A LEAF FROM THE ENCYCLOPEDIA FILM-FANNICA THE ENCYCLOPEDIA FILM-FANNICA is a special opus currently in preparation by the editors of THE MONSTER TIMES.
As Encyclopedias take years to produce, we don’t urge readers to make any advance orders. From time to time, from the work-in-progress, when appropriate, we’ll present an occasional page for the benefit of our deserving readers, which “they may clip and save in their scrapbooks. This page they are advised to file under “T” for Things, “K” for Korda, “W” for Wells, and “M” for Menzies.
This can best be done by buying 4 more copies of THE MONSTER TIMES – crafty, aren’t we?
This quaint little goody held newspaper readers spellbound in 1936 smacking them right in the imagination with startling prophecies of (gracious!) television to be a “commonplace” in the year 2036! Persulisi we don’t believe it. Nothing will replace the Victrola. Except perhaps radio.
A shaper of “Things”
Making the epic, “Things to Come” took 3 long, complicated years, successful completion due first and last to a giant; ALEXANDER KORDA.
Born in Hungary, 1893, attended the University of Budapest, Korda’s youth was spent amidst the rising, toppling crumbling powder keg which was pre-WWI Europe. After a brief career as a rootless, wandering journalist, Korda found his calling at 22, in America, with his first film, “The Private Life of Helen of Troy“.
Korda wanted to make great films with taste and care-figuring they’d do better at the box office So, in 1928, Korda, disillusioned went to England, made films for American companies, scrimped his savings, and in 1932 risked every penny he owned to form his own company: London Films. Empire founded, he produced only quality films, using talent, elbow-grease, initiative and sincerity. His “The Private Life of Henry VIII” made a fortune and Britain finally had its own film industry.
HERBERT GEORGE WELLS, social prophet, S.F. master, born 1866. In his 80 years he contributed more to science fiction and historical analysis than any other British author and became England’s favorite.
Like Korda, Wells began his career a journalist, but soon took to conjuring personalized speculative fiction, although always firmly anchored in reality, fact. His writing took on the cast of prophecy. Time has proven many of them true; TANKS-first conceived by Wells, in “The Land Ironclads” (1903). The MODERN PARACHUTE in “The Flying Man“. MODERN WARWARE described accurately in “The War in the Air” (1908). And ATOMIC WEAPONRY-chillingly portrayed in a book released a few months before WW1-(1914)!
“Things to Come” bears little in common to the book “Shape of…” and the finished screenplay was re-written twice before it was considered filmable. Wells worked closely with Alexander Korda to get it right, and in 1934 the most popular British author, was a good sport about the enormous revisions. In simultaneous release with “Things” was Wells’ final screenplay in hardbound book form, now, lamentably out of print.
he made ‘Things’ work
Chosen by Korda to direct “Things to Come” WILLIAM CAMERON MENZIES’ knowledge of almost all fields of motion-picture production was remarkable. Born July, 1896, raised in Scotland whose vast landscapes are said to have given him a love of the spectacular, Menzies was a dedicated artist. As a young man, he moved to America and completed education in New Haven, Connecticut, Yale, and Art Students League of N.Y.C. WAR broke out, and the 15 months as a soldier he served in WWI probably gave him the experience he needed awesome prophetic battle scenes of “Things to Come” as well as later his enormous expansive “Gone With The Wind.”
When budget worries started to crop up during production, it was William Menzies who advised Vincent Korda to paint full-sized backdrops of entire streets. These huge paintings were then hung behind the sets’ streets, corners, etc., and looked so realistic that it is hard to spot the paintings from what was actually built.
The contributions of these three men will be dealt with more fully in the following article.
Grave-robbing may be out of style, but fan exploitation isn’t. Monster fans deserve a reliable market test to rely upon before sending money to all too monstrous manufacturers. Therefore, to duli the fangs of some vampires of our industry, we at MT innovate The Monster Market to product test items, and report accurately on them – and about the bargains, too!
IMPORTANT! If we are really going to be able to keep the monster magnates in line, we’ll need your help. Please write in and tell us of your experience in the monster market, whether it be good, bad or none of the above. Write to THE MONSTER TIMES, c/o The Monster-Market, P.O. Box 595, Old Chelsea Station, N.Y. 10011.
Product Tested: 100 “movie Monster” Stamps. Available at: L&G Products, Box 532, Bellmore, N.Y. 11710. Price: $1.00 per set of 100.
“100 Stick-On Stamps of the Scariest Movie Monsters!”- they gotta be kidding, said we. With a gosh-awful ad like that, it’s gotta be the “scariest” waste of a buck yet. But we took the gamble and were pleasantly shocked to find we were wrong. But the ad should be re-written to read; “100 Stick-On Stamps of the Greatest Film Monsters-Printed in Livid Stomach-Churning GREEN!” This would better describe the product, and probably sell more of them.
You must be familiar with the ad for the “100 Stick-On Stamps of the Scariest Movie Monsters.” It’s common to all the Skywald “horror” comic magazines. The address on the ad coupon is to Skywald’s editorial offices, not, as one would assume, to L&G products. And that’s the trouble.
It took us well over two whole months until we got the stamps. They finally arrived a couple days before final deadline of our first issue. If you have any notions about giving the monster stamps (or probably any other of the Skywald-advertised products) as any sort of present, you had better order at least a full one-third of a year beforehand. We’ve given the real address of L&G Products, above. If you order directly from them, and skip the middlemen (Skywald), you just might get them a little sooner, but don’t hold your breath!
The stamps themselves were a surprise. They’re pretty good. They are also about one-eighth of an inch smaller than the “samples” presented in the ad, but that’s not particularly what one might call misleading advertising. Just wholesome, old-fashioned, “Yankee Trading”. Though we recommend the stamps, we wouldn’t advise you to buy a coffin from these folk … you’d wake up with evening backache and cramped wings.
Whoever chose the 100 monsters really knew his stuff. We can’t say they are the “scariest”-not with a straight face, anyway. But they are some of our favorites.
Lon Chaney is represented three times, by our count; as the one-eyed man in The Road to Mandalay, as the incomparable Hunchback, and as (natch!) The Phantom. Nosferatu, the first screen Dracula, is there, although slightly re-touched, and ol’ John Barrymore, the first great Mr. Hyde, is represented, also. The first filmed incarnation of Frankenstein’s monster (albeit it was a 15-minute jobbie produced by Thomas Edison and played by someone named Charles Ogle) is there too.
And there’s the cyclops from Ray Harryhausen’s special effects shelf from 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and Frankenstein (naturally Karloff), and five-count-em-five different versions of the wolfman (including the beast, from the French version of beauty and the etc.), and at least three acceptable versions of The Mummy. And many more, each one different. Nary a one insufficient. Surprisingly, a good buy.
With that going for them (the peculiar whatchamacallit called Quality), it’s sort of a shame that they had to show a carefully hand-picked selection of their crumbiest stamps to advertise their product. It doesn’t make sense somehow. Who goofed? Naturally, there’s bound to be a few near-misses in every batch of 100 of the “scariest” movie monsters, but good gosh, do they have to boast about them? Someone ought to re-do their ad.
Still, you’re getting more than you bargained for-one of the stamps is of a two-headed man. That makes a nice odd figure of 101.
You don’t see Buck Rogers stuff around much anymore, which is probably just as well. When I was a little kid, I mean real little, about four or five, my older brother talked my folks into buying him a Buck Rogers bicycle. They were going to get him a bicycle anyway, so he insisted it be a Buck Rogers bike, and against their better judgment they got it for him. Now, there were flaws in this item which should be obvious from one look at the picture. It looks properly imposing, sure, with the streamlined tin fuselage – real tin, too, aluminum being still in the developmental stage at the time – and the funny horn, and the snazzy handgrips, and the clicky little Saturn on the starboard side … But the problem of course was that every time the chain slipped off the sprocket, or one of the tires blew, or a spoke sprung loose, you had to remove the whole bloody fuselage to get to the infected area. And this could only be done by getting up under the thing with a wrench, and you invariably sliced up your fingers on the sharp tin edge doing this, and the edge was always rusty and full of tetanus, and the tin would warp up out of shape so you’d have to bang it back flat with a hammer … The Buck Rogers bike was a tragically defective item.
And so was the strip, all in all. Oh, everybody loved Buck Rogers, it was a fabulously engrossing strip, full of flashy gimmicks and rough-and-tumble action, with a mortal cliffhanger situation every week and a lot of iridescent characters you could not help but love. But when you get the whole thing together in The Collected Works Of Buck Rogers In The 20th Century, you can see the weak points of it.
the way of ill Flash
As a narrative epic, it’s terrible. No getting around it. For one thing, the illustrator Dick Calkins isn’t very good at all. I mean, the strip started in 1929 and carried on until 1967, and you’d think that over 38 years of pushing a brush he’d have learned to draw; and while indeed there’s a noticeable improvement in the quality of the artwork during the course of the strip, still, it was just never very good. In the beginning Calkin’s stuff was really execrable, and toward the end it never got any better than mediocre. About all he learned, really, was to sharpen up his panels with a lot of solid black shading and various shades of Zip-a-Tone, lending the illusion of depth to what before had been lousy two-dimensional draughtsmanship. He also got a little better at handling perspectives, although to be sure he preferred to jam all his action into the immediate foreground whenever possible. No, Dick Calkins was never even as good as Chester Gould, nor anything moderately resembling it.
jivey gimmickry, by Jiminy-crackery!
It was the gimmickry that sold the strip to two generations of Americans, that fabulous streamline-baroque architecture of spaceships, rayguns, and extraterrestrial anthropoids. Kids today ought to be really amused at most of this, since the idea of what modern looks like has changed so drastically in the last few years. In the era of the Buck Rogers strip, modern was merely anything that was bullet-shaped, with a lot of precision craftsmanship to it. A 1948 Packard, with the fat wide fastback styling, was the very apotheosis of modernity during this period, and all of Calkins’ spaceships tended to look like this. Inside these curiously massive but windswept vehicles were metal bulkheads, riveted about the seams in neat rows of bolts, as if they’d been put together by union steelworkers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
It is the contrast between the ludicrous futurism in the outer design of Buck Rogers spaceships, and the highly industrialized inner workmanship of them, that gives us a sense of what made this essentially inferior strip a genuine American myth.
See, as Ray Bradbury points out in the introduction to this collection, Buck Rogers spans the transitional gap between the Mechanical age and the Electronic age in American history. When the strip first began, technology was mainly a thing of metal, with pistons and driveshafts and fanbelts and remote power sources; but Calkins and writer Phil Nowlan were prophetic, in that they sensed the approach of a new technology, when machines would be operated by pulses of pure force running directly from generators to receptors. And in their strip Buck Rogers they combined elements of both technologies to create a kind of bastard technology, which is what appears so amusing in this day and age. Like, just dig Buck Rogers operating a spaceship in transit between Saturn and Jupiter, wearing on his head a leather aviator’s helmet straight out of a Van Johnson movie about World War I flying aces. This is what is called anachronism.
However, there were quite a number of futuristic elements in the Buck Rogers strip that came true, most of them having to do with women’s fashions. His sweetheart Wilma Deering, for example, wore miniskirts exclusively. Calkins’ draughtsmanship being what it was, it is well-nigh impossible to determine whether she wore tights underneath her skirts or bare legs, but in any case she was a precursor of late-Sixties ladies’ wear in this respect. Her arch-enemy Ardala, the female-heavy of the strip, was fond of wearing what are now called Hot Pants, and when she felt like doing some heavy vamping she would also put on thigh-length black rubber boots. As a matter of fact, looking through this volume, you get the feeling that modern fashion designers are getting their ideas from looking over old Buck Rogers strips.
Rogers’ art-full dodgers
How much of all this can be attributed to Calkins is questionable, since obviously writer Nowlan was the dominant worker in their collaboration. Nowlan had a lot more imagination, as a writer, than Calkins did as an artist, that’s manifestly clear. It was Nowlan who created the world of the 25th Century, which was quite elaborate indeed, and its technology, which as we have noted was nothing if not bizarre. The original gimmick of the strip concerned knocking out Buck Rogers by a strange gas, shortly after the end of WWI, and bringing him back to life six thousand years later. In the meantime, the Red Mongol hordes have swept over the earth, enslaving all other populations.
In North America, the people who escaped the domination of the Mongols have fled to the woods and established Orgzones – territorial governments – and they live in a sort of early Twentieth-Century civilization, only with pockets of wildly sophisticated war technology protecting them from the Mongols and the ever-threatening Tigermen of Mars. This sets up Buck and his sweetheart Wilma with a generous variety of antagonists, and two separate technologies with which to combat them. To fight the Mongols, for example, he uses old WWI biplanes, and against the Martian Tigermen he flies those streamlined sausages, propelled by the 25th Century artificial element Inertron, which falls upward, carrying with it anything to which it is attached.
The main trouble with Nowlan’s writing is this, that his imagination is so wildly inventive he can’t bear to wait to employ it. Buck and Wilma will be impossibly embroiled in some situation with the Tigermen, for instance, and suddenly Nowlan will be seized with an irresistible idea for a gimmick which can only be employed against the Mongols: so one-two-three, some unbelievably improbable thing will occur to get Buck and Wilma out of their predicament, and they’ll shoot back to Earth within the space of five panels, leaving the reader feeling he’s been cheated out of some good narrative. But then, within another five or six panels they’ll be in trouble again, and he’ll forget all about the nastiness with the Martians.
a Herodotus on the map
But Nowlan’s ideas, when he allows himself to elaborate them sufficiently, are certainly magnificent. For example, he spent a couple months of strips developing the secret civilization of Atlantis, which Buck Rogers discovers deep under the sea after thousands and thousands of years during which it had preserved itself from outside notice.
According to this myth, Atlantis was a continent stretching from Cuba nearly to Portugal, complete with a super-civilization, which was caused to sink about fifty thousand years ago by the passing of ‘a strange planet’ by the Earth. Some of the survivors, fleeing to the South American mainland, became Aztecs; others, swimming in the opposite direction, became Greeks and Scythians (if you want to know who the Scythians were, look up Herodotus’Histories; they weren’t very important, but they lived in teepees and smoked hemp.) Later on, an expedition of Atlanteans crashed on the Baltic coast, and became the Norsemen.
Still later, the Atlanteans settled Crete, which was the first real civilization of record. ‘Our observers,’ an old Atlantean tells Buck, ‘watched the buildings of the pyramids. Our spies were with Alexander the Great when his Macedonian phalanx (only one phalanx? They musta been tough!) swept through India. Unknown to Caesar, there were Atlanteans among his Legionnaires.’ And so on, up to the very 25th Century, where unsuspected Atlanteans still influence the course of historical events.
This is the kind of thinking that endeared the Buck Rogers strip to generations of Americans. One of our favorite myths is that of a secret Society – the Atlanteans, or the Masons, or the Catholics, or the Communists, or the Bavarian Illuminati, or the Rosicrucians – which secretly observes us and meddles with our destiny. To some this sort of myth is unsettling, while to most it is fascinating to the point of envy: wouldn’t it be great to be omniscient and omnipotent?
Buck fears pizza heartburn
Yes, Nowlan knew well how to keep Americans interested and entertained. Like, whenever there’s any reference to the governments of Earth, all those governments seem to be located in the U.S.A. It’s always Seattle, Fort Worth, Providence and Washington, never Calcutta or Beirut or Munich or Sydney. Buck Rogers flies to Mars at the drop of a hat, but you couldn’t get him to Italy for all the money in the solar system.
THE MONSTER TIMES is for multi-media maniacs… for fans of monsters and science fiction, for fanatical enthusiasts of comic art, for old time radio buffs, movie serial freaks, and others like that. We cater to many tastes, and are a grab-bag of weird stuff.
In short order, we shall be establishing a MONSTER TIMES FAN CLUB, with sporadic special news releases, buttons, posters, T-shirts, and all sorts of other interesting paraphernalia. Not just the usual fan club, either. We’re pretty disappointed by most so-called monster products and gizmos currently being marketed, and so are pioneering whole new lines of our own nerve-numbing nick-knacks.
On page 29 we have a CONVENTION CALENDAR, listing a few upcoming fan conventions for next few months. You’ll find pertinent info about the STARTREK CON (Jan 21-23)-and we’d like to urge you here to attend, if you in any way like STAR TREK (it’s being re-run on local TV stations until 1975).
The theme of our entire next issue will be STAR TREK, incidentally, and will be released January 19th. We’re skipping our continuing articles begun this issue to our third ish, to make room enough for: an interview with William Shatner (Captain Kirk), a portrait of Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock) stills of the show’s monsters, special effects, production secrets, little-known info and other spell-binding curiosities, not to mention dozens of their stunning scenes in great photos, a specially-commissioned Gray Morrow poster in color,-and a treat-a special spoof photo-comic made from stills of the show. And an article on writing the STAR TREK comics by the guy who writes em; Len Wein. And much, much more.
By the way, there are such things as fan-zines (fan-made-magazines) and we’ll be doing more reporting and reviewing of them, showing their nifty far-out comic art and illustration. They’ve got interesting articles as well as great un-seen comix, and are well worth your more-than casual attention.
Remember the Atomic Bomb? Recollect the ol’ Hydrogen Bomb? And the “A” Bomb that gave birth to RODAN and GODZILLA? The “H” bomb that caused THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN to dwindle to nothingness? And the Bomb that made the AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN grow to a height of 50 feet?
Remember the invention that transformed a man of flesh and blood into a superman of steel, making him THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN ALIVE? And what about the “scientific breakthrough” that unleashed a race of THEM giant ants, to swarm, spreading death and destruction across the American Desert? And of course the doomsday devices that invited strange messengers from dim, distant planets, scurrying like concerned tourists to our little old Earth to warn mankind of its Dangerous New Powers? And you surely remember the many times the Bomb reduced our bustling, happy world to a vast wasteland of radioactive ash. On film, anyway.
Well, we do! That’s why we’re going to take a trip down Memory Lane (the one that glowed mysteriously in the dark), noting nostalgically the Good Old Bad Days, when, on every lead-lined silver screen there popped up bumper crops of…
MUSHROOM MONSTERS or: The Day The World Ended & Ended…
Atomic Bomb. Hydrogen Bomb. Radioactive Fallout. Fallout Shelter. Overkill. These were only a few of the new and peculiar terms that were ushered in by the advent of nuclear energy and the atomic bomb to dwarf the befuddled human mind. And there was a good reason for this fear, for the terrible carnage that the Atom Bomb could wreak on people and property had already been demonstrated in 1945 in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japan, at the expense of some 150,000 lives and countless other victims who would bear the drastic and permanent scars of nuclear abuse.
As the nuclear arms race between the United States and Russia got fully underway in the Fearful Fifties, these terms grew to take on increasingly powerful and terrifying meaning as people throughout the world began to realize that they were living under the frightening shadow of instant and total destruction. A terrible equality had been born.
Filmmakers were quick to pick up on the theme of The Bomb and its awesome potential for human contamination and world annihilation. They, like the general population, were less interested in the positive use of nuclear energy because its capacity for damage was so overwhelming and, in a human sense, limitless, that the fears and guilt its presence inspired had to be dealt with first. Film audiences were simultaneously repulsed and fascinated by The Bomb. And there were chilling questions they wanted answered-that had to be answered, or at least explored-even if only by the Hollywood imagination.
And there were many questions indeed:
What could the Bomb do to people?
What unimaginable mutations would take place in the human body, mind, and spirit?
What terrible distortions of Nature would result?
What kind of world would be left after a nuclear world war?
Would there be any survivors at all?
If so, would mankind revert to a primitive, prehistoric way of life, foraging for animal survival in a worldwide primal jungle?
The filmmakers, like the science-fiction writers in the literary world, assigned themselves the task of offering possible answers to those questions posed by the impolite presence of The Bomb. Between 1950 and 1965, scores of movies dealing in one way or another with the deadly presence of nuclear energy mushroomed on the screen. Generally they concentrated on the theme of the human misuse of this potent but morally neutral force.
Four general types of film emerged: (1) the Human-Mutation film, (2) the Return of the Prehistoric Beast film, (3) the Post-World Destruction film, and (4) the Warning From Space film.
Each of these four film categories and the monsters each produced, will be discussed in four separate articles in four future issues of THE MONSTER TIMES.
Horrible mutations, the re-awakening of dinosaurs and other early monsters, atomically-induced disasters, and unearthly visitors with messages of doom-all brands of nuclear nightmare flooded the American movie screen during this period. Ironically enough, the only other country to really explore the dangers of nuclear abuse in film was Japan-the only actual victim of the Bomb’s wrath. The Russians, who were working night and day to build an atomic arsenal that can destroy the world merely 60 times over (as compared with our 100 times over) oddly found nothing of entertainment value in their much-tested but untried new toys. They just didn’t join in the fun.
One of the first films that set out to depict the effects of nuclear war was Arch Oboler’sFive, released in 1950. Oboler, who had already developed a reputation in the world of science-fiction and horror through his famous spell-binding Lights Out! radio broadcasts in the 30’s and 40’s (considered second only to Orson Welles’ legendary hysteria-inspiring broadcast of War of the Worlds), occasionally turned to film as a medium for his many talents, directing Bewitched (1945), The Twonky, the tale of a walking, talking TV-set like an antennae’d invader from space (1953), and a 3-D effort, Bwana Devil (1952.)
Five was a deeply felt, highly personal project that set the tone for many later films on this subject. His image of the scarred wastelands of an atomically-demolished earth are among the most haunting ever to reach the screen. Arch Oboler’s story is a simple and basic one: After the nuclear transformation of Earth from a busy, hectic planet crammed with war and emotional conflict into the silent death scape it becomes in Five, only five people are left alive to recreate in miniature the kind of human in-fighting and self-destructive urges that led to a nuclear war in the first place.
The steady disintegration of the desperate survivors mirrors the problems people have in getting along, even when they have a common goal to achieve. At the end of the film only two remain-a post-holocaust Adam & Eve determined to begin the species anew. Good Luck!
Although Five would be placed, in the third category of the nuclear film-the Post-World Destruction film-I mention it now because it is really the first to tackle the dangers of The Bomb head-on. While its basic plot and characterizations were not earth-shakingly original, Five’s compelling images of sheer desolation and total world desertion were something new.
The most terrifying aspect of Oboler’sFive was that it was not an outlandish or smirky science-fiction fantasy in which the world was destroyed by interplanetary warfare, or divine biblical floods, or secret creatures rascally sneaking up from the bowels of the earth. On the contrary, it was done by man, and man alone. It represented a vast mass suicide, a self-destructive plot that involved everyone-no matter who the aggressors might be; everyone, including the aggressors, were victims. There was no one else to blame. This represented a drastic departure and increased the psychological horror a hundredfold.
Of course, the idea was not enough; it required talent and imagination to really bring it off. And Oboler had it.
The most common theme explored by Hollywood filmmakers was of human beings turned into monsters and outcasts as a result of nuclear contamination.
A typical human-mutation film is the AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN, released by the prolific (if not always brilliant) AmericanInternational studio. In this film an army officer (Glenn Langan) becomes infected by radioactive particles that renew the growth process. As he grows, his distance from his fellow humans takes on vast emotional as well as physical dimensions.
He knows he is viewed by others as a freak and the efforts of the American Lilliputians to help him become increasingly incomprehensible to him. His mind gradually drifts into a state of child-like confusion, and he begins to lash out at the hordes of miniature human pests who trail and torment him. The distinction between friend and foe disappears from his mind and soon enough ALL become the enemy as he takes out his mammoth frustrations on a Las Vegas toyland.
Of course, he is then destroyed-shot by a bazooka and then falls into the Grand Coulee Dam, no less-only to return, marred and scarred, in an inept sequel called THE WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST, having apparently made the final transition from ‘man’ to ‘beast.’ At least in the title, anyway, the producers really made the transformation.
One of the earliest (and best) Warning From Space films is THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, in which Michael Rennie plays a visitor from the vast intergalactic beyond, who comes to warn this wicked world not to play with nuclear fire and to request an end to ALL manner of warfare. This film stood out as one of the best of its period, in the horror-sci-fi genre, and we’ll be taking a closer look at it in a future installment in this series. (As well as presenting a special Encyclopedia Filmfannica treatment soon-Editor)
Most of the mutation films lacked the drive and imagination to really make the horror aspect work, but a few classics did emerge. For every few films that were content to spring a make-up man’s monster on an undemanding audience, there was one that went beyond, to probe the possible terrors of human contamination. One of the best of these mutation films, The Incredible Shrinking Man, will be discussed, along with several others, in the next issue of MT.
Stay tuned… and try to keep from glowing in the dark! It’s not polite.
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Factors Unknown Nos. 1 & 2 featuring the “Teachers’ Trilogy”: A ScienceAdventure Trio linked by origin. $1 from J. Glenn, 517 E. 38th St. Bklyn, N.Y. 11203
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Hal Foster, Prince Valiant creator creates another masterpiece, “The Song of Bernadette“. $5.25 paperback, $10 clothbound. Hooka Publications, 2612 Rudy Road, Harrisburg, Pa. 17104
Comic-zine. Offset. Journey into comics Nos. 9 and 10. 30 cents each or Both for 50 cents! Paul Legrazie, 240 Garth Rd., Apt. 7A3, Scarsdale, N.Y. 10583
For Sale: Several Volumes. Flash Gordon (Raymond) in Dutch. Wanted: Orig. Raymond Art. William Goode, 30 St. James. Mansfield. Pa. 16933
Interested in serial stills & posters. State price & condition write to 5 Lothian Place, Phila, Pa. 19128. Good Luck to M.T.!
For Sale: Captain America No. 15$19.00, Sub-Mariner No. 10-$12.00, No. 39-$3.50, ERB–A Princess of Mars – $4.00. All items are Good-Mint. Add 50 cents for postage. Michael Uditsky, 532 Delancey St., Phila, Penna. 19106
Wanted: Spirit Sunday Sections by Will Eisner from 1940-1941 and 1946-1952. Joel Pollack 515 E. Indian Spring Drive, Silver Spring, Maryland 20901
For Sale: Many D.C.’s, Walt Disney’s, Gold Key & Dell, send 25 cents for price list. Ron Robinett 1015 Deakin, Moscow, Idaho 83840
The Collector regularly features contributions by some of the most talented fans and professionals around. 50 cents from: Bill Wilson/1535 Oneida Drive/Clairton, Pa. 15025
Wanted … half pages of full tabs Russ Manning‘s Tarzan Sunday and Daily; Mac Raboy’s Flash Gordon, and some by Dan Berry. Ben R. Reid, 7227 N. 26th Lane, Phoenix, Ariz. 85021
Wanted: Underground Comics, especially Gothic Blimp Works, old Yellow Dogs, and harder-to-find issues. Please send price list. Philip Rubin, 118 Willington Oaks, Storrs, Conn. 06268
The CON-CALENDAR is a special exclusive feature of THE MONSTER TIMES. Across this great land of ours are quaint and curious gatherings of quaintly curious zealots. The gatherings called “conventions,” and the zealots, called “fans,” deserve the attention of fans and non-fans alike, hence this trail-blazing reader service.
To those readers who’ve never been to one of these hair-brained affairs, we recommend it. Detractors of such events put them down by saying that they’re just a bunch of cartoonists and science fiction writers and comic book publishers talking, and signing autographs for fans who, like maniacs, spend sums on out-of-date comics, science fiction pulps, and monster movie stills. But that’s just the reason for going. If you want a couple of glossy pictures of Dracula or King Kong, or a 1943 copy of Airboy Comics (God alone knows why) or if you wish to see classic horror and science fiction films, or meet the stars of old-time movie serials, or today’s top comic book artist and writers-or if you just want to meet other monster or comics science fiction freaks, like yourself, and learn you’re not alone in the world, OR if you want to meet the affable demented lunatics who bring out THE MONSTER TIMES, go ahead and visit one of those conventions.
We dare ya!
Jan. 9, Feb. 13 THE SECOND SUNDAY – PHIL SEULING – 2833 W. 12 – B’KLYN, N.Y. 11224 STATLER-HILTON – 33rd ST & 7th AVE. – NEW YORK CITY $1.00 (10 A.M. to 4 P.M.) COMIC BOOK DEALERS & COLLECTORS – No Special Guests
JAN. 21, 22, 23, FRI., SAT., SUN. STAR TREK CON – AL SCHUSTER – 31-78 CRESCENT ST. – LONG ISLAND CITY, N.Y. 11106 STATLER-HILTON – 33rd ST & 7th AVE. – NEW YORK CITY $2.5 (in advance) $3.50 (At the door) STAR TREK FILMS! SLIDES, EXHIBITS! COMIC BOOKS! ACTORS! ISAAC ASIMOV!
MARCH 3-5 – FRI., SAT., SUN. CANADA CON – TOM ROBE – V.W.O. – 594 MARKHAM ST. – TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA INFO. NOT AVAILABLE – WRITE CONVENTION Infor Not Available Write Con. Comic Books, S.F. – Pulps, Nostalgia-oriented.
MARCH 25-27 FRI., SAT., SUN L.A. CON – JERRY O’HARA – 14722 LEMOLI AVE. – CARDENIA, CALIF. 92249 L.A. HILTON, LOS ANGELES. Infor Not Available Write Con. Comic convention; comic books, strips, Guest speakers, Cartoonists.
MARCH 31, APRIL 1, 2 FRI., SAT., SUN LUNA-CON – DEVRA LANGSAM – 250 CROWN ST. – BKLYN, N.Y. 11225 STATLER-HILTON – 33rd ST & 7th AVE. – NEW YORK CITY Infor Not Available Write Con. New York’s Biggest Annual Sci-Fi Convention – Big-Time Writers Galore!
…is our way of getting the latest hot-off-the-wire info to you; reviews, previews, scoops on horror films in production, newsworthy monster curiosities, bulletins, and other grues-flashes. There are several contributors to our hodge-podge Teletype page … BILL FERET, our man in Show Biz (he’s a professional actor, singer, dancer with the impressive resume list of stage, film and TV credits to his name), makes use of his vast professional experiences and leads to Feret-out items of interest to monster fans, and duly report on them in his flashing Walter-Wind-chill manner.
LEAPING LIZARDS! … or rather: “ambling amphibians?” frogs are upon us!
AIP is at present shooting “FROGS” in Florida. This is about an EEEEEk-ological monster. Starred are Ray Milland and Judy Pace. While the previously announced “LIVING DEAD” has been retitled “THE FROG.” George Sanders and Beryl Reid are in this one which concerns motorcyclists and occultism. Potential new titles: “My Heart Went Leaping”, “Hell’s Reptiles on Wheels?” or “Hell’s Angels Get Warts!” (?)
Keep thine eyes glued to your TV set for KING KONG to endorse Volkswagon.
There seems to be a fetish for Monsters in Advertising. Binaca Mouth Spray is the most noticeable. There are hordes of others. Looks like monsters sell. Reminds us of comedian Stan Freberg’s album-fable entitled “Grey-Flannel Hat-full of Teenaged Werewolves” the heart-wrenchingly sad tale of a normal, well-adjusted werewolf who by day (Horrors!) turns (shudder!) uncontrollably into (ye gods!) an Advertising Man.
AIP’s also giving us “GODZILLA VS. THE SMOG MONSTER“. This one’s a real one; kiddies! No Kidding! The said monster lives on pollution. Wish we had a few of those monsters in real life. The title song has to be “Smog gets in your eyes.”
Up and coming is “THE RESURRECTION OF ZACHARY WHEELER.” A really top-notch science-fiction/medical opus, it’s somewhat the same rip-off as “THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN.” Tight and crisp direction by Robert Wynn lends authenticity to the portrayal of Leslie Nielsen, Bradford Dillman, James Daly, and Angie Dickinson. The pic was filmed in a new process of tape-to-film and seems to have been a rather successful experiment. With the desolate setting of the New Mexican desert, Hithcockian intrigue and the sci-fi plot, this is sure to be a hair-raiser, or at least a Zachair-raiser.
Follow the bouncing eyeballs to the re-issue of “HOUSE OF WAX,” in the original 3-D process. This time around, Charles Bronson, then an unknown, gets billing above, the then-star, Phyllis Kirk.
Veteran villain Vincent Price, is doing an encore of “THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES,” and there’s to be a sequel to “WILLARD” called … natch … “BEN,” starring Joseph Campanella. Sequels usually need something to bolster them up … a song, perhaps? (“… the way you wear your rat…”)
Russ Meyer plans a change of pace from his usual sexpot-boilers with a thriller called “THE ELEVEN.” He’s been scouting for an Austrian-type castle setting … in Macon, Georgia? “Well shut my moat!”
Ken Russell‘s “THE DEVILS” is a superb film about Church-run witch-hunts, possession, and persecution … but it’s a gory little number. Bring your stomach liners, it’s worth it…
Public TV is planning a special titled “BETWEEN TIME AND TIMBUKTU,” described as an “existentialist space satire,” based on several Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.. works, including “Cat’s Cradle,” “Player Piano,” and “Welcome to the Monkey House.” Bob and Ray will be among the performers. Bob and Ray are the funniest comedy duo radio was ever graced with.
OUTER SPACE: Oh, boy. Lovers of the dreadful have an object for worship in this item. Now, we’ve seen evil-smelly-awful invaders bent on – ominous bass chord – Ruling The World zapped by seawater, volcanoes, bacteria, rockets, artillery, fission, fusion, fire, electricity, chemicals, earthquakes, other invaders and natural mutation, to cite a few improbabilities. Yog, you will be pleased to hear, is done in by sonic waves from bats. Yep, this incredibly malevolent, supremely cunning baddie is cheep-cheep cheeped to death. And that’s the best part…
Acting honors go to the bats.
And … are … you ready? … A new country and Western album just released by “Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen” entitled “LOST IN THE OZONE” (I believe that was the first chapter title in the film serial.) Some of the numbers on the platter must be “O-Zone River,” “The Wizard of Oze,” and “Nobody Oze the Trouble I Seen.”
Peter Haining’sTHE GHOULS is an anthology of nineteen stories which have found their way (in some form or another), to the screen as horror films. That is, some of them are horror films, others are monster flicks. Editor Haining has produced several other anthologies, including a competent one on vampyres; THE MIDNIGHT PEOPLE.
THE GHOULS is published by Stein and Day, for the truly blood-curdling sum of $7.95. Its other attributes, (apart from the impressive price tag); a garish cover done in early Grand Guignol and ziptone, with hints of decadence and bad taste, (the inside cover is even worse; its in Day glo Christmas colors with a reproduction of Christopher Lee yawning) an introduction by Vincent Price, an editor’s forward, an afterword by Christopher Lee, and stills from the films.
The stories are, on the whole, excellent. Some, such as Tod Robbin‘s SPURS and Gaston Leroux‘s THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, have inspired, respectively, the cine-masterpieces FREAKS, and the immortal Chaney film. Others, Poe’s THE OBLONG BOX, for example, have been butchered and transformed beyond recognition. As Boris Karloff once remarked during an interview “Poor Poe, the things we did to him when he wasn’t around to defend himself.”
The best story is W.F. Harvey‘s grisly THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS; a classic which has been anthologized since the Flood, and is perhaps one of the most frightening stories of all time. Also good are Poe’s THE SYSTEM OF DOCTOR TARR AND PROFESSOR FETHER, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s FEATHERTOP. and Nicolai Gogol’s THE VIY.
Harvey’s BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS concerns a man relentlessly persecuted by (and finally murdered by) his dead uncle’s possessed hand. A beautifully crafted piece of work, from its subtle beginning to its climactic ending, it was, unfortunately, made into an undistinguished film in 1947. That it survives at all, despite its typical 1940’s gimmick ending, is due entirely to the acting ability of the late Peter Lorre. And the pauperdom of Warner Brothers TV department.
THE SYSTEM OF DR. TARR AND PROFESSOR FETHER deals with the strange doings in a lunatic asylum when the patients take over. It’s by Poe. Need I say more? The critic who remarked-“One does not go to Poe for humor.” can eat his words. It may be black humor, but it is definitely humor. The film, under the title THE LUNATICS, was produced in 1912 by the Edison company; which also produced the lost FRANKENSTEIN of 1910.
FEATHERTOP is about a scarecrow who through the whim of a New England witch, becomes alive. Gogol’s THE VIY, a story of vampirism and witchcraft in Russia, was turned into an excellent film by Mario Bava. Bava had been a cameraman before becoming a director, and his visual sense of values and ability to use his actors (Barbara Steele and John Richardson in this case), were what made BLACK SUNDAY a superior film.
The PHANTOM OF THE OPERA is quite a good novel in the original French. This translation is terrible. To judge Gaston Leroux by this mess is comparable to judging Chaney’s performance by the rotten Hammer remake. I’ve read the original, complete, French version. I know. (I’ve also seen the rotten Hammer remake.)
I was disappointed in Tod Robbin’s SPURS. I expected the story that inspired Tod (Dracula) Browning’s magnum opus, the incomparable FREAKS, to be made of sterner stuff. Well. That is life. THE DEVIL IN A CONVENT is a bore. It may have inspired the first horror film of all time, but it is a mushy Pre-Raphaelite-like bore. Enough. If you’re curious about what exactly a Pre-Raphaelite-like bore is, read it.
Now: the question that is doubtless foremost in your hearts as you sit, perched on your chairs breathlessly perusing this review. Do I recommend the book? After all, $7.95 is a lot of bubble gum in these depression days. And is it worth it?
EDITOR’S NOTE: Jessica Clerk is The Monster Times’ Staffe Vampyr Expert, 17 years old, and claims to carry a torch for Chris Lee. We plan to ship our precocious li’l tyke to England to interview England’s No. 1 vampire in a forthcoming ish of M.T.
Sometimes it happens that great writers meet great filmmakers and filmmiracles are generated. When Arthur C. Clarke, of SF-fame met the brilliant film producer, Stanley Kubrick, poof! we had 2001-A Space Odyssey. But back in the 1930’s another great author met another great filmmaker in another country, Great Britain, and the result was every bit as revolutionary in its day as 2001 is on ours. Perhaps, more so, for it predicted WWII, bombing of cities from the air, and a halting of progress, with such accuracy that some parts of the film could be used as newsreel footage with no one the wiser. In fact, in one portion of the 1935 film, a mushroom cloud was seen over a caption, which read; 1945!
Even the first flight to the moon was described as being accomplished with multi-stage rockets, as being a mission of observation, of orbiting the moon and of returning to earth without landing.
All these things were in a great film released in 1936!
H.G. Wells’ epic storyline was roughly broken into three phases, all revolving about the city of Everytown, a typical metropolis. The name was chosen to avoid viewer identification with any one area of the world, but Everytown bore a marked resemblance to the London of the time.
In phase one of the story, we see multitudes of bustling, happy people celebrating the coming of Christmas. Spirits are high, but we gradually become very much aware of a feeling of impending doom. This doom, a threatened war, breaks through the happiness in the shape of signs, newspaper headlines and dark skies. We are shown the city and its people, and we then find ourselves in the home of John Cabal, scientist.
It is possible that phases one and two of the film are brought to us as seen through the eyes and mind of John Cabal. This would be particularly logical to assume, for Wells intended “Things to Come” to be a film of human symbols rather than individual characters.
When we first see him, Cabal (Raymond Massey) is entertaining several friends, one of whom, a certain Mr. Passworthy (Edward Chapman), seems strangely unconcerned with the probable holocaust. Young Dr. Harding (Maurice Braddell) is very much concerned. He fears war will bring an end to medical research. Cabal is afraid for the world. “My God,” he shudders, “if war breaks loose again!”
Passworthy, though, regards war as a stimulant to the economy, “War is good for business” sort, and can’t wait.
Deep Wells philosophy
Here we have 3 of the 4 main controlling forces of humanity as Wells saw them:
(1) The Bubble-Headed man who cares about nothing but the joys of the moment. He thinks about the pleasures of life, but is blind to its obligations. He passes over the worthy qualities of mankind, and therefore is given the name “Passworthy.” But he is not really evil, and is alright in his own small way. One might say of him; “He’ll do” or “He’ll pass” – and not much else.
extra ***** 1936: THE END
(2) Youth, caught in the middle of Passworthy and Cabal in the form of Dr. Harding. Youth is in favor of peace, of saving lives, and of questioning.
(3) The stoic, logical man whose long legs are firmly rooted into this world and his faith that people were meant to be the masters of their universe. His quiet moods of rationalization border on the mystical, and he is called “Cabal.” (Which the dictionary defines as a “conspiratorial group,” ironically enough.
WAR!
As Cabal’s little gathering ends, it is learned that Everytown is indeed at war. There is, without warning, an air raid in which unseen multitudes of aeroplanes drop bombs and gas on the city. People are caught in the middle of blasts, without gas masks. Youngsters and the elderly are seen lying in the twisted rubble of department stores and Christmas decorations. Panic reigns among the survivors of explosions. Mobs scurry to places of safety before the next bombs strike. Happy humanity gives way to frightened animal-like groups of charging maniacs of all ages. War has come to Everytown and to the world.
Blitz of ’36!
In the wake of the air raid, mobilization is announced. A grimly determined Cabal and a jubilantly proud Passworthy march off to war, still holding their respective philosophies. The first indication of the “progressiveness of war is seen in the person of little Horrie Passworthy (P. Livingston) Passworthy’s son, lying dead among the rubble of his home, as his father marches off to fight. The terrors of war begin to be realized.
We don’t see the horde of airplanes that bomb Everytown and turn it to the dead, broken pile of buildings we later see in the film. The air raid happens quickly, as quickly as it actually happened a few years later when London was first bombed by the German air force.
The next scene we see is a vast group of airplanes that come through the clouds over a group of cliffs, and fly in formation over another part of Everytown. They are strangely calm, just flying over the city and going on their way after dropping poison gas.
The progress of the war is shown with a montage sequence of tanks; first tanks as they actually appeared in those days, then ultra-modern war-machines capable of crushing whole houses as they roll on.
some uncanny prophecies
As the year 1945 looms before us in the film montage, a soldier’s mutilated corpse, swaying on a barbed wire fence, is suddenly silhouetted by a bright fireball which forms – a mushroom-shaped cloud! Hmm… 1945! Wells even got the year right!
Gradually the world crumbles, desolate, decaying. The weapons become more primitive as factories are destroyed one by one. When nothing new is made the old things are used, until finally the fighters look more like something from the middle-ages. And still they fight. On and on. Civilization is collapsing. Technology is dying. Dead.
The newspapers are shown to become more awkward, until they are only one page of war news scrawled on a blackboard in the town square. From the words on the blackboard it can be seen that people are even beginning to forget how to read.
Still, the war drags on; the years pass ominously before the camera, until 1970. We again find ourselves in Everytown, where we stop our flight through time. We have arrived at a world of despair.
The futility of war is farther shown in a short but highly meaningful scene. Cabal has shot down an enemy pilot (John Clements), who has just dropped poison gas on a city. He is gravely wounded, and Cabal lands to help him. Both men now know how stupid war is. After killing an entire city, the enemy pilot ends by giving his gas mask to a surviving little girl of the town. Just as the thick clouds of poison close over the pilot, he speaks to himself of the irony of it all. Then he shoots himself as the first vapors start burning his lungs. Cabal takes the little girl to safety in his plane.
more uncanny prophecies
Here was another of the film’s ironically real dark prophecies. In World War II (the real one-not the film’s 2nd World War which we have just seen) John Clements joined the Royal Air Force. While flying a mission over France, in 1942, his plane was shot down, and he perished.
Phase two of the story now begins; a phase of ruin, depression of the human spirit, and a total end to progress. Civilization is stuck in the mud. We see the ruined Everytown ruled by Rudolph, an arrogant tribalistic Mussolini-type. We also learn of the “wandering sickness,” future biological warfare’s new equivalent of the black plague. It has stricken half the human race. Sanitary conditions are all gone. There is no defense against this biological onslaught. The victims wander zombie-like across the countryside spreading the plague. Carriers of the disease are shot in the streets. And Rudolph, the “Boss” of Everytown (Ralph Richardson) is still warning! He fights a meaningless, ritualistic war against the “hill people.”
Dr. Harding, who once was youth personified, is old before his time. He has long since run out of medical supplies. He stands helpless and weary before the tattered people of Everytown. When asked what can be done to make a suffering person comfortable, he replies grimly; “Nothing! There is nothing to make anyone comfortable anymore. War is the act of spreading wretchedness and misery!”
an Angel of Science arrives
To this scene of despair descends a streamlined aircraft. The craft and its occupant show no traces of the dusty squalor around them. We learn that the pilot of the plane is John Cabal, grown older but still with a generally youthful appearance. His new home, wherever it may be, has obviously escaped the ruin of war. Through him we learn that there is, after all, some hope for humanity’s recovery and reconstruction.
Cabal mentions that he is a member of an organization called “Wings Over the World.” Comprised of scientists, engineers and foresighted people who are sick of war, and whose aim is to do away with the still-raging scattered conflicts, “Wings Over the World” work to eventually remake the world into a planet ruled by science and reason. We also suspect that Cabal is one of the founders of this movement.
New! Unique! Law AND Sanity!
Cabal confronts the Boss. It is a game of intellectual chess, in which their positions are made known to each other. Cabal informs the Boss that he represents not just law, but “law and sanity.” The Boss needs planes for his fight against the “hill people.” He dickers with Cabal for planes, and when Cabal refuses, he has Cabal imprisoned.
The Boss is Wells’ vision of the fourth controlling type of human being. He is nationalism and tribalism personified. All things that are not flags are cowardly and useless to his sort. He believes just as deeply in primitivism and insanity as Cabal does in progress. He is the opposing force to Cabal, thrusting Passworthy and Harding into the background.
The Boss’s wife, meanwhile, has become intrigued with Cabal. Visiting secretly in his cell, Roxana Black (Margaretta Scott) explains that she has always wanted to escape from this land of squalor. She is a clever, beautiful woman, and she wants Cabal and his land of sanity… sanity which will eventually overpower madness.
The interplay between Cabal and Roxana is so interwoven that we honestly do not know if she is speaking seriously toward him, or he toward her. It may well be that she wanted only to save her Boss, and he wanted only to escape. But it is also possible that they saw, in each other, reflected images of human hope.
WINGS to COME!
We now see the futuristic headquarters of Wings Over the World, in Basra. The men, concerned about the safety of their friend, are told of his whereabouts by Gordon, a young pilot (Derrick De Marney), who managed, with the aid of Harding and Cabal, to escape from Everytown in a rickety airplane. The scientists, being men of responsible action, as well as knowledge, jump to the challenge.
Immediately the huge airfleet of “Wings Over the World” is readied. They fly over Everytown, drop cylinders of their new “gas of peace,” a harmless sleep gas, and free Cabal. The armada of ultra-stylized gigantic airships speckles the sky like a flock of droning dragonflies.
The fleet swoops over Everytown. The Boss, desperate to salvage his position of power, commands the air-force he has scrounged from ruined airplanes to fight the giant, batlike airships of the invaders.
It is an almost comic sight… fragile, ridiculously obsolete, outnumbered airplanes trying to out-maneuver sophisticated, sleek mechanical wonders! One by one the dinky relics are downed like antiques bumped off a shelf. Wings Over the World claims easy air victory… now for the land…
Bomb for Peace – it works!
The Peace Gas is dropped, and Cabal is rescued. All the people of Everytown revive, except Rudolph, the Boss. His mind has fought so hard against the Peace Gas and the changes to come that he has died. Cabal, standing over him, observes that he is:
“Dead, and his world dead with him. But we will build a new world. The new world with the old stuff. Our job is only beginning.”
Maybe Cabal’s job was only beginning, but producer Alexander Korda’s task just was becoming more difficult. The sections of the film dealing with the present of the time were over. From here on, everything had to be of an atypical appearance. Now the designs and the concepts of all the people connected with the film’s production would be taxed to the limit.
building Tomorrow – Yesterday
Even the preceding scenes featuring the ruined Everytown were extremely difficult. An entire city had to be built, as it would be impossible to use existing buildings. The city had to be destroyed after the bombing sequences, to be shown in ruins for the remaining second third of the film. How could it be done within the film’s budget?
William Menzies had gotten the “feel” of the story while aiding Wells in completing his screenplay. Now, together with Vincent Korda, Menzies preceeded to design the production’s appearance. His massive style, roughly the same form that was seen throughout “Gone With the Wind.” (Menzies later also worked on a version of “Thief of Bagdad” for Korda), blended in smoothly with the moral symbolism of Well’s storyline.
Alexander Korda was now faced with the problem of accepting the uniformly immense production style of Menzies together with his brother, Vincent’s, designs for the specific settings, which were spell-binding.
Wells, who had participated in their design, had seen to it that the architectural styles used in the film were merely symbols of their eras and the philosophies of their times. He liked the preliminary sketches. But how could they be built without using the money set aside for the futuristic city yet to be built? Or how could the future sets be built without having to eliminate the settings of the initial city? In this all-important area, an ingenious compromise was reached.
It was agreed that, in order for the sets and buildings required by the storyline to be photographed, they must first be built in miniature. But the proportion of their construction was another matter. Actors could not be shown together with the city by this method to the extent needed. Still, Wells regarded the scenes of thousands of people running through the past and future cities “highly necessary” to the spirit of the story.
The solution? Lower stories of most buildings were to be built fullscale on the Elstree backlots. Upper parts of the buildings would be built in miniature within the sound stages. The lower and upper stories of structures would be integrated onto one piece of film by means of associated photographic techniques such as split-screen, matting, mirror-shots and rear-projection. For this work, two rare talents were imported to London Films.
Ned Mann had built miniatures for Paramount and RKO films, including “Deluge” (in which New York City was drowned under a tidal wave), and “Dirigible” (A Cecil B. DeMille film). He was an expert in his craft, and always worked in the largest scale possible, so as to add detail to his models. He worked with Menzies to paint huge realistic backdrops of buildings for indoor and outdoor use. Because of these “drops”, some buildings did not have to be built at all. The structures in front of the camera were erected, but the buildings off to the side streets and in the back of other houses, could be painted on canvas and hung in the streets. Because of skillful painting, they photographed like actually constructed buildings. The superimposed miniatures completed the illusion of the vast cities.
Harry Zech, an American special-effects technician who did pioneer work in perfecting split-screen photography, also became part of the staff of “Things to Come.” He had started working in films with Mack Sennett, and so had many years to perfect his techniques. He had also worked with other special-effects technicians and, like Mann, had the ability to devise completely new effects at a moment’s notice.
For the more intricate scenes involving live actors combined photographically with miniatures, rear-projection screens were set up in the miniature scale buildings, and on these screens was projected footage of the actors scattered around the full-scale lower stories. When seen on film, combined with other angles involving split-screen, it looks like multitudes of people are running through full-size, complete buildings.
Reconstruction by Technocracy
The present was finished, now, in the film. With the guidance of Cabal’s organization, reconstruction began. Old buildings were razed, huge excavations were dug. Unheard-of machines molded super-size panels from plastics stronger than steel, and other machines erected the panels and shaped balconies, symmetrical buildings.
The new city is huge and clear, completely devoid of dirt. With its own artificial sunlight, built beneath ground level but still not completely cut-off from the world above, it is a completely controlled environment. Spiraled roads stretch from the depths of the city to the surface, and multi-laned highways traverse the megopolis. The new world is here!
EVERYTOWN: 2036!
One of directorial wizard William Menzies’ favorite photographic technique was used to provide us with our first glimpse of the completed, futuristic Everytown.
First, an extremely long shot of the sky. The camera slowly dollies down to the cliffs surrounding the city, then the caption “2036” explodes upon the screen! The camera zooms upward and out until the entire underground excavation is visible. Slowly focusing in toward the city, the camera reveals the tops of the futuristic buildings, then the entire structures. With a slow dissolving shot melting our vision, changing angles to down shots of the majestic buildings, with hordes of people streaming in and out of palaces, monorails speeding back and forth, countless varieties of cars and elevators all moving and working. The city is alive! A giant complex of machine and man!
This shot was accomplished by first photographing a miniature of the cliffs and surrounding land, then zooming in for a closeup of the miniature excavation. At this point there was a brief shot of the city, with miniature people running from place to place on conveyor belts. Then, while the attention of the audience is fixed on the city, there is a dissolve to the miniature city, from a lower level. Process screens were positioned within the buildings, and people were double-exposed in the buildings. At the same time, Mann’s miniature vehicles were in action. The result: a panned shot of an apparently full-sized city, with multitudes of people and machines moving around. A beautiful illusion!
With the new world come new people. It is now 2036. John Cabal is gone, but in his place is his great-grandson, Oswald Cabal, again Raymond Massey, the World President. Everytown is now the world capital.
The society is divided into two groups; scientists and artists. Science forges onward, uncovering one secret of nature after another. The thinkers are happy with their ever-accelerating progress, but the artists are not.
beware of meeks gearing rifts
Spokesman of the artists is Theotocopulos (Sir Cedric Hardwicke). Speaking on a worldwide television broadcast, he asks the people for a reason to justify this constant discovery. Things used to be so simple in the “old days,” he says. In those days” the artists were the creators of the world. They were respected and important. There were good times, and everyone was securely happy. Now, he says, science is making discoveries so profound that they are dwarfing the work of artists. Theotocopulos and all the people like him are frightened.
We all remember how good things were back there in good old 1971, don’t we?
The focal point of their fears is the huge space gun, which has been built to rocket two people into orbit around the moon. This is terrible, reason the artists, who would rather paint a place from imagination than by visiting it-which might take courage.
Appealing for support, Theotocopulos begs the populace of Everytown to join him in putting an end to the forces of science by smashing the space gun. Pointing to a huge photograph of Cabal, Theotocopulos tells his followers:
“There… There is the man who would offer up his daughter to the devils of science!” But the coup fails, and the launching goes on as scheduled.
It might be worth noting that Theotocopulos used a 100-foot high television screen to project his image as he bad-mouthed science.
Raymond Passworthy again, Edward Chapman, a descendant of the Passworthy of John Cabal’s day, asks Oswald Cabal for his views as the space bullet rockets toward the moon. Aboard the craft are Cabal’s daughter and Passworthy’s son. Theotocopulos and his followers have been frustrated in their attempt to destroy the invention and have returned to their homes, wondering what new miracles are to come.
Cabal explains his philosophy of life and of man in a speech worthy of Shakespeare in its artistry and meaning.
We recreate that final stunning dialogue on the page at right in a special MT film-comics treatment…
A PROPHECY FROM 1936
The final spellbinding footage comes alive, immortalized on the printed page; a message to us from Today from the far future – as H.G. Wells foresaw it! The space-gun that just thundered, all of Everytown still quakes in reverberation, and the first space capsule hurtles heavenward to orbit the moon! The astronauts’ fathers, Oswald Cabal (Raymond Massey) and Raymond Passworthy (Edward Chapman), view the progress on a monolithic TV screen. There is a tense moment of silence, magnifying tensions between the two men. Passworthy shudders… and Cabal proudly exclaims!…
Cabal: There! There they go! That faint gleam of light!
Passworthy: I feel what we’ve done is – MONSTROUS!
Cabal: What they have done is magnificent!
Passworthy: Will they return?
Cabal: Yes. And go again. And again – until a landing is made and the moon is conquered. This is just a beginning.
Passworthy: And if they don’t return – MY son and YOUR daughter? What of that, Cabal?
Cabal: Rest enough for the individual man – too much of it and too soon, and we call it Death! But for Man, no rest and no ending. He must go on – conquest beyond conquest! First this little planet with its winds and ways, and all of the laws of mind and matter that restrain him. Then the planets about him. and at last out across the immensity, to the stars! And when he has conquered all the deeps of space and all the mysteries of time, -still he will be beginning!
Passworthy: But Cabal – mankind are such little creatures. Little – Little animals!
Cabal: And if we are no more than “little animals” then we must snatch at our little scraps of happiness and live and suffer and pass, mattering no more than all the other animals do – or have done!
Cabal: Is it that – or this? ALL the Universe – or Nothingness! – Which shall it be, Passworthy… which shall it be?… WHICH SHALL IT BE?
WHICH SHALL IT BE?
Production and Musical Notes
Which SHALL it be?
Thus ends “Things to Come,” first with Raymond Massey’s voice echoing, “Which shall it be” until the question is chimed by a huge chorus, accompanied by a full orchestra, the challenging words, “Which shall it be?” climaxing on a crescendo as the scene blacks out. We, the audience are left now to ponder the future of mankind… to a musical score created by Arthur Bliss, who, after writing music for “Things,” was to be knighted and made official composer to the Queen of England.
Bliss’ score for “Things to Come” was considered so special that it became the first motion-picture soundtrack ever to be recorded on discs for commercial sale. A set of 78 RPM records was issued in 1936, and in the early 1950’s, RCA Victor again recorded the score, this time with Bliss conducting the score in stereophonic sound. This recording has been reissued in England.
For the “2036” sequence of the film, certain settings had to be built entirely in the miniature scale. These included the space gun, the factory used in the reconstruction montage, the huge construction machines that rebuilt “Everytown,” and the future city itself (for its first appearance in an extreme long shot).
With proper editing and the addition of appropriate sound effects, streams of puppets were made to look like crowds of people. To this day, certain scenes in “Things to Come” mystify audiences in this manner. It is impossible to tell what portions of the sets were miniatures, and what portions were built full scale.
1936 to 2036 – Women’s Lib to come!
One scene that was cut from the film, yet appears in the printed version of the script is a dialogue between Oswald Cabal and his wife Rowena (Raymond Massey and Margaretta Scott, carrying their roles into the future). Rowena was a descendant of Roxana Black, wife of the Boss. In the dialogue, Cabal stated his views on the “women of the world who live for the purpose of proving that they are better than men,” rather than “working with them to improve the world.” Also during the scene we learn that Cabal has been divorced from his wife, that she is violently against their daughter being sent to the moon. Those who think women’s lib is a passing fad or a throwback to the suffragettes find little solace in such a vision.
Raymond Massey, then relatively unknown, was chosen for the dual role of John and Oswald Cabal. His acting style at the time was such that he could perform with an easy, flowing quality. He also had the ability to tighten up his relaxed style during moments of crisis in the lives of both Cabals. In Massey, Korda found an actor who could be a relatively quiet, philosophical sort with a powerful sense of human hope and cosmic confidence. It was a type of acting that projected a powerful aura of wisdom and leadership.
Just as Korda’s films had made stars of others including Charles Laughton, “Things to Come” was to start Massey down the starring role of films. Later, in 1940, Massey achieved the ultimate in character identification when he portrayed Abraham Lincoln with the same qualities of dynamic life that he instilled in John and Oswald Cabal.
The role of Rudolph, “Boss” of Everytown, went to Ralph Richardson. In his capable hands, the Boss became a character who, it was plain, believed he was the most important person in the world, and that he was therefore supposed to take over everything in it. Primitivism and tribalism personified, befit Mussolini and Hitler to a “T.”
Sir Cedric Hardwicke, one of the greatest portrayers of villainy, was Theotocopulos. He was the anarchist of yesterday combined with the reactionary of today. His manner balanced the scale of dramatic moments when it clashed with Massey’s role.
In 1936, Herbert George Wells, Alexander and Vincent Korda, William Cameron Menzies and a staff of additional geniuses teamed together to make a motion-picture: “Things to Come.” A large part of “Things to Come” has already come to pass. The question of “Which shall it be?” as yet to be answered as there are still many Passworthy’s about who would like to put an end to the space program in favor of war. Which shall it be? No matter what the answer, the question of today into a wondrous tomorrow will hopefully always be remembered as having been asked first if not best in a film produced in the past; in 1936, in England. “Things to Come.”
