ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Looking for a vacation spot that's off the beaten track? Consider these exotic locations that can provide fun for the whole family!

~ Visit the perpetual Winter Wonder Land of the Himalayas! Sky down a mountain slope while racing ahead of spectacular avalanche! Hunt the elusive Yeti with an experienced guide — and a sling shot!

~ Join the crew of the first lunar mission and leave your footprints on the Moon! Enjoy low-gravity acrobatics and foot races in which you leap like a gazelle across the surface. Spacesuits provided at no extra cost!

~ Allow highly qualified scientists to shrink you down to one inch tall so you can have an exciting adventure in the basement of an ordinary house — filled with extraordinary experiences, like the Great Water Heater Flood and the Tarantula Round-Up!





Contact your travel agent for details — and have a great vacation!
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The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

I watched The Amazing Colossal Man today, and the scientists were talking about ways to reverse the growth of the giant man and return him to normal.

It occurred to me that if the scientist who wanted to restore the Colossal Man to normal height got together with the scientist who wanted to return the Shrinking Man to his regular size, they might be able to help each other.
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Destination Moon (1950)



Science fiction gets the deluxe treatment: a big-budget, Technicolor production from producer George Pal and director Irving Pichel, with Leith Stevens music (When Worlds Collide and War of the Worlds), Chesley Bonestell matte paintings, and Oscar winning special effects supervised by Lee Zavitz.







Stop motion animation scenes of the astronauts walking on the hull of the ship were directed by John S. Abbott. The fine script was penned by Rip Van Ronkel, James O'Hanlon, and veteran sci-fi author Robert Heinlein.

The cast includes John Archer as the millionaire industrialist, Warner Anderson as the designer of the rocket, Dick Wesson as the wise-cracking radio operator, and Tom Powers as the visionary general. (Note: this is not the same Tom Powers who stars in Unidentified Flying Objects in 1956).





Although many reviewers connect Destination Moon with Heinlein's 1950 novel Rocketship Galileo, the film's story has much more in common with Heinlein's novelette The Man Who Sold the Moon, also published in 1950. The novelette, like the film, spotlights private industry as the sponsor of the Moon trip.

Heinlein actually published a third Moon-trip story in 1950, a novelette featured in the September issue of Short Stories Magazine under the title Destination Moon.

This version is so similar to the film it was probably intended as a promotional piece, but it does include one fascinating story element not in the film. The explorers find evidence of previous lunar visitors -- either Russians or aliens, and they aren't sure which!

While planning the famous EVA rescue scene (in which an oxygen bottle is used as a makeshift propulsion unit) the film makers considered using a shotgun as the means by which John Archer retrieves Warner Anderson when he drifts away from the rocket in space.

Thankfully they changed their minds; a shotgun seems like an inappropriate piece of equipment to take to a lifeless, airless satellite. However, the shotgun concept was used in the final film during Woody Woodpecker's cartoon demonstration of rocket propulsion which is shown to the millionaire industrialists who finance the Moon trip.







Chesley Bonestell, famed artist of the celestial realm, provided matt paintings and designed the lunar surface.





















Art director Ernst Fegte added the fractured lava bed feature which resembled a cracked lake bottom. The cracks diminish in scale as they recede from the camera, creating a forced perspective which enhanced the depth of the set. This blend of technical accuracy and artistic excellence is the key to the success of Destination Moon.









No wonder it almost single-handedly started the 1950s sci-fi craze. The film has a strong flavor of The Right Stuff (that feeling of brave men doing a big job in spite of every obstacle). If you appreciate stories which portray heroism and the nobility of the human spirit, Destination Moon is your kind of movie.



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Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas (1957)

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This is probably the best movie about the legendary Yeti, with an intelligent script, a good cast, and some scary moments. It's not really a man-against-monster story, it's a man-against-man morality play.

Peter Cushing (star of numerous Hammer horror films) and Forest Tucker ("The Crawling Eye", "Cosmic Monster") jointly lead an expedition to capture the legendary Yeti, but each has his own reason for wanting to find the creature; Cushing wants to study it scientifically, Tucker wants to use it to get rich.


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Tension created by the opposing purposes increases while they trek across the Himalayas. A Yeti stalks the expedition, releasing a captured animal and trying to steal the men's guns. The Yetis (plural) appear only briefly near the end, but it's worth the wait. Directed by Val Guest from Nigel Kneale's adaption of a BBC play called "The Creature".

Like this movie? Hate this movie? Help me start a conversation, folks.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)