ALL SCI-FI Forum Index ALL SCI-FI
The place to “find your people”.
 
 FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups   RegisterRegister 
 ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 

It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955)
Goto page Previous  1, 2
 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    ALL SCI-FI Forum Index -> Sci-Fi Movies and Serials from 1950 to 1969
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Robert (Butch) Day
Galactic Ambassador


Joined: 19 Sep 2014
Posts: 1437
Location: Arlington, WA USA

PostPosted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 1:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

San Francisco — home of the counter-culture druggies. If the movie was released about a decade later the poster might have looked like this:


_________________
Common Sense ISN'T Common
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17016
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 3:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Groovy, man. Hey, don't Bogart that joint, Dude! Cool
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17016
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Sat Jul 09, 2016 11:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

I watched this movie again recently, and I compared the picture of my DVD (which is 16:9 of course), to the picture of my DVD-R from the old VHS tape, which is 4:3. In my opinion, the 16:9 version does not look like it was composed for widescreen in many shots, especially the scenes of the monster!

When the monster is on screen, there's a hell of a lot ofanimation going on that isn't visible in the 16:9 version.

I made the screen shots below from both my DVD with the 16:9 picture and my DVD-R with the 4:3 picture to illustrate the dramatic difference. It took a few hours, but I managed to get shots of almost the exact moment in each version, for a fair comparison.

When I offered comparisons like these for Earth vs the Flying Saucers, Brent dismissed the extra areas of the images as "dead space". I respectfully disagreed. I'll be very interested to find out if he feels the same way about these, especially in view how much of the film's star — the giant octopus — isn't visible in the 16:9 version.

The first image of each pair is from the 16:9 DVD, and the second one is from the 4:9 DVD-R. I recommend you press F11 on your keyboard to expand the portion of your display which shows the images.
___________________________________




__________________________________




__________________________________

The poor monster barely shows in this version of the scene! We mostly just see people running from it!



Ah, this looks MUCH better.
Very Happy


__________________________________




__________________________________




__________________________________




__________________________________




__________________________________




__________________________________




__________________________________




__________________________________




__________________________________




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


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Wed Sep 14, 2022 2:21 pm; edited 10 times in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17016
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Sat Nov 05, 2016 12:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

__________________________________

I wish I could manipulate videos as easily as I do with jpegs. If I could, I'd make a music video of that famous song about San Francisco, with a montage of scenes from It Came from the Beneath the Sea!

Let's try a fun experiment. Start the first Youtube video below, and then quickly start the second one with the sound OFF while you watch it.

Let the audio from the first video continue to play while you watch the clips from It Came from Beneath the Sea in the second video.

Don't forget to to click on Fullscreen for the movie clip video. I did it, and it was pretty funny. Tony Bennett serenades the sextopus! Laughing

__________________________________


_ I Left My Heart (in San Francisco) - Tony Bennett


_________



____________ It Came From Beneath the Sea


_________

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


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Wed Sep 14, 2022 2:50 pm; edited 3 times in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17016
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Sun Oct 29, 2017 3:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

GETTING TO KNOW OUR FAVORITE MONSTERS!
________________________________

We love the giant monsters from our favorite sci-fi films, but just how much science and how much fiction is involved in these movies?

I went looking for videos which reminded me of the great educational film we were treated to in Them!, and here's one that fits the bill perfectly!

Enjoy! Very Happy

________________________________

__Amazing Octopus - Most Intelligent Animal on Earth?


__________

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


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Wed Sep 14, 2022 2:41 pm; edited 2 times in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bogmeister
Galactic Fleet Vice Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 574

PostPosted: Fri Aug 30, 2019 2:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

____________
___

After a nuclear submarine on patrol maneuvers in the Pacific Ocean captained by Commander Pete Mathews (Kenneth Tobey) comes into contact with something massive, a man-and-woman team of marine biologists, Lesley Joyce (Faith Domergue) and John Carter (Donald Curtis), is called in and they identify animal tissue in the propellers as part of a gigantic octopus.

The military authorities scoff at this explanation, but are finally persuaded to investigate upon receiving reports of missing bathers and ships pulled under the water by some living thing. The scientists conclude the octopus is from the Mindanao Deep and has been forced out of its natural habitat due to hydrogen bomb testing in the area. The testing has rendered the octopus radioactive, and this radioactivity drives off its natural food supply.

________
_____________________

What stayed in my memory after many years were those huge Harryhausen tentacles coming out of the water and, later, bearing down on the streets of Frisco. These were striking images from that era and probably more famous than most from the fifties.

It's another sample of atomic age giant monster peril of the fifties, the best of which was Them! from the previous year. It's never clear that our atomic weapons actually caused this beast, besides just disturbing it from its deep water existence, though they keep referring to it as radioactive (stay away from it — it's radioactive! forget that it can crush an elephant with one tentacle).

Like the much later Deep Rising from the late nineties, the implication is that the deeper in the ocean you go, the bigger things are down there. You just gotta hope they never come up. Oh, well.

____
_________________

The movie begins almost like a documentary on our latest submarines in the first minute, but soon everything shifts, due to a low budget, to dramatizing things via suggestion. Crewmen pretend to be jolted inside the fake interior of the sub, much like the crew on the Star Trek sixties show pretending that their ship has tilted.

Even Ray Harryhausen, who became a firm fixture in fantastic cinema after this, was stymied by the budget, unable to show all 8 tentacles. There are slow spots in-between the beast's appearances and the almost-love-triangle of the 3 main characters is typical ham-handed stoic Americana of the '50s — rather hackneyed considering they should all concentrate more on the problem at hand.

I admit I have a soft spot for this since the final 3rd takes place in my old hometown of San Francisco — itself a rare treat for monster fans. The scenes of the Golden Gate Bridge being attacked and then the city itself during the spectacular climax are worth the price of admission. You have to admit — this thing is HUGE.

BoG's Score: 6.5 out of 10



BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17016
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Fri Aug 30, 2019 4:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Yet another well-written review from the late Andrew Bogdan (Bogmeister)! Cool

I wish Andrew was still with us so I could point out a few statements he made that I don't quite agree with.

For example —


Bogmeister wrote:
It's never clear that our atomic weapons actually caused this beast, besides just disturbing it from its deep water existence, though they keep referring to it as radioactive (stay away from it — it's radioactive! forget that it can crush an elephant with one tentacle).

The movie does in fact explain that the octopus was not made larger by atomic radiation, and that science acknowledges the possibility of large deep-sea creatures . . . although the size of this creature is made super-large for the film.

As for the radiation, the only time they even mention it is when the submarine detects it in the first scene, and when the two scientist explain that the octopus' radiation was no danger, it just tended to ward off the creature's food supply.


Bogmeister wrote:
The movie begins almost like a documentary on our latest submarines in the first minute, but soon everything shifts, due to a low budget, to dramatizing things via suggestion. Crewmen pretend to be jolted inside the fake interior of the sub, much like the crew on the Star Trek sixties show pretending that their ship has tilted.

Actually, there was no "fake interior of the sub". All those scenes were filmed inside a real submarine. Here's what Wikipedia says.
______________________________________

To keep shooting costs low, director Robert Gordon shot inside an actual submarine, both above and under water, using handheld cameras.
______________________________________


Bogmeister wrote:
There are slow spots in-between the beast's appearances and the almost-love-triangle of the 3 main characters is typical ham-handed stoic Americana of the '50s — rather hackneyed considering they should all concentrate more on the problem at hand.

The quote Carl Dehham from King Kong, "If this picture had love interests it would gross twice as much!"

If the plot had kept the characters' attention strictly on the octopus throughout the movie, it wouldn't have been as much fun! Besides, that scene on the beach is damned sexy, the one where Kenneth Toby wraps his arms around Faith Domergue and let's her wet body in a bathing suit slide slooooowly down his, and then Faith acts like she's having an . . . well, like she's feeling really good!
Shocked[/size] Shocked





And just for the record, there's definitely no love triangle between the three main characters, either.

Donald Curtis' character makes a point in several scenes of defining his relationship with Faith as being strictly friends-and-colleagues. In fact, I love the way he happily encourages Faith to be more feminine and less aloof with Kenneth, and he encourages Kenneth to be more aggressive! Cool

Mr. Curtis must have liked playing the role that way because IMDB his this trivia item.

~ Donald Curtis cited this film as his personal favorite among the films he starred in.

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


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Sun Mar 27, 2022 9:37 am; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17016
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Mon May 18, 2020 12:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

IMDB has several interesting trivia items for this movie. Here’s a few of the ones I found the most interesting, in the blue text. Very Happy
________________________________

~ Ray Harryhausen purchased the model for the ship that the octopus sinks from a five and dime store.

Note from me: Hey, that means that if somebody wanted to build a resin model of the octopus sinking the ship, he could get the toy model Ray used so that the build would be authentic!

~ The "atom-powered" submarine shown cruising on the surface is actually the diesel-electric submarine USS Cubera (SS-347).

Note from me: Ah, but that elaborate two-level sail on the sub is so much cooler than the simple rectangular ones on the atomic submarines.






~ City officials refused to allow the filmmakers to shoot on the real Golden Gate Bridge, because they didn't want the public to think that the bridge could actually fall. Ray Harryhausen recreated the entire bridge in miniature.

Note from me: Right, they didn't want people to avoid using the bridge for fear of a giant octopus attack. Rolling Eyes

~ The Special Jet Propelled Torpedo is actually an aerial torpedo (it was delivered by aircraft and by torpedo boats) that had its propellers and rudders removed.

Note from me: I think this little touch (a "jet propelled torpedo") shows that screenwriter George Worthing Yates either wanted to suggest something a bit more "sci-fi" than just a normal torpedo, or the only torpedo they could get for the scene was missing the propeller, so he turned the negative into a positive by say the torpedo was the deluxe "jet propelled" kind! Very Happy

~ Early in the film Kenneth Tobey walks right past a "No Smoking" sign whilst smoking a cigarette in the marine biology lab.

Note from me: Tobey was a macho guy with a distinctive way of holding his cigarettes. His hand never relaxed with two fingers forming a V with the cigarette in the middle. Instead, his fingers would curl almost into a fist, with the index finger curled around the cigarette. It was plume cool, guys. Cool

The picture below isn't the best example of what I described, but it shows the way Margaret Sheridan's more relaxed, feminine hand held her cigarette, compared to Tobey's slightly "clutched" hand.






This shot (and the cropped version below it) is a better example. Tobey's hand looks like it's holding a gun, with his index finger on the trigger! Cool



_______________

~ Consider the title logically. The bottom of the sea is the seabed - stone and dirt. If something came from "beneath" the sea, it would have to originate below the seabed.

Note from me: This is proof that IMDB is not overly careful about their trivia items. I Googled "beneath and under definition" and got this.

Under is used when something is directly under another. Underneath is often used to say that something is covered by another thing. Beneath has the same meanings as under or underneath.

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


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Sat Apr 10, 2021 12:21 pm; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Pow
Galactic Ambassador


Joined: 27 Sep 2014
Posts: 3400
Location: New York

PostPosted: Fri Jul 03, 2020 10:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Trivia for ICFBTS }\

This is the film where Ray Harryhausen and producer Charles Schneer would first begin their longtime collaboration in movies.

Early title for the film was "Monster of the Deep."

The cost for the three octopus models, three character models and separate tentacles would come to $26,000.

Due to the intense pressure to keep production costs down the octopus would have six tentacles instead of the normal eight.

Ray then designed the stop~animation scenes so that the mutated octopus is mostly underwater with at least one tentacle above the water and moving.

That was to distract the audience form the lack of two tentacles as the creature should have had.

In order to give the illusion of water glistening on the octopus, Ray would coat the latex of the model with glycerine. This would last for 30 minutes under the hot lights while filming.

Total cost for the movie was $150,000 which was a very low price even by 1955 standards.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17016
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Mon Mar 28, 2022 12:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

We'll never see an octopus as large as the one in this movie, nor a squid as large as the one in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but scientist can't agree on just how "giant" the Giant Squid can be.

Here's an interesting article on the subject.


School-Bus-Size Giant Squid May Be Lurking Deep in the Sea




~ On Oct. 1, 2013, a 30-foot-long giant squid washed ashore in the Spanish community of Cantabria.

Steeped in mystery, the elusive, deep-sea-dwelling giant squid, with eyes the size of basketballs, may be larger than it has gotten credit for. In fact, the monster cephalopod may grow to be longer than a school bus, researchers say.

Specimens recognizable as giant squid (Architeuthis dux) have been found washed up onshore since at least 1639. However, these sea monsters — which some people say inspired the legend of the giant kraken, though not all scientists agree — are so elusive that they were largely thought to be mythical until they were first photographed alive in their natural environment in 2004.

Ever since giant squid were discovered, there has been considerable speculation as to how large they can get. In a previous analysis of more than 130 specimens, scientists said that none exceeded 42 feet (13 meters) in length. Suggesting that giant squid could grow larger was "a disservice to science," they said.

Still, prior studies estimated that hundreds of thousands of giant squid may live in the ocean, which would suggest that there are plenty of chances for giant squid to grow larger than previously suggested, said Charles Paxton, a fisheries ecologist and statistician at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.

Now, a statistical analysis from Paxton suggests that giant squid may plausibly reach 65 feet (20 m) in total length. This new study extrapolated the maximum sizes this species might reach by both examining a variety of categories of data and examining as much data taken directly from specimens of the creature as was available.

"I've been interested in the last few years about investigating the hard science behind sea monsters," Paxton said.

The data Paxton analyzed included 164 measures of mantle (body) length; 39 measures of standard length, which included the lengths of their bodies as well as the lengths of the longest of their arms; and 47 measures of total length, which included the lengths of their bodies as well as the lengths of the tentacles. (Tentacles are squid limbs that often end in teeth and hooks, and are usually significantly longer than squid arms.)

Paxton also examined 46 instances where beak, or mouth, size was measured along with mantle length. He found that beak size could help predict mantle length, confirming previous studies.

All in all, Paxton found that it was statistically plausible that giant squid could have mantle lengths of about 10 feet (3 m) and total lengths of 65 feet, "and that's a conservative analysis," he said.

"I am extrapolating here, and extrapolation can sometimes be a bit sketchy," Paxton said. "But I think these are fairly safe extrapolations. I genuinely think that giant-squid size has been underestimated."

Paxton noted that there are claims that giant squid can grow to be 100 feet (30 m) long. "I don't think giant squid can get that big, but while a measurement of a giant squid total length of 19 meters [62 feet] can be questioned, I'd say it certainly wasn't impossible," Paxton said.

Some scientists have suggested that squid parts may stretch over time, leading to overestimates of the animal's size.

To help resolve that question, "there are people in New Zealand and Spain who fairly regularly collect specimens of giant squid, and I'd like them to see just how stretchy they are postmortem," Paxton said.

Another study, reported in 2015 in the journal PeerJ, suggested that it's human nature to exaggerate the sizes of the ocean's giants. The study found that people overestimate measurements for whales, sharks and squid.

As to why giant squid might grow as large as they do, "perhaps it makes them less likely to be eaten by sperm whales," Paxton said. "It'd be interesting to find out if they do ever reach a size where they cannot ever be eaten by sperm whales."



___ [
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Pow
Galactic Ambassador


Joined: 27 Sep 2014
Posts: 3400
Location: New York

PostPosted: Mon Mar 28, 2022 9:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

From Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life.

RH:AAL: Ray studied real cephalopod molluscs at the Hermoso Beach Aquarium to see how they moved.

RH:AAL: Ray informed producer Charles Schneer that it would take five to six months to do the effects depending on the final screenplay.

RH:AAL: Columbia Studio Producer Sam Katzman was initially disturbed when he first saw Ray's sketches for the giant octopus. Sam thought that Ray had drawn it all wrong. It took Ray some time to persuade Sam that the image of an octopus he had was based entirely on the Popeye cartoons and bore no resemblance to a real creature.

RH:AAL: Nothing is ever thrown away, and after It Came From Beneath the Sea was completed, all the tentacle armatures ended up as parts of various dinosaurs in subsequent films, usually as tails!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17016
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Tue Mar 29, 2022 8:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Ah-ha! So, I guess you could say that Ray's creatures "evolve" into new forms! Laughing

_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17016
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Wed Sep 14, 2022 2:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Here's an article and a Youtube video about just how big octopuses (the correct plural, by the way) can get.


____________________Giant Pacific Octopus





_________Giant Pacific Octopuses are Extreme


_________


And here's the most amazing wildlife video EVER, showing an octopus pop out of a tide pool, zoom across the rocks, grap a crab, and drag it back into the water!

___________ Octopus gets crabby in Yallingup


_________

_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    ALL SCI-FI Forum Index -> Sci-Fi Movies and Serials from 1950 to 1969 All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page Previous  1, 2
Page 2 of 2

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group