Things to Come (1936)

It's Christmastime in Everytown, USA (London) and the world is on the brink of war. Unnamed foreigners with funny accents are threatening whatever values we hold dear. Despite this, rich guy John Cabal (Raymond Massey) is concerned. He somehow feels that world war is some kind of harbinger of disaster. His friends humor him.

Lucky for everyone, global war lasts only 26 years and society enters a golden age of feudalism that SCA geeks are so fond of. They even have their very own plague. Then our village is visited by a fancy man in an aero-plane who wears clean clothes (Raymond Massey). This spiffy owner of a hot wings franchise hails from a society of scientists and engineers and preaches peace. Rather than follow his inspirational words, Boss man (Ralph Richardson) locks him in the basement and tries to use his aero-plane to kill the people who infected them with the plague (not an altogether unreasonable idea).

The mechanic repairs an aero-plane and instead of bombing the evil Nazis (or whoever), he flies to the closest franchise of Wings Over the World and warn them so that they can bomb our war-ravaged Everytown. Bomb them with love. And sleeping gas that kills only one person. Guess who.

Now with all forms of war eliminated, Everytown is rebuilt into a marvelous shining city. A grand metropolis ... no, scratch that. It's a shining city. That's what I said.

But things aren't perfect in this future utopia. People grow tired of this peace and progress, and long of the days of pestilence and war. Ah, memories. Anyhow, the new big boss (Raymond Massey) decides what he needs to do is to send a rocket around the moon. Did I say rocket? Well, we all know that rockets are so primitive and barbaric. Instead they load a young couple into a giant bullet and fires them around the moon. Just think, it's 2036 and already they have the technology to shoot projectiles around the moon!

What a tedious disappointment. Images of the horrors of war are beaten over our heads while Massey preaches endlessly in all three parts of the film. It scores points because it is the second oldest feature film to show people travelling into space in a rocket (albeit fired from a gun), it's real close with it's prediction of World War II, and also some aspects of future life. Also, Richardson was great as the despotic warlord. However, this grand spectacle presents it's philosophy with all the subtly of a cannon ball.

You see, H.G. Wells hated Fritz Lang's Metropolis, what with it's dystopian view of the future, so he decided to tell the opposite story. The hands must do what the head tells them, and who invited the heart in the first place?

Well made, visually appealing, somewhat prophetic, kinda boring, and clumsy as all hell. AMRU 2.5.

"If we don't end war, war will end us."

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956)

A flying saucer buzzes a scientist and his hot young wife on the way to work, and delivers a critical message. That message was that space aliens want to take over the Earth, but are tired of the whole "lay waste to society" business, so wouldn't it be much better if you give up before we start? Tragically, Dr. Marvin (Hugh Marlowe) doesn't understand the message.

Well, Dr. Marvin's day job involves sending up rockets all day long even though some mysterious force keeps shooting them down. He should ask the saucer people if they've seen anything suspicious.

Meanwhile, back at the top secret military base, a saucer lands thinking it was expected. The soldiers do the predictable and shoot at the space men, which angers our benevolent overlords. They proceed to destroy the base. Except for Dr. Marvin and his hot wife (Joan Taylor), who for some reason are deep underground. They are flown to Washington DC to explain their silly Flying Saucer theory. I guess no videotape survived.

Earth resists, saucers appear invulnerable, secret weapon developed, climax, conclusion, roll credits. 100% pure 50's Sci-Fi fun! But lets discuss the man of the week: Ray Harryhausen.

I watched EvtFS two days before I learned of his death, so when NPR said "Today we remember a pioneer in stop motion animation" I didn't think to myself "I wonder who that could be?" All of the extras on the DVD except maybe the one about the blacklisted and uncredited screenwriter gave extensive praise to Ray. Not only were the saucers his work, but when they would destroy the library of congress or the Washington monument, he was there too. Apparently he was cheaper than a four foot model and a small explosive charge.

Harryhausen apparently called this the least favorite of his films, and I am guessing he was referring to the buildings. Stop motion works for alien creatures and space ships, but the capitol dome blowing up looked more than a little cheesy. Only a guess. I'll see if my library has his book.

A quick word about the leads: Marlowe was the douche-bag boyfriend five years prior in The Day the Earth Stood Still, but now he gets to be the Hero-Scientist. Hottie Taylor also starred in my next Harryhausen movie: 20 Million Miles to Earth. I presume she'll be just as hot. Well written, well acted, excellent pacing, this is a winner in the genre. And when compared to the extremely similar Invisible Invaders made three years later, the latter is revealed as even more of a stinker. AMRU 4.

I'm going with two quotes. One from the movie, one from our pinko-commie screenwriter. See if you can't figure out which is which.

"When an armed and threatening power lands uninvited in our capitol, we don't meet him with tea and cookies!"

"The action by the guild [restoring some of his writing credits] comes about 40 years too late to help my Hollywood career. I sure am angry at the way I was treated by all the major studios. They blacklisted me, and I couldn't get any work in this damn town."

Ray Harryhausen 1920-2013

My goal with starting this blog was to explore my interest in film. I've learned a lot about what I like and don't. Along the way, however, I have become familiar with the names attached to the films I've loved since childhood. One of those names is Ray Harryhausen.

To date I've only blogged on two of his films, but as fate would have it, I had just finished Earth vs. the Flying Saucers and all of the DVD extras the day before learning of his death. I don't wish to expound about "our loss". He lived a full, and by all accounts, fulfilling life. And he gave to us so much, not only in his works, but with the works of those he inspired. Essentially pick a name in the realm of science fiction or fantasy, and you will find they were a fan of Harryhausen. His playful artistry made us believe in the impossible.

While the craft of stop motion is all too evident when viewed onscreen, it accomplished more than to add to the charm. You cannot watch his sequences (otherwise impossible with the technology of the day) without realizing that a human hand was at work. Shoot, move, repeat, thirty frames a second. The labor involved is unheard of in today's CGI world, and he hearkens back to the world of Fritz Lang. On a side note, the DVD I had for Metropolis had an extra explaining how the special effects had to be produced inside the camera itself, and the labor involved. It was truly amazing. Ray Harryhausen produced two to three minutes of footage a day of shooting. With this level of respect for the art and craft involved, I tend to find CGI boring.

I will leave you with a quote from George Lucas about hearing of his death:

"Without Ray Harryhausen, there would likely have been no Star Wars"

Maybe, just maybe, you could add a great many other movies to that list.

Invisible Invaders (1959)

Aliens from the moon decide to invade Earth. Humanity never saw them because they, their cities, and machines, are invisible. They demand that all humans immediately surrender. They issue this ultimatum to peacenik scientist Adam Penner (Philip Tonge) by way of dead scientist college Karol Noymann (John Carradine). Did I forget to mention they can raise the dead? Oh, yea. They can do that.

Anyhow, the completely unreasonable people of Earth don't buy Penner's story, so our invisible moon-men give us one final warning at a hockey game. Failing that, they give another final warning at a football game. Then they invade.

By invade, I mean they raise lots of corpses from the grave to sabotage power plants and whatnot. To save all Earth, the military whisks Dr. Penner, his hot daughter (Jean Byron), and her douchie man-friend (Robert Hutton) to an impenetrable underground laboratory. And by the military, I mean one guy. Major Bruce Jay (John Agar).

What I love about 50's sci-fi is the "What If" factor. For instance, what if you wanted to make an alien invasion movie, but didn't have the budget for space ships or alien costumes? I know, make them invisible! So, this movie actually follows the tried and true formula of alien graverobbers invented by the trailblazing film Plan 9 from Outer Space. Gosh, what a lineage!

Also similar to Plan 9 is the use of an overbearing narrator. Obviously this story is way to complex for us to understand by watching the action and listening to the dialog. We need the major plot points dictated at us. While there are a great many similarities between the movies, Invisible Invaders is a vastly less imcompetent effort. The dialog was not horrible, the acting above amature theatre level, and the sets, while sparse, didn't shout CHEAP.

Also, to be somewhat fair, you do get a glimpse of a space ship and an alien, although that does beg the question Why? But don't stop there. If the alien war machines are invisible, why raise the dead in the first place? Why not just shoot everything from the air? Then they could have saved all that money spent on cheap, crappy zombie makeup.

Not painful to watch, vaguely interesting, but unoriginal and culturally insignificant. AMRU 2.

What was Carradine thinking even appearing in this low budget stinker? He was in, by his own admission, a lot of crap. There are no interesting quotes from the film so I leave you with one of John's. A bit of advice he should have given his son:

"Never do anything you wouldn't want to be caught dead doing."

Beach Party (1963)

Cute-as-a-button Dolores (Annette Funicello) is spending the week at a beach house with shorter-than-expected Frankie (Frankie Avalon). Not sure if she can trust herself alone with him, she invites along everyone she's ever met. Immediately they spat and take turns trying to get each other jealous, Frankie with hot waitress Ava (Eva Six) and Dolores with a creepy professor (Robert Cummings) who is spying on the teens sex life. Entering the fray is the gang who couldn't think straight.

Rife with beach songs, corny jokes, and bikinis, I'm quite surprised to report that I didn't hate this movie. In fact, lose half the musical numbers, punch up some of the jokes, and you might have something here. What was supposed to be a low budget Elvis knock off movie became it's own cultural phenomenon. American International Pictures made a half dozen or so more of these quickies, many with Frankie and Annette, but some without.

Clearly I watched this out of respect for Annette. Her movies were antiques even back in my youth, but she was so likeable. I'm convinced she was the reason my mom always bought Skippy even though I was a Jiff boy. Her charisma comes through. She plays up her good-girl image here, appearing positively overdressed much of the time. She does make one appearance in a scandalous two-piece, so put rumors of modesty aside for a moment.

Surprisingly, Franking and Annette did not got top billing. Cummings and his assistant Dorothy Malone did. Cummings was an odd duck. An avid health nut, in his 40s he likely could have out-surfed green-screen Frankie. He popped vitamin pills obsessively. He lived, hearty and hale, until he was 80. But before you praise his pill-popping ways, know that he died of kidney failure.

Fun, corny, light fare. The real test is if it encourages me to watch more in the series. Time will tell. Hey, I haven't seen an Elvis movie yet ... and I still won't. AMRU 3.

"Boy, this has been some night."
"You can say that again."
"Boy, this has been some night."

The Man from Planet X (1951)

An unknown planet is approaching Earth, because that's what planets do. Scientists study it from a haunted castle in the Scottish moors, because that's what scientists do. Requisite hottie (Margaret Field, Sally's mom) visits her requisite wizened professor dad (Bond, Raymond Bond) while a reporter tags along (Robert Clarke). Hottie and reporter are immediately suspicious of the presence of the requisite fiendishly discredited scientist (William Schallert).

On their arrival, hottie Enid (seriously?) and the reporter discover an alien spacecraft. They return later to rescue the alien who's air supply was shut off, and bring it home to try and communicate with it. Efforts prove futile, so they leave the evil scientist alone to try. He gives up, and the others soon realize spaceman and hottie Enid are both missing. Reporter-Man to the rescue!

Perhaps you recognize evil scientist William Schallert. He did a fair number of movies, both good and otherwise, plus a heaping pile of television. I remember him as the doctor from The Incredible Shrinking Man, but you may be more familiar with his work on The Patty Duke Show or The Hardy Boys. Take a look at his resume. He did a prestigious amount of work. Quite impressive. He turns 91 this summer.

Let's make fun of the poster, shall we? Here, we have Enid, complete with awesome sweater puppies, looking calmly past the horrible monster directly in front of her. I vaguely recall her screaming in terror. Also, how is our monster friend both outside his rocket, and visible through the window? It's the MAN from Planet X, not MEN!

Amusing and atmospheric, but let's not confuse it with an important piece of cinema history. The actors and filmmakers appear to have taken the movie seriously, and that always helps. AMRU 3.

The theme I've been trying to follow is 50's Saucer and Rocket movies, but it's hard to keep on track sometimes. Besides, I've hit the good ones already, and the dregs are difficult to come by. I'll do a couple more before moving on, but next on the docket is about as far from the genre as possible.

Duck Soup (1933)

The bankrupt nation of Freedonia wants to borrow more money from the wealthy Mrs. Teasdale (Margaret Dumont), but she will only agree if they make the dashing Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho) President. When the nation of Sylvania takes steps to invade, hilarity ensues.

The fifth of the eight Marx Brothers movies, this is possibly their best. As always, it's little more than an excuse for the boys to clown around. Here you will find the famous mirror scene, where Chico (or was it Harpo?) disguised as Groucho mirrored his movements pretending to be his image. Real vaudeville stuff.

This is also the last appearance of Zeppo who played, ummm ... Bob. He went on to be an agent and to make pulse rate monitors. Seems his roles weren't terribly memorable. Can't argue that.

So, why 'Duck Soup'? Groucho had a funny line about that, but apparently the studio was simply working the animal theme the previous movies had. No ducks were harmed in the making of this film. Hey, and Charles Middleton, Ming the Mercifullnessless himself, has a small role. Not in makeup, thankfully.

Not much more to say. Just four jews trying to get a laugh. There was the energy and charisma that was lacking in A Night in Casablanca. Made my boys laugh, occasionally. I wanted to see them in sequence, but they aren't readily available, so I'll take them as they come. Not like there is any continuity. AMRU 3.5.

"Rufus T. Firefly: Gentlemen, Chicolini here may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot, but don't let that fool you: he really is an idiot. I implore you, send him back to his father and brothers, who are waiting for him with open arms in the penitentiary. I suggest that we give him ten years in Leavenworth, or eleven years in Twelveworth.
Chicolini: I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll take five and ten in Woolworth."