The Power of 7

 

 

This is an entry for the Legends of Western Cinema Week hosted by Hamlette's Soliloquy and Along the Brandywine

 

 

The magic of 7 has a power. The number 7 is "universally considered one of the most fascinating and mystical digits, holding deep significance across mathematics, science and human culture". (quoted from AI)

It is important in many religions. For instance, in the Judeo-Christian mythology, 7 is the number of days assigned to the creation story (6 days creating and 1 day of resting for the efforts God put into making the Earth). In the Islamic mythology, there are 7 Heavens, and one must circle Mecca 7 times when visiting. In the Hindu mythology there are 7 higher worlds and 7 underworlds. In the Buddhist mythology, it is a legend that the Buddha took 7 steps on the day of his birth.

There were 7 Wonders of the Ancient World: (The Colossus at Rhodes, The Great Pyramid of Giza, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, The Lighthouse at Alexandria, The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, The Statue of Zeus at Olympia and The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus).  As well as there are 7 Wonders of the Modern World: (Chichén Itzá, Christ the Redeemer, The Colosseum, The Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu, Petra and Taj Mahal).

There are "7 deadly sins" (envy, gluttony, greed, lust. pride, sloth and wrath). There are 7 continents on the Earth (Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Asia, Australia and Europe). Pretty much every school child is familiar with the mnemonic ROYGBIV, which denotes the 7 colors of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet). And, of course, 7 is considered a lucky number by a major portion of the human race. 

And let's not ignore the fact that there are numerous films with "seven", or 7, in the title: Snow White and the 7 Dwarves, 7 Men from Now, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and one of my favorites, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (just to name a few). It is clear that the number 7 has had a profound influence and for good reason.

So, to celebrate the mystical number, as well as celebrating western cinema, I present these two great westerns, both about 7 iconic figures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Magnificent Seven (2016):

 

The inspiration for the 1960 version of the film came from a Japanese samurai film by Akira Kurosawa, Seven Samurai. The Kurosawa film was such a huge impact on many of the actors and people behind the cameras. Interesting to note, in 1960, a band of fairly unknown actors came together to produce an iconic film. 

In retrospect it might look like an all-star dream cast, but here's something you may not know: Yul Brynner gets the starring role and he had a pretty good cache of roles (12 or more), including an Oscar winning performance in The King and I. But the rest of the cast were basically just starting out. Steve McQueen, who was second headliner behind Brynner, had become well-known through his starring role on the TV series Wanted: Dead or Alive, but he had only been credited in 3 movies prior to this one. Charles Bronson had been in a few movies (about 15 or so), but many of those had been in uncredited roles as minor characters. Robert Vaughn had only 7 movie roles under his belt, Eli Wallach had only 3, and James Coburn was the "newbie" with only 2. The guy with the biggest background in film, Brad Dexter, had 17, although many of those were minor roles, like his co-star, Vaughn. Horst Buchholz, credited here with an "introducing Horst Buchholz", also had a pretty good background, with 15 movies, but those were all in his native Germany. It was indeed his first appearance in an American film. 

On paper, this film might have been a second feature to a more cast-enhanced major picture, but it did become an iconic film, possibly because of the retrospect of it's perceived "all-star" cast. Indeed, the talents of the seven do come through, some more than others. Aside from it's ostensible star, Brynner, the characters played by McQueen, Wallach and Buchholz make this film worth the time. The rest of the cast do hold their own in the scenes they are in, although a couple of them don't really stand out. (I would put Coburn's "knife guy" in that category, but if I have to be honest, it's probably just because he didn't get that much screen time).

The basic premise is that a Mexican bandit by the name of Calvera (Wallach) has been raiding villages and using his band of outlaws to take whatever he wants to survive, (instead of, I don't know, actually working for a living...?) The band raids many villages for this purpose, but the focus is on the one village that is the center of the film. The villagers are at a loss as to how to get out from under the thumb of Calvera until they are advised by an elder of the village, played by veteran Vladimir Sokoloff. (Fortunately, with the exception of Wallach and Sokoloff, most of the Mexican characters were actually played by Mexican actors).

The old man suggests they actually fight to save their village. Since none of them apparently know how to use guns, they end up deciding to hire gunmen. In a town across the border in America they find a guy who is willing to take on the role of finding some fellow gunmen to help the villagers, despite the pittance that the villagers are able to scrape together to hire them. Chris (Brynner) is their first, who manages to attract some other gunmen, including Vin (McQueen). This gang is rounded out with a Mexican/Irish gunman, Bernardo O'Reilly (Bronson), a knife expert, Britt (James Coburn), Lee (Robert Vaughn) and Harry (Dexter), a guy who is absolutely sure there is a hidden stash of valuables that Chris is not being honest about. The last member, Chico (Buchholz), is an ambitious but immature kid who wants to prove himself, despite Chris' reluctance to include him in the band.

The interplay between the main characters is what drives the film, as needs be, and even the minor characters, the townspeople put in a good appearance, especially when their unfamiliarity with firearms comes into play. Although, how an entire village could be comprised of only incompetent people with regards to guns in an Old West setting is a bit of a mystery. You mean to tell me that absolutely none of them have ever even gone on a hunting trip? Maybe you could find one in modern-day, when the panty-waist PC crowd is doing it's best to eradicate the existence of guns, but this is set in a time where the primary food source, outside of the farm, involved good old-fashioned hunting for it yourself.

I think the primary downfall of the story was this need to add a love story into the mix, as Chico attracts the attention of one of the native girls. Given the relative short window of the seven in town, it seems highly unlikely, and you just know, even before it happens, how this is going to turn out. (To be fair, there was a love interest subplot in the Kurosawa film, too, so maybe I'm just being overly critical, but it still comes off as contrived to me...)

In this later era it seems that the story may be somewhat reminiscent of modern movies of the same theme: a band of strikingly different "heroes" come together to defeat a common enemy. MCU's The Avengers, anyone? Easy ones would be Chris as he enigmatic duty bound leader compared to Captain America and the eager but over confident newbie Chico compared to Spiderman. A case could be made to compare Britt, who comes off as rather stoic and introverted to Hawkeye and Harry as a rash and maybe loose cannon type to Hulk. I can also see similarities between O'Reilly and Thor, both of whom are hiding a compassionate heart behind a gruff exterior.

The ultimate showdown occurs as Calvera gets the drop on the seven and encourages them to leave town with their lives intact (although not necessarily their dignity, which is why they ultimately have to return to the town and do battle with the enemy. Not all of them are going to come through intact, however, and it's probably a sure bet you can figure out which ones will be the last men standing if you know anything about how Hollywood played out these kinds of stories.

The essence of the film is the message that it flings, without shame, into your face, along the lines of "would you rather die on your feet or live on your knees?" If the answer is the latter, then maybe this movie is not one that would appeal to you, but if you are like me, a staunch believer in not letting any man govern how you will live your life, you will love the message, even if you feel sorrow for the heroes who have to "die on their feet".  

In the 2016 sequel, although the basic premise is still there, the characters and their goal is a bit different. In this outing, instead of a roaming bandit, we get the ultimate enemy, a capitalist land grabber who is trying to muscle the townspeople to sell their land and move, so he can have sole exclusive rights to the gold mine in the neighborhood.  

The same basic background comes into play as the villagers in the remake seek to find some hardy heroes to help them drive off the land grabbers. The bad guy in this film, Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard), is basically a cardboard cutout of the unscrupulous industrialist you get in most films of this type these days. Your opinion of the characterization may hinge just on which side of the political fence you are on. To me it seems that the film makers went out of their way to present a negative depiction of a capitalist. In other words, Bogue is a Republican and, therefore, the ultimate in evil as far as Hollywood is concerned. Not to defend his character, but would anybody really go to such lengths in real life to get what they want? For God's sake, they even have him intentionally burning down the town church. 

Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington) is hired by a citizen of the town, which is called Rose Creek (and if that isn't an apt name for a town full of innocent "flower children" {my observation}, then I don't know what is...). Chisolm goes about gathering an assortment of malcontents to help him go to Rose Creek to take charge of the town over the nefarious Bogue. 

His first compadre is a man he meets in a bar, Farraday (Chris Pratt). Next he tracks down an outlaw named Vasquez ( Manuel Garcia-Rulfo). Chisolm is basically an officer of the law / bounty hunter, but he promises Vasquez, who is a wanted man, that if Vasquez joins his team, and comes out alive, that Chisolm will no longer be one of his, Vasquez's, hunters. Next up is the Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke), who just happens to be accompanied by a fellow outlaw, Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee). After convincing these two they track down a mountain man, Horne (Vincent D'Onofrio). The last man to join the team is a renegade Comanche, Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeir).

Note: One of the things I like about this film is that the main characters are not, as was true in earlier days of filmmaking, white people posing as other races. Vasquez is played by a Mexican actor, Billy is played by a an Asian actor and Red Harvest is played by a Native American. 

The first battle in Rose Creek is a bit on the unbelievable side, if you ask me. Sure, the seven catch Bogue's men unawares, but they kill off an astounding 22 of the bad guys without so much as a nick from a whizzing bullet. (I think Robicheaux just hurt himself on his hand in the fight...) Chisolm sends the town sheriff off to tell Bogue the battle is on, and then the seven begin their preparations for what is bound to come next. (You don't REALLY think Bogue is going to throw in the towel and say "oh. well, it was worth a try...", do you?)

There are many similarities to the 1960 film here, not the least of which is that the town is basically full of incompetents who seemingly have never fired a gun in their life. But, stacked up against Calvera, Bogue could put him to shame when it comes to sheer determination to win at all costs. The characters that Chisolm amasses to help in the fight are a bit more intense than the original seven. They are sympathetic members, to be sure, but somehow most of them don't really exude the charisma to make themselves likeable. 

I personally would like to hang around Billy, just because he's a real "knife" guy, but I would be nervous about ticking him off.  The standout character, for me, however, is Horne. Maybe it's just because I have an affinity for loners who prefer the company of nature as opposed to the company of people. (Also, I can't think of any role that wasn't improved just by having D'Onofrio in the role. Even his much-maligned stint as Edgar in Men in Black).

Ultimately, as in the first film, the plot boils down to an action packed battle between the good guys and the bad guys, and in case you were hoping differently, some of the seven don't walk away from the fight unscathed. 

In terms of box office, the remake just barely made a profit in the U.S. ($93 million to a budget of $90 million), but if you include the European sales. which added another $68 million to the coffers, it fared fairly well. By comparison, the original also struggled initially. It would be ranked as a "bomb" by today's standards if it had only relied on it's original release. But after becoming a huge box office bonanza in Europe, it was re-released in the U.S. and really hit it's stride on the second release.

The 2016 version paled by comparison to the 1960 version, as per the critics. The 1960 version stands on Rotten Tomatoes at 93% Fresh, while the 2016 version only gets a 64%. This could be easily understandable, since remakes are usually viewed through a lens that distorts it. If you already have a high opinion of an original, then anything that comes along and tries to create the same magic in a bottle will usually have at least some negativity associated with it, pre-viewing, unless the viewer is astoundingly open-minded to it. (I can't be eternally classed as "open-minded" to a remake... God forbid they ever follow through with the threat to remake The Warriors. But I think I'm more receptive to them than most.)

All in all, I would say I much prefer this remake, plot-wise, to the original, although if I were picking one solely on the acting, I would go with the 1960 version. Despite the aforementioned fact that I like the Billy character, I wasn't overly impressed with Lee as an actor. Even Pratt and Hawke pale by comparison to the likes of McQueen and Vaughn (whose characters they are embodying in this remake). Washington, on the other hand, (dare I say it? or is it sacrilege?) gives Brynner a run for his money.

Once or twice over the span of this blog I have referenced an older blog that I had run that has since gone on to the cyberspace ghetto of "Where Is It?". That earlier general interest blog had a weekly feature that involved me reviewing a movie. So, at that time, I did a watch of the first incarnation of the theme, Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. I remember it only vaguely here, some 20 years later, but as I recall it was a fantastic movie. I'm going to add it to my re watch list and hopefully visit it once again for The Midnite Drive-In. Warning: If you decide to watch all three "Seven" movies in succession, better set aside a whole day. You are going to need 8 hours, not including restroom breaks! Which is one of the reasons why this entry only covers the two American productions.

That's it for this time. Drive safely, folks. 

Quiggy

 

H. G. Wells Week Part I: The Time Machine

 This is my first entry in a celebration of my first hero in the writing world, H. G. Wells.  When I graduated from Bugs Bunny kiddie books to reading at a higher level of comprehension, the first books I got into were science fiction.  I can't say for certain whether it was an H. G. Wells book, but I do know that from first grade on, I gravitated to science fiction over every other genre available to me. And time travel was always top in that genre.  (Maybe that's why I also ended up as a history major in college).

 

 

 

Whether or not it actually was The Time Machine that was my actual first foray into Wells, it was HIS first foray into writing novels.  He had previously published some short fiction, including a piece he wrote in college called The Chronic Argonauts, but this was his first real success.  And what a story to kick off your career.

In the novel the main character is simply referred to as The Time Traveler (note: I use the American spelling to avoid that annoying spell correct, but the original is spelled with two Ls, as is the British custom), although he would garner a name for obvious purposes in both radio and film adaptations.  The first person narrative of the story is such that we really have two first person narrators.  Of course, the bulk of the story is The Time Traveler relating his adventures as he used his time machine to travel to the far distant future. But we also get Mr. Hillyer, the character who remains in the background mostly as an observer during The Time Traveler's oration of his escapades.

Wells was an avowed socialist and much of his fiction is tinged with socialist ideology.  The story of that far distant future with the Eloi and the Morlocks is ostensibly a parable of what life would evolve into if the current state of affairs (i.e. non-socialist) was allowed to continue. (And note: I do not intend this or any other entry in my blog to espouse a socialist or any other political ideology.  I just note it for it's historical aspect.)

The Time Machine as a story has been adapted for the big screen twice (three times if you include Time After Time, but that was only the jumping off point for the movie, and after the initial idea of time travel is introduced, it goes off in a different direction.)It was also the subject of a made-for-TV film broadcast in 1978.

None of the adaptations include the final trip that the Time Traveler makes after escaping the Morlocks in 802,701.  Before heading back to his own time, the Time Traveler presses on to see how the world actually ends.  It is my guess that part of the reason it never made it to any of the films is that it's pretty much a downer.  Read the full length novel to get this, as I won't delve into it here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The Time Machine (1960):

The first film version of The Time Machine was released in 1960 and featured Rod Taylor and Alan Young.  It was also the second H.G. Wells book to be turned into a film by legendary director George Pal.  (His first foray into Wells was in 1953 with a version of War of the Worlds).

Some interesting notes to begin:  The original Time Traveler in the Film was to have been Paul Scofield, but Pal went with Rod Taylor.  Also considered for the part were James Mason and (just imagine) David Niven. In the film all the characters in the novel were given actual names. As stated above, the author (as one of the visitors to the Time Traveler's house) only referred to the main character as "The Time Traveler, but he also only called the guests such names as "the Medical Man", "the Psychologist", "the Editor" etc. Only one character, minor in the novel, was identified: Filby.

In the film, the cast of visitors was reduced to a more manageable number of four.  The guests were Filby (Alan Young), Hillyer (Sebastian Cabot), Kemp (Whit Bissell) and Bridewell (Tom Helmore).  And the Time Traveler himself was given the name "George". His credit is actually as H. George wells, so he is supposed to be the author. 

 

 

 

George, at the beginning, is late for a dinner date with his companions.  He bursts into the room disheveled and begins to relate the story what has happened. To begin with he reminds them of the last week's encounter which he had introduced the concept of a machine that could travel through time, exhibiting a scale model which he causes to zip off into the future.

His friends are disbelieving of his claim that the model went off to the future, and leave.  But George actually has a full scale model in his laboratory which he proceeds to test out after his friends leave. He discovers on his first test that he has actually managed to jump ahead six hours.  Encouraged he goes forward in time, stopping briefly in 1917 and 1942.  (Right during World War I and World War II.)

Discouraged that man still wars with each other he jumps back into his machine, but violent events cause him to stop once again, this time in 1966 (5 years in the future from the time of the movie's production).  Once again, George is disappointed because the world is on the verge of war. In fact, air raid sirens are wailing calling people to hide in the fallout shelters.  George manages to get on his machine and escape just as nuclear weapons begin to fall.

He presses on, but finds his machine encased in a mountain.  (And how the machine manages to not be crushed by this, even though it is hurtling through time is best not to be dwelt upon...) Finally the mountain falls away and George stops the time machine.  He finds himself in a lush garden landscape in the year 802,701.  His machine stops outside a large sphinx-like structure.  George goes to investigate his new surroundings, absolutely sure that civilization must have survived over the centuries.

He finds them in the person of a race called the Eloi.  The eloi seem to live in an idyllic heaven, not having to work, but they are child-like.  They show no curiosity, and at one point, a girl is drowning in the river but only George has the wherewithal to jump in and save her.  His rescuee is Weena (Yvette Mimieux), but even she shows no curiosity in her situation.

 

 

 

The Eloi are basically unhelpful to George in trying to find out what has happened.  Frustrated, George demands an explanation and is led to a library where all the books are in such disrepair that they fall apart.  Disgusted George claims he is going back to his own time. But as it turns out, the Morlocks, a race that lives underground,  have moved his time machine inside the Sphinx and no one in the Eloi seems to have any care.

It also comes to light that the Eloi are being raised and cultivated like cattle to feed the Morlocks. It is up to George to save the round of new "livestock" the Morlocks enticed into their underground facilities, which include his new found friend, Weena.  And in the process retrieve his time machine.

As stated above, when George escapes the Morlocks he does not travel on further into the future but instead returns to his own time and is in the process of relating his adventures to the guests seen at the beginning of the film.

The film received mixed reviews upon it's release (mainly for content, not for the acting ability of it's two main stars).  It did get an Academy Award for Best Special Effects at Oscar time. (And George Pal was a wizard at special effects. Several of his previous films had garnered this prestigious award, including one for War of the Worlds (coming later in this H.G.Wells Week blog party.)

 

 

 

The Time Machine (2002): 

In the early part of the 21st century Wells' book got another stab at the big screen.  This time it was directed by Simon Wells, who just happened to be the great-grandson of H. G. Wells himself.  (And maybe there was some back room wheeling and dealing to get that to happen.  Although Simon had directed a few animated features this was, and so far is, his only foray into live action film.)

The connection to Wells' book is tenuous, at best, with this output.  About the only things that coincide with the original novel is that a guy does indeed create a time machine, and the main character does indeed end up in the future, eventually, at the year 802,701.  And of course the races in the future do consist of the Eloi and the Morlocks.  But the parallels deviate quite dramatically from the book after that.

The main character, Dr. Alexander Hartdegen (Guy Pearce) is a professor who spends more time doing pure research than devoting his life to making a profit from his endeavors.  His one love, aside from research, is Emma (Sienna Guillory), a woman who he is determined to make his wife.  He is going to meet her to propose.  But during the proposal they are accosted by a mugger who accidentally shoots and kills Emma.

 

 

 

Distraught, Alexander spends the next few years trying to develop a time machine.  The only motive and the only goal is to go back to that point in time and try to prevent the events that lead to Emma's death from happening. And, having created his machine (a triumph of technology and far more impressive than the contraption Rod Taylor's Time Traveler made in the 1960 film), Alexander proceeds back to try to prevent the death of his enamorata.

 

 

 

But, to his disappointment, although she is not killed by the mugger, a happenstance accident still causes her death.

So Alexander decides there must be some way to discover how to save her by traveling to the future.  He stops off first in 2030 (and even at this date 20 years after the movie, a lot of the "future" still has yet to happen, including a highly interactive AI named Vox (played by Orlando Jones) who tries to help Alexander).  In 2030 we hear a news broadcast that there are plans to blast the moon with bombs in order to create a living space for people to move and live on the moon.

But when Alexander goes forward another 7 years, the project that was only in planning stages in 2030 had devastating effects.  It destroyed the moon, and the result was that the Earth became virtually uninhabitable too.  So he progresses further into the future and through the magic of CGI we see the Earth basically transformed into a new planet. Finally, he stops the machine in 802701.

He is hurt during his landing and is rescued by Mara (Samantha Mumba) who nurses him back to health.  The race of Eloi live above ground (Literally. They live in dwellings on the face of a cliff.) 

 

 

 The Morlocks, who live underground, venture above ground periodically to capture Eloi, and on this occasion capture, among others, Mara.  

Her brother, Kalen (played, coincidentally, by Omera Mumba, Samantha's real brother) helps Alexander by leading him to the ruins of a library where he encounters, once again, Vox, who tells him how to find the underground dwelling of the Morlocks.

He is captured by the Morlocks and meets up again with Mara.  He also meets with a bigwig Morlock (Jeremy Irons).

 

 

 

 The Uber-Morlock, as he is called in the credits, finally tells him a fact that should have been obvious if Alexander had been the genius he was supposed to be.  The reason he can't change the past and save Emma is because if he did, then he would never have invented the time machine to try to save her, the ultimate "grandfather" paradox in new form.  (And here I will explain the grandfather paradox for those of you unfamiliar with it.  What if you created a time machine and went back in time and in the process accidentally killed your grandfather before he met your grandmother?  You would not have existed, and therefore you would not have created the time machine in the first place,)

The final minutes of the film involve Alexander fighting off the Morlocks and ultimately creating a new society. 

This movie is not nearly as cohesive as the first one, nor is it really as good.  But it is entertaining in its own right, and the special effects are good in their own right.

 As a footnote I will say that The Time Machine .did inspire another time travel movie that came from the same concept,Time After Time. I won't delve into that one here, saving it for a future review, but suffice to say H. G. Wells himself ends up chasing Jack the Ripper into the future to prevent him from committing his atrocities in another time period.

Love Over Gold

This is my entry in the Stewart Granger Blogathon hosted by Maddy Loves Her Classic Films.

The song North to Alaska by Johnny Horton was the theme to the movie.  The song came out before the movie was filmed by several months and turned out to be Johnny Horton's last big hit.  He died in an automobile accident shortly before the movie was released.

The story of the gold rush of Alaska may be overshadowed by the previous gold rush in California in 1849, but it still has some cache of interest to those of us interested in history.  The movie North to Alaska covers some of the feel.

It should be noted that the movie was filmed in California, which explains why the terrain doesn't exactly seem right.  But if you don't let that bother you, it has a great feel for the time of the movie.  (Whether or not the Nome of 1901 had such muddy streets or not...)

North to Alaska (1960):

Sam McCord (John Wayne) and George Pratt (Stewart Granger) and his brother Billy (Fabian) have been working a gold mine near Nome, in Alaska.  And they have been very successful at it.

Sam is on his way to Seattle to get some more mining supplies, and as an added bonus he is tagged to bring back with him Jenny, the love of George.  Jenny and George have been corresponding over the past three years and George is infatuated and plans to marry her.  He has even built a honeymoon cabin just off the way from the main cabin the three men share.

Sam arrives in Seattle, not knowing what to expect, but he finds more than he bargained for.  Jenny is a maid in a rich man's house.  Not only that, but she gave up on George some time before and is now married to the head butler of same rich man's house.  Sam, who doesn't have a high opinion on women in the first place, is disgusted.  As a result, he decides to get drunk over it.

While in Seattle, he goes to the Hen House, a local bordello.  There he meets "Angel" (Capucine), whose real name is Michelle Bonet, and is French.  It seems to Sam she would be the perfect substitute for George, since Jenny was also French. (They all look alike...?)  He convinces her to go with him to Alaska.  But Michelle gets the wrong impression.  She thinks she is going to be with Sam.

To make matters worse, during the trip, Sam is such a gallant gentleman, it causes Michelle to fall in love with Sam.  When the truth is revealed, Michelle is of course distraught, but by that time she is already in Nome.  She originally plans to return to Seattle, but changes her mind.

Back at the base camp, George of course is angry about the situation.  He wants Jenny and thinks Sam either got drunk and forgot her, or some equally malevolent act.  And Billy has a puppy dog love for Michelle, whom she rejects because, after all, she is in love with Sam.  Eventually, George, who realizes that Michelle is in love with Sam decides to try to manipulate Sam into admitting he loves Michelle in return.

Meanwhile, in Nome, Frankie Canon (Ernie Kovacs), a small-time hustler who has managed to finagle himself into being a bigwig has designs on Michelle, too.  It turns out they were an item way back when he was a gambler and she was a prostitute in New Orleans.  And he thinks she's back in town to be with him.  Plus he has lots of money, all acquired illegally, including managing to file false claims on several gold mines in the area.  One of which is Sam and George's.

A rare comedy from the Wayne oeuvre, this one has plenty of misunderstandings and double talk standards of the genre which, while maybe not as hilarious as, say, Arsenic and Old Lace  or Blazing Saddles in the sense of laugh out loud comedy, is still pretty funny.  Check it out.



Time to saddle up and ride home.  Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy

Battle Plans

This is my entry in the Claude Rains Blogathon hosted Pure Entertainment Preservation Society

In the history of Hollywood, there have often been actors and actresses wh, at the end of their carrers, often took less than stellar roles in less than auspicious films, probably just to help pay the bills.  Basil Rathbone, for instance, a phenomenal star who was best remembered for being THE Sherlock Holmes in his early career, made two (if not more) sub par movies at the end of his career (Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet and  Hillbillies in a Haunted House).

Claude Rains, who burst on the scene in a memorable role in which you never see his face (until the end of the movie) as the titular The Invisible Man.  He went on to star in dozens of movies, including as Humphrey Bogart's friend (and foil) in Casablanca, Jimmy Stewart's mentor (and foil) in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ingrid Bergman's foil in Notorious, and Bette Davis' husband in Mr. Skeffington, all of which earned him nominations for Oscars (but which he didn't win.)

Battle of the Worlds (1961):

On a remote island observation post, Fred (Umberto Orsini) and his girlfriend, Eve (Maya Brent) make plans to transfer to the mainland, not only so they can get married, but also so they can get out from under the thumb of the head of operations on the island, Professor Benson (Claude Rains).  There are not many people on the island who actually like working with Professor Benson because he is pretty much an obnoxious twit, someone who thinks he is smarter and better than anyone else in the world.

Claude Raims is almost virtually unrecognizable in his coke-bottle glasses and uruly (and white) hair.  He lives in seclusion, even on the remote island that has a half dozen or so fellow scientists working.  Somewhat derisively referred to as "the Old Man" by his felolow scientists, he lives in a greenhouse away from the rest of the crew.  He is wholly dedicated to his god, "calculus" (a study in the field of mathematics, for those of you who may not know).

The scientists become aware of an object coming towards the Earth.  "The Outsider", as it is called, seems to be on a direct collision course with Earth.  But Professor Benson insists that his calculus tells him t will pass only about 95,000 miles outside of Earth's orbit.  But, they wonder, why did the outpost on Mars not get word of it's impending arrival first.  It turns out there was a magnetic storm on the outpost that severely curtailed communications. (rather inconvenient, unless it was necessary for the plot, I'd say.)

It turns out Professor Benson was right.  The object did pass about 95,000 miles away from Earth.  Well, not exactly.  It comes to a complete stop 95,000 miles away.  But then it begins to orbit Earth.  And worse it seems to be moving closer to Earth with each orbit.  Clearly the planet is being controlled by some alien intelligence.  Benson is adamant that the alien planet should be bombarded forthwith with bombs to destroy it before it can cause havoc on Earth, but superior bigwigs decide it must be investigated.

A rocket ship sent to investigate is destroyed by a horde of flying saucers.  THe saucers, being computer controlled, may have a flaw that can be exploited however.  (Sounds vaguely familiar, huh?  Maybe the writers of Independence Day saw this movie before they wrote their script.)  The devil is in the works however, when it is discovered that the alien race that has been running the system have long been dead.  The planet and it's invasionary tactics have been running on remote control.

This is not the worst movie I have ever seen (I doubt anything will ever surpass Teenage Zombies for that role).  It is, however, probably the worsst movie of Claude Rains' illustrious career.  It has some good parts in it, but the special effects ar pretty lame, although we can't fault that too much.  It is not Hollywood big budget stuff, it's an Italian film.  As anyone who has watched a few Spaghetti Westerns outside of the Clint Eastwood/Sergio Leone niche knows, Italian movies can be iffy.

Time to fire up the jet engines (I wish) on the old Plymouth.  Drive home safely folks.

Quiggy

Al and Norm: A Match Made in Hell

This is my entry in the Alfred Hitchcock Blogathon hosted by Maddylovesherclassicmovies.

My parents were dating in 1960.  One of the memories both of them told me was a date to go see Psycho. My mother was especially vocal about it.  Apparently at one particularly suspenseful point in the movie my father reached behind her and poked her in the back.  She claims she jumped about a mile.

Alfred Hitchcock pulled a stunt worthy of William Castle in terms of promotion of this movie.  He hired security guards for the theater and enforced a rule that "no one would be allowed to enter the theater after the movie had started".  This was something new in a day when people could enter the theater at any time during the show (and were allowed to stay through the next showing, although who would actually want to jump in in the middle of a movie is a mystery to me.)

The movie notably had one of the most interesting trailers.  Instead of showing scenes from the movie you got Hitchcock himself in his inimitable fashion familiar from his TV series giving a "travelogue" of sorts, touring the house and giving cryptic comments on the story behind the scenes.  Only at the end when he pulls back the shower curtain to reveal the scene of the iconic murder do you get a brief snippet of Janet Leigh (actually Vera Miles in a blonde wig) screaming.

Also, from the movie Hitchcock, he apparently sent out masses of subordinates to buy up all available copies of the Robert Bloch novel, ostensibly to keep people from reading the book and knowing how it comes out before ever reaching the theater.   The whole background to this classic movie is intriguing.  The movie Hitchcock is an insight into the struggles and travails that Hitchcock had in bringing this movie to the screen.

And then there's the movie itself.  (Be sure you watch the original.  The remake, although technically supposedly the same movie with new actors and actresses; Vince Vaughn, Anne Heche, Julianne Moore; can't even hold a candle to the original).

Hitchcock (2012):

The film is based on Stephen Rebello's non-fiction book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho.  It tells the story, beginning just shortly after the release of North by Northwest, of Alfred Hitchcock's (Anthony Hopkins) plans to make his next movie.

Instead of staying in his normal milieu, or attempting to branch into other more mainstream fields, Hitchcock wants to film the Robert Bloch novel Psycho.  He immediately runs up against roadblocks.  For one thing, the Shurlock Office, the censor board, threatens that the book is too racy to get a rating if filmed.  (A lack of a rating means that the movie would not be marketable to most of the movie houses in America.)  The head of the office, Geoffrey Shurlock (Kurtwood Smith) adamantly asserts that there is no way the movie is going to get past him.

Also the studios all insist that they will fight him tooth and nail on his choice of material.  Again, without a studio to put it's name at the head of the marquee, the film is not going to get the distribution that would make it into the theaters.  They even refuse to finance it, trying to blackmail him into choosing different material.

Hitchcock, along with his supportive wife, Alma (Helen Mirren), decides to finance the movie himself, with the agreement that the studio will distribute it with a portion of the profits in the mix.  He forgoes his director's fee and agrees to use people from his TV show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, in order to cut down costs.  Thus the production of begins.

One of the first problems is finding the right person to play the female star of the movie.  Several iconic stars are considered, but Hitchcock chooses Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johannson).  He does this mainly because he has a thing for blondes, which is covered during the movie.  It seems that Hitch is somewhat of a ladies' man and constantly flirts with his female leads.  Alma knows about his dalliances, but she sticks by him.

The casting continues as Hitchcock searches for the right person to play Norman Bates.  When Anthony Perkins (James D'Arcy) shows up, with a story about having some similar affinity with the character, Hitchcock knows he has his Norman.  Filming begins.

There's more to the story than just the filming however,  For one thing, Alma has been spending time with another writer, Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston), trying to whip his own screenplay into shape.  This is not sitting well with Hitchcock because he becomes convinced that Alma is having an affair with Whit.  And some of this comes out in his demeanor on the set.

Additionally, Hitchcock's imaginary muse is Ed Gein, the notorious murderer on whom Bloch based his character of Norman Bates.  Gein shows up to give Hitchcock inspiration (and to also spur his suspicions of Alma) and these sequences are enough to give the film a bit of suspense.  What will Hitch do to Alma when his suspicions are confirmed...?

The completed movie is screened to the studio executives, and its a disaster.  Hitchcock is convinced that the movie is going to be a failed swan song.  But Alma steps in and the two recut the movie, adding some music in places that didn't have any in the first place (there was no music during the shower scene originally, because Hitchcock didn't want it), as well as some other edits.  When the movie is finally released to the public, Hitchcock is finally blessed with the success of a classic film.

I think Anthony Hopkins pulled off an incredible performance here.  He got the voice down almost perfectly.  And he looks quite a bit like Hitch in make-up (unlike some characters in biopic movies I could mention).

And now its time to discuss the classic itself.

Psycho (1960):

Where is Hitch?: In almost every Hitchcock film Alfred Hitchcock managed to insert himself in the movie. Here at about the 7 minute mark you can see him through a window wearing, of all things, a Stetson hat.

 

The advantage of talking about a movie that is now 58 years old is I don't have to be circuitous about discussing it.  Most of you have either seen the movie, or at least know enough about it that nothing I mention will come as a surprise to you.  But Spoiler Alert! I will reveal some things you'd rather not know beforehand if you are completely clueless about the movie...

Opening scenes show Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) and Sam Loomis (John Gavin) having just finished a secret tryst.  They discuss the possibility of marriage so they won't have to meet in secret, but Sam opines about the debt he is in, due to his father's debts that he left behind when he died.  Marion goes back to work instead.

While at work, a rather rich and rather irresponsible man (Frank Albertson) pays $40,000 in cash for a piece of land to her boss (Vaughn Taylor).   Uncomfortable with holding so much case in the office, he asks Marion to deposit it at the bank on her lunch hour.  Feigning sickness, Marion asks for the rest of the day off so she can go home and rest.

Of course, instead of going home to rest, she goes home and packs a few things and goes on the run.  With the money, of course.  It's obvious her plan is to hook up with Sam and give him the money to pay off his debts.  On the way her conscience starts to nag at her.  But she manages to keep it at bay.  At one point she pulls over on the side of the road to rest, but falls asleep.  Whereupon a cop shows up to investigate.  Marion is nervous and rouses the cops suspicions, but he lets her go, choosing to follow her instead.

Marion stops in the next town and trades in her car for another one, still acting a little suspicious.  The car dealer notices, and despite his suspicions ends up taking the trade.  Marion leaves and continues on her journey.  Once again exhaustion catches up to her and she stops at the Bates Motel to get a room.

Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) greets he and furnishes her with a room.  After telling her the nearest diner is several miles up the road, he invites her up to have dinner at his house.  But a while later Marion overhears Norman arguing with a woman, and Norman returns with a plate of food, telling Marion his mother is out of sorts and does not want a strange woman in the house.

During a conversation with Norman, Marion comes to the decision to return with the money and face the music.  She goes back to her room, not knowing that Norman is spying on her through a peephole in the office.  A short while later, while Marion is taking a shower, a figure in a dress bursts in and stabs her to death,  Norman finds the body, and blaming his mother, disposes of the body and all evidence that Marion had been there.

The last half of the movie involves some investigations into the disappearance of Marion, led by Sam and Marion's sister, Lila (Vera Miles).  Also looking for Marion is Milton Arbogast (Martin Balsam), a private investigator, apparently hired by either her boss or the guy she bilked out of his money (although  it is never really stated).

Arbogast ends up finally talking with Norman who is very evasive and refuses to let Arbogast talk with his mother.  But Arbogast thinks he is on to something, and waits until Norman is preoccupied and goes up to the house to confront the mother.  Bad mistake.  He is killed by the same shadowy figure that killed Marion.

Sam and Lila, who have been patiently waiting for the return of Arbogast suspect foul play, but are unable to entice the local sheriff to investigate.  For one thing, the sheriff tells them that Norman's mother died 10 years ago, so Arbogast's claim to have seen the mother in the window of the house is not possible.

Of course Lila and Sam are not deterred by the lack of help from  the sheriff and go off on their own to investigate.  While Sam distracts Norman, Lila goes up to the house to investigate, looking for the mother.  Whom she finds.  But Norman's mother is not talking.  And you know why.

Psycho is considered by many to be the first slasher film.  Despite the travails that Hitchcock had in getting the movie made (see the first entry in this post), it is probably his most famous film.  And it still manages to entrance people even today, without all the extra blood and gore that populate most of it's inheritors to the genre.  Hitchcock managed to make a movie that seems gory and bloody, even in black and white.  So much so that some even have claimed that color was used for the blood in the shower scene (it isn't, but it sure seems like it sometimes; the "blood" was supposedly chocolate syrup, so it wouldn't have shown up as red anyway...)

The movie got mixed reviews upon its release, but the public largely ignored the bad ones apparently, because it remains the all-time most profitable movie in the Hitchcock oeuvre.

Drive home safely, folks.  And if you feel the need to stop overnight at a motel, let me recommend a Holiday Inn or a Motel 6 instead of that low budget inn down that deserted highway...


Quiggy

The Solar System on $5 a Day (Pt. 1)

This is my first entry in the Outer Space on Film Blogathon hosted by Moon in Gemini


Attention patrons of the Midnite Drive-In! For three days, from April 13th -15th. we are going to take a tour of the solar system.  American International Pictures is our main guide to this tour. We will be visiting many of the planets in our solar system along with a brief jaunt to Earth's moon.  We hope you enjoy this respite from your daily humdrum life.

The solar system is fairly huge.  At least it is by comparison to a trip around the world.  From our sun, it is around 7.4 billion miles to Pluto, the last planet in our solar system.  (Pluto is still a planet in my book.  The hell with what Neil deGrasse Tyson and the rest of  his big forehead astronomer buddies say...).  You could start at one point on Earth, say New York City, and travel completely around the Earth back to NYC almost 3 million times before you could come close to the same distance.

Almost ever since man has noticed that there are other planets in his neighborhood, there has been speculation that there might be life on those other planets.  The most famous example of speculation of life on other planets within our solar system would probably be H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds.  I would hazard a guess that probably only the most remote aboriginal tribe in deepest dark Africa has never heard of this classic tale (which, in case you are one of those tribal members, involves Martians invading the Earth).

The drive-in movie theater has always been a ripe venue for tales of space travel.  Movies that were specifically made for drive-ins usually had a budget of mere pennies compared to the extravaganzas that crop up in the multiplex theaters of today.  (All six of the movies we will address over the next three days were made for less than a hundredth of the entire budget for the Tom Cruise version of The War of the Worlds...)

But cheap budgets did not always mean cheap entertainment.   While a couple of the movies that I address do come off a little stale, they are still worth at least one view, and a couple of them are entertaining enough to be watched several times.

We begin our tour with the planet Mercury.  Mercury is hot.  Take my word for it.  Cameras and film start melting before you even get within 100,000 miles of the planet.  This explains why no movies were ever filmed on Mercury until the early 21st century, when studios finally solved the enigma and were able to have a spaceship orbiting Mercury in Sunshine.  But we won't delve into that movie because our tour is limited on time.  You can check that movie out on your return to Earth.

The next planet on our tour is Venus.  Venus was the site for several decent films, among which were Queen of Outer Space which featured Zsa Zsa Gabor as a courtier to the dictatorial Queen of Venus helping our astronaut heroes who crash landed on the planet.  A Russian film, Planeta Bur, also took place on Venus, as did Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women and today's first feature, both of which were adapted from the Russian film.


Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965):

The film Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet is an example of someone taking a foreign film and adapting it, with a Russian film called Planeta Bur (Planet of Storms) standing in for real authentic American movie making.  The people who released this movie recut the movie, much like someone else did with the Japanese flick Gojira (Godzilla).  But instead of actually having the main actors interact physically with the inserted characters (Raymond Burr supposedly actually talks with some f the Japanese characters onscreen in the latter example), this movie just substitutes our main American actors and actresses talking to the characters from the Russian film via radio.

Basil Rathbone, who must have been hard up for a paycheck, plays a scientist, Professor Hartmann,  on a Lunar base that is in contact with three ships trying to reach Venus.  One of the ships, the Capella, is destroyed by a meteorite, leaving two ships.  Hartmann informs the two ships that they should wait on a replacement ship to arrive to help them.  But our astronauts don't want to wait the two months it will supposedly take for another spaceship to arrive, and one set of astronauts decide to go ahead with the plan and land on Venus.

Upon their arrival the two astronauts lose contact with the mother ship and another crew of three astronauts go down to look for them.  They leave Marsha (Faith Domergue), another astronaut, on board to keep in touch with the landing crew as well as keeping in contact with Hartmann back on the Lunar base.

You probably wouldn't know any of the actors who play the astronauts by name, but even if you did, for some reason AIP decided to give them more European sounding names like Robert Chantal and Kurt Boden.  And the actors are obviously not American, you can tell, but even if you couldn't you would surely notice that their lips are not actually forming the same words that are coming out of your speakers.    

Both sets of astronauts encounter dinosaurs and other exotic life on the planet, including a giant man-eating Venus flytrap (now THERE'S a humorous vignette...)  As the two groups try to connect with each other they run into several dire situations.  Fortunately they have the help of a robot who is able to get them out of one situation involving a rising flow of lava from a volcano.

 This movie has some very cheesy special effects and it is hampered by the fact that the Russian actors are not very good, but since it is only about an hour or so long, it is worth a watch, if only for the appearance of two memorable movie icons.  Basil Rathbone is famous to most viewers for his many portrayals of Sherlock Holmes and Faith Domergue was a sultry siren in many sci-fi and horror films herself ( Cult of the Cobra, It Came From Beneath the Sea, The Atomic Man and of course the most familiar role in This Island Earth)

On our tour of the planets in the solar system, we felt we would be remiss if we did not take a detour and visit Earth's moon.  The Moon was the first thing many of the early Earth natives looked at with awe and wonder over the years.  It was often speculated that life on the Moon existed, and when man finally went to the Moon it was discovered that, indeed, there was a life of sorts.  This was discovered first by the people who made A Trip to the Moon.  Among the other excursions to the Moon, we have Destination: Moon and a bizarre entry in the nudie film genre called Nude on the Moon (in which astronauts find a nudist colony on the moon, although technically it's only a topless moon colony, not a true nudist colony...)  Additionally we have today's second feature:


12 to the Moon (1960):

The premise of this movie is a multi-national group of astronauts is on a mission to be the first to land on and investigate the moon.  A distinguished director (played by the equally distinguished Francis X. Bushman) introduces the crew who will man the Lunar Eagle 1.  They include such distinguished scientists and experts as a German who was the ship's designer, Erich Heinrich (John Wengraf), a boy genius, the ship's mathematics specialist, Rod Murdoch (Robert Montgomery, Jr.), a Turkish physician, Selim Hamid (Tema Bey) and his Swedish nurse, Sigrid Bomark (Anna-Lisa), a French engineer, Etieene Matel (Roger Til), a British geophysicist, Sir William Rochester (Phillip Baird), a Japanese space photographer, Hideko Murata (Michi Kobi), a Russian geologist Feodor Orloff (Tom Conway), a Nigerian navigator Asmara Markonen (Cory Devlin), a Polish born Israeli who serves as the recorder, David Ruskin (Richard Weber), A Brazilian pilot Luis Vargas (Anthony Dexter) and the ship commander, John Anderson (Ken Clark), who is an American.  The ship's commander was unanimously elected to be the leader because of his experience in the field of space travel (and of course because he is a American and this is a United States made film...)

The 12 board the Lunar Eagle, the rocket designed by Dr. Heinrich, and blast off for space.  The trip s supposed to take 27 hours.  In that time, several subplots come to light.  Firstly, for a supposedly cooperative international flight, the Russian comes off as a typical Russian of the era, claiming that Soviet technology is the reason the mission will be successful.  Also there is some sniping between the Israeli and the Russian, since the Israeli is actually of Polish descent (Poland having been under Soviet dominion at the time).  Also, it turns out that the German scientist's father was the Nazi who ran the concentration camp where all of the Israeli's family had been exterminated, although the Israeli is the only one who doesn't know it.

On the trip there are several encounters with meteor showers.   The crew has some special equipment that helps them avoid being hit by the meteors.  (Seems like they probably could have gone at a different time and avoided them altogether, but you know Hollywood...)

After landing the crew find several interesting things, including gold and a bubbling viscous emanation which one crew member foolishly tries to touch and gets his hand burned.   The Swede and the Turk find a cave which seems to, incredibly, have breathable air.  They take off their helmets, and immediately fall in love.  (Don't look at me, I didn't make this up...)    They walk off deeper into the cave and essentially disappear.  Meanwhile the rest of the crew returns to the Lunar Eagle, less one other member who was swallowed up by some version of lunar quicksand.

Back on the Lunar Eagle, the computer starts printing out a message.  It is in the form of some hieroglyphics which, although they don't look Japanese in the slightest, the Japanese scientist can translate.  It is from the residents of the Moon who tell them to leave immediately.  They are worried that the Earth people will contaminate the utopia that is the Moon.  The Moon people say they have the two lovers and are going to keep them to observe them and decide whether or not they are going to destroy the Earth to prevent any further contamination.

Despite a few plot holes that you could fire a howitzer through, this movie is not all bad.  There are a few revelations and plot contrivances that you can see coming a mile away, but most of them, if viewed in the context of the time, are acceptable.

Come back tomorrow as we will continue or trek across the solar system.  In the meantime make use of the well stocked bar and diner on the third level of our spaceship.  We will be sure to drive it safely.

Quiggy

Time Warped

This is my first entry in the Time Travel  Blogathon hosted by Silver Screenings and Wide Screen World

It's an axiom of society.  If a guy tells you he's from the future, he must be crazy. But what if, just what if he really IS from the future?  12 Monkeys, a film by Terry Gilliam explores this possibility.  We tend to think along the lines of what our perceptions of reality have been formed.  Time travel is not possible, therefore anyone who claims they have either come from the future (or in another scenario, a modern person who claims to have built a time machine and actually used it to travel into the past or future) must therefore be a little off mentally.

But an adage that was once postulated by Arthur C. Clarke, known as one of the three Clarke's laws  once stated than "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".  One could extrapolate from that idea that also any idea that one cannot justify by their own deductive intellect is therefore not reliable as an idea.

I personally believe that time travel is theoretically possible, although I do not claim to come from the future nor do I know how to build some machine that would help me accomplish the task. But would I willingly be a guinea pig to see if the process actually works?  Hell, yes. 

The following two features do not feature a man from the future trying to convince the modern day people of impending doom for the planet, however (at least that's not the main theme).  Rather both movies involve people from modern times ending up through circumstances in a future world of Earth.  Both have a rather bleak view of the earth's potential future, at least from the standpoint of the present (the 60's).


























Beyond the Time Barrier (1960):

A pilot, Major Bill Allison (Robert Clarke), flies an experimental jet plane into the stratosphere.  The jet travels at supersonic speed and through the magic of rather iffy Hollywood theory, the pilot lands on an Earth some time in the future (although he does not initially know that.)  What he finds is his military base abandoned and in a state of extreme disrepair, even though he thinks he's only been gone for a few minutes.  It turns out, as the story goes, that the Earth has suffered a severe catastrophe.

Not, as you might expect from a movie from the 60's, from a devastating nuclear war.  But it was the result of nuclear weapons.  See, all those bombs being tested ripped a hole in the ozone layer, and let in cosmic rays from outer space, which turned the planet into a barren wasteland.  All of society has been forced to move residence underground.  But in the distance, the pilot can see the above ground city (which is a poorly done matte painting, but this is the only real quibble I have with the movie). 

The society, called the Citadel,  is ruled by a leader called The Supreme (Vladimir Sokoloff), who has been granted almost dictatorial rulership over society.   Everyone except for The Supreme and his second-in-command (Red Morgan) are deaf mutes.  They are also all sterile, there have been no new births in 20 years.

The Supreme's daughter, Trirene (Darlene Tomkins), however appears to be a last ray of hope because, although she is also mute, she is fertile and can be a bearer of children.  Which makes it convenient that Maj. Allison has shown up.

But the Captain does not trust Allison.  He is convinced that Allison is not from the past as he says but is instead some kind of advance spy for the Mutants, a race of people who live on the surface.  Convinced he is a spy he initially casts him into the Pit with the rest of the Citadel's mutant prisoners.  But Trirene has the hots for Allison and convinces her father that he is what he says he is.  (She is also telepathic...)

Allison is put in with a few other scientists who have also come from different eras of the past  (it turns out he was not the first to cross the time barrier).  The scientists convince Allison he can go back to his own time if he reverses the events that brought him to the future in the first place. The scientists tell Allison not to trust the Supreme and the Citadel.   But the Captain in turn tries to convince Allison not to trust the "scapes", which is what the scientists are called.

Chaos must ensue, of course, for Allison to actually make his escape to the past (his present).  It turns out that the "scapes" are not all to be trusted, as one of them engineers an attack from the inside with the help of the released prisoner mutants.  Whether Allison actually makes it back to his own time, and in what condition he will be in if it is actually him I will leave to you to find out by viewing the film.  This isn't actually as bad as it sounds, but the better movie for true admirers of real science in their science fiction will like the second feature better.

 



The Time Travelers (1964): 

In a laboratory, three scientists, Dr. von Steiner (Preston Foster), Dr. Connors (Phillip Carey) and Dr. White (Merry Anders),  try to perfect a window into time, although this window is initially only a "window", supposedly letting them see things as on a TV screen.  But just as a technician, Danny (Steve Franken, and yes he is related to Al Franken), shows up to tell them their power is about to be cut off, everything fries on the computers and this window actually becomes a portal.

Danny steps through the portal, and soon the others follow.  Of course, just as soon as they do, the portal vanishes and they are stuck in the future.  Once again, some devastating event has turned the future into a barren wasteland.  A group of red-skinned mutants, all looking like "Bull" Shannon from the TV series Night Court,  begin to chase the four. 





They end up in a cave where a mysterious force field ends up protecting them.  It turns out that the force field was generated by the inhabitants living underground.  (Yes, another society of people who had escaped the shattered world above ground for security of a society insulated from the bad old world of above ground.)

The underground civilization, led by Dr. Varna (John Hoyt) and his associate, Councilman Willard (Dennis Patrick) are desperately trying to complete the building of a spaceship that will take them to a planet near Alpha Centauri.  See the planet Earth is rapidly dying and the people living in the underground society are going to have to leave the planet if they want to survive.

Willard convinces Varna that taking the four newcomers with them will drastically reduce their chances of success, as they have everything down to a science as to how much food water and the like the people will need to make the trip.  But Varna does allow the scientists to use what resources are available to recreate their time portal and return to their own time.

Fate however intervenes, as the mutants above ground launch an attack, just as the spaceship is being boarded.  They destroy the spaceship and most of the colony on board already.  But a handful of the citizens and the scientists are able to finish the portal and escape to the past.  Upon arriving however, they find they are somehow living in a faster time rate than the actual present.  The scientists go to their lab where their former selves still are.  But they seem frozen!  No so.  The group from the future are living at an accelerated rate, estimated to be living at a year per second of actual time for their selves in real time.  (A concept that was used in an episode of the original Star Trek TV series, but I think this movie came out first.)

Fortunately the point at which the scientists re-entered the past is also a point in which the portal first materialized as a passageway into time and they find they can step through the portal again, albeit 100,000 years into the future.  It is dark and no one knows what is beyond the portal, but their choices are pretty limited, since they can't move or adjust anything in this present point.

Sounds awfully confusing doesn't it?  Wait until you see the final segment.  This movie was lampooned by the MST3K group, but the movie is one of the surprisingly more entertaining ones that that group made fun of.  Except for that rather bizarre and admittedly confusing ending, the acting and the story work out quite well.

Time to head home, folks (no pun intended)  Drive home safely.

Quiggy