ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Great Caesar's Ghost, what's going on here!?

First a Black Friday occurs, then a Body Disappears, and finally nobody knows if it's the Beginning or the End!

Read the threads below, folks, and then file a full report on the situation — in a secret code disguised as replies!

That will confuse that confounded enemy! I mean, it will confound the confused enemy! Or maybe it will just drive me nuts trying to figure it all out!
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The Beginning or the End (1947)



A story inspired by a comment made by President Truman concerning the A-bomb and how it would affect the world.

The film was produced under government supervision — a sign of how hot this subject was in 1947. Brian Donlevy ("The Creeping Unknown", "Enemy from Space") is the head of the Manhattan Project. Ludwig Strossel plays Albert Einstein, the man whose funny little equation unlocked the power of the atom.

Tom Drake is the frightened scientist who argues that even the enemies of America should not have to suffer the effects of this terrible new weapon. He loses the argument and Japan loses two cities.

Hume Cronyn ("Cocoon", "*batteries not included") co-stars.

An interesting film, if for no other reason because of the interaction of Brian Donlevy and Ludwig Strossel. Think of it as: "Professor Quatermass meets Professor Einstein".

Directed by Norman Taurog.
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Black Friday (1940)

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Curt Siodmak wrote the screenplay for this fascinating examination of the idea that a damaged brain can be repaired by grafting on healthy parts from a donor brain.

"Black Friday" suggests that such a brain would combine the personalities and memories of the two.

College professor Stanley Ridges and a notorious gangster are both involved in auto accidents and brought to a hospital. Surgeon Boris Karloff attempts to repair the professor's damaged brain by borrowing portions from the brain of the injured gangster. The strange procedure is an apparent success because Ridges lives.

Another gangster (Bela Lugosi) wants to find out where the dead gangster hid $500,000, so he takes Ridges to New York, hypnotizes him, and convinces him that he is the dead gangster.

*------*------Spoiler Alert!-----*------*

This story is so imaginative I can't help discussing it in detail, but if you don't want to know what happens, don't read on.

Ridges commits several murders and then visits the dead gangster's girl friend, displaying intimate knowledge which only the dead gangster would possess. Ridges gets the hidden loot and then kills both Lugosi and the girlfriend for trying to double cross him. In a twist ending to beat all twist endings, Karloff must kill Ridges when the professor-gangster threatens Karloff's own daughter — and then Karloff is sent to the electric chair for murdering the man he turned into a killer by saving him with a procedure that killed the murderer who donated the brain parts!

An incredible film from director Arthur Lubin, music by Hans Salter.

Lugosi was originally cast (and filmed a few scenes) as the man whose brain is saved by Karloff's odd surgery, but the footage was scrapped and Ridges replaced him. Lugosi took the gangster role instead.

A bizarre experiment was performed by the filmmakers when they shot a scene in which Lugosi's character suffocates in an airtight closet. With reporters present on the set to witness the event, Lugosi was put into a trance by a professional hypnotist and told that he was actually suffocating.

As a result, the scene has a disturbing strangeness about it, even for viewers who know nothing about the odd circumstances under which it was filmed.
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The Body Disappears (1941)

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One of the lesser Invisible-Man-inspired comedies.

Jeffrey Lynn is turned invisible by a serum invented by Edward Everett Horton. Eventually Horton and heroines Marguerite Chapman ("Flight to Mars") and Jane Wyman turn invisible, too!

The special effects aren't up to the standard set by John P. Fulton in "The Invisible Man" and its sequels. Directed by Ross Lederman. Also starring Willie Best and David Bruce.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)