ALL SCI-FI

[Maurice]

I didn't buy it being from 1956 because the airbrush paint style feels 1980s. So I did some Googling, and on this site (link) found this article from The Wall Street Journal dated Sept 24, 1989 which specifically mentions that ad.

Here's the specific reference:

Jim Beam print ads, however, strike different chords in different countries.

In Australia, land of the outback, a snapshot of Jim Beam lies on a strip of hand-tooled leather. West Germans get glitz, with bourbon in the foreground and a posh Beverly Hills hotel in the background.

Ads for England are artsy and irreverent. One ad features a huge robot carrying a voluptuous woman in a faint.

The tagline: "I only asked if she wanted a Jim Beam."

See also this page about Robby the Pitchbot.

In short, I suggest not jumping to conclusions about the age and authenticity of stuff.
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* * *
"The absence of limitations is the enemy of art."
― Orson Welles

[Bud Brewster]

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Please forgive me, Maurice, but I couldn't resist downloading the beautiful version of the magazine ad you found and using Paint.net to remove that horrible fold in the middle, along with adjusting the viewing angle to correct for the fact that it was laying on a table and slightly distorted.

I knew it would look great at the top of your post right next to your avatar! Unfortunately the comparison of the two points out the fact the artist reversed Robby's spinning "ear rings".

Actually, the original poster artist did the same thing.

Here's the original, with the link to your larger version embedded. (By the way, the link to the Wall Street Journal doesn't seem to work.)


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

[Maurice]

Weird, because that link opens fine for me. It's not a secure link, though, so some web browsers might balk at it.

The full text of the article isn't that interesting, but I'm a stickler for providing citations and sources to show I've got the facts straight.
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* * *
"The absence of limitations is the enemy of art."
― Orson Welles

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

Maurice, I admire you dedication to citing sources, and we appreciate that you do that.

I wonder why that link doesn't work for me Unfortunately, this is what I get when I click on it with Firefox. This is a screen shot.


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

[Robert (Butch) Day]

Hmmm, Interesting!

I received the Bonhams Auction Catalog for May 14, 2019 and contacted Bonhamd about it (I didn't order it).

It was sent to me courtesy of TCM of which am a member. They also answered a number of questions. On;y the original Robby & jeep were Bill Malone; all other Forbidden Planet memorabilia were from the collection of Wes Shank (who owned the 20" saucer) and the blue prints were the ones cleaned up for the Cinefantastique double issue (some not used). Te original house blueprints consisted of 7 sheets and the lab set blueprints consisted of 22 sheets; Bil Malone still owns the originals. I sure would like to have copies of them to scan and post!
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Common Sense ISN'T Common

[Krel]

You hear about the small and large saucer miniatures, but is the location of the medium size, 44 inch known?

David.

[Robert (Butch) Day]

Bill Malone owns it. Somewhere there is a photo of Bill & I holding it, it was very heavy (about 85 - 100 pounds). [It was used by Fred Barton as a mold for the ones he sells.] I'll ask Eadie to find the picture and post it.
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Common Sense ISN'T Common

[Robert (Butch) Day]

A fan painting titled Eclipse by W. Ostrow:



When I saw many movies as a kid these were the prices of rickets:



"Road-show" attractions (The Ten Commandments) were $1.25 from the opening of the theater to 2:00 PM, $2.50 in the afternoon and $3.75 in the evening after 5:00 PM. "Special" movies (Around the World in 80 Days) were around $5.00.

This shows why theaters relied on the snack bars and why so many movies ended up on TV and for rental.

Anyone else remember this?
_________________
Common Sense ISN'T Common

[Bud Brewster]

[Robert (Butch) Day]

Despite everything that happens, Robby Carries On!


_________________
Common Sense ISN'T Common

[Robert (Butch) Day]

As for the picture of the 44 inch sacer, I'll have to wait for Eadie to return from"Karloffornia", then after the 4th of July as she is going to Vancouver, B. C. Canada on July 1st to visit her aunt for Canada Day to scan and post it.

* * * * * * * * * *

This is where to download a "pdf" file of the October 1967 reprint of the original novelization

https://epdf.pub/forbidden-planet.html

This is the complete cast & credits made from the 1956 Motion Pictures Yearbook. It has lots of information not found anywhere else!

Cast

Edward Morbius, PhD, DLitt played by Walter Pidgeon

Altaira Morbius played by Anne Francis

Commander John Justin Adams played by Leslie Nielsen

Robby the Robot played by Marvin Miller (Voice, uncredited), Frankie Darro (uncredited), Frankie Carpenter (uncredited)

Lieutenant Charles Xavier Ostrow, MD played by Warren Stevens

Lieutenant Gerald Percival Farman played by Jack Kelly

Chief Warrant Officer Alonzo Quinn played by Richard Anderson

Crewman James “Cookie” Dirocco played by Earl Holliman

Chief Petty Officer (Bosun) Steven Todd played by George Dewey Wallace

Crewman Robert Grey played by Bob Dix

Crewman William Youngerford played by Jimmy Thompson

Crewman Joe Strong played by James Drury

Crewman Michael “Gabby” Randall played by Harry Harvey, Jr.

Crewman Peter Lindstrom played by Roger McGee

Crewman Albert Moran played by Peter Miller

Crewman Ralph Lindstrom played by Morgan Jones

Crewman Art Silvers played by Richard Grant (uncredited)

Crewman Frank Starza played by William Boyett (uncredited)

Crewman Stuart Nevski played by James Best

Narrator Les Tremayne

Crewman # 11 Eddie Fisher [uncredited]

Crewman # 12 Frankie Darro [uncredited]

Crewman # 13 Frankie Carpenter [uncredited]

Crewman # 14 Robert J. Wilkes [stunt man #1
–crushed by Id]

Crewman # 15 Dick Crockett [stunt man #2
– knocked aside by Id]
Crewman # 16 Gene Dynarski [stunt man #3
- lifted in air by Id, Jack Kelly’s stand-in]

Crew

Office Department

M-G-M Studio Chief Dore Schary

M-G-M Executive Producer Joseph J. Cohn

Produced by Nicholas Nayfack

Production Manager David Freeman

Legal Counsel Rudy Monte

Production Department

Directed by Fred McLeod Wilcox

Assisstant Director George Rhein

Screenplay by Cyril Hume

Based upon the story FATAL PLANET by Irving Block and Allen Adler

Suggested by THE TEMPEST by William Shakespeare
Novelization by W. J. Stuart (Phillip McDonald, With Assistance From Robert A. Heinlein)

Read the Novel Published by Harper & Rowe in Hardback and Bantam Books in Paperback

Senior Stagehand Jim McClennan

Camera Department

Cinematography by George J. Folsey, Jr.

Film Editor Ferris Webster

Cinemascope™ Lenses by Bausch & Lomb

Color Consultant Charles K. Hagedorn

Matte Photography by Warren Newcombe

Matte Photography Editor Ben Fugelsby

Matte Effects First Cameraman Marc M. Davis (Through Courtesy of Walt Disney Productions)

Matte Effects Second Cameraman Dick Worsfield

Optical Photography Irving G. Ries

Process Photography Harold Lipstein

Spaceship Interior Effects Photography Harold Mazoratti

Spaceship Miniature Photography Max Fabian

Krell Shaft Miniature Photography Harold Wellman

Animation Photography Art Cruickshank (Through Courtesy of 20th Century-Fox Productions)

Wardrobe Department

Miss Francis’ Costumes by Helen Rose

Men’s Costumes by Walter Plunkett

Senior Costumer Tommy James

Make-Up Department

Make-Up by William Tuttle

Hair Stylist Sydney Guilaroff

Sound Department

Sound Recording Supervisor Dr. Wesley C. Miller.

Recorded in Sterophonic Sound on the RCA Stereophonic Four Track Magnetic Sound System. Certain Prints Use The Perspecta™ Sound System.

Music Department

Electronic Tonalities by Louis and Charlotte (Bebe) Barron

Music Supervisor Johnny Green

Musical Score by David Rose (Used in Trailers only)

Art Department

Art Direction Cedric Gibbons

Production Design Arthur Lonergan

Conceptual Visualization Irving Block

Production Illustrator Mentor C. Huebner

Set Decoration Hugh Hunt, Edwin B. Willis

Scenic Designs George Gibson,Harrt Tepler
Scenic Painters Clark Provins, Ed Helms, Leo Atkinson, William H. Gibbins, Tommy Duff, Arthur Rider, Bob Woolfe and Bob Overbeck and Bill Smart

Paint Mixer F. Wayne Hill

Matte Paintings by Henri Hillinck, Howard Fisher and Mathew Yuricich

Sculptures by Sascha Brastoff

Furniture Designed by Charles Ormond Eames, Jr. and Ray-Bernice Alexandra Kaiser Eames

Drafting Department

Senior Draftsman Lewis Barnette

Chief Draftsman, Robby Robert Kinoshita

Draftsman, Morbius Residence Howard Sturge

Draftsman, Krell Laboratory Marvin Connell

Draftsman, Cruiser C-57-D Irwin Barnette

Draftsman, Cyclorama Ben Carre

Draftsman, Tractor Louis DeWitt

Draftsman, Robby's Vehicle George Kleine

Special Effects Department

Special Effects Supervisor Albert Arnold Gillespie

Mechanical Effects Glen Robinson

Property Master Jack Gaylord

Chief Property Technician Max Gerbinger

Property Technicians Cliff Grant, Andy Thatcher, Rudy Spangler and Eddie Fisher

Property Electricians Jack McMasters and Bob McDonald

Altair IV Globe Colin Lowe

Set Miniatures Constructed by Paul Jarhaus

Miniature Effects Chief Mechanic Glen Robinson

Miniature Effects Mechanical Assisstant Joe Zomar

Miniature Effects Mechanical Technicians Alfred D. Flowers, Logan Frazee and Dean Pearson

Miniature Effects Chief Electrician Jack McMasters

Miniature Effects Electrical Consultant Earl McCoy

Miniature Effects Assisstant Electricians Chuck Frazier, Dion Hanson and Eddie Fisher

Spaceship Miniatures Constructed by Floyd Parrish

Greensman Alfred D. Flowers

Animation Department (Through Courtesy of Walt Disney Productions)

Animator Joshua Meador

Assisstant Animator Dwight Carlisle

Inbetweener Joe Alves

Creature Design Kent Hultgren

© MCMLVI by Loews, Inc.

137 Minutes 16 Seconds (Original Print)

99 Minutes (Released Unfinished Work Print) 6 Reels in Cinemascope™ and Eastmancolor™

Trade Screen Showing Saturday, March 8, 1956

Released Wednesday, March 14, 1956

Budget $1,250,000.00

Cost $1,960,000.00

Earnings on First Run $4,780,000.00

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science A. M. P. A. S. (“Oscar”) Awards Nominations:

Class III Technical Award for Innovative Visual Design [Technical Award]

Class III Technical Award for Innovative Musical Score [Technical Award] Best Visual Effects

A. M. P. A. S. (“Oscar”) Awards Won:

Class III Technical Award for Innovative Visual Design

Class III Technical Award for Innovative Musical Score

(Lost Best Visual Effects to THE TEN COMMANDMENTS - ‘Pilar of Fire’, by Joshua Meador)

© & ™ 1956 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer™ and Loews, Inc™.

VHS Release © & ™ 1972 MGM/UA, Inc.

DVD Release © & ™ 1980 Turner Communications, Inc–.

HD-DVD Release © &™ 1989 Warner Communications, Inc™.

Blu-Ray Release © &™ 1996 Warner Communications, Inc™.

50th Anniversary Release © &™ 2006 Warner Communications, Inc™.

* * * * * * * * * *

If the gang wants I can post the February 14, 1954 script by Cyril Hume. If so I will have to do so in at least 6 parts. Its quite lengthy with the formatting.
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Common Sense ISN'T Common

[Gord Green]

I have the script dated 9/3/54 so yours may be an earlier draft. I'd love to see it!

Also, the earliest document may be the screen treatment for Cyrl Hume's FATAL PLANET. Would like to see that too if any copies still exist.
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There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

Well, well — Butch really earned his Atta Boy for this month!_

The link to the novel provides a crystal clear version of each page, and after reading a short section from the first chapter, I've already learned something startling!

As we all know, the movie presents it's own version of "faster than light" travel by telling us in the opening narration that the C-57-D was "now more than a year out from Earth base . . . "

And Morbius tells Adams that if he is taken back to Earth for questioning, he'll be "two years or more away from my work" (the round trip time between Altair 4 and Earth).

Later, Adams tells Altaira that he and his crew have been "cooped up in hyperspace for 378 days."

Based on all this, the movie is saying that about one year passed during the trip for both the ship's crew AND for the normal universe. No "time dilation" for the crew.

Bear in mind that we can't criticize this as "scientifically inaccurate", because fast-then-light travel is theoretically impossible, so in the FP universe there IS a way to traveling faster than light, and that means our current laws were found to be faulty. (You can't break one rule and insist that the other rules still apply.)

However, the novel has this to say about the trip time to Altair 4.
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CHAPTER ONE - Major (Medical) G. X. Ostrow

Well, I'd asked for it hard enough — so it wasn't any good wishing I hadn't. But all the same, I couldn't help it. I wished I was anywhere except in this metal box, this huge oddly shaped shell which felt motionless as a mountain but was really hurtling across Nothing at more than the speed of light.

More than the speed of light! More than six hundred million terrestrial miles an hour!

At the beginning of the trip I used to find myself writing down that figure all the time — a six and then eight neat little zeros. But it didn't help. Although I knew it was true, my mind couldn't really accept it.

It was different for the other men, of course. They were used to it, used to the thought of it. Except for one or two old space-sweats who'd reached the age of thirty, they were all kids to me. Being over forty myself, I hadn't been reared to the idea of the QG drive. When I was their age speed was measured in thousands of m.p.h. and we never thought our lifetime would see Man breaking out of the Solar system.

More than six hundred million miles an hour! I knew I'd never get my mind to stop reeling at the thought of it. Or at some of its sequelae either.

Take what they call the 'time-squeeze' for instance. The kids knew — they automatically accepted — that while time is fixed at each end of one of these preposterous journeys, it is concertina'ed on the journey itself. I didn't know it; my mind kept rebelling against it. Not being a mathematician, I couldn't help regarding it as some sort of infuriating conjuring trick.

John Adams had told me (and I'd checked with Quinn) that the 'squeeze' on this journey, which would be about a year for us, was in ten to one ratio. I'd smiled at them politely, and thanked them for the information — but my mind still boggled at the thought that even if we just reached our destination and went straight back to Earth, I'd only have spent twenty-four months on the round trip but all my friends would be twenty years older.
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So, according to the novel the C-57-D will return to Earth twenty years after it left for Altair 4, not just two years! Good lord, I like the movie version of this idea better!

This certainly can't be the way we're supposed to understand the way hyperdrive works when we watch this movie. For one thing, the movie establishes that the Bellerophon landed twenty years earlier. Within one year of that date Altaira was born.

She was about twenty years old when the C-57-D arrived, after traveling one year.

But if things happened as the novel describes them, the Bellerophon would have spent ten years getting to Altaira 4, and it would have taken another ten years to return. Remember, they were described as "a prospecting party of scientists", not colonist who came to stay permanently.

Sending a rescue ship for the Bellerophon when they had only been gone twenty years seems odd. After all, according to the novel this rescue ship left ten years prior to the time it arrives at Altair 4.

What this means is that the rescue ship might be arriving at Altair 4 just about the time Bellerphon was arriving back on Earth! They would have passed each other going in opposite directions. Oops! :oop:

But lets assume the Bellerophon was equipped with the kind of transmitter the C-57-D was going to use to "report back to Earth base for special instructions," (Adam's words).

And let's further assume that Earth became concerned when the Bellerophon either never made a report, or it stopped reporting when (for example) the Id monster damaged the ship's equipment like it did to the C-57-D's transmitter.

If that's the case, then Earth sent out a rescue ship not long after the last transmission was received (if there were any), and this caused nineteen men to spend twenty years of their lives making the round trip to Altair 4 . . . when the absence of the transmission might have just been caused by equipment failure!

Nope, I contend that the movie's version of the events makes a lot more sense. The Bellerophon spent a year getting to Altair 4, and Earth waited twenty years before finally deciding that the scientists were stranded and needed help.

Finally, there's this: Altair 4 is about 16 light years from Earth, so the Bellerophon and the C-57-D must have traveled about 16 times the speed of light if the trip time was made in one year.

On the other hand, if it takes the C-57-D ten years to get to Altair 4, it's cruising speed is only 1.6 time the speed of light!

And yet the opening narration says "By 2200 AD [mankind] reached the other planets of our solar system. Almost at once there followed the discovery of hyperdrive, through with the speed of light was first obtained, and later greatly surpassed."

I don't consider 1.6 times the speed of light to qualify as "greatly surpassing" light speed. And I used this conversion chart to find what percentage of light speed 600,000,000 miles per hour (the ship's speed according to Doc).

The answers puzzles me. It's just 0.89 of light speed. A pokey 89%. Did W.J. Stuart gets his facts wrong? At that speed it would take the C-57-D about 20 years to reach Altair 4, not just ten.

Ladies and gentlemen, this novel is certainly going to give us a lot to discuss!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Robert (Butch) Day]

I hope everyone enjoyed the novelization.

I have just completed scanning the February 14, 1954 first draft script. Now I have to clean up the screenshots then post them. (332 screenshots).

After that I will do the same for the August 26, 1954 second draft script. I expect that this will be about the same size.

After clean-up I expect they will be 1/3 in number less each.

I hope these will be appreciated.
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Common Sense ISN'T Common

[Danilo]

137 Minutes 16 Seconds (Original Print) ?

So they cut a lot! Around 38 minutes!