ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Wow! What are the odds of randomly picking three movies for today's Featured Threads that all have titles which start with "The A______ Something"?

Astronomical, right? (Hey! Another "A" word! What's going on here? )

We start off with The Alligator People (1959), a movie about a man who wants his skin to match his alligator shoes. (Admittedly I just made that up,)

Next we have The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), about a guy who gets caught in the blast from an A-bomb. (Okay, that was just too easy . . )

And finally we have The Absent Minded Professor (1961) in which an ambitious scientist activates a mysterious force which allows his Model-A to become airborne, allowing him to antagonize his arche enemy!

(Okay, so it was actually a Model-T, but I couldn't resist.)



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The Alligator People (1959)



A case of good-concept / bad-costume.

The concept: use reptile glands to synthesize a substance which will allow humans to re-grow new skin and replace missing limbs, the way reptiles grow new tails.



The costume: an amateurish, erect-walking alligatorman (played by Richard Crane, who starred in Rocky Jones, Space Ranger).



But the makeup for Crane's face before he completes the transformation is pretty good, the work of Ben Nye (of The Fly) and Dick Smith. The story involves a woman who finds her missing husband in a doctor's remote dwelling, deep in the Louisiana swamp, where he is the subject of a series of bizarre experiments. Directed by Roy Del Ruth.

Trivia item: This movies was originally co-billed with Return of the Fly.

And don't you love this behind-the-scenes photo?


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The Amazing Colossal Man (1957)



____________________ I love this poster!

An army officer attempts to reach the wreckage of a plane which crashes in the test area of a plutonium bomb, but he's badly burned when he's caught in the blast.



The burns heal overnight, but he starts to grow . . . and groooow . . . and GROOOOOOW. At first the plot is a variation of "The Incredible Shrinking Man", focusing on the enlarged man's lost normality (and marital love life). But as soon as he reaches true monster height, producer-director Bert I. Gordon turns the giant loose on Las Vegas to wreak havoc on the casinos.



Gordon released a sequel the following year, "War of the Colossal Beast". Special effects, acting, and photography are substandard for both films, but "The Amazing Colossal Man" and its sequel are still kid-pleasing monster hits

The last scene in the movie is in color. Doesn't really add much to the drama, however.

Trivia note for math and science buffs: a human being who is four times normal size would be sixty-four times as heavy, because he's also four times as wide and four times as deep — 4 X 4 X 4 — which means he would be too heavy to move.

So much for menacing giants.
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The Absent Minded Professor (1961)

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One of Disney's most fondly remembered films still delivers a good time. Professor Brainard (Fred MacMurray) invents Flubber (what else would you call flying rubber?). He uses its incredible properties to power a flying Tin Lizzy and turn a mediocre basketball team into the "Harlem Globetrotters From Krypton".



One of the film's many treats is the sight of MacMurray driving his Tin Lizzy along the side of a building. And you'll love what he does to villain Keenan Wynn when he pastes a pair of Flubber patches to the souls of Wynn's shoes!



Also starring the immortal Tommy Kirk ("Mars Needs Women"). Directed by Robert Stevenson.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)