Interview by Anonymous.

Early in 1968, Playboy magazine contacted me about the possibility of interviewing Stanley Kubrick.  It was an offer I eagerly accepted.  2001: A Space Odyssey had just opened, and critics, whether they loved the film or hated it, were united on one point: nothing like it had ever been seen on a movie screen before.

But was that really true?

In 1965, with little or no fanfare, a movie containing many of the same elements as 2001 had been released.  I was in complete ignorance of this film, but by the end of my interview with “Mr. Kubrick,” I would learn more about it and the film’s director, Bernard Knowles, than I ever cared to know.

For reasons that will soon become obvious, the interview was never published.  One editor at Playboy explained the situation to me this way:  “The god damned interview isn’t even with Stanley Kubrick!  And, oh yeah, if we publish it, he’s going to fucking sue us!”

It’s been many years since the interview took place, and sadly, Mr. Kubrick is not longer with us.  The time seems right, however, to finally share this bit of lost cinematic history with the general public.  If nothing else, the interview possibly helps explain Mr. Kubrick’s reclusive habits in later years.

The Interview

Flap.  Flap.  Flap.  Flap.  Flap.

In the darkness, there was the sound of tail leader on a 16mm take-up reel spinning around and around.  I rose from my chair and flipped on the light switch–revealing Stanley Kubrick seated next to a portable 16mm projector on my desk.

KUBRICK:  Quiet an eye-opener, isn’t it?

I didn’t answer immediately, and in the silence, Mr. Kubrick tugged self-consciously at his beard–causing it to shift position on his face.  Anyway, that’s what I believed I saw.  I rubbed my eyes, and after a moment or two, was uncertain whether the beard had actually moved or not.

My lack of enthusiasm for the film seemed to catch Mr. Kubrick by surprise.

KUBRICK: Of course, the whole thing plays differently in a theater on a big screen.

PLAYBOY: I’m sure it does.

Our initial meeting had been cordial enough and the interview progressed in a satisfactory if not particularly remarkable manner…that is, until I asked Mr. Kubrick about his influences.

PLAYBOY: Eisenstein.  Lang.  Max Ophals.  In the past, you’ve mentioned these filmmakers as being an influence on your work.  Would you add any others?

KUBRICK: Bernard Knowles.

If I had taken a drink of water at that moment, I might have done a spit-take.

PLAYBOY: Who?

That was when Mr. Kubrick directed me to turn off the lights.  The 16mm projector he had brought with him was threaded and ready to go.  It’s possible that for the next sixty-two minutes I stared at the screen with my jaw hanging open.

In the darkness, the shaft of light from the projector must have revealed my expression.

KUBRICK: Amazing, isn’t it?

PLAYBOY: That’s one way of putting it.

The "amazing" adventure begins.

I was watching something called Spaceflight IC-1: An Adventure in Space. It was directed by Bernard Knowles, a filmmaker Mr. Kubrick seemed to rank along side Lang and Ophals.  Unfortunately, to make some sense of what follows, a brief description of the movie is required.

It is the year 2015, and the earth’s resources have been severely depleted by overpopulation, allowing an Orwellian government (apparently lacking any sense of irony, having named itself RULE) to take control in the ensuing chaos.  With earth facing an uncertain future, the decision is made to send spaceship IC-1 (IC for intergalactic colony) to the nearest inhabitable planet in hopes of reestablishing the human race.

Dr. Garth (left) the world's first "closed-circuit" man.

The crew consists of four men, four women, three children (two boys, one girl), and a head.  The “head” is Dr. Garth, the first “closed circuit” man.  He feels nothing (emotionally or physically) and has a machine for a body.  In appearance, Dr. Garth can best be described as a head inside of an upside down fishbowl set on top of a filing cabinet that has the drawers turned to face the wall.  The remainder of the crew is in suspended animation, having been placed on the spaceship in cryogenic hibernation.

Spaceship IC-1.

The mid-section of spaceship IC-1 is a huge Ferris wheel like structure, a centrifuge that creates gravity by continually rotating.  Unaccountably, interior shots of the ship reveal a single hallway (the floor flat, not curved as might be expected), with two doors on the left wall, and another door at the end of the hallway.  There is also a stairway that leads to…  Well, it isn’t exactly clear where it leads to.

One year into a twenty-five year journey, the captain of spaceship IC-1 is informed that he is no longer able to conceive children.  The captain’s guilt and frustration at this turn of events (the mission of IC-1, after all, is procreation and re-population) drives him to act like a sort of Captain Queeg in outer space.

Mutineer checks on status of crew members in suspended animation.

Eventually, a mutiny takes place, and for reasons too tedious to recount, a crew member is revived from suspended animation.  The untested revival process transforms the crew member into a rampaging maniac who (conveniently for the mutineers) murders the captain, before he, himself, (even more conveniently) dies.

No longer subject to RULE’s overbearing dictates or the captain’s arbitrary, tyrannical authority, Spaceship IC-1 continues on its journey to Earth 2, where, one can only hope, a free and democratic society will be established.

Flap.  Flap.  Flap.  Flap.  Flap.

KUBRICK: (agitated) Do you know what this film is?

PLAYBOY: Really bad?

KUBRICK: It’s a confession–at twenty-four frames per second!

"A Space Odyssey" or "An Adventure in Space"?

Confession?  I had no idea what Mr. Kubrick was talking about.  Besides, wasn’t the quote, “Truth at twenty-four frames per second”?  And how did Godard get mixed up in the interview?

KUBRICK: The living quarters inside the centrifuge.  The crew members in hibernation.  The god damn title, for that matter.  Adventure in Space.  A Space Odyssey.  Where to you think I got it all?

I hesitated before answering.

PLAYBOY: Spaceflight IC-1?

KUBRICK: Of course!  Bernard Knowles.  I tell you, the man’s a genius!   And I’m nothing but a fraud!  Hall 9000.  The “closed-circuit” man.  They’re one in the same.  Except Knowles captured the dichotomy of a dualistic future perfectly in a single, startling image.  Intellect vs emotion.  A being who is half human…

PLAYBOY: …half filing cabinet?

Mr. Kubrick stood up, planted a hand on either side of my desk, and leaned forward.

KUBRICK: My film is nothing but a sterile rip-off, hiding behind a huge budget, pretending to be something it isn’t–original!  Knowles’ film is alive with human tension, primal urges, and…

PLAYBOY: …soap opera melodramatics?

KUBRICK: Are you being intentionally obtuse?

Practically nose to nose with Mr. Kubrick, I couldn’t help but have serious doubts about the authenticity of his beard.

Then, as if on cue, the door to my office swung open–revealing a second Stanley Kubrick.

KUBRICK #2: Sorry I’m late.  There was a scheduling mix-up with the secretary…

Stanley Kubrick or Bernard Knowles?

Without warning, Kubrick #1 lunged forward.  I reached out to stop him but only came away with a handful of fake beard.

KUBRICK #2: (grappling with Kubrick #1) Let go of me you crazy bastard!

The two Kubricks stumbled around my office, swinging wildly at one another, knocking over furniture, bouncing off the walls.

Abruptly, Kubrick #1 executed some kind of wrestling maneuver, and before I knew what was happening, had Kubrick #2 in a headlock.

KUBRICK #1: Admit it!  Admit you stole my movie!

KUBRICK #2: Ow!  Let go of my hair!  Who is this idiot?  Ooph!

Bernard Knowles or Stanley Kubrick?

In a blind panic, Kubrick #2 violently threw himself backward, pulling free, leaving Kubrick #1 holding his jacket.  Kubrick #2 didn’t hesitate and bolted for the door.

Kubrick #1: One way or another, people will know.  2001 is really my movie!

He looked straight at me.

KUBRICK #1: If you won’t accept the truth from me, you’ll accept it from him!

With that, Kubrick #1 dropped the jacket, grabbed the beard from my hand, and was out the door.

End of interview.

Coda

Later that day, I received a phone call from the police station.  The two Kubricks had been picked up fighting in the street and charged with assault and disturbing the peace.  Kubrick #2 had either lost his wallet, or what seems more likely, had it “lifted” during the altercation.  With both men claiming to be Stanley Kubrick, I was asked by the desk sergeant to come down and identify the authentic Kubrick.

Unfortunately, I’m afraid I only succeeded in making matters worse.  Faced with a line-up of bearded men, I misidentified Kubrick #1 (who it now seems clear was Bernard Knowles) as Stanley Kubrick, resulting in the real Kubrick spending the night in jail.

A week later, after tempers had cooled and apologies been offered, Mr. Kubrick agreed to a second interview, but only on the condition the first interview was never published and that someone other than myself conduct the interview.  It’s probably just as well my initial interview never saw publication as actual quotes from the real Kubrick would have amounted to little more than: “Ooph!”   “Ouch!”  “Ugggh.”

Kubrick #1 was never seen again, and Bernard Knowles never acknowledged that he was the man impersonating  Stanley Kubrick and delivering a fraudulent confession.  To be honest, I have no solid proof it was actually him, but just the same, it seems the most likely explanation.

I have to admit that after all these years, I’m still unable to decide how I feel about Bernard Knowles.  Lunatic hack?  Or visionary without any storytelling sense?

Use of holographic display 12 years before Princess Leia's plea for help in Star Wars.

Besides the similarities to 2001, IC-1 also anticipated a number of other Science Fiction films.  At one point in Ic-1, a funeral is held aboard the spaceship, and it is strikingly similar to a scene 18 years later at the end of Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.   There is also the use of holographic images, again, predating similar effects in the Star Wars movies.  Finally, the children on board IC-1 have psychic abilities, long before any number of such “gifted” children turn up in the books and films of Stephen King.

Spaceflight IC-1: groundbreaking film or cinematic sleeping aid?

I still have in my possession the 16mm projector and reel of film left behind by Kubrick #1.   Every now and then I set up the projector, turn off the lights, and watch Spaceflight IC-1 again.  Watching the film, I can’t help but wonder if there wasn’t more than coincidence behind the similarities to 2001, and yet…

And yet, long before the mutiny takes place, I always begin to nod off and then it’s only a matter of time before I’m sound asleep.

PLAYBOY: Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z.

Filed under: Cult, Movie Reviews ]]> http://cinemamisfits.com/2010/05/08/spaceflight-ic-1/feed/ 0 Rud ic bu ic title IC-1 b IC-1 c ic hiber use hiber use sk 2001 use Stanley Kubrick or Bernard Knowles? another sk IC-1e projector light http://cinemamisfits.com/2010/02/15/el-santo-an-appreciation-plus-an-audio-review-of-santo-in-the-wax-museum/ http://cinemamisfits.com/2010/02/15/el-santo-an-appreciation-plus-an-audio-review-of-santo-in-the-wax-museum/#comments Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:12:08 +0000 Lou Aguilar http://cinemamisfits.com/?p=1922 ]]> Fifty years ago, a new movie superhero entered the national consciousness.  The nation was Mexico, and its hero was the masked wrestler known as El Santo.  After first gaining fame in the ring and then in comic books, Santo next took on the challenge of film.  It was in this medium that the wrestler would cement his legend as a larger than life action hero.  It immediately became clear to movie producers that puny human villains no longer presented Santo with a proper challenge, and so in his first two films (a low-budget double bill), Santo is pitted against supernatural and science-fictional foes, Cerebro del Mal (Evil Brain) and Santo Contra los Homres Infernal (Santo VS the Infernal Men).  The movies were hits in Mexico, and Santo’s appeal would soon extend beyond his native Mexico.

Across the Rio Grande,  film distributor K. Gordon Murray caught sight of the Santo phenomena and was inspired.  At that time in 1962, the Italian Hercules movies starring Steve Reeves were pulling in large young male audiences.  Murray bought the US rights to two Santo titles, Santo Contra las Mujeres Vampiras (Santo VS the Vampire Women) and Santo en el Museo de Cera (Santo in the Wax Museum).  He dubbed the films into English, and hoping to cash in on the Italian muscleman fad, changed Santo’s name to Samson.  Vampire Women soon became a local-TV horror favorite, in no small part because it is the stuff boyish dreams are made of (including mine),  especially when those dreams are populated by the sexy title villainesses.  Not surprisingly, hot vixens became a staple of future Santo films.

By the mid-60s, the muscleman genre gave way to the spy craze, and with this change in tastes, Santo’s cinematic adventures ceased being adapted for a US market.  In his native land, however, Santo’s reign as a Mexican movie hero continued unabated.  He appeared in movies with even larger-budgets, not only as a monster-alien basher but also as a suave superspy himself.  In Operation 67, for instance, Santo wore a very Bond-like tuxedo below his ever-present mask.  Some things couldn’t change.

A hero from a more innocent time, Santo found himself unable to compete with the rebel films of the late 60s and the Altamn-esque cinema of  the 70s. Santo’s pictures of that decade, although replete with monsters and sexy women, were mostly chaotic, directionless efforts that made even less sense than the earlier films while lacking their atmosphere and charm.  Sadly, Santo himself was in something of a decline by the late 70s, a time that would usher in a renaissance of traditional fantasy heroes like Luke Skywalker, Superman, Flash Gordon, and Tarzan.  The legendary wrestler would have fit right in among them, but he chose instead to retire in 1982, dying two years later in 1984.  Tens of thousands of fans turned out at his funeral.

Many of us baby boomers will never forget the late-night hours spent in front of a flickering rabbit-eared TV watching the masked champion  rescue a beautiful babe from the clutches of some madman or vampire queen.  Even as a kid, part of me knew this was silly.  Still, years later, that didn’t stop me  as a teen from going to the Spanish-language theater in DC to watch the latest Santo adventure in color.  Today we’re much too cinematically sophisticated and critical to enjoy such simple fare, and yet, when ever I think of Santo, I always smile at the memory of him.

SANTO (SAMSON) IN THE WAX MUSEUM.

One hero.  Three reviewers.  The Misfits take on Mexico’s famous masked hero in one of his most well known movies.  On a scale of 1 to 15 (15 being best), the Misfits give Santo in the Wax Museum a…

Review: Like any good exploitation film, The World’s Greatest Sinner is a mix of low budget technical compromises, lurching story lines, ham-fisted visual metaphors, and odd, unpredictable moments.  During Clarence Hilliard’s first speech about the “Immortal Man,” he steps up onto a pile of what looks like sandbags to make his pitch.  The camera then slowly tilts down to reveal him standing on bags of manure, a sign reading “4 for a dollar.”  On stage with his rock ‘n roll band, Clarence doesn’t resemble a twitching, gyrating Elvis so much as he does a man having an epileptic fit.  Then there’s the 50-state, stock-footage campaign for president, where vaguely familiar newsreel shots cheer on intercut snippets of Hillard exhorting his followers to become gods!

But for every ridiculous moment, there’s also something a little disturbing or surprising.  One of Clarence’s first converts is an elderly woman who tells him he makes her feel young again.  He replies that she reminds him of his mother, and then the two embrace, sharing an uncomfortably passionate kiss.  The flip side of this decidedly twisted sexual coin is when a young girl tells the-soon-to-be-president that she can deliver the youth vote to him.  At first, Clarence seems a little more savvy than might be expected, getting the girl to admit she’s not 18, and that she is actually 14.  With this fact firmly established, he then proceeds to have sex with her.

An unsettling scene of a different sort occurs after a rock ‘n roll concert/rally, where the all-white male audience decides to demonstrate its godhood by rioting.  Where actual newsreel footage later used in the run for the presidency looks creaky and unconvincing, the riot looks all too real, as if shot during an actual rampage.  I’ve seen crowds like this in big budget movies and it’s not unusual to see a laughing extra or someone going lamely through the motions, but this group of young men seems to be deadly earnest as they swarm over cars in a frenzy of destruction.  In this instance, the film’s low budget actually works in the picture’s favor, with it’s harsh lighting and handheld camera creating a surprising sense of reality.

Many of the indoor scenes have an odd aesthetic all their own.  Either by intention or because the lighting kit only included a couple of spots and a reflector, many of the interior shots have two or three characters illuminated against a completely black background.  It’s like a minimalist play: this desk will now represent a room: this door is the entrance to a house: these silly Greek/kitsch statues represent a grand presidential candidate’s strategy room.

This reductionist idea carries over to the characters as well.  Hilliard eventually ends up wearing a coat with the word “GOD’ embroidered in large letters on either sleeve.  The people who have bought into his “immortal” agenda wear a patch with an F on it to let us know they are “Followers.”  I was half-expecting a character to show up with a sign around his neck that proclaimed “Reporter” or maybe for another character to walk in wearing a T-shirt that read “Plot-Twist.”

The ending to The World’s Greatest Sinner is satisfyingly strange and unexpected — and visual.  All good things, especially since, at one point, it appeared as if the final revelation might depend on the emotional attachment Clarence still feels for his family, something the film never really pulls off.

I’ll end this review with a description of one of the first images in the film.  Clarence, in what I guess is supposed to be happier, simpler days, piles his family up on a horse.  Clarence, his wife, and their two small children — everyone gets on.  And they look a little precarious.  You half expect someone to fall off before the shot ends.  Here’s another detail: the scene takes place in the rain.

Did it just happen to rain that day, but the schedule and low budget demanded they had to get the scene in the can — rain or no rain?  Was it serendipitous?  Or was it intentional?  It doesn’t really matter.  This idiotic staging of the family pretending to be happy, when everyone is obviously miserable, not even able to go through the motions of being a normal family, is the perfect image to begin this twisted and singular film.

Some stuff worth knowing: Timothy Carey is probably best known for his role in Kubrick’s Path’s of Glory.   He’s one of the three soldiers being executed for cowardice and not following orders.  In the film, he is sarcastic and somehow both intense and laconic at the same time.  And, of course, there are dark circles under his eyes.  Does this man ever sleep?

Ray Dennis Steckler (director of The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-up Zombies!!?) was the cameraman, and there are some genuinely striking images mixed in with the more pedestrian and low budget aesthetic stuff.

Finally, Frank Zappa did the music, and the title song is a classic.

The Presidential cabinet meeting that convened as a result of this finding probably went something like this:

Top General: So what are these Bolshevik bastards up to?

CIA Agent: General. Mr. President. I’m not going to soft-pedal this. I’m going to give it to you straight. They’re painting their houses.

Shocked silence.

CIA Agent: Not only that, they’re raking up the leaves in their yards.

A gasp from the back of the room.

The President (shaking his head, to himself): My God. My God. It’s worse than we feared.

CIA Agent: Yes it is, sir. They’re also tidying up in their homes. Vacuuming. Dusting. Do you want me to go on?

The President: No. I’ve heard more than enough. (long pause before rising and addressing cabinet members) Gentlemen, this is unacceptable. We can not allow a Tidiness Gap!

And so the film unit of The Civil Defense department snapped into action, producing “The House in the Middle.” The short begins with an aerial shot of Anytown, USA. “One American town looks like any other when you see it from an airplane window,” notes the narrator, leaving out the observation that once hydrogen bombs have been dropped on them, they all pretty much look identical.

Since the film is intended for the outlying suburbs and towns not immediately in the kill zone of a ground zero explosion, the whole issue of large metropolitan areas being vaporized is discretely sidestepped.  The short also tends to focus on the atomic heat or “thermal wave” from a nuclear explosion, and doesn’t have a great deal to offer on the other after effects from the blast like…well, for one thing, radiation.

The short is apparently brought to us courtesy of “The National Clean up – Paint up – Fix up Bureau.”  Happily, this group wasn’t in charge of naming any other government agencies or The Air Force might be known as “The Department of Heavier Than Air Vehicles – That Go Up And Come Down – Drop Bombs and Fire Missiles – And Sometimes Have Pilots With Cool Names Like Maverick – And Iceman and Goose – Well Goose Isn’t That Cool – But Iceman Is.”

For the purposes of the short, Anytown, USA is replicated at the Nevada Proving Grounds by two miniature houses.  Despite the minimalistic representation, you’d be hard-pressed to single it out from any of hundreds of other towns in America – that is, if they didn’t look like two anomalous objects stranded in some kind of weird Daliesque landscape.  A huge melting watch wouldn’t look out of place there.

Structure-wise, the two houses are identical.  Inside, however, it’s a different story.  House #1 is noteworthy for its untidy housekeeping.  Newspapers and magazines are left lying around.  The tables are cluttered with junk.  House #2, on the other hand, is spic and span.  The trash has been thrown out and tabletops are tidy.

The narrator then walks us through the steps in a nuclear explosion. The light flash! The thermal wave! Quickly followed by the blast wave! When all is said and done, both houses on the outskirts of the atomic detonation survive, but the clutter inside House #1 catches fire, and even though the structure survived the blast, it ends up burning to the ground.

At this point, it comes as something of a shock to realize that Hazel might have been our first line of defense against nuclear attack. Perhaps the Civil Defense seal should have been replaced by The Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

A final test with three houses is staged for our edification, and ultimately, what the short comes down to is a retelling of the Three Little Pigs — with the atom bomb in the role of the Big Bad Wolf huffing and puffing and blowing the houses down. House #1 is an eyesore with leaves and trash in the yard. House #2 (the house in the middle) is painted and has an uncluttered yard. House #3 is in rundown condition due to years of neglect.

Guess which house survives? Right. The house in the middle.

If this test had actually been a Russian sneak attack, the lucky owner of the house in the middle would have survived to take part in digging mass graves for thousands of irradiated and charred corpses. Still, when Mr. Lucky Homeowner looked at the ruble of the two houses on either side of his home, he’d be able to take a certain amount of satisfaction in the fact he was still alive.

“I tried to warn them,” he might say, and then the tumorous growth on his shoulder which had been increasing in size and finally become a second freakish head, would add, “Yes you did. You and The National Clean up – Paint up – Fix Up Bureau.”

Here’s the helpful warning in its full-length glory, produced as it actually was by the friendly folks at the Paint, Varnish, and Lacquer Association.  No doubt it was a big hit at their convention that year (and what a rip-roaring event that had to be). 

Darkness.  Flare of acetylene torch — revealing a man sitting on the floor, wedged in between two pieces of bulky equipment.  The headgear he is wearing has been ripped open, revealing his face, a single stream of blood trickling down his forehead.  He waits in the darkness, the only light the glare from the torch.

By the age of nine, I’d seen more than my share of movie heroics, usually featuring A-list actors portraying courageous characters risking all, being selfless, and “doing what a man’s gotta do.”  Many of these actors were undeniably talented, but it’s also true that they starred in studio films with big budgets, had  top screenwriters providing the dialogue, and often featured some of Hollywood’s best directors overseeing the action.

From a speaker inside Lt. Calder’s damaged headgear a voice is heard:

Voice:  Can you hear me?

Calder:  Loud and clear.  Nice to have company.

Voice:  Are you all right?

Calder:  I’m alive, if that’s what you mean.

Paul Langston, in a B Science Fiction film (he’s not even the star), outfitted in what looks like a satin space suit with a kind of squared-off helmet, helped define for a nine year old boy the idea of courage and how it is expressed.  The character Langston plays has a broken leg, is unable to move, and his only weapon is an acetylene torch.  There’s one more thing — an indestructible Martian creature is trying to kill him.

Calder:  I picked a good spot right between the induction pumps.

Voice:  You mean it can’t get at you?

Calder:  It could if I didn’t have this torch.  To reach me it has to stretch down in.  Every time it does, I give it the torch right in the eyes.  (pause)  Here he comes again!

Limited to facial expressions and his voice, Langston manages to create a sense of controlled panic, his performance giving a reality to the monster that the film’s low budget is unable to pull off and clever direction is unable to achieve.  The scenes involving his character, vulnerable and alone, have a simple, direct kind of terror to them and a stoic, no frills bravery.

Monstrous roar of anger and frustration.  The creature swings at Calder with its huge misshapen hands, trying to rip him apart.  Calder leans forward, thrusts the torch at the creature, again and again, until finally it withdraws.  For the moment.  Until the next attack.

As a kid sitting in front of a TV sometime in the mid 60s, it was clear to me that It! The Terror From Beyond Space was unlike other Science Fiction films I’d seen.  In the first four minutes the following is established: A spaceship has crashed on Mars and a second rescue ship arrived.  The captain of the crashed ship is being held for court martial on charges that he murdered his crew in an attempt to conserve resources and hold out longer.  Then, at four minutes in, the film offers its first glimpse of the Martian monster: a shot of a bulky, towering silhouette making its way through the cargo area.

In most films of this period, at the four minute mark, you’re lucky if you’ve even met the first member of a crew being assembled to go to the Moon or Mars or wherever.  Instead of wasting time with a training montage, a belated takeoff, and lots of mind numbing chitchat aboard the ship (only interrupted by an obligatory meteor shower), It! The Terror From Beyond Space gets right down to the deadly game of attrition waged by the Martian monster against the spaceship’s crew.

Calder waits in the darkness.  In a kind of grim play by play, he relays the monster’s movements to his fellow crew members.

Calder:  Hey!  Hey it’s moving.  It’s going up the ladder.  I can hear him prowlin’ around up there.  Bangin’ into everything it passes!  It’s going nuts!

As an adult, watching the movie again for the first time in forty years, I was surprised at how well it held up.  From the first interior shot, It! The Terror From Beyond Space sets itself apart from other Science Fiction movies of the 50s by creating a kind of sci-fi noir look.  The ship is crisscrossed with shadows, the black and white cinematography emphasizing areas lost in pools of black, while illuminating others with a harsh bright light, throwing characters into sharp, sudden relief.

The director, Edward L. Cahn, makes judicious use of Curtiz-like camera movements, pushing in to reveal an important detail, pulling back to reframe a shot, or dollying behind and past equipment and structural supports, establishing a confined space, but with enough room for the deadly cat and mouse game between the crew and the alien.

Another plus is Jerome Bixby’s screenplay which makes clever us of the standard needle shaped spaceship.  The ship is divided into six levels, and each level has a circular hatch at its center, with stairs leading up to the next level and down to the one below.  As the Martian creature pounds its way up through each sealed hatch, the crew is forced to retreat to the level above, until they are finally trapped at the top of the ship.  Each level also has it’s own airlock, allowing members of the crew to exit in space suits and reenter an airlock a level below the monster in an effort to catch it by surprise.

The atmospheric lighting of It! The Terror From Beyond Space; the use of a torch as a weapon; crawling around in the confined ductwork in an effort to track down the monster; and the final victory over the creature: these are all elements that later turn up in Alien.  But It’s place in film history doesn’t depend on providing the blueprint  for a later big budget hit.  It! The Terror From Beyond Space is a self-contained, suspenseful, almost perfect example of what a B movie can achieve.

And at its heart, in a handful of unforgettable scenes, is the character of Lt. Calder.  He is up against a creature that grenades, electricity, gas bombs, and even exposure to intense radiation can not kill.

Calder waits in the dark.  Immobile.  His only weapons a torch — and his courage.

Voice:  Calder?

Calder:  Still alive.  Don’t ask me why I bother.

Voice:  Can you see it?

Calder:  Big as death.  It’s been sittin’ here for the last half hour — lickin’ it’s chops.

It! The Terror From Beyond Space is a film that the kid I once was and the grown up I have become can both agree on.

We’re  in!

Hershel: Mumble.  Mumble.  (unintelligible)  Mumble.

Even though it’s impossible to understand what Hershel is saying, it must be fairly interesting since the two women hang on every word he has to say, or anyway, mumble.  He might even be talking about something that’s important to the  film’s plot.   As the scene drags on, however, this seems less and less likely, if for no other reason than there doesn’t seem to be a plot.

Woman #1:  (unintelligible)  Garbled.  Garbled.

Hershel:  Mumble.  (unintelligible)  Mumble.

Hershel shifts in the leather chair, and the CREAK OF LEATHER is almost DEAFENING.

Woman #2:  (unintelligible)  Garbled.  Garbled.

What is actually being said in the scene will probably never be known, but the combination of the drug party going on around Hershel, along his phobia of someone suggesting he might be afraid to do something, makes the following dialogue a likely possibility:

Woman #1 offers Hershel a hit off a joint.

Hershel:  No thanks.  I do it the natural way.  I get high on life.

Woman #1:  What are you?  (pause)  Afraid?

Hershel:  No man.  I just march to my own drummer.  Dig.  I don’t mess with that shit.  But say I’m afraid, and yeah, I’ll throw all my values right out the window.  I’ll ignore everything I stand for.  Me?  Afraid?  I’ll show you who’s afraid.  Come on, let’s slam some junk.  Or snort a little White Horse.  Anyone into freebasing?

Then again, given the way the story eventually plays out, an exchange like the following can’t be ruled out either:

Woman #1 offers Hershel a hit off a joint.

Hershel:  No thanks – I’m into Frankenfood.  I wanna get in on the ground floor of this happenin’ thing and be a part of it.

Woman #1: Are you serious?  What the hell have you been somkin’?

Hershel:  Nothing.  I get high on genetically-altered, chemically-saturated, hormone-injected turkey.   It’s also a cool way to make a little extra money on the side.  Some turkey farmers wanna know if their modifications have any side effects on people who eat their turkeys.

But  it’s  really any body’s guess what’s being said by the actors.  Possibly in an effort to make an incoherent movie (made even more incoherent by erratic sound levels)  slightly more comprehensible, the filmmakers intermittently splice in a guy who helps walk the audience through Hershel’s strange journey.   The guy’s always got a cigarette going and stares straight at the camera.  He comes off as sort of a cross between Edward R. Murrow and Jack Kerouac.

Murrow/Kerouac Guy: We live in a world subject to constant change.  We never know how or when we will meet a person who will become a catalyst or will lead us to one.

To be perfectly honest, he doesn’t really clear up  a whole lot story-wise, but it’s a nice change of pace to be able to understand what someone is saying.  Later on we get:

Murrow/Kerouac Guy: As he plays his game of wits and ego, his comments could be what cause the chain of events and  moments of horror and agony that were far greater than his experiences in the hell of Vietnam.

As you can probably tell, it’s not long before the Murrow/Kerouac Guy becomes more difficult to understand than the characters with garbled dialogue.  His words could be replaced with mumble, unintelligible, garbled, and it would make more sense than what he’s actually saying.

Murrow/Kerouac Guy:  The paths of life are predictable and we repeat them again and again.  Right on.

Surprisingly, street drugs and genetically-altered turkey turns out to be a bad combination, and it’s not long before Hershel finds himself transformed into a poultry/human hybrid.  With no one to turn to, he looks up his girlfriend, and as anyone would do under similar circumstances, gets down to some hot and heavy cross-species sex.

The following is an abbreviated version of the scene, made even shorter by the removal of all the mumbleds, unintelligibles, and garbleds.

Girlfriend: You know, I got a guilty feeling that I caused all this.  What would it be like if you stayed like this — if we got married.  What kind of life would we have together?  What would the children think?  My God, what would the children look like?

Hershel:  Gobble.  Gobble.

Girlfriend:  Would they look like their father?

Hershel moves toward the woman.  He joins her on the bed.

Girlfriend:  What are you doing?

Hershel:  Gobble.

Girlfriend: Hershel.  Hershel.  Oh my god, Hershel.  What are you doing?  What are you….  Hersheeelllllll!

This tender interlude is followed by a series of brutal murders in which Hershel cuts the throats of his victims, hangs them upside down, drains the blood from their bodies and then drinks it.  The killing spree continues for three or four murders before the  film gets down to some truly disturbing imagery: hallucinatory turkey nightmares.

Hershel imagines a turkey being caught, having it’s head chopped off, and cooked for dinner.  The golden skinned bird sits in a pan and is set upon by ravenous, pack-like humans dressed for Thanksgiving dinner who tear the turkey apart, hands reaching in, ripping away a wing, a drumstick, a fistful of white mean.  The horrific carnage occurs in an instant, and then…

Hershel suddenly wakes up in a field.  At first he’s not sure what’s happened.   Human body?  Check.  More importantly — human head?  Check.

It turns out that the killing spree, the Thanksgiving nightmare, and the turkey transformation were all the result of a bad trip, or considering Hershel’s drug of choice, bad tryp-tophan.  The Murrow/Kerouac Guy shows up one last time to try and explain the abrupt, unconvincing  happy ending , but as he takes a final puff on his cigarette, he begins to cough uncontrollably and is unable to finish his thought.

Blood Freak isn’t for everyone, and possibly only for those who can read lips, but  the next time Thanksgiving rolls around, try popping it in the DVD player.  After watching the film, you might find yourself experiencing a surprising  level of empathy with the turkey cooking in the oven, and if nothing else, Blood Freak might drive away a few unwanted relatives.  As for final thoughts, they can best be expressed as:  Garbled.  (unintelligible)  Mumble.  Mumble.

Moment one: At one point in the film, Frankenstein’s Daughter hypnotizes Santo’s girlfriend and orders her to go to Santo, who is chained to a marble slab, and gouge out his eyes. To make sure she does as instructed, a henchman wearing an eye patch is sent with her. The henchman is a bit on the squeamish side, however, so he stands outside, on the other side of the door, and listens to Santo’s screams of agony as his eyes are gouged out.

When Frankenstein’s Daughter learns that Santo has escaped and that the eye gouging was faked, she demands an explanation from her henchman. He doesn’t lie or give her a bunch of excuses. He simply says, “I lost my own eye. I could not watch.” No false bravado or machismo here. This big, burly henchman is unable to do anything except state the simple, crazy truth. It’s a moment that’s both silly and, somehow, touching.

Moment two: During a fight in a cemetery, Santo throws Ursus (a monstrous creation of Frankenstein’s Daughter) backward, and the creature is impaled on a cross. While Santo sends the other henchmen fleeing, Ursus manages to pull himself off the cross and to sit down on a grave. Seeing this, Santo takes pity on Ursus, removes his own shirt, rolls it into a ball, and then sticks it under Ursus’ shirt to help stanch the flow of blood pouring from the monster’s chest. As a medical remedy, it leaves a bit to be desired, but in this case, maybe it’s the thought that counts.

Touched by this little bit of humanity, the dying Ursus shows up at the end of the film to help Santo fight the henchmen of Frankenstein’s Daughter, enabling Santo to rescue his girlfriend and her sister. A button is inadvertently pushed, setting off a delayed detonation that will blow up the hidden lab. Santo turns to the mortally wounded Usus and says, “We’ve got to get out. Follow me.”

From that point on, Santo is busy helping his girlfriend and her sister run (neither one of them, it should be noted, dealing with a gaping, blood-drenched wound), while Ursus, understandably looking a little puzzled, stumbles after them. Santo and the women make it to safety, but poor Ursus, who isn’t traveling very fast, is blown up! No one acknowledges his death or has even a kind word for the gruesome but ultimately helpful creature.

Only in a Santo movie, even if inadvertently, could your sympathies be switched from the seemingly callous hero with his perfunctory humanity, to a dazed but well meaning monster.

SANTO VS FRANKENSTEIN’S DAUGHTER (SANTO VS LA HIJA DE FRANKENSTEIN) (1971)
Director: Miguel M. Delgado. Writer: Fernando Oses. Starring: Santo, Gina Romand, Anel.

A hero so legendary, a character so large it required three reviewers to take on one of his films.

In 1966 the Anti-Megalosaurus Force (AMF) was established to defend Japan from Monsters. Who knew? Not just a bunch of flummoxed army guys wearing white gloves, but an elite force — 4072 members strong. Talk about a thankless job. The only profession taking more of a beating than the AMF when Godzilla makes landfall, is the home insurance industry, which has been busy selling policies between monster rampages.

While the AMF is more than equal to the challenge of a Mothra (yup, they can take on a giant … well, moth) or a Gargantuan (sure, they’re big, but it’s hard to take seriously a monster who eats people — and then spits out their clothes), the AMF and their flatbed-transported Maser Guns are still not quite up to the challenge of a Godzilla. During their first battle with The Big G, things take a turn for the worse and the order, “PULL BACK!” is given. I’m thinking, this is probably the first maneuver learned by any new AMF recruit.

Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (Gojira tai Mekagojira) presents a sort of home front take on giant monster movies. Early on, while others are running for their lives, a man screams, “My house! My house!” as Godzilla stomps by. Not long after Godzilla’s first rampage, the prime minster meets with her science advisor and admits that, “after forty years, the people are weary of always rebuilding .” If there’s a growth industry in Japan, it’s definitely in construction. Even more than a strong union, in terms of job security, Godzilla’s the best thing that’s ever happened to Japanese carpenters.

If you think about it, Japan’s national psyche has also taken its share of hits over the years. Generation after generation has grown up running from Godzilla. It’s very possible that first your grandparents, then your parents, and now you, along with your children, have run from this monstrous creature. It’s all you know to do. Run.

But not anymore. The decision is made to build Mechagodzilla. Using the skeleton of the first Godzilla, destroyed in 1954 (yes, there’s more than one Godzilla. Don’t ask, ok?), a giant bio-robot is constructed, and like any new technology, there are always a few bugs that need to be worked out. When Godzilla roars in battle, it triggers the DNA in Mechagodzilla’s skeleton, overriding it’s new programming and sending the giant bio-robot on a building-smashing spree of its own.

Even though Mechagodzilla is armed with an Absolute Zero Gun that can destroy an object at the molecular level, there’s some crazy protocol that dictates giant monsters must first be fired at by tanks, and when that doesn’t work, a barage of missiles is lauched against them, which invariably is followed by the crackling energy botls from a Maser Gun. Then and only then, if a new super weapon exists, can it be tried out. Mechagodzilla is armed with its own version of tank shells, missiles and Maser Rays. If it had used the Absolute Zero Gun right off the bat, at a minimum, the robotic creature might have saved six or eight city blocks — maybe the whole east side.

Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla has pretty good Spielberg-like direction, a decent script (basically GI Jane meets huge marauding monster), and the special effects are a snappy combination of the traditional guy-in-a-rubber-monster-suit and CGI. Miniture sets are detailed and creepy, and the film focuses more on the monster aftermath and human side of the story than most Godzilla movies.

There are two stand-out Godzilla fight scenes. In the first, Godzilla punts a tank like it’s a football. In the other (something of a call back to 1962′s King Kong vs Godzilla), Mechagodzilla grabs Godzilla by the tail and swings him around and around before letting go and sending him flying halfway across town.

I’m in!