ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

____________________________________________

Mr. Rick Pruitt — an honored member of both the Classic Horror Film Board and All Sci-Fi — has shared numerous memories from his boyhood days when he enjoyed classic movies on late-night television and at his favorite movie house, the La Rose Theater





I've told Rick, on several occasions, that his well-written anecdotal experiences would make a great "coffee table" book for the folks who share his love for movies in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genre.

I even had fun creating a cover for the book!





So, I decided to present a selection of these wonderful posts in this special All Sci-Fi thread. I’m sure our members will enjoy his heartfelt comments as much as I have.

And so, here it is — a "work-in progress from ASF Publications Limited, the cinematic adventures of Rick Pruitt, edited by Bud Brewster, and fully illustrated!
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

______________________________________________

Rick Pruitt

_I was infatuated with monsters and the like from early childhood, but apart from occasionally catching something on local TV, I saw nothing. My family NEVER went to the movies, so until I was almost ten years old my wishes for monsters were many, but very seldom granted.





But I had friends who lived on my block who did see the movies. Some had families who went to the movies, even the drive-in.





And a couple were a little older, so had more freedom with staying up for late shows. And these guys were all way ahead of me in monster movie viewing. So I'd beg them, literally begged 'til I became a nuisance, to tell me about those cinematic treasures which were not mine to see.

I'd hear bits and bites about THE BLOB or THE FLY or CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON. But the clear winner was DAY THE WORLD ENDED. My friend Craig had a near photographic memory of that movie. His mistake was letting me know that. So I must have asked/begged/forced him to tell me the story at least a dozen times. To me it sounded impossibly wonderful.

I didn't get a chance to see the movie till just before my 16th birthday when it showed up on a local Saturday afternoon monster/s-f movie. After all the longing to see it and all the expectations built up by Craig's expert storytelling, I should have been set up for the ultimate disappointment. In fact . . . I loved every minute of it. And I still do.

It's cheap, of course, but it's not stupid. It's pretty-well acted and shot. Roger Corman, even in those early, formative days, was way ahead of most low-budget sci-fi filmmakers. He had a sense of style, and a knack for putting the camera in the right place. Still, you can see his growth as a director even from film-to-film. As good a job as he did on DAY THE WORLD ENDED, his very next sci-fi film, IT CONQUERED THE WORLD, was even smoother and more assured.

I love this movie. I treasure that first viewing, and almost even more, I treasure the memory of hearing the story as a child from a friend who's no longer among the living. So . . . thanks, Craig.

________________

____________ The Day the World Ended Trailer


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

[Bud Brewster]

:
______________________________________________

Rick Pruitt

_This one, to me, has always been a lot better in theory than in practice. The photos in Famous Monsters clearly set me up for a fall. Horrible monsters from beneath the earth, vast, weird underground civilizations. Cute girls in filmy gowns.





When I finally got to see THE MOLE PEOPLE on the 4:30 movie, I was no longer the ten or eleven year old who had stared slack-jawed at the FM pics. I was a cool, know-it-all, seen-it-all 19 year old. And I was not amused.

Matter of fact, I was bored almost to tears. And I was seriously p.o.'d that the cool monsters were just an afterthought, while the boring albinos took up all that valuable screen time.

So, nope. Me no like. Not at all. I will admit that I haven't seen the movie again. That one viewing way back in 1969 remains the only time I've seen it. So I know I need to watch it again . . . and I will, I swear. But I am not looking forward to it, and I'm not rushing to that reunion.

For the time being, therefore, awaiting that reluctant re-view, it's thumbs very much down for this one.


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

[Bud Brewster]

______________________________________________

Rick Pruitt

_

[Bud Brewster]

__________
______________________________________________

Rick Pruitt

_This was among the last 3 or 4 movies I got to see at my beloved LeRose Theater before it closed its doors. I was 12 years old and I saw this doubled with THE THREE STOOGES MEET HERCULES.

Believe it or not, I liked that Stooges' flick so much that I went back on Sunday afternoon to see it again.

But . . . THE UNDERWATER CITY . . . You know, I saw good movies at the LeRose (THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, HORROR OF DRACULA), I saw bad movies there (GHOST OF DRAGSTRIP HOLLOW, THE HEADLESS GHOST), I saw bad movies which I still loved (THE ASTOUNDING SHE MONSTER, THE DEADLY MANTIS), I saw movies which others think lousy but I do not agree (THE KILLER SHREWS).

I even saw a movie which made me want to kill somebody (CURUCU, BEAST OF THE AMAZON). But I only saw one movie there which bored me so intensely that I seriously considered just leaving the place. And that one movie was THE UNDERWATER CITY.

It was shown in black and white in the theater, so it was almost mind-blowing when I saw it on TV in glorious color. It is a little better on TV than it was at the LeRose. I mean — color, the ability to walk out of the room to get a cup of coffee or a sandwich or take a nice long nap, plus the fact that I now know what to expect. So, yeah, it's a little better now.

And I still have the comic book.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

____________
______________________________________________

Rick Pruitt

_

[Bud Brewster]

______________________________________________

Rick Pruitt

_I still think this is Jerry's best movie. Admittedly, it looked a lot better in 1963, still . . .

My Dad, then split from my mom, had no idea what on earth to do with three kids, but felt he should occasionally do something. And all he could think of was movies. Sometimes the choices were pretty obvious, as in THE NUTTY PROFESSOR or LADY AND THE TRAMP. Other times you had to wonder what he was thinking — THE BLUE MAX, THE PRESIDENT'S ANALYST.

My brother, sister, and I thought this might have been Dad's finest hour (and a half). We all loved it at the time. We even thought Buddy Love was pretty funny. Nowadays, however, that character just looks like Jerry himself at his slimiest and most deluded.

[Bud Brewster]

_____
______________________________________________

Rick Pruitt

_Another ancient memory here.

It was a late Friday night in the summer of 1962. I was trying to find something to watch on TV, so I was flipping channels (flipping, yes, no remotes in those days . . . .strictly hands on the channel knob).

We only had two VHF TV stations back before The Flood — Channels 3 and 11. So I was click-click-clacking from one to another and . . . wait! What was that? Did I see some fuzzy image there?

I backtracked and indeed there was . . . something. I adjusted the rabbit ears and spun the little wheel behind the channel dial (fine tuning I assumed), and there was a picture.





It turned out to be Channel 4 from Indianapolis/Bloomington. I assume it was the long-running late show, hosted by the famous horror host Sammy Terry. All I remember is that the movie was THE CYCLOPS, which I'd never seen before.

I was tickled pink, and settled in to watch.

Well . . . there was not much settling actually. Pretty much through the whole movie I was fiddling with the antenna.





My mom said, numerous times that night, "I can't see anything." But that wasn't quite true. There was something there. A faint, gray, shifting vision. And a pretty clear audio. It was — to be frank — a lousy image.

But it was a monster movie I'd never seen. And a surprise one to boot! Because this was a station we'd never picked up before (and never would again).

We made it through that murky, fuzzy movie, and I proudly entered it into my record of Monster Movies I Have Seen. But it was weird. THE CYCLOPS was the rare film — maybe the only film — which fit into the category of Movies I've Seen . . . But Have Not Seen.

Still, I'm awfully glad to have found that faint, frustrating image, because it would be more than 25 years before I got my second look, and my first REAL look, at THE CYCLOPS.

Too bad it's not much of a movie.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

______________________________________________

Rick Pruitt

_This was a biggie for me. It was the first horror film I ever saw in a theater. It was the first color horror film I'd ever seen. Matter of fact, it was only the third film of any kind I'd seen in a theater, and only the second color film of any kind I'd ever seen.

I was 9 years old, but only a few days shy of my tenth birthday. One of the best things about my dad leaving us (and, frankly, there were several) was that my mom loosened the restrictions and I was allowed to go to the local bijou, so long as a friend went with me.

So that Saturday in January of 1960, my friend Bill, a year older than me and well-experienced in moviegoing, accompanied me to the LeRose. We arrived a few minutes early, found our seats and waited.

Now . . . I had seen the poster. I think I had seen the trailer. I know I'd heard a lot from my friends about CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN. And what I'd heard was that it was the bloodiest, scariest, most extreme, most out-of-control monster movie ever made.

They told me that this movie showed EVERYTHING. No horror was too horrible, no scene too outrageous. They said it would all be on camera, nothing would be hidden or cut away from. It would ALL be shown. And in color.

So, with this in my not-quite-ten-year-old brain, I sat and waited. The LeRose always played mellow music over the speakers before movie time. There would be Tony Bennett and Johnny Mathis and The Lettermen. I heard it, but it didn't register. Bill was talking at me nonstop, but not a word sank in.

I was petrified. The movie hadn't started and I was already shaking with fear. I was sure that I wasn't up to this. I was sure that a nine year old kid was not capable of surviving through this. My heart was pounding. I could feel it, too loud and too fast. I was worried that I'd die right there in my seat before the first frame of the movie was projected. And if I made it into the movie, well, the horrors contained therein would absolutely kill me.





I had a bizarre fantasy of my friend Bill knocking on the door of our family home and telling my mom, "Well, Mrs. Pruitt, Rickie . . . uhh . . . well, shoot, Rickie died. CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN killed him!"

I gave serious thought to just leaving. Hopping up, running up the aisle and going home. But . . . come on, that wasn't possible. I'd never live down an embarrassment like that. Better to be dead than to be eternally branded as a chicken.





So I sat and waited for my heart to burst. The movie started. Really colorful. Pretty gross. But not fatal.





I've always felt that CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN is a disappointment, but I've never been sure if that feeling didn't spring from the mere fact of my living through it. I mean, how much more can you expect of a film beyond it killing you? So, yes, my expectations were sky-high. But I lived. So, ehhh . . .

Nowadays, I like CURSE, but it's far from my Hammer favorite. Probably not in my top 10 Hammers. But I recognize its vital importance in horror film history and honor it for that.

It's a good movie, not a great one. And it's not, thankfully, a Killer movie.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

______________________________________________

Rick Pruitt

_Saw this in the theater when it was brand new and liked it a lot. I did think that Cliff Robertson's performance, Oscar or not, was just a mite overcooked.

I found him easy to believe as a genius, but his un-intelligent scenes were a little too precious for me.

Still a very good movie.

But. . . I tried showing it to my sons when they were young and they would have none of it. I don't think we got five minutes into the thing before I caved to their fervent demands that I turn it off.

Their complaints had nothing to do with story or performance. It was purely the look of the film that enraged them. My older son said it had that "70s look" (although, of course, it's actually a little older than that.) I knew what he meant. It's that gauzy, soft focus, desaturated colors thing, at least in part. He was right, it is a look shared by many movies of that period. It doesn't bother me. Matter of fact, it's kind of nostalgic for me. But for my sons, it was unpalatable.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

______________________________________________

Rick Pruitt

_I saw this movie on a late show, I'm gonna guess around the mid-60s. By accident.

See, I thought I was going to be watching Bert I. Gordon's epic, THE BEGINNING OF THE END. At this late date, I'm not sure how that happened. I believe that the newspaper and/or the TV Guide listed Bert's movie, but it's possible they got it right and that I, in my eagerness, mistakenly assumed it was the big bug movie.

Anyway, I watched the movie. And, to be embarrassingly honest, I was never really positive that it wasn't the right movie. I knew Peter Graves was supposed to be there...I didn't see him...I didn't see his name in the credits...maybe I just missed it. Hmmm. As the evening wore on, I began to suspect . . . yeah, this is not it. Damn.

But I stuck with it because it was a really good movie and... nah, gotta tell the truth...I was never positive and I kept careful watch for any giant grasshoppers right through the entire movie. Well, I mean...it was about atomic stuff right? And we all know atomic stuff makes giant critters, right? Ah, never mind. Sigh.

But it is, as far as I can recall, a good movie. I haven't seen it since. Fortunately, I have seen BEGINNING OR THE END several times, so I got my big bug fix.

And it's a happy ending.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

______________________________________________

Rick Pruitt

___This is one I did NOT see at my beloved LeRose Theater. And it's one of the great regrets of my Monster Kid life.

While I saw a lot of movies at the LeRose, I also missed quite a few for one reason or another. And they nagged at me for years and years. I missed INVISIBLE INVADERS, HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, BATTLE IN OUTER SPACE, SPACEMASTER X7, too many more.

But the worst was an all-Saturday-afternoon triple-feature, the twins of BEAST FROM HAUNTED CAVE and THE WASP WOMAN plus the extraordinary Bonus Feature -- KING KONG.

I don't remember exactly why I didn't go. I do remember my friend Steve stopping me in the hallway at Ingramville Elementary School and pleading with me not to miss this trio. He was right of course. But I didn't go, and I've regretted in for 56 years now.





TEXT Of course, I eventually saw all three movies.

KING KONG, well, a masterpiece, 'nuff said.

THE WASP WOMAN silly as all get-out . . . but I think ten year old me would have enjoyed it a great deal on a Saturday afternoon in the dark but raucous LeRose.

BEAST FROM HAUNTED CAVE . . . hmmm . . . I'm sure I would have survived it, but I don't imagine that, even at ten years of age, I would have gotten much joy from that thing.

So BEAST FROM HAUNTED CAVE is a lousy movie, but when I think of it, my first thought is not of its quality, but of the simple fact of what I missed out on all those years ago.[/size]
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

______________________________________________

Rick Pruitt

___I saw this at a grindhouse (a genuine grindhouse-- I may have been the only sober, conscious, actually-watching-the-movie person in the place) in Louisville, Kentucky. It was called the Rodeo Theater and I went there regularly for a couple of years to catch up on things I'd missed first-run. It was not just a dump, it was a kinda scary dump. But, hey, where else was I going to see THE HEAD or ATOM AGE VAMPIRE or THE HUMAN DUPLICATORS?

I thought, when I was 16 anyway, that AGENT FOR H.A.R.M. was a decent entry in the I'm Not James Bond or Even Napoleon Solo but I'm a Cool Spy Anyway field.

Mainly though, I'll admit, I was impressed (and that's not nearly a strong enough word) with the nigh-perfect Barbara Bouchet. Burned into my memory is the too-fleeting moment when a particularly lovely part of Ms. Bouchet's anatomy almost fell out of her bikinimy.





I've re-seen part of the movie in the intervening 50 years and it's not really good, but Barbara Bouchet remains one of the greatest special effects any movie has ever had.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

______________________________________________

Rick Pruitt

___I was a huge fan of the novel (novella?) before any of the movie versions were made. So it's probably no surprise that none of the 3 movie versions came close to satisfying me.

Vincent Price and Charlton Heston were both all wrong for Robert Neville, in entirely different ways. And none of the three have captured the nail-biting terror of the book.





THE LAST MAN ON EARTH was closest to the original, but awfully cheap, badly cast, and, in some respects, unforgivably silly. This film also included some of the best scenes from the novel and managed to botch them utterly.

I AM LEGEND . . . I actually thought, for about twenty minutes or so, that this mega-blockbuster might finally be the one to at least get the essence of the thing right. Then those cyber-critters appeared. There has been worse CGI in many other movies, but no CG effect ever has been so single-handedly destructive to a movie as these goofy cartoons were to this one.

THE OMEGA MAN . . . I left this for last because I don't even know where to start. It's pretty close to a disaster. It manages to aggressively alter all that's compelling in the story, substituting nothing but silliness. Despicable.

I've never understood this. I assume it's just ego on the part of the moviemakers thinking they know how to make the story better.

But the thing is, I AM LEGEND really doesn't even need a script. The movie is right there on the page. Just hand out copies of the paperback and film it as closely as you can.

The whole subject makes me hot under the collar.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

______
______________________________________________

Rick Pruitt

___Maybe it's because I was so tardy coming to this one (my late thirties), but it seems to me the very silliest of all the '50s s-f flicks. Not the worst. Just the silliest.

So these guys launch their rocket and don't know where it is ("I'll tell you one thing, if that rocket comes down on a populated area...it won't be good.") Then, a couple weeks later, they read a newspaper story about some natives dying in Africa. Ah, they figure, maybe that's got something to do with our rocket. So our hero decamps for the dark continent to check it out. When he gets to Africa, it's about a three or four week WALK to the remote village in question.

Where to begin? Okay, first . . . why are the deaths of a few African villagers front-page news in a U.S. paper?

Second . . . why assume the deaths of a few African villagers are due to the lost rocket?

Third . . . if the African village is so incredibly remote, how did the fascinating news of a couple of villagers get out so quickly to the anxiously waiting news outlets of the Western world?

Fourth . . . they have to WALK all the way to the village? They can't take a jeep half-way? Fly a plane to a slightly closer departure point? Take a helicopter right to the center of the village? No?? They have to walk for the better part of a month?

I know they needed trekking scenes to match up with their stock footage, but...come on!

This was one of those cases in which the silliness was so silly and the stupidity so stupid that it pretty much ruined the movie for me. It's not one of those movies where you wake up out of a sound sleep two days later thinking, "Wait a minute..." No, this was one in which the stupidity and illogic hit you square on the head as they occur, rendering the moronic thing just head-shakingly stupid.





Pardon my rant, but I waited anxious decades to catch up with MONSTER FROM GREEN HELL and this is what I get? I was not a happy camper that day and had I not rented the videotape, I probably would have killed it with a hammer.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)