ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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An anecdote from 1982 about Forbidden Planet, a comment about color televisions from the 1960s, and a lesson in method acting.

Welcome to Spring, folks!
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Forbidden Planet (1956)

Opening Statement: Back in the warm summer of 1978, I was stuck at home for a few weeks, recuperating from injuries I sustained after being hit by a vehicle while crossing the street. My left arm was in a cast, and my left hip was injured but not broken.

During that time I spent an enjoyable week carefully reading the double issue of the Cinefantastique article devoted to Forbidden Planet. Despite having my left arm in a cast and being left handed, I took several pages of notes!





I learned a wealth of amazing things about this beloved movie. While doing so, I vowed to devote my meager artistic talents to creating a series of paintings and drawings dedicated to this remarkable cinematic achievement!

TOS Season 1 Episode 6 — Mudd's Women

Opening Statement: ~ Gerald Perry Finnerman was encouraged to be creative in choosing dramatic lighting and camera angles.

Robert H. Justman recalled that he said to Finnerman, "We're all in outer space, Jerry, and we're in colour. NBC claims to be the first full-colour network, so let's prove it for them. When you light the sets, throw wild colours in — magenta, red, green, any colour you can find — especially behind the actors when they're in a close shot. Be dramatic. In fact, go overboard. Backlight the women and make them more beautiful. Take some chances. Nobody can tell you that's not the way the future will look. How can they? They ain't been there yet."

Bob Justman was very pleased with the final results in this episode. He stated, "Guest stars Karen Steele, Maggie Thrett and Susan Denberg, good-looking in real life, looked even more radiantly lovely and ravishing as they worked their magic upon Captain Kirk and crew - after Jerry worked his magic upon the three actresses."

Note from me: Many scenes in the series had colored lighting on the wall behind the actors. Back in those days people were just tinkled pink by their new color TV sets. Prior to that were just tinkled black & white, but they liked pink (and all the other colors) better.

TOS season 1 episode 8 — Charlie X

Opening Statement: ~ True to his training as a Method actor, Robert Walker Jr. chose to remain in his dressing room and not interact with any members of the cast as this would help his characterization of a strange, aloof person.

Note from me: Apparently it worked, because Robert did indeed manage to be strange and aloof.
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The Angry Red Planet (1959)

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_______________The Angry Red Planet Trailer


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A spaceship returns from Mars. A couple of months or more before, a 4-person expedition had been sent to the red planet.

Most of the picture is a flashback to what transpired over there. The picture is saddled by inane, melodramatic dialog, typical of many sci-fi efforts of the fifties & sixties, but more severe than usual.

Note, for example, how the ship's commander (Gerald Mohr) tells another crew member to "stay there" for no reason, as if moving to another spot inside the ship will cause a problem.

Later, the commander orders two of the crew to remain in the ship while he and another go outside. The two whom he ordered to stay say "no way" and follow him out. I didn't have high hopes for the expedition's success by this point.

There's much talk of 'ears twitching' and hugging a freeze-ray gun named 'Cleo' (short for Cleopatra, of course). It would at least be pretty funny, unintentionally, if the story didn't drag.



There's a very slow pace to the whole thing. The astronauts spend as much time looking out the ship's window portals (which change color from red to blue), commenting on what they see, as they do outside actually exploring.

The Martian landscape, advertised as filmed in 'Cinemagic,' usually resembles animation cut-outs or drawings, shot through an orange filter to give the strained illusion of interacting with the actors, who do take on an odd surrealistic appearance due to the process.

But I don't think it fools anyone over 10 years old.

The one clever mention I did notice was that the memories of the surviving astronaut would be tinged with unreality, so that would explain the unreal nature of the Martian vista. Oh, okay . . .



I was amused by some of the astronauts' actions as they begin to explore. Right off the bat, they test their freeze gun on a plant, killing it, just for the hell of it. Then the female member hacks with a machete at what she thinks is a tree, but turns out to be the leg of the spider-rat monster. Nice going, lady. Look up next time.

No wonder the 'intelligence' on Mars gets upset and doesn't mind that one of the lower lifeforms, a giant amoeba, attacks the explorers.



The acting isn't too impressive. Gerald Mohr, especially, had a very annoying technique — saying a line and then abruptly erupting into a huge grin which always disturbed me, reminding me of It! the Terror From Beyond Space for some reason (maybe because It! came from Mars?).

The ending is fairly anti-climactic. Don't expect any huge revelations beyond the 'no-more-expeditions' with freeze guns named Cleo. This was in 1960, but was very fifties, low-budget sci-fi. OK for a lazy Saturday afternoon.



Angry Red Trivia: That map behind the military officer above in one of the first scenes was a common one collected by kids. I had one.

There's a rumor that the spider-rat monster influenced the appearance of the monster in the recent pic Cloverfield.

Some better ones: Robinson Crusoe on Mars (64); Mission to Mars (2000) and even Red Planet (2000)



BoG's Score: 3 out of 10


BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus
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The Amazing Transparent Man (1960)

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___ Trailer - The Amazing Transparent Man (1960)


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Another variation on the Invisible Man premise. A famous bank robber (Douglas Kennedy) escapes from prison and gets help from a female confederate (Marguerite Chapman).

But, they both are in the employ — whether they want this or not — of a crazed ex-Army Major who plans to create an invisible army.

The madman also has another guy with a shotgun (Red Morgan) under his spell, as well as a scientist who has been experimenting with an invisibility machine — the mastermind has some hold over both these men.

The bank robber is soon made invisible in order to steal rare radioactive materials to perfect the machine. It's soon revealed, however, that the invisibility is unstable and that it's eventually fatal due to radioactive poisoning.

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This film is extra short, at just under an hour, made by Edgar Ulmer at the same time as his Beyond the Time Barrier (1960).

Most of the film comes across like a typical cheap crime thriller of that period, with the invisibility notion thrown in for good measure. The actors are all past their prime — Kennedy in particular was well suited for minor character roles, not leading roles. But, he manages to be somewhat commanding in this role.

The FX are bare-bones — most of the Invisible Man scenes could be accomplished without any of these, just an actor pretending that he's struggling with or getting knocked out by an invisible foe.

However, there's one startling shot of the robber halfway materializing in a bank. There's a hint early on that everything might end with a massive explosion (nuclear materials can cause this).

BoG's Score: 3 out of 10



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