ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

JACK ARNOLD - The man behind some of the best science fiction films produced in the 1950s, a skilled director who did much more than simply squeeze entertaining movies out of skimpy studio budgets.

Arnold interjected genuine artistry into films like It Came from Outer Space (1953), and The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). Undoubtedly his best known 1950s sci-fi hit was The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954).





Although he was approached by several studios to direct a remake of Creature from the Black Lagoon during the late 1980s, Arnold declined because he felt that today's audiences would demand too much gore for his tastes. However, Arnold countered these offers with proposals to direct a big-buget remake of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, using stop-motion animation dinosaurs.

Sadly, no one accepted his offer.

Arnold's other sci-fi works include —

Tarantula (1955)
Revenge of the Creature (1955)
Monster on Campus (1958)
The Mouse that Roared (1959)
Hello Down There (1968).

In addition to his director's credits, Arnold wrote the original story for director John Sherwood's The Monolith Monsters (1957).

Surprisingly, Jack Arnold's personal favorite among the films he directed is perhaps his least known work, The Space Children (1958). According to Arnold, The Space Children comes closer than any of his 1950s science fiction films to expressing what he wanted to say.

Ironically, The Space Children was the result of a routine assignment which Arnold received from Paramount. The studio asked him to make a second feature for The Colossus of New York so that both films could be released on a double bill.

Arnold states that the studio had no real interest in what the second feature would be about, as long it was science fiction (in fact, most of the studio heads never viewed the completed film).

As a result, Arnold was left entirely on his own to develop the project. Although screen credit for the original story goes to Tom Filer, and the screenplay is credited to Bernard C. Schoenfeld, Arnold took an active part in writing both the story and the screenplay, both of which he based on a poem he wrote, many years earlier. He stated that he tried to pattern the mood of The Space Children after his poem — and he feels he succeeded to a large degree.

Because of this curious origin, The Space Children is a uniquely sincere and personal film. It serves as a brief glimpse into the soul of the man who crafted so many popular and enjoyable science fiction films from that legendary age called the 1950s.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Krel]

Jack Arnold also directed the Metaluna scenes in "This Island Earth". The studio was unhappy with what was filmed, and had the scenes rewritten, and supposedly had the sets remade. Jack Arnold directed the scenes as a favor to the studio, with no credit.

David.