ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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More words of wisdom from our man in the Olde Country, where England swings like a pendulum do!

Custer presents his thoughts on S.H.I.E.L.D., a Doc Savage remake, and the lovely Darlene Tomkins, the star of one of my favorite sci-fi movies.


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Film historian Tom Weaver had the privilege and the pleasure to chat with Miss Tompkins . . . that lucky dog.
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Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013)

Season Three did get pretty science-fictional at times, with one of our characters marooned, after going through a portal, on an alien planet. And not being alone there! At the end of the run there were some references to a certain superhero Civil War... though the final "Six Months Later" scene was a bit puzzling, or intriguing...

I don't watch tv shows with ads live; a few things I have recorded and then fast-forwarded through the breaks, but some US networks do seem to be pushing things a bit. 43 minutes of content per hour, with the rest ads - and they still put pop-ups across the bottom of the screen sometimes. The phrase "Taking the wee-wee" comes to mind!
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Doc Savage remake (20-?)

There is a fan-edited version of "The Man of Bronze," the Ron Ely movie, floating around the internet, which cuts out as much as possible of the campy stuff, and adds an introduction to the amazing crew - instead of 112 minutes, it's just under 84, which can't be bad.

Ron Ely must have been about 37 at the time (1975 movie, he was born in 1938) - the events in the movie can't have been set earlier than the mid-thirties, I assume, since the pulp magazine didn't start until 1933. If Clark Savage Jr was active in The Great War, even slightly under-age to begin with, he would have been in his mid-thirties then, surely?
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Beyond the Time Barrier (1960

_Tompkins Talks about Ulmer, Elvis and more!

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Babes From Beyond has an interesting interview with the lovely Darlene Tompkins by Tom Weaver.


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TOM WEAVER: Leslie Parrish and Yvette Mimieux were both interviewed for the part of Princess Trirene, before either of 'em WAS anybody.

DARLENE TOMPKINS: I didn't know that, I just know that they had a LOT of people come in. I had an agent at that time and he had heard about the movie, and he sent me on an interview. I was really excited about it. The audition was in an office; a lot of the studios had little teeny offices, and you'd go in and read. The day I auditioned, it was Robert Clarke and Edgar Ulmer — just the two of them.





Q: How do you audition for a mute part like that?

DARLENE: That's right, in that case, there WERE no lines, so they would tell me things that would happen. I would have to stare out into space like I was looking at somebody, or act as if I saw somebody fall down, or saw somebody crying, or I had to look like I was in love — or whatever — while I stared into space. Well, they called me back and I got the part. I was real lucky. That was very nice.

Q: Were you still living at home at the time?

DARLENE: Yes. In fact, my mother went with me to Texas when we made the movie.

Q: Beyond the Time Barrier was shot in about 10 days, in the abandoned buildings where the Texas Centennial was held in the 1930s.

DARLENE: It was very, very desolate — those buildings looked to me like airplane hangars. We had Sunday off, and that one Sunday we could go into Dallas if we wanted. Well, I had never been there, and so a couple of people and I got in a station wagon and went into Dallas, to just walk around downtown Dallas, maybe stop and get a sandwich or something, walk through a store and then come back. We were all in Levis because we were out in the middle of nowhere. (None of us had anything but Levis.) And I want to tell you, I never realized how "dressy" that town was at that time!

To see six people walking down the street together in Levis — everybody would stop and stare. EVERYBODY! And we're thinking, "What's the problem? Why are all these people turning around?", and then one of the people I was with turned around and said, "Oh my God, we're in DALLAS! We should be DRESSED!"

We ate at a hamburger stand, because we were afraid to try to go into any restaurants — we thought we wouldn't be allowed in! "If they're looking at us like THIS, we don't DARE go in a restaurant!"

Q: Who was with you that day?

DARLENE: Just the crew, and one young man who was "Mr. Texas," a real good-looking, dark-haired guy. In the movie, he played one of the guards. Muscles — a lot of muscles! And they looked good on him, REALLY good — they got him [for the movie] because of that. He was just a nice, nice guy.

Q: Memories of Edgar Ulmer?

DARLENE: Edgar Ulmer sort of stayed to himself; most of the time, my direction really didn't come from him, it came from Robert Clarke. The love scenes, the kissing scenes and everything. Edgar Ulmer's daughter Ariann?? [who played a villainous scientist in the movie] was very nice, and Vladimir Sokoloff [playing Tompkins' grandfather "The Supreme," head of the futuristic city] was very charming, very soft-spoken. He acted like he was my grandfather, he really did. He took care of me and would want to pat me on the shoulder and talk real soft to me. A very gentle person.

One of the things that I've been asked a lot, and I really wish I knew: On the Supreme's table, are those really bowling balls? [Laughs] I always thought they were, but I can't swear to it.


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Q: And Robert Clarke, who you say directed you?

DARLENE: That's right, Edgar Ulmer didn't do that much to direct me, I felt that Robert Clarke did. That was surprising to me. Robert was such a gentleman, he never lost his cool, always nice, never raised his voice, just a wonderful human being. There was only one time I ever saw him upset, and I felt so bad about it. Remember the scene where Princess Trirene is shot? Because it was a black-and-white movie, they used chocolate syrup for the blood. So on my outfit was chocolate syrup. And they said, for the scene where Robert carries my body, "Just hang like dead weight. Throw your arms out, and just be as dead weight as you can be."





He was in the flight uniform that he had rented, the real-life flight uniform — expensive. VERY expensive. He was carrying me in that, and I'm dead as a mackerel. Edgar said CUT, and as soon as he said cut, the first thing I thought of was to sit up and put my arms around Robert so he could lower my legs. I reached up, and I got chocolate on his outfit. And he said, "Ohhh, no, no!" He set me down real gently and again, "Ohhh, no, no," and he just shook his head and walked away. And I thought, "My God, I feel so bad."

He never said another word to me again about that, never brought it up or anything, and I kept wanting to ask him, "Did you get the chocolate out?" [Laughs] But I didn't have the nerve — I thought, "Oh God, don't ask, don't ask!" — I didn't dare. I was afraid he'd say, "NO, it's there for LIFE!", so I figured I'd better not say anything and hope everybody forgot!

Q: The makeup man on the movie was an old-timer named Jack Pierce.

DARLENE: Oh, I remember Jack Pierce — he's the one who did Frankenstein [1931]. I remember him very, very serious, and sooo glad that he was working. And everybody treated him with so much respect. He really had "quite the name," him and Vladimir Sokoloff. These two gentlemen were just idolized, they were wonderful, wonderful people.

Q: How do you know Pierce was "glad to be working"? Did he come out and say so?

DARLENE: What I meant was, he was just so intent and happy about it. I don't think I've ever seen anyone so happy to be doing that craft. He really loved it, he gave me the impression that this was the important thing that there was, that this was so phenomenally important to him. As opposed to other makeup people I have worked with, people who treat each new assignment as "just another job," he was really wonderful.


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Q: And he was your makeup man?

DARLENE: Yes, he was, and I was thrilled. On that picture, I had one of the best makeup men and one of the worst hairdressers — on the same show [laughs]! Oh, she was a disaster!

I had long hair and a ponytail, and they said to the hairdresser, "Add a little fall [fake hair] to the ponytail, to give it length. We want it up high, not down at the nape of her neck." She was behind me working and she picked up a scissors, and I thought she was just trimming the fake hair.

Well, that night I found out what she had done: Because I had so much hair, long hair, she didn't know how to wrap it all together, so she parted my hair and then cut a lot of it right off! It was like a hole in the back of my head, a two-inch circle that was just stubble! Oh, God, it was bad, it was just a mess. After that, when anybody did my hair, I'd say, "Can I watch?" [Laughs] "I wanna see how it's done!"





Q: Do you happen to remember how much you were paid?

DARLENE: $350 a week. And I'll tell you another thing I'll bet you don't know: The mutants taught me how to play cribbage [laughs]! I'd never played cribbage before; I played chess and other games, but never cribbage. So they taught me that, and I really enjoyed them!

Q: You were asked to do a nude swimming pool scene in Time Barrier.

DARLENE: They saved that scene for last, and since they didn't have any access to an indoor pool, they were going to do it at night, right at the motel we were staying at. It had to be done at night because it was supposed to look like the pool was in the underground city. The motel was a two-story, and it was shaped like a U. One end of the U was a restaurant, and in the middle of the U was the courtyard with the pool.

Well, they asked me if I would do it nude, and I said, no, I wouldn't, I don't do nudes. But I said I'd wear a flesh-colored or pink bathing suit, because as long as I knew I was covered, I didn't care. They said okay. So they put a pink bathing suit on me.





I was upstairs in my motel room, getting ready for makeup and everything, and all of a sudden someone opened the door and yelled, "Fire!" and we all ran out. What happened was, in the restaurant, the flue over the stove caught fire. And, because the motel was connected to the restaurant, when the restaurant caught fire, smoke went through all the air ducts — smoke came in everywhere. We were all outside, all watching, and a couple things happened that I thought were funny.

One thing was, Texas was a "dry" state; I don't know if it still is, but at THAT time it was, so the people would bring their own set-ups. This man and his wife had gone into the restaurant and he brought his own set-up and they were having dinner . . . the place caught on fire . . . and he grabbed his bottle and ran out. He left his WIFE [laughs]! I don't know if they're still married after that! I thought that was kind of funny!

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)