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FEATURED THREADS for 10-16-22

 
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 15, 2022 5:41 pm    Post subject: FEATURED THREADS for 10-16-22 Reply with quote



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My oh my — we’re certainly going back in time for today’s Featured Threads! Confused

We start with the silent version of The Mysterious Island, then we ponder a 1937 movie with Boris Karloff inventing a novel burglar alarm, and we finish with the movie that provided stock footage of phony-looking “dinosaurs” for the next half-century.

"Roads? Where we're going, we don't need . . . roads."



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The Mysterious Island (1929)



One of the earliest sci-fi films is also one of the most ambitious, requiring three years to film, employing three directors in the process — Benjamin Christiansen, Lucien Hubbard, and Maurice Tourneur. Impressive cast, too, including Lionel Barrymore and Montagu Love ("The Mark of Zorro", "The Adventures of Robin Hood").

The film was in production during Hollywood's transition from silent to sound films, so the producers elected to reshoot the opening scenes and use spoken dialogue, then employ music and limited sound effects to augment the on-screen written dialogue through the rest of the film.

The plot is a considerable departure from Verne's Novel about a group of Civil War soldiers whose balloon carries them to a strange island where Captain Nemo (now in his declining years) has taken refuge. In this film version, Captain Nemo is replaced by Count Dakkar (Barrymore), a brilliant scientist who lives on an island off the coast of a Baltic empire which teeters on the brink of revolution.

Barrymore employs hundreds of workers who labor to complete two super-submarines which he plans to use to prove his theory that a race of intelligent aquatic creatures has evolved on the ocean floor (shades of "The Abyss").

Barrymore shows co-star Montagu Love the skeleton of a strange, vaguely humanoid creature he has reconstructed from bone fragments retrieved from the sea. Unbeknowst to Barrymore, Love plans to steal the two submarines and use them to seize the throne of the nearby Baltic empire. His soldiers attack the island and capture one of the subs, but Barrymore escapes in the other, and the climax takes place on the ocean floor when both subs are captured by the undersea empire of aquatic creatures. The humans must also battle a giant octopus and an undersea dinosaur (a lizard with skillfully added fins, spikes, etc).

Some of the special effects scenes involving submarine miniatures are not overly impressive, but most of the special effects are extremely praiseworthy. The plot is action-packed, and there are some disturbing scenes in which Barrymore is tortured by the soldiers to make him reveal the secrets of the submarines.

The sets and props are remarkably well designed, including the armored high-pressure suits the men use to walk among the aquatic beings on the ocean floor. The science in this science fiction film maintains an admirable degree of accuracy, making the film highly enjoyable to watch, even after seventy-plus years.

Don't miss it.

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Night Key (1937)

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Don't miss this enjoyable yarn in which Boris Karloff plays the brilliant and kindly old scientist who invents a revolutionary new burglar alarm system. A business associate (Samuel S. Hinds) cheats Karloff and steals his invention.

Two decades later, Karloff (now nearsighted but still brilliant) perfects a second gizmo that defeats his own security system. Badly in need of money to provide for the welfare of his daughter (Jean Rogers of "Flash Gordon"), Karloff sells the rights to his new invention (on a royalty basis) to the now-wealthy Hinds. But Hinds only buys the device to keep it off the market, which means Karloff receives no royalties!

In an attempt to compel Hinds to honor the agreement, Karloff uses his newest device to burglarize several stores supposedly protected by Hinds' alarm systems, the ones he stole from Karloff. Hinds' company is discredited by the sudden wave of successful burglaries.

Despite the imaginative premise, the pace is slow and the overall mood is somber. But there are plenty of 1930s-style gadgets, and Karloff's character is extremely likeable. The cast also includes Frank Reicher (Captain Englehorn in "King Kong"). Directed by Lloyd Corrigan.
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One Million B.C. (1940)

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[Also released as: "The Cave Dwellers", "Man and His Mate", "The Cave Dweller and His Mate"]

A bold experiment in film making by director Hal Roach, with assistance by D. W. Griffith. The making of this film about life among prehistoric men has an interesting history of its own. In 1912 D. W. Griffith made a film called "Man's Genesis", concerning life among the cavemen. No dinosaurs were involved in the story. It was simply intended as a parable about reason versus non-reason.

Years later, Griffith's friend, Hal Roach, employed Griffith to provide minor assistance with the production of "One Million B.C.", a stone-age adventure story partly inspired by Griffiths earlier film. In addition to doing some of the casting, Griffith directed Carol Landis' screen test, and supervised many of the special effects scenes involving the lizards. Before the completion of the film, Roach and Griffith had a falling out, and Griffith elected to have his name removed from the screen credits.

"One Million B.C." was Victor Mature's first major role, playing Tumack the caveman, fighting stone age perils to protect his tribe (lead by Lon Chaney, Jr.) and his mate (Carol Landis). Although the special effects area not nearly so impressive as those in "King Kong", done seven years earlier, they are effective in their use of enlarged lizards to depicted the dinosaurs.

In fact, they are so well done they inspired countless filmmakers in later years to borrow the monster footage.

The plot is extremely episodic, but generally speaking it involves (a) Tumack's expulsion from the Rock tribe, (b) his journey to the sea shore where he meets the Shell tribe, (c) his romance with Luana (Landis), (d) and the eventual unification of the two tribes after an earthquake devastates the area.

The film is a true novelty that should be seen by sincere film buffs.

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