ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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You couldn't ask for more variety in today's Featured Threads!

A professor who's extremely nutty, a Bond movie with a one-time-only 007, and an apocalyptic tale with no mutants or any of the usual elements of a post WWIII world.

The high point in all this is Miss Stella Stevens, who is hot enough to make Mercury seem chilly by comparison.



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The Nutty Professor (1963)



Jerry Lewis manages a pretty good parody of the Jekyll/Hyde theme, portraying a shy, bucktoothed college professor who swallows an odd brew of chemicals and turns himself into a monsterously chauvenistic Hugh Hefner clone.

Stella Stevens is the incredibly sexy coed who finds herself attracted to certain aspects of both the Jekyll-and-Hyde version of Lewis' personas.



The cultural jabs are pretty dated now, and some of the shtick humor falls flat on its face, but it's refreshing to see Lewis play something other than a hyperactive nerd. There's a nice transformation scene (complete with thunder and lightning in the background), and a funny scene in which the shy professor has difficulty surpressing sudden outbursts of the playboy personality during his dignified science lectures.

Directed by Jerry Lewis from a screenplay he co-authored with Bill Richmond. Also starring Howard Morris and Kathleen Freeman.
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On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969 England)
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In the sixth James Bond extravaganza, George Lazenby did his best to handle this legendary role. But the problem with Lazenby's version of James Bond is that he spends too much time portraying 007's suave, cool, ultra-competence.

The fight scenes are flawed by arty editing that was perhaps intended to disguise badly staged stunts. Convincing stunts are the very heart of the James Bond series, and without them the film looks blatantly bogus.

Despite high production values and beautiful Alpine scenery, the plot is oddly unBond-like; arch-villian Blofeld (Telly Savalas) plans to cause world sterility with a drug he blends with women's cosmetics.

World sterility just doesn't sound like a Bond villain's aspiration -- it sounds more like the warped scheme of a Planned Parenthood fanatic.

The tragedy depicted by the sad ending is an unforgivable departure from Bond-film tradition -- despite the fact that it was taken directly from the Ian Flemming novel. Perhaps director Peter R. Hunt was trying to prevent the Bond series from becoming exactly what the Roger Moore films turned it into: action-filled comedies instead of light-heart adventures.

Diana Rigg ("The Avengers") is Bond's love interest. In spite of her huge fan-following from "The Avengers", Miss Rigg is not a "Bond girl". She's an "Avengers" girl.

It's not the same thing.
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On the Beach (1959)

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The story is more drama than science fiction, relying heavily on the fear of nuclear war that pervaded the 1950s.

In this version of the end of the world, the fallout from the bombs dropped during a brief World War III is killing the last of the world's population. Gregory Peck is the captain of a submarine that visits some of the last inhabited places on Earth. The eerie scenes of a deserted San Francisco provide some of the film's best moments.

The unseen-but-ever-present radiation keeps the cast on edge. Australia is the safest (but not totally safe) spot on Earth, and the film's title theme (Waltzing Matilda) became a haunting dirge for the Cold War era, symbolic of the numbered days of mankind.

Kids will be bored stiff by "On the Beach" (no bombs, no ruins, no mutants), but adults will enjoy it if they don't let it depress them.

Directed by Stanley Kramer. Cinematography by Sam Leavitt. Starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, Anthony Perkins, Donna Anderson, John Tate, Guy Doleman. Screenplay by John Paxton from the novel by Nevil Shute.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)