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[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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Science / Space Race

[August 16, 1967] Boxes, Big Steel Boxes: The Rise of the Shipping Container

August 16, 2022 Cora Buhlert 6 Comments

by Cora Buhlert

A Strangely Familiar Monk

A few days ago, Der Mönch mit der Peitsche (The Monk with the Whip), the latest movie in the Edgar Wallace series, premiered in West German cinemas. Director Alfred Vohrer delivers the best colour film in the Wallace series to date (the series switched to colour last year) and creates striking visuals as a scarlet robed monk stalks the fog-shrouded grounds of an exclusive girls' school. The organ-heavy score by Martin Böttcher contributes to the eerie atmosphere

However, the plot seems strangely familiar, probably because we've already seen this very same film one and a half years ago under the title Der unheimliche Mönch (The Sinister Monk). Star Uschi Glas even played a supporting role in the earlier movie.

Monk with the Whip: Uschi Glass — Sir John (Siegfried Schürenberg) and Inspector Higgins (Joachim Fuchsberger) comfort Ann Portland (Uschi Glas) after a run-in with the monk.

So has it finally happened? Has the Edgar Wallace series run out of ideas after a stunning twenty-nine movies in the past eight years? On the other hand, Edgar Wallace was a very prolific writer and much of his work remains unadapted. So maybe there is life in the old warhorse yet?

However, not just the Edgar Wallace movies have switched to colour. West German television will begin broadcasting in colour later this month to coincide with the Internationale Funkausstellung (International Radio Exhibition) in Berlin.

Magic Boxes

Meanwhile, a revolution just as significant as the switch from black and white to colour is quietly happening in a completely different sector. At the centre of this revolution is an unassuming 20 x 8 x 8.5 foot box of aluminium or corrugated steel: the shipping container.

Cargo ships may not be as glamorous as the big ocean liners and cruise ships or as impressive as a Navy destroyer or aircraft carrier, but they are the backbone of international trade. Pretty much every product from overseas, whether it's cars from Japan, import paperbacks and comic books from the US, coffee from Brazil, tea from India, canned pineapples from Hawaii or even that fanzine mailed from America, comes to you by cargo ship, because air freight is much too expensive and only reserved for the most urgent of cargos.

However, shipping cargo from one port to another takes time. Now unless there is a revolution in engine technology, which is currently not in sight, the speed of a modern ship has reached a maximum. The SS United States set The Blue Riband record for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic fifteen years ago, and this achievement is not likely to be broken anytime soon.

But the actual sea voyage is only a part of cargo transport. Freighters spend a large chunk of time in ports, because loading and unloading the cargo takes a lot of time and manpower (roughly twenty longshoremen are needed to load or unload a single freighter). Hereby, a large part of the problem is that cargo comes in all shapes and sizes. Cars are different from sacks of coffee, which are different from cans of pineapples, which are different from bales of cotton, which are different from boxes of books, which are different from bags of mail. All of these differently sized cargos must be individually unloaded, with the help of cranes, where necessary.

Loading the MV Rothenstein in Port of Sudan — Longshoremen are loading bags aboard the MV Rothenstein in Port of Sudan in 1960.

Bags being unloaded in the port of Bremen — Bagged cargo is being unloaded in the port of Bremen.

Cotton bales being unloaded in the port of Bremen — Bales of cotton are being unloaded in the port of Bremen.

Damaged coffee bag — Another drawback of breakbulk cargo is that the cargo can get damaged, such as these coffee beans spilling out of a bag in the cargo hold of a freighter.

Father of the Modern Shipping Container

The slow loading and unloading process is a constant source of frustration for shipping companies. Among the frustrated was a man named Malcom McLean, co-owner of a trucking company from North Carolina. Some thirty years ago, McLean had the brilliant idea that instead of the current time-consuming process, it would be much quicker to just load a trailer with the cargo onto a ship and then unload trailer and cargo at the destination and connect it to a tractor unit.

Eventually McLean refined his idea to load not entire truck trailers onto a ship, but simply transport the cargo in boxes of the same size that are easy to load, unload and stack, whether they contain books or shoes or sacks of coffee or bales of cotton or canned pineapples or bags of mail. And thus, the shipping container was born.

Malcom McLean overlooks his empire in Newark in 1957.

Initially, the shipping industry was sceptical about McLean's idea – after all, a box would add extra weight and reduce the available payload – and he had problems finding backers. So in 1955, he sold his share in his trucking company, bought a steamship company he named Sea-Land Corporation Ltd. and two decommissioned US Navy tankers, which he had converted for transporting containers. The first of these two ships, the SS Ideal X, disembarked on its first voyage from Newark to Houston on April 26, 1956.

Container aboard the Ideal X — Containers being loaded aboard the Ideal X for its first voyage in 1956.

The breakthrough for the shipping container and a lucrative contract for Sea-Land finally came with the Vietnam War, because McLean's containers turned out to be ideal for transporting supplies to the US troops in Vietnam.

The Container Comes to Bremen

But while McLean and Sea-Land were slowly revolutionising cargo shipping in the US, European and particularly West German shipping companies remained sceptical of this new-fangled container idea. And so it took until May of last year for Sea-Land to start a regular transatlantic cargo service and for the first container vessel, the MV Fairland, to come to Europe.

The Fairland's first port of call was Rotterdam. Her second port of call was my hometown of Bremen and this is why I was lucky enough to see the Fairland and her cargo of miracle boxes in person. A friend of mine works as an engineer at the AG Weser shipyard and was asked to stand by with a team of technicians and electricians in case there were any problems while unloading the Fairland's cargo of containers. He invited me along to serve as an interpreter in case of language issues.

Fairland in Bremen port — The MV Fairland moored in the port of Bremen last year.

And there definitely were problems unloading the Fairland, because the port of Bremen is not set up for the handling of containers and German trucks turned out to be not all that well equipped for transporting containers with American dimensions. And because containers are still very new in Europe, things like corner castings and twist-locks, which keep the container in place aboard a ship or on a truck bed, are unknown here.

Another look at the MV Fairland in the port of Bremen last year. Note the containers on deck.

The first of the 226 containers on board was unloaded without a hitch. However, disaster struck when the second container, a refrigerated unit called a "reefer container", carrying frozen chicken legs from Virginia, slipped from the hook of the on-board cargo crane of the Fairland and crashed down onto the driver's cab of a brand-new truck waiting below. Thankfully, the driver was not seriously injured. The container survived the fall as well, as did the chicken legs, though the truck did not.

While the Fairland was being unloaded, several Bremen merchants and representatives of West German shipping companies were watching the proceedings with great interest. Initially, the merchants and shipping companies were highly sceptical and the accident during the unloading of the second container did not help matters. However, when the Fairland was fully unloaded after only sixteen hours and two shifts rather than the customary several days or even weeks, depending on the size of the ship and the type of cargo, the gentlemen were intrigued.

The Container Revolution

The Fairland would not remain the only container freighter to moor at the port of Bremen. But while there was still a lot of scepticism towards the metal box, Bremen senator of harbours Georg Bortscheller (nicknamed "Container Schorse" for his championing of container shipping) and Gerhard Beier, head of the Bremer Lagerhaus Gesellschaft, the company which manages the loading, unloading and storage of cargo in the harbours of Bremen and Bremerhaven, were both convinced by Malcom McLean's idea and also saw great potential for Bremen's harbours in the introduction of the shipping container. Because if Bremen's harbour was better set up to handle containers than competing harbours like Hamburg, Rotterdam or Antwerp, container ships and the resulting business would go here. And indeed, the United States Line and the Container Marines Lines now have a regular container service to Bremen in addition to Sea-Land.

Senator Bortscheller — George Bortscheller a.k.a. "Container Schorse", Bremen's senator of harbours.

As a result, the first specialised container bridge was installed in Bremen harbour in October 1966, only five months after the arrival of the Fairland. Now container vessels could be unloaded even faster than before. Last months, the 100,000th container was unloaded in Bremen harbour, a remarkable number considering that the first 100 containers were unloaded from the Fairland only a little more than a year ago.

First container bridge in the harbour of Bremen — The first container bridge in the port of Bremen began operations in October of last year.

But West German shipping companies were also taking note. The first container vessel built in West Germany, the Bell Vanguard, was launched in March 1966 in Hamburg, two months before the Fairland arrived in Bremen. But though the Bell Vanguard was commissioned by the West German shipping company Jürgen Heinrich Breuer of Hamburg, it was chartered out to the Irish shipping company Bell Lines and it currently in service between Ireland and continental Europe.

Meanwhile, two of the biggest West German shipping companies, the Hamburg-Amerika-Linie a.k.a. Hapag of Hamburg and the Norddeutscher Lloyd of Bremen are also getting into the container business. Initially, Hapag had some of its fast freighters of the Westfalia und Nürnberg classes converted to be able to transport containers in addition to regular breakbulk cargos, while the Norddeutscher Lloyd is doing the same with Burgenstein class vessels and the brand-new fast freighters of Friesenstein class. My friend, who works at the AG Weser shipyard, is in charge of these conversions and is currently overseeing the freighters being outfitted with twist locks, plugs for reefer containers and rails to allow for moving and storing containers on deck.

HAPAG's MV Alemannia, retrofitted for container transport.

The Norddeutscher Lloyd's MV Bayernstein, retrofitted for container transport.

MV Birkenstein — The Norddeutscher Lolyd's MV Buntenstein, retrofitted for container transport.

But both companies have even bigger plans and the long-time rivals are cooperating to make them a reality. For Hapag and the Norddeutscher Lloyd are planning to order four dedicated container vessels of their own and will jointly operate them under the name Hapag-Lloyd. The first two of these ships, the MV Weser Express and MV Elbe Express, are expected to go into service next year. This is good news, particularly for the troubled Hapag, since one of their ships, the freighter MV Münsterland, is currently stuck in the Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal due to the Six Day War. It is unknown when the Münsterland will be able to return to Hamburg.

Freighters trapped in the Suez Canal due to the Six Days War — Hapag's MV Münsterland and several other freighters stuck in the Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal due to the Six Days War.

Will the container revolution continue or will it fizzle out? So far, the future is still up in the air. However, the rapid growth of container turnover in the harbour of Bremen, the fact that Senator Bortscheller has announced that a brand-new container terminal will be built in the harbour of Bremerhaven as well as the fact that big shipping companies such as Hapag and the Norddeutscher Lloyd are jumping into the container business indicate that the shipping container is not a passing fad, but here to stay.

The container does have its drawbacks. For example it endangers the jobs of many longshoremen, but overall the world will profit from the rise of the container and the faster turnover times it makes possible, because it means that goods from overseas, whether coffee, tobacco, cotton, canned pineapples, Japanese cars and radios, frozen chicken legs from Virginia, books and magazines, and yes, even the postage for that fanzine mailed from the US, will become more plentiful and cheaper. And this is something that will benefit us all.

Freighters may be the backbone of the shipping industry, but the glamour still plays a role as well, as exemplified by the Norddeutscher Lloyd's flagship, the beautiful MV Europa, which is offering both liner service between Bremerhaven and New York as well as cruises.

MV Europa in the foggy outer Weser — The MV Europa on the foggy outer Weser. However, she'll soon reach sunnier climes.

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Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[August 4, 1967] Bond Movie. James Bond Movie (Casino Royale)

August 4, 2022 Fiona Moore 3 Comments

by Fiona Moore

When Albert R. Broccoli acquired the rights to the James Bond novels, the one exception was for Casino Royale, because in 1955, producer Gregory Ratoff had bought that particular story from Ian Fleming. Following Ratoff’s death in 1960, his widow sold the rights on to Charles K. Feldman of What’s New, Pussycat? fame, and he, together with Jerry Bresler, produced and released the movie this year.

Casino Royale is advertised as a “spoof” of the Bond franchise. However, having recently watched the picture courtesy of my local cinema (The Regal in Staines) I’d argue that this was a miscategorisation. It certainly has spoof elements, but it’s best seen as an example of the surreal absurdist comedy which has emerged as an entirely new subgenre in this decade.

I can’t adequately discuss this film without revealing plot details, so consider yourselves warned.

In plot terms, Casino Royale is two almost entirely separate films, tenuously linked by a handful of scenes. The ‘first’ plot features David Niven as a retired, now celibate, British agent named James Bond, who is returned to service when all other agents are being killed off due to their fondness for sex. Bond recruits a new agent, Coop (Terence Cooper), and instigates an anti-sex training programme, thus allowing the movie to have its cake and eat it through sequences of Coop being sexually tempted but boldly resisting. Mata Bond (Bond’s daughter by Mata Hari) is recruited by her father and discovers a plot to auction SMERSH agent Le Chiffre’s collection of blackmail materials to various military forces from across the world, whose senior staff have been photographed in compromising situations.

At this point, the ‘second’ plot, starring Peter Sellers, kicks in, and it is this one which mines its source material most comprehensively. Sellers plays a professional gambler, recruited by the British government agent Vesper Lynd (Ursula Andress) to defeat Le Chiffre (Orson Welles) at baccarat at Casino Royale, using the alias James Bond. Although he succeeds in his mission, he subsequently falls into the clutches of Le Chiffre and is killed by Vesper Lynd during a surreal mind-torture sequence.

Meanwhile Mata and Bond travel to Casino Royale, where they discover the mastermind behind SMERSH, Doctor Noah, is in fact Jimmy Bond, Bond’s nephew (Woody Allen), who has become a supervillain through feelings of inadequacy. Noah is tricked into swallowing a pill that turns him into a walking atomic bomb and a free-for-all breaks out in the casino, with invasions by cowboys, Indians, seals, the Keystone Kops, a French legionnaire, and actor George Raft — the whole thing eventually blowing sky-high as the heroes fail to prevent Noah from exploding.

Certain elements of the story are indeed more or less direct spoofs, either of the James Bond franchise itself or of the wider spy series craze. The film starts with a pre-credits sequence which is just a tiny scene of Bond meeting a French agent in a pissoir, simultaneously setting up and destroying expectations of a James Bond-style pre-credits action sequence. Mata Bond’s trip to Germany places her within a stage set straight out of The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, in a nod to the huge debt the spy film genre owes to Expressionist artform. The supporting cast includes people who’ve either appeared in Bond movies or the many independent television spy series that have cashed in on the Bond craze, notably Ursula Andress but also Vladek Sheybal and promising young character actor Burt Kwouk. As in many spy series, doubles and duplicates turn up frequently. The bizarre conceit of having all the agents, male, female, and, by the end of the adventure, animals, named James Bond/007, can be construed as a sly comment on the fact more than one actor has played Bond, or even a metatextual joke about the proliferation of code-names and numbers in such series. And, of course, the villain is motivated by a sense of personal and sexual inadequacy—what spy series villain isn’t?

However, both plots reach their highest, as well as their lowest, moments when they embrace the surreal comedy ethos. Arguably this started with The Goon Show, of which Sellers was a key member, before really finding its home with audiences in the Sixties. Current examples of this genre include What’s New, Pussycat?, Round The Horne, the Dadaist stylings of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and At Last the 1948 Show. The trend is gaining strength: reportedly Paul McCartney is also a fan and is keen to adopt fantastical elements into Beatles films. So it’s not surprising, given the involvement of Sellers and Feldman, that Casino Royale would be taken in such a direction.

The picture’s surreal comedy doesn’t always work. For instance, there’s an annoyingly self-indulgent sequence which seems just an excuse for Sellers to dress up as historical characters. Others are better: Niven’s Bond, for instance, lives on an estate guarded by a pride of lions (“I did not come here to be devoured by symbols of monarchy!” protests the Soviet head of espionage), and the idea James Bond and Mata Hari had a relationship is a somehow appropriate melding of the archetypes of the male and female spy. Mata Bond stops the auction of Le Chiffre’s compromising photos by switching the projector to a war film: as if triggered, the British, American, Chinese and Russian representatives instantly all start fighting each other, in a comment on the Cold War worthy of Doctor Strangelove.

Furthermore, the surrealist aspect transforms some of the problems and conflicts that arose during its production, from potential flaws to part of an overarching psychedelic atmosphere. Orson Welles had apparently insisted on performing magic tricks on camera, but these become both a send-up of the contrived “eccentricities” of spy-series villains and a deeper comment on illusion and artifice. The title sequence, which starts out as a simple riff on Bond films’ animated credits, becomes increasingly disconcerting, the imagery including walls of eyes staring pitilessly out at the viewer, with connotations of surveillance and voyeurism.

At the climax, the presence of multiple James Bonds escalates into a scenario where literally everyone becomes the titular hero; and this, together with the recurrence of doubles and duplicates, poses serious questions about how we construct our identity in modern society. At the end, everyone dies, going to Heaven or Hell, the accompanying random images and cheery music underscoring that there can be no guaranteed rescue or happy-ever-after in the atomic age.

Perhaps the ethos of the movie is best summarised by Bacharach’s blockbusting theme song, which becomes more and more like a giddy stream-of-consciousness riff on spy picture clichés as it goes along (“The formula is safe with old 007, he’s got a redhead in his arms… they’ve got us on the run, with guns and knives, we’re fighting for our lives… have no fear, Bond is here!”). The viewer is led to acknowledge the vapidity of spy film clichés, but also to see them transmuted into something that’s less easy to define. Guided by the familiar phrases, one is tempted to search for meaning, but at the end of it, the meaning is simply what the viewer wants to make of it. Three and a half stars.

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[June 8, 1967] Rebels With And Without Causes (Riot on Sunset Strip and The Wild Angels)

June 8, 2022 Victoria Silverwolf 2 Comments

by Victoria Silverwolf

From Flappers to Hippies

Movies about young people rebelling against society's expectations have been around since the silent days. One influential example is Flaming Youth (1923), starring Colleen Moore.

No less an authority on the Jazz Age than F. Scott Fitzgerald, in later years, noted the film's importance as a reflection on the revolutionary behavior of young people during the Roaring Twenties. I was the spark that lit up Flaming Youth, he wrote, Colleen Moore was the torch.

So risqué was the movie that it was officially judged immoral in Canada, making it illegal to show Flaming Youth anywhere in the nation. Unfortunately, only a fragment of the film survives.

Several films about sheiks and flappers followed the success of Flaming Youth. Things seem to have settled down a bit for a couple of decades, what with the Great Depression and World War Two as distractions from youthful rebellion.

The theme came back with a vengeance in the 1950's. There were far too many movies about juvenile delinquents, hotrodders, beatniks, and so forth to mention. Most of these were cheap drive-in fare. A notable exception was Rebel Without a Cause (1955) with the late James Dean, a serious drama about emotionally disturbed high school students.

(I would be remiss if I failed to note that even science fiction and horror movies got in on the troubled teen craze, with things like I Was a Teenage Werewolf and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein [both 1957] all the way down to Teenagers from Outer Space [1959].)

With the recent appearance of the hippies, a new kind of film is on the horizon. As a preview of what are sure to be many similar coming attractions, let's take a look at what might be the first of a flood of movies with long hair on boys, short skirts on girls, psychedelic drugs, and groovy rock music.

Fiction and Reality

Riot on Sunset Strip is very loosely based on a real incident.

The so-called Sunset Strip is part of Sunset Boulevard, about one and one-half miles long, that passes through the community of West Hollywood, California. In recent years, it's been a hangout for hippies and other young folks, partly due to a number of rock 'n' roll nightspots with youth permits, which allow them to admit people under twenty-one years of age. The most famous of these clubs is probably the Whisky a Go Go, but a place called Pandora's Box played a more important role in what happened next.

In response to underage drinking, drug use, and traffic congestion, the city administration imposed a 10 PM curfew and laws against loitering. On November 12 of last year, as many as one thousand people showed up outside Pandora's Box to protest the restrictions and clashed with police.

Young actor Peter Fonda, son of Henry, is arrested during the protest. He'll show up later in this article, too.

Unrest continued for the rest of the year, causing the politicians to take away youth permits from a dozen of the Strip's clubs, and forcing Pandora's Box to shut its doors completely. The incident inspired the haunting song For What It's Worth by the rock band Buffalo Springfield.

The movie industry was quick to exploit the protests, with Riot on Sunset Strip showing up in theaters just a few months later.

Mimsy Farmer stars as a teenager new to the area, living with her hard-drinking, pink-haired mother. Dad has been away for some years, it seems, but don't worry; he'll show up in a bit.

Mimsy hangs out with the cool kids at a nightclub on the Sunset Strip. The film makers have the nerve to call the place Pandora's Box, but it's strictly a fictional version of the real one.

Four hippies who seduce Mimsy into their psychedelic world.

On the Strip itself, we see protestors carrying signs that say things like Rights Not Fights, Live and Let Live, Lovers Not Fighters, and Be Nice. As you can see, it's hard to tell exactly what they're demonstrating against.

The wild quartet shown above takes Mimsy to a so-called freak out in an empty mansion, where they spike her soft drink with LSD. This leads to what I believe they call an acid trip, shown as a slow-motion modern dance routine with red lighting.

Mimsy freaks out.

Up to this point, Riot on Sunset Strip has been a enjoyably silly film, with some great music from bands like the Chocolate Watchband and the Standells. After Mimsy's LSD trip, however, it takes a much darker turn. Taking advantage of her drugged condition, a group of boys rape her.

The cops show up to arrest the trespassers, and guess what? Mimsy's estranged father (former leading man Aldo Ray) is a local police lieutenant. Enraged by what happened to his daughter, he eventually beats up three of the rapists.

Aldo tries to comfort Mimsy after her ordeal.

Aldo's attack on the creeps winds up in the news, which leads to the so-called riot, which consists entirely of folks carrying protest signs. During the demonstration, Aldo stops a cop from hitting a hippie with his nightstick. This prevents a real riot from breaking out, and reconciles Aldo with Mimsy. The end.

As you can see, this doesn't have much at all to do with the real demonstrations on the Sunset Strip. It also doesn't seem to be a very accurate portrait of the hippie subculture. For the most part, it's a soap opera that tries to be hip. Watch it for Mimsy's freak out, and for the groovy music.

The Chocolate Watchband.

Hell On Wheels

A very different kind of youthful rebel showed up on movie screens not too long ago. I'm talking about the members of outlaw motorcycle gangs. A little background is needed to appreciate this phenomenon.

In July of 1947, about four thousand motorcyclists converged on the small town of Hollister, California. That nearly doubled the population of the community, and things got out of hand. Reports have been exaggerated to some extent, but it can't be denied that there was a lot of drinking and a lot of noise. About fifty people were arrested on charges of public intoxication, reckless driving, and disturbing the peace.

A famous photograph of the incident, probably staged, shocked the nation when it appeared in Life magazine.

Writer Frank Rooney's 1951 short story The Cyclists' Raid was inspired by what happened at Hollister. In turn, it became the basis for a memorable role for Marlon Brando as the outlaw biker Johnny.

The 1953 movie The Wild One offered this bit of famous dialogue, neatly summing up the nihilistic philosophy of its antihero.

Mildred: Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?
Johnny: Whadda you got?

It took Hollywood more than a decade to jump on this particular bandwagon with another film of the same type. Maybe that has something to do with the current younger generation challenging the beliefs of their elders in general. In any case, let's take a look at a new movie about rebels on two wheels.

The Wild Angels stars Peter Fonda (I told you he'd be back) as Heavenly Blues, the leader of the fictional Angels motorcycle gang. (Yes, they're obviously based on the infamous Hell's Angels. As the poster proudly informs us, members of that organization show up as minor characters.)

Heavenly Blues, in a pensive moment.

Much of the film consists of the gang drinking, smoking marijuana, fighting, busting things up, and making out with their barely clothed girlfriends. There is a plot, of sorts.

It seems that a rival gang stole the motorcycle of Heavenly Blue's aptly named buddy Loser. While on a quest to get the wheels back, Loser winds up stealing a cop's bike. The police chase him and shoot him. With the help of his girlfriend (Nancy Sinatra), Heavenly Blues grabs Loser out of the hospital, but he dies anyway.

Bruce Dern as the dying Loser and Diane Ladd as his girlfriend. The two are married in real life.

The gang holds a funeral for their departed member, propping him up with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. A bewildered minister, trying to add a note of dignity to the proceedings, has a conversation with Heavenly Blues.

Heavenly Blues: We don't want nobody telling us what to do. We don't want nobody pushing us around.
Preacher: I apologize. But, tell me, just what is it that you want to do?
Heavenly Blues: We wanna be free! We wanna be free to do what we wanna do. We wanna be free to ride! We wanna be free to ride our machines without being hassled by The Man. And we wanna get loaded. And we wanna have a good time. And that's what we're gonna do. We are gonna have a good time. We are gonna have a party.

The debate in the church. Note the bikers' fondness for Nazi regalia.

True to his word, Heavenly Blues turns the funeral into a wild party, smashing the place to pieces before the gang takes Loser's body to the cemetery. The film ends there, in properly hopeless form. The last two lines we hear from Heavenly Blues are Nothing to do and Nowhere to go.

Coming Soon

I'm sure these won't be the last hippie and biker movies to show up at the drive-in. In fact, we've already had Devil's Angels (with Mimsy Farmer again) in theaters a couple of months ago, as a follow-up to The Wild Angels.

According to my sources in the film industry, later this year more snarling motorcycles will show up in something called The Glory Stompers.

As far as hippie movies go, at the start of year we had Hallucination Generation. (Oddly, it was in black and white instead of psychedelic color.)

Next month I'll rush out to see The Love-Ins, and I hope it will be as groovy as the poster.

I'm sure there will be many more to come. See you at the movies!

Is this trip really necessary?

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Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[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 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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[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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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

Tag Archives: movies

[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

[August 16, 1967] Boxes, Big Steel Boxes: The Rise of the Shipping Container

[August 4, 1967] Bond Movie. James Bond Movie (Casino Royale)

[June 8, 1967] Rebels With And Without Causes (Riot on Sunset Strip and The Wild Angels)

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

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

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

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

[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