government blocks off West Berlin. As tensions rise, we follow a town in Kent as they first try to cope with the evacuation of women and children from the cities and then the effect of nuclear attack on the area. It shows the full impact this may have, physically, mentally, and socially before what will probably be their inevitable demise.

In itself this would be harrowing enough, but this goes further to really ram the message home to those watching.

No Comfort, Only Fallout

War Game 7a — Resident of a housing estate being interviewed on the fire from a nuclear attack.

The first elements Watkins uses are the stylistic techniques he used in Culloden. Filming in handheld style and doing interviews with non-actors (both real members of the public being asked questions about the possible impact of nuclear attack and the non-actors being hired to act out scripted sections) there were also great touches to make this feel real for example one woman when told about needing to barrack people in her house asked if they will be “coloured”, showing the level of pessimism that Peter Watkins has for humanity and also giving a sense of realism to the film that we're watching.

Doctor interviewed on the categories of injuries in an overburdened hospital.

It takes great pains to show us that the sources for this production are based in reality, both in terms of predictions, such as NATO mock battles and expert panels, and in historical examples, particularly concentrating on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the firebombing of Dresden. What is more it makes sure to say this is modelling a better case scenario, and that the bombs used could actually be significantly more powerful.

A lorry full of corpses being driven away.

One area where I could understand some of the criticism of the suitability of the viewing of this film on television would be with some of the actual gore that is shown. This is not to say that it is gratuitous, rather it is showing the real impact of nuclear weapons on members of the general public. For example, it does not vary considerably from the images that have been shared on the victims of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

One of the real quotes used between images of nuclear attack.

It also then works to counterpose this with the standard ways in which ordinary people are used to encountering talk of nuclear war, in order to show how unrealistic and glib they are in comparison to what we see unfolding before us. This is also demonstrated in the choice of Michael Aspel as the narrator, primarily known to the British public for his commentaries on Come Dancing and The Eurovision Song Contest, helping to make someone that would usually be cozy and comforting into something terrifying. For American readers, try to imagine how unsettling it would have been if Panic in Year Zero not only contained teen idol Frankie Avalon, but also had Roger Miller playing the misanthropic father instead of noir star Ray Milland.

All of this combined gives a truly haunting impression that lasts with you long after you have finished watching it. There are so many little moments that burrow into your mind that I could use 2000 words to just list them, and I would still have many sections left to describe. Whether it is the Christmas Church Service at the refugee camp, seagulls squawking as people are shot, or a nurse breaking down as she tries to discuss casualties, it is hard to go away unaffected by the experience.

Critical Targets

An “expert” cut to for further explanations.

There have many criticisms launched at The War Game, so I want to spend some time addressing a few of them.

The first of these is factual. Whilst Watkins and his team have gone to great lengths to ensure a realistic portrayal of a nuclear attack on Britain, there has still been criticism of their predictions. One in particular is that a nuclear attack would not likely take place in such a short space of time, allowing people time to prepare and civil defense authorities to carry out their duties fully.

The response to this is surely to look at the Cuban Missile Crisis a few years ago. Though it is true that it did evolve over some time and we did come perilously close to nuclear war, none of these plans were instituted. As such the preparations will likely only start when it is too late. Further, The War Game goes to great lengths to show that even those able to carry out these plans would not be helped in the long term.

Policemen shooting people with more than 50% burns to alleviate hospital pressure.

Another is that narratively it does not have enough impact because of the various tragedies piled on top of each other. For example, it has been argued, that if the sandbag defenses are ineffective, why should we care about the fact that there would be panic buying, scalping and lack of supplies? Or if millions have died, why should it bother us they would have to incinerate piles of corpses in buildings and only identify people via buckets of wedding rings?

I find this critique to be at best facile, and at worst lacking in real humanity. The fact that common human decency also gets lost, and the standard functions of civil society are so lost is what compounds the tragedy of the nuclear death and makes it so terrible. The fact that the extinction of almost all life in Britain is shown to be the inevitable result of what is unfolding does not mean what happens along the way is any less important.

Food control centre used primarily for law enforcement being raided by ordinary people.

The final area is political. I am not talking about the criticism from church groups or police about their depiction (criticisms which I do not feel are worth devoting time to) but rather the political impact on the public. The film is so unrelentingly terrifying it could well reduce sentiment in favor of nuclear deterrence on the Western side, whilst it is unlikely to be available in places like the Soviet Union or China.

My response to this is twofold. First, if there is to be a true belief in the value of freedom in the western democracies, it must allow for truth, however unpleasant. Otherwise surely the whole exercise of battling ideologies is nothing more than football teams demanding the loyalty of their local supporters.

But, more importantly, maybe this isn’t a bad idea? If the NATO nations begin to disarm, maybe others will too? Anything that could avert the destruction of humanity is surely a positive step.

End the MADness

With the war in Vietnam continuing to escalate and more nations developing their own nuclear capability, the scenario outlined in this film becomes more and more likely.

My only worry is that the limited theatrical release will limit the impact this essential piece of cinema could have had. It is one I would want to be shown everywhere, from schools to retirement communities, to both educate and promote debate on where the world is going.

Five Stars and a request that after you have seen it, you share the message with your friends.

We may not have much time to prevent from this becoming a true documentary…

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Galactic Journey

Category Archives: Movies

[September 16, 1966] Is Censorship Heating Up? (Fahrenheit 451)

[August 24, 1966] Fantastic Voyage lives up to its name!

[August 12, 1966] Dr. Who And The Slightly Better Sequel (Daleks’ Invasion Earth: 2150 AD)

[July 26, 1966] Along for the Ride ( This Island Earth)

[July 6, 1966] Baillie's Bailiwick–the Other Castro Street

[May 28, 1966] Destination The Movies (Destination Inner Space)

[May 14, 1966] Seeing Double (The She Beast and The Embalmer)

[May 6, 1966] Blaise-ing Wreckage (Modesty Blaise)

[April 22, 1966] No Man's Land (Women of the Prehistoric Planet and Further Female Filled Fantasy Films)

[April 14, 1966] A New & Clear Bombshell (The War Game)

55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction