ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Remember when you were a troubled teenager, unsure of yourself around girls, occasionally hassled by bullies, and periodically transforming into a werewolf?

What? That never happened to you?

Then count youself lucky, because Michal Landon had a more troubles as a teen than you did.

Forget your teenage years and lose yourself in a grand adventure with a submarine crew as the North Pole.

Then take a walk on the wild side with Ray Bradbury and a movie that features the lovely Claire Bloom and the disturbingly naked Rod Steiger.
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I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957)




Whit Bissell as a mad scientist again! (Actually this one came first).

Michael Landon plays a troubled high school student who is turned into a werewolf by an unscrupulous doctor who experiments with drugs and hypnosis.

Landon's gruesome change to the werewolf state is brought on by emotional stress instead of full moons. The film's scariest scene occurs when Landon is casually watching a pretty teenaged gymnast; the school bell blares out on the wall right next to him and causes him to change into the monster.

Admittedly this movie is low budget horror, but it's extremely enjoyable.

Directed by Gene Fowler ("I Married a Monster From Outer Space"). The success of "I Was a Teenage Werewolf" inspired an inferior follow-up, also starring Whit Bissell -- "I Was a Teenage Frankenstein", directed by Herbert L. Strock.
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Ice Station Zebra (1968)




Big-budget, all-star, action-packed adventure about an American submarine sent to the North Pole to retrieve a downed satellite which contains a roll of film both Russia and America desperately want to possess.

Rock Hudson is the sub commander, Patrick McGoohan is the cynical secret agent with a dry wit, Jim Brown is a hard-nosed Marine captain, Earnest Borgnine is a Russian defector working with the Americans.

Great sets, good special effects, a terrific score by Michel Legrand, and an action-packed screenplay by Douglas Heyes, based on Alistair MacLean's best-selling novel. Directed by John Sturges. Plus it was original released in Cinerama!

The various versions of the poster for this movie by artist Robert McCall are all spectacular.









McCall is famous for his stunning paintings depicting space scenes -- both factual and fictional, and many that combine the real and the imagined, with gorgeous results.



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The Illustrated Man (1969)



Good in places, bad in places; this loose screen adaptation of the Ray Bradbury book at least attempts to capture the nebulous poetic feel of Bradbury's work.

The basic concept is tough to grasp; a lady tatoo artist (Claire Bloom) puts magic pictures on a wandering hobo (Rod Steiger), and the pictures invoke hallucinogenic visions of alien planets and the distant future.

The plot contains three mini-stories ("The Veldt", "The Long Rains", and "The Last Night of the World"). The mini-stories are memorable, but the connecting plot about two travelers (Steiger and Robert Drivas) is muddled and melodramatic. Viewers who dislike surrealistic filmmaking may be unhappy with the ending.

Also starring Don Dubbins, Jason Evers, and Tom Weldon. Directed by Jack Smight from a screenplay by Howard B. Kreitsek. Music by Jerry Goldsmith.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)