ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Three posts which offer endless possibilities for replies!

One of them was inspired by All Sci-Fi member Rick, who has a rare gift for describing his boyhood memories as a devoted Monsterkid!

He ought to publish a book with a collection of his true stories.


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I couldn't resist creating a cover for him.
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World Without End (1956)

IMDB has several interesting trivia items for this production.
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~ Writer/director Edward Bernds first sought Sterling Hayden and then Frank Lovejoy for the lead. Producer Richard V. Heermance eventually hired Hugh Marlowe, who asked for only a quarter of the other actors' salaries. According to Bernds, Marlowe was often lazy and unprepared.

Note from me: I like Hugh Marlow, and his character is very appealing in this movie. I can't quite picture Sterling Hayden or Frank Lovejoy in the role.

~ This film was produced directly by Allied Artists (formerly Monogram Pictures). It was made in hopes of shedding Monogram's "poverty row" image.

It was given a larger budget, shot in color and CinemaScope and ran a full reel longer than their usual 60- to 70-minute running time common to "B" pictures. Allied Artists was able to book it under percentage contracts rather than flat rates.

Note from me: I love this movie. I just wish we'd gotten matte shots of the underground complex, so of like these (but not quite as expansive).*






~ Writer/director Edward Bernds disagreed with first-time producer Richard V. Heermance's budget-saving practices, especially the economically filmed final scene.

Note from me: Ironically the final scene, which shows the underground people mixing with the normal people from the mutant tribe (and all their children) has always moved me.

~ Writer/director Edward Bernds disagreed with first-time producer Richard V. Heermance's budget-saving practices, especially the economically filmed final scene.

Note from me: I've scene both movies many times, and I've never spotted any shots from Flight to Mars in this movie. Even the crash landing in the snow which the rocket made in both movie were significantly different.

~ Just four years later, one of this film's stars, Rod Taylor, would star in George Pal's The Time Machine (1960). Based on the novel by H.G. Wells, this film would be Rod's second foray through time in his career.

Note from me: Come to think of it, the two movies would make great double features!

~ In this film, Rod Taylor still retains traces and phrases from his Australian background. By the time he filmed "The Time Machine", just a few years later, he'd lost all vestiges of his home country.

Note from me: Ironically, the first time I saw World Without End in 1980s on a VHS tape I wondered why Rod was trying to speak with an unconvincing British accent!

~ Although the films had nothing in common except time travel, the H.G. Wells estate sued the producers for plagiarism, citing similarities to Wells' novel "The Time Machine". Ironically, the producers of the film made from that story, The Time Machine (1960), used Rod Taylor, who starred in this film.

Note from me: This seems bogus. How could the Wells' relatives think this movie bore ANY resemblance to H.G.'s novel.

~ Renowned illustrator Reynold Brown did the poster art.

Note from me: This poster is one of seven which decorated the walls of my room in the 1960s.


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~ Writer/director Edward Bernds reused the motorized spiders in Queen of Outer Space (1958) and Valley of the Dragons (1961).

Note from me: This isn't quite accurate. The spider was certainly NOT motorized! It's a big, stuffed, ridiculous prop that had to thrown down onto the actors, who then struggled with it unconvincingly while they tried to keep for laughing . . .

~ Released on a double bill with Indestructible Man (1956).

Note from me: I wish I'd seen this double feature at the Roosevelt Drive-In which my parents took my sister and me to in the later 1950s.

But the only sci-fi movie I remember seeing there in 1956 was the double feature of Earth vs the Flying Saucers and The Werewolf.





Ironically, that drive-in was the site of a famous UFO incident in 1956. Fortunately the drive-in's owner snapped this remarkable photo!



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Project Moonbase (1953)

IMDB has several interesting trivia items for this production.
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~ This movie and Cat-Women of the Moon (1953) were made using some of the same sets and costumes. Both use spacesuits from Destination Moon (1950), but Project Moon Base had new helmets made instead. The two films were then released within one day of each other, September 3 and 4.

Note from me: Cat-Women of the Moon is pretty bad. But Project Moonbase was written by Robert Heinlein, and it looks it. I love the movie and I have the crystal clear DVD. And this next item surprised me.

~ The dialogue and space uniforms (including shorts and skull-cap helmets) is pure Heinlein.

Note from me: As unlikely as it seems that astronauts would wear T-shirts and shorts on a spacecraft, the ISS crew do in fact dress in comfortable clothes similar to the ones in this fun little movie.









~ Included is an early cinematic example of the word "warp" (used as a verb) in the science fiction space travel genre. This occurs around the 24 minute mark. A message is given by "Space Control" to the crew of "Rocket ship Mexico". Quote: "We will warp you to park at three", referring to dock number three on the orbiting space station.

Note from me: Obviously Mr. Heinlein liked the word "warp" in conjunction with space flight.
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Share a few scary memories from your Monsterkid days!

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Everybody has a list of science fiction movies which succeeded in scaring them when they were kids.

My list is surprising short, probably because I was never interested in watching horror movies, and I didn't even start going to movie theaters without my parents until I was about 12 years old, when I started riding the city buses to the nearby town of East Point, GA, so I could see movies at the theater shown below with my two friends, Jimmy and Chuck.

Unfortunately, this is the only picture I've ever found of that theater, which was taken long after it had closed down.


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However, I spent a several hours modifying the image to make the East Point Theater look like I remembered it from 1960 when I saw the movie listed on the marquee.





The tiny images of the posters on each side of the ticket booth where the display cases used to be are actually from that movie!

I can't help but envy All Sci-Fi member Rick, who has shared some wonderful stories with us from his boyhood days, when he frequently went to the LeRose Theater with his friends and enjoyed quite a few scary movies!





Rick has posted so many great stories about his MonsterKid experiences that I told him he should publish a book about them — and I even created the cover for it!


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Surprisingly, there are only two movies I remember being truly scared by, and I watched them both on a Friday night late show in Atlanta in the early 1960s. They were presented by WAGA TV, channel 5, on The Big Movie Shocker — with Horror Host Hall of Fame member Bestoink Dooley!


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I was an official member of his fan club — complete with the button to prove it!


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The Big Movie Shocker mostly aired the classic horror movies from the 30s and 40s, but even in the darkened den of my home, sitting on the linoleum floor in front of the 25" B&W television long after my family had gone to bed, none of those movies ever seemed very frightening.

However, there were two 1950s science fiction movies that always left me pretty shaky by the end of the night, and I remember feeling uneasy as I made my way down the dark hallway to my bedroom at 1:00 AM after seeing these two chilling tales about alien invasion.

Here's the trailers for the two movies which disturbed my sleep in the early 1960s.

__ Thing from another World - 1951 - Official Trailer


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_______ Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Trailer


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So, now it's your turn, guys. Please tell us about the scary movies you were frightened by when you were young and impressionable.

They don't have to all be strictly sci-fi, and they don't have to be from the 1950s. Just describe your earlier memories of cinematic terrors, either from TV Late Shows or during Saturday Matinees.

All we want is for you to share your youthful passion for strange ideas which kept you awake at night, the ones that troubled your dreams when you were growing up.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)