There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.

Sometimes, you start out in less than ideal situations, like when the band you’re in starts playing different tunes…

The Committee (1968)

Distributed by: Craytic

Directed by: Peter Sykes

We all start somewhere.

The egg gives us the young life form inside it. The seed give us the plant it came from. The opening credits finally roll after what feels like 20 minutes of trailers…

…oh wait, that 20 minute figure is actually spot on…

And for director Peter Sykes, his career started with some interesting talent, in a film itself that itself doesn’t really go anywhere…

We open with a character identified as the “Central Figure” in the credits (Paul Jones of Manfred Mann fame) who we see is a hitchhiker picked up by a motorist (Tom Kempinski). The man driving the car goes on and on with inanities, which the hitchhiker tries to feign interest in, before the car stalls and the driver pulls over to the side.

While looking under the hood, the driver continues his (may as well be a) monologue, which bores the hitchhiker. Or drives him crazy; either way, he slams the hood of the car down hard enough to decapitate the man…

…though he thinks better of it after the fact and reattaches his head. After sewing it back on, the man seems oblivious to what happened to him, and the hitchhiker goes on his way.

Quick cut to somewhere important, which we can tell it is by its use of a computer, the punched card reader chugging along. There, a meeting is held, chaired by the Committee director (Robert Lloyd). He announces that he’s going to host a Committee for 300 people at the Lodge, one of five that need to be called over the next 10 days.

He states that “all the invitees have contrary imaginations,” which means… Well, we can table that one and move on, for now…

It ends up our Central Figure is invited to this Committee, and has to tell his boss (Jimmy Gardner) that he needs time off to attend. The boss is sympathetic, regaling him with his own time on a Committee, which mercifully get cut short as we move on to the titular affair.

We find out that the annoying driver is also at the conference. The Central Figure strikes up a conversation with him, but the driver acts as though he’d never seen him before. This seems to make the Central Figure more bothered than relieved, and it starts to weigh on him.

The only respite he (and the audience) get from these nagging feelings comes from a surprise performance by Arthur Brown:

Soon after this, the Central Figure meets the Committee director, and from there a conversation ensues. A long, drawn out conversation that has the two moving out of an office and walking around a deserted clock tower faster than you can say “You wake up in the Village”:

If you are worried about seeing this and thinking it’s out of context, relax: There really isn’t any. By the end of the day, the script by Sykes and Max Steur, who was also the producer for this, his only listed work, supposedly should have meant something, but it’s hard to say what. And we’re so removed from 1968 that whatever Sykes and Steur were alluding to as possible background, that’s long since gone.

Sykes, whose first job this was as a director, at least shows off his ability to set a scene and elicit a mood. This despite the above-mentioned nonsensical script, and Jones’ inability to stay in character (or even focused) in a number of crucial scenes that could have benefited from a more engaged actor. And if the only thing we’d remember this film for was being Sykes’ premiere (he’d go on to do some movies for Hammer Films and a good deal of television work) we’d have little reason to tarry here.

But what does keep us here, however, is its soundtrack…

By the end of January of 1968, Pink Floyd became a four man band, after the other members asked Syd Barrett to leave. Which proved to be a disappointment to Sykes, who had wanted to build what became The Committee around Barrett. Nonetheless, the reformed band got involved in the project, recording the score sometime during the making of A Saucerful of Secrets.

The tracks from the score carry the hallmarks of that period. Delving into instrumental experimentation performed in the wake of their main songwriter’s departure, the band tentatively moves towards their new direction as they got used to each other.  It’s a fascinating look at the band during its effort to find itself:

We end up with a very early look at Pink Floyd’s experimentation during this time. We hear aspects of what the band would transform into by the end of the decade in these compositions. In fact, one track from the score ended up serving as a demo for a later Floyd song, “Careful With That Axe, Eugene.”

After this initial experience, Pink Floyd would continue to work with other directors on their films, including productive exercises with Barbet Schroeder and Michelangelo Antonioni, and the spectacular frustration of working with Alan Parker. Sykes’ first film, in contrast, did not go much further after its premiere. In fact, about the only distribution the film received outside of its limited theatrical release was as part of the Pink Floyd box set The Early Years: 1965-1972.

Had it not been for this, we would instead only remember games, daisy chains, and laughs…

NEXT TIME: I have to say yes to this film, because it gets me nowhere to tell it ‘no’…

The post FANTASIA OBSCURA: The Surreal Satire Saved by a Pink Floyd Soundtrack appeared first on REBEAT Magazine.

There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.

Sometimes, it may not be what you expected, but on very rare occasions, it may be better than hoped…

Toomorrow (1970)

Distributed by: Rank Films (UK)

Directed by: Val Guest

You’ve heard this one before, probably. The one about the known talent coming together for something that looks good on paper, but by the end of the affair is a complete disaster.

But sometimes, it’s not that bad…

We watch while the credits roll as a spaceship floats above Tranquility Base on its way to Earth. Soon, the ship is over London, with a beam emanating from it to the front door of a house.

The occupant (Roy Doltrice), whose name we discover later is John Williams (no, not that one), wakes up, goes to the front door, and nonchalantly gestures to them to give him a minute. He then proceeds into the beam, which brings him up to the craft, where he gets out of his human suit…

Williams is actually an observer of this planet for the Alphans, who sent the ship. The captain of the craft (Roy Marsden) asks Williams for a report, and he gives them the same report he’s filed for 3000 years: Earth’s boring, we’re primitive, and we’re as dreary as Venus. The captain disagrees, however, as the Alphans have traced a harmonic vibration to our galaxy, which Williams somehow didn’t notice before now.

Ends up the vibration is produced by what’s called a “tonaliser.” It’s a unique instrument created by Vic Cooper (his only known credit), a combination synthesizer and amplifier. He’s the brains of his group, Toomorrow, playing alongside guitarist Benny Thomas (his last listed credit), drummer Karl Chambers (his only known film credit, concentrating instead on a long music career afterwards), and backup singer Olivia Newton-John.

Yes, they used their real names as the characters they played. Yes, there’s a good reason for that, which we’ll get to…

We find these four sharing a townhouse in London’s Chelsea, where they crash between gigs, romances, and attending classes at the fictitious London School of Arts, when they’re not trying to shut it down with a sit-in. Each of them is falling in and out of love with other people, such as Vic’s romance with the hard-to-please ballet student Amy (Imogen Hassall) and Benny’s romance with a professor in the music department (Tracey Crisp), which are only mild speedbumps in the way of getting their band to get recognized.

This makes them susceptible to Williams’ charms. He flatters them, offers them a place to rehearse, and gets their guard down before the Alphans beam them aboard their ship.

It’s explained to the group by their kidnappers that they are needed on their planet to provide new sounds to help rejuvenate their race. Their musical development has stagnated, ever since they allowed computers to take over most of the music making for them, and they need something to move them along from this dead end, one that forces them to extremes to overcome.

(Insert “Auto-Tune” joke here…)

Not wanting to become music teachers, Toomorrow’s members make a run for it, at one point ejecting from the ship via the escape pod:

From there, it’s a jumble of romantic misunderstandings, complicated when the Alphans send one of their own disguised as an inept seductress (Margaret Nolan) to try and get the band’s members to make sure they get to the gig at the Roundhouse. Will they make it..?

Hey, whada ya think? The whole “get the band to the gig” trope’s as at least as old as Rock Around the Clock, and have you ever known it not to lead to the big musical number at the end…?

And yes, there’s a reason they’re using their real names, as long as were talking derivatives: One of the producers of the film, Don Kirshner, was hoping to replicate the success he had on American television a few years ago with another “pre-fab” group of actors/musicians. Teaming with Harry Saltzman, who co-produced the James Bond films of the 1960s and early 1970s, Kirshner hoped to give to cinemas what he gave to NBC, complete with fresh talent and established songwriters feeding them hits, in this case Mark Barkin and Ritchie Adams, who wrote the songs the band sings in the film that would appear on the soundtrack album.

The main problem with this plan, however, was the behind-the-scenes production drama: Kirshner and Saltzman reportedly hated each other. And with each production delay, necessary re-write, and cash flow issues thanks to Saltzman’s poor investments, the likelihood that the film was going to lead to a franchise died pretty quickly.

In fact, according to one source, the film was received so badly at its premiere in London, the movie was pulled after only one week. After that, it saw only sporadic one-off appearances here and there. Supposedly, Kirshner vowed never to release the film so long as he was alive; the movie only saw light again in home video in 2012, a year after his death.

But was it really that bad? Yes, the plot leaves a lot to be desired, and the aliens in the film tend to upstage the band. That said, it ambitiously tries to give the audience a good time, and if you’re willing to not take any of this seriously, it can work at points. The score by Hugo Montenegro is more listenable than the songs by the group, but the four of them when they banter with each other have some moments that work.

So why did something this innocuous disappear for over 30 years? There was probably a lot of pride endangered and fears of this being a black mark on the career of anyone involved with the film, not to mention lots of crew and talent supposedly never having been paid for their work. But in hindsight, it’s breezy manner gives the movie’s attempts to recall an episode of The Monkees some cachet among people who can accept it for what it was: a failed effort at a bigger project that couldn’t take itself that seriously. You give it a little slack, and try to admire its earnestness, and you’ll get rewarded with something that starts to make you root for this doomed project despite yourself.

Maybe its rep as a horrible disaster is a bit overblown. And compare this with, say, Xanadu, or Two of a Kind, and you start to wonder what harmonic vibrations the movie’s detractors were attuned to…

NEXT TIME: Vincent Price takes on this film, where his hour is one of darkness, and adversity and peril…

The post FANTASIA OBSCURA: Don Kirshner Tries to Replicate the Success of the Monkees with… Olivia Newton-John? appeared first on REBEAT Magazine.

There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.

And sometimes, yes, ideas are exposed to be shattered and annihilated by contact with the practical…

Twice-Told Tales (1963)

Distributed by: United Artists

Directed by: Sidney Salkow

In 1963, Vincent Price was feeling burned out by doing all those movies in the “Poe Cycle” for Roger Corman at American International. He had been doing a whole set of film in period costume, doing loose adaptations of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, and needed a change of scenery.

So he went with an outfit working with United Artists and…

…um, got in to period costume, to do loose adaptations of the stories from this guy…

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a contemporary of Poe’s, which meant that his works were also in the public domain. Which means we get:

This film was one of a number from the time that were “anthology films,” in that there were multiple stories collected in one movie. Before each tale, we get a pair of skeletal hands and arms opening a big book, giving us the title of the story being (not that faithfully) adapted for screen, starting with:

“Dr. Heiddeger’s Experement”

This adaptation of a story found in the collection Twice-Told Tales (which gives the film its title) opens with two aged friends, Alex Melbourne (Price) and Dr. Carl Heiddeger (Sebastian Cabot). They are celebrating Heiddeger’s birthday, lamenting the approach of death in their old age. This is actually something Heiddeger looks forward to, as he lost the woman he was going to marry, Sylvia, to a sudden illness 38 years ago, and hopes to spend eternity with her when it’s time.

Prompted by a crash they hear from Sylvia’s crypt, they discover that there is a drip in the vault. They find that the water coming through the crack has rejuvenating powers, as Sylvia’s corpse (Mari Blanchard) thanks to the water is as fresh (?) as it was the day it was laid to rest. So like any mad scientist, Heiddeger makes the cognitive leap to drink the water, which restores his youth. Soon Alex does the same, after which the doctor makes another cognitive leap: He inserts the water into Sylvia’s veins, bringing her back to life.

This proves to be awkward, as sins of the past that were buried for 38 years come back to the present, with complications and deadly results emerging before it goes so, so wrong…

“Rappaccini’s Daughter”

Taken from the collection Mosses from an Old Manse, we have in Padua a young medical student, Giovanni (Brett Halsey) who manages to spy walking in a closed-off garden adjacent to his lodgings the adorable Beatrice (Joyce Taylor). He tries to woo her, but she rebuffs him every time.

We find out why soon enough: Her father (Price), heartbroken over his wife having dumped him and his daughter, made Beatrice incorruptible by injecting her with extracts from an exotic plant. This keeps fly-by-nights from coming for her, although Beatrice isn’t too happy with the side effects, like her acidic touch that kills any living thing she touches…

Ultimately, with some guidance from his advisor, Professor Baglioni (Abraham Sofaer), Giovanni makes his deep intentions known to her. Her father, hearing these proclamations of love, welcomes him into the family… by drugging him so that he could put those extracts into Giovanni’s body! Unfortunately, this does not go well for anyone involved…

“The House of the Seven Gables”

Based very loosely on an extremely-slimmed down summary of Hawthorne’s original novel, we are given the story of Gerald Pyncheon (Price), who is down on his luck as he brings his bride Alice (Beverly Garland) with him to the family home, the above-referenced abode (which in the film looks nothing like the actual house Hawthorne was writing about). This doesn’t please his sister Hannah (Jacqueline deWit) who lives in the house and looks down on her ne’er-do-well brother as he barges in and claims residency.

Gerald believes that there is a deed to valuable land in Maine hidden in the house, a deed secured by the Pyncheons from Matthew Maulle back in 1691, and he wants it in order to rebuild his fortune. He doesn’t have much time, though, as Matthew’s spirit has a rep for killing all the male Pyncheons, and greedy devious Gerald is next on the list of victims…

The main victim in the film, of course, is fidelity to the source materials. This is especially obvious in the “Seven Gables” segment, which departs most radically from the work, although the other two stories get decent interpretations in the script by Robert E. Kent. And Salkow’s direction serves the stories well enough, neither adding anything interesting to look at or detracting from what’s going on.

The cast, other than Price giving great work in all three roles as a troublemaker getting his just rewards, gets into their roles and try to keep up with Price’s villain(s). The best efforts are given by Cabot and deWit, who have the best chemistry with Price, while everyone else vary from half a length behind to a lap and a half.

The biggest weakness this film has to overcome, however, is the source material. Poe criticized Hawthorne’s work in print back then as being heavy-handed with allegory and morality, and it’s hard for readers of Hawthorne’s works to disagree with that. Modern audiences have even less patience for the lessons he tries to imprint, and Kent’s script makes no effort to avoid this trap. It even gives Price voice-overs at the beginning and end of each segment to hammer home the point, which feels more appropriate to a story from Rod Serling’s work over at CBS, which was airing when the film was in theaters.

There’s no indication, once production wrapped, that there were more Hawthorne tales being planned by Salkow or Kent, and so everyone scattered, including Price, who put this one behind him…

…and promptly ended up in another Poe adaptation…

NEXT TIME: We get a good look at the rivalry between larger than life figures, and see what drives them…

The post FANTASIA OBSCURA: Vincent Price Swaps Poe for Hawthorne in these Eerie Tales of Terror appeared first on REBEAT Magazine.

There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.

Sometimes, the fastest runner does not win the race; the funniest, however…

The Great Race (1965)

Distributed by: Warner Brothers

Directed by: Blake Edwards

Everyone likes a good tech duel, right? It’s as American as apple pie.

Years before we had Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos dueling over who would set the agenda for our next steps into space, we had such throw downs as the frenemy relationship between Jobs and Gates, the contest for the Hearst Transcontinental Prize, Marsh and Cope’s Bone Wars,  and of course the Edison-Tesla contest. It’s amazing that we don’t get more films that go into such duels.

Probably because when we do, we end up with efforts like this one…

After an opening credits for the film done in the style of old-time lantern slides, we open sometime early in the 20^th century, unspecified but for the sake of a guess, say, 1908. We watch as the Great Leslie (Tony Curtis) is about to dangle from a hot air balloon in a straitjacket, during which he will attempt to free himself and return to earth safely.

His effort, however, is nearly sabotaged by Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon) and his sidekick Max Meen (Peter Falk), who tries to bust his balloon (literally). When the effort fails, Fate tries his own attention getting stunt, being hooked from the ground and pulled into the air by an airplane, a trick which… Well, let’s just say he’s no Great Leslie…

We get a couple more stunts by Leslie that succeed despite Fate’s sabotage, and Fate’s stunts going spectacularly wrong, before Leslie tries to fight his ennui by gathering the heads of the nescient automobile industry together. In an effort to promote American technology, lest it be swamped by the likes of Daimler and Peugeot, he proposes an event to show off American know-how: a car race, from New York to Paris (based on an actual such race held in 1908).

Leslie has in mind a special car, designed to his specifications, which Fate tries his best to spy on, and maybe sabotage:

Fate then goes with plan B: He designs the Hannibal Twin-8, a car with all the latest features, like a smokescreen device and a mini-cannon. He decides that if he can’t cheat or sabotage Leslie, he can at least beat him at the race, which as it draws closer becomes a sensation.

Such a sensation, in fact, that it draws the attention of a vibrant Suffragette, one Maggie Dubois (Natalie Wood), who wants to get involved with the race. Her first effort is to try and convince Leslie to have her as part of his crew, to cover the event on behalf of the newspaper run by Henry Goodbody (Arthur O’Connell):

When this fails, as well as an effort to try and hitch a ride with Fate (of course), she decides to enter the race herself. And, as one of the drivers who did not get scratched right away by Fate’s sabotage, she stays competitive for the early portion, before her car breaks down and she has to hitch a ride with Leslie and his mechanic, Hezekiah Sturdy (Keenan Wynn).

From there the two teams compete not only with each other, but hazards on the trail. This includes a stop in the western town of Boracho and an encounter with black hat Texas Jack (Larry Storch) which leads to a major saloon fight; getting stuck together on an ice floe that drifts from Alaska to Siberia; and an extended stop in the kingdom of Carpania, where the villainous Baron Rolfe von Stuppe (Ross Martin) is attempting to overthrow the satyric and incompetent Crown Prince Frederick, which gave Lemmon a lot more to do in the film:

The descriptive “a lot” can be applied quite liberally to the film. Edwards, with the momentum generated by his success with Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Pink Panther, andA Shot in the Dark, was originally looking at doing the film for six million dollars with United Artists, but when they declared the project too rich for their blood, Warner Brothers swooped in to back it, giving him carte blanche for the project. By the end of production, the film’s budget went up to 12 million dollars (about $113M in today’s currency), and it showed in every shot.

Edwards took his crew beyond the Warner stages, to shoot in Death Valley, Salzburg and Paris. He also took them to places they hadn’t anticipated; both Curtis and Ross had to learn fencing for their duel, when Edwards insisted on not having doubles do their scenes. And he brought them into the biggest pie fight put on film to that time, with 4,000 pies being flung for a scene that took five days to film.

The result was a movie that actually does pull a few laughs together despite itself. On the one hand, it’s big and over-the-top, which can repel anyone allergic to excess. Edwards clearly let the power of a big studio that couldn’t say no to him go to his head, which is most obvious in the long detour the film takes in Carpania that feels like a self-contained feature that pays homage to The Prisoner of Zenda.

On the other hand, Edwards gets quite a bit out of his cast, and from some of them he gets pure gold. Lemmon in particular as Fate, a man who is half as evil as he is incompetent, nearly steals the film, with an assist from his Frederick. Wood and Falk also give good broad comedy in their roles, and Curtis, who’s given the unenviable role of being the default straight man, holds his own. And with decent goofiness evoked by Storch, Martin, and Vivian Vance as Goodbody’s wife, who is far more emancipated than Dubois could ever hope to be, without even trying, the gags manage to land more often than not.

While the jokes could find the funny spot the way the pies found their targets, the film didn’t find much of an audience during its initial run. Coming to screens four months after Fox’s own retro tech contest comedy, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines…, the audience decided that one such film per year was enough. It took a critical drubbing at the time, being compared unfavorably to the other movie, making this Edwards’ first critical flop.

Then again, since most of the bigger tech duels get decided by which product makes it first to market, this was probably appropriate all said…

NEXT TIME: ET phones home, not like this guy. What, you mother and I gave you that much tsuris before you left, huh…?

The post FANTASIA OBSCURA: Blake Edwards’ Overlooked Cross-Country Comedy Extravaganza appeared first on REBEAT Magazine.

There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.

Sometimes, when you need to find yourself, you may need to take on a different perspective, at the risk of alienation…

Simon (1980)

Distributed by: Orion Pictures

Directed by: Marshall Brickman

Usually, when we watch an evil scientist at work, we get someone who’s strutting like a peacock for attention, nihilistic and probably quite mad as the genius puts on a flashy show to let everyone know their name as they destroy the world with all sorts of lights and sound.

Which makes the evil scientists at the opening of this film, reclusive and very quiet, and in all likelihood saner than us, all the more disturbing…

The film opens at the Institute for Advanced Concepts, which a narrator (James Dukas) describes as a major think tank funded covertly by the government. The narrator becomes an interviewer when he asks the head of the think tank, Dr. Becker (Austin Pendleton), about his institution’s purpose. Quite nonchalantly, he admits that they were brought together to solve the world’s problems, but got bored with that and dedicated themselves to messin’ with everyone’s stuff.

We then meet the rest of the geniuses, men of great intellect but few morals. There’s Dr. Hundertwasser (Max Wright), whose main project is the ability to goose Nielsen numbers, taking credit for radically inflating the ratings for Donnie & Marie from just 1,200 to 60 million viewers. We meet Dr. Barundi (Jayant in his only listed role), who lets us know that the Nixon who went to China in 1972 was not the one that came back; Dr. Fichandler (William Finney), a chemist/biologist who takes credit for developing penicillin-resistant gonorrhea; and Dr. Von Dongen (Wallace Shaw), who is trying to crossbreed humans with cockroaches to produce a true super species.

We soon lose the narrator (a possible victim to an experiment?) as we watch this brain trust get together to discuss their next prank project: With so many Americans actually believing in extraterrestrials according to a Gallup poll, they decide to see what happens if one did show up. With the aid of their AI powered searchable database (a beta version of Google), Doris (voiced by an uncredited Louise Lasser), they find their “alien”.

He’s Simon Mendelssohn (Alan Arkin), an assistant professor with the psychology department at Columbia University. A frustrated underappreciated teacher who’s experimenting with a sensory deprivation tank to delve deeper into the human mind (ironically, a good 10 months before Altered States came to theaters to explore that plot point more seriously), he has ideas and theories that no one takes seriously, although his girlfriend Lisa (Judy Graubart) tries to be supportive.

He’s also an orphan whose parents could not be traced, which among other things qualifies him to be the Institute for Advanced Concepts’ test subject. They convince him that he is brilliant and seduce him with an advanced lab and an almost too perfect assistant, Dr. Cynthia Mallory (Madeline Kahn), all the while getting bodily fluids from him that will be altered to prove that he’s not one of us.

At the right time, they make their move: They lock Simon in a sensory deprivation tank for 197 hours, which is supposed to make him more easily programmable. But first, they have to deal with the side effects affecting Simon:

Their project set up, they premiere Simon to an unsuspecting world. The scientists, however, were not expecting Simon to take to his role as extraterrestrial spokesman quite so forcefully:

Soon, Lisa shows up at the Institute, just as the Fearsome Five decide to pull the plug on their stunt. Luckily, Simon and Lisa escape, finding refuge at a commune that worships all things on television, run by a leader who used to be a programmer at ABC (Adolph Green). With the military looking for their “alien,” commanded by Major General Kory (Fred Gwynne), Simon has to try and understand himself as he tries to save us from ourselves…

In many ways, Simon’s search to define his identity mirrored that of Brickman’s. After co-writing the screenplays for Sleeper, Annie Hall, and Manhattan, the motivation was certainly there to see if he could do it all by himself. And test himself he surely did: Not only was this his first solo theatrical screenplay, but Brickman’s directorial debut as well.

As a director, you can see in how he frames his shots that he didn’t want to get too flashy the first time out, so visually the set ups feel pedestrian. To counter this, though, he had a fantastic cast of actors who could bring enough wattage in their performances to fill the screen. He gets such potent performances, especially from Arkin, that Brickman could have just left the camera sitting on a table the whole time without touching it and still had something to watch. (As well as plenty to hear, too, thanks to Stanley Silverman’s wonderful score.)

As for Brickman’s script, its main strengths are also its biggest weakness. Plied atop an interesting rumination as to questions of identity and where the truth lies are jokes that were very au currant at the time, tied to his main stomping grounds. The further one gets from New York City and/or the 1970s, the less of a hold they have on the viewer. There’s some great material there, though, if you can relate to it.

As noted, there are deeper questions concerning identity in the story. Who we are, what we stand for, what makes us better, all of these are looked at. Simon in the end asks us whether we are able to look at ourselves, and more importantly, can we really self-examine ourselves properly.

The only clue it gives us as to where it stands on the issue is, try and do this without some evil scientists around…

NEXT TIME: Next week is supposed to be good for fireworks, though we’re doing less “Star Spangled Banner” than Starland Vocal Band, ifyouknowwhatImean…

The post FANTASIA OBSCURA: The Rich, the Powerful and Alan Arkin the Alien? appeared first on REBEAT Magazine.

There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.

Sometimes, you can have your brigadeiro and eat it, too…

Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (1976)

Distributed by: New Yorker Films (in US)

Directed by: Bruno Barreto

Please note: This piece describes and uses materials from a film that is very frank about intimacy that may make select readers uncomfortable; discretion is advised.

When someone uses the term “sex comedy,” the first image that comes to most people’s heads is a film where we have some man whose sex drive is in overdrive. We follow him as he lives for lust; maybe he’s successful satiating himself, and maybe he learns something from the effort, successful or not.

And along the way, there’s at least one woman who doesn’t have a lot of lines to speak or clothes to wear in the film. These women, from female lead to window dressing, show up, look hot, and then we ignore them as we go back to the protagonist and his needs.

Which was why when this film came out, it was such a startling revelation, to have as protagonist a woman who, unlike most women in sex comedies (or any other film), actually likes sex and isn’t punished for it.

We start with a cold open: It’s 1943, in the Brazilian state of Bahia, early in carnival. We meet Valdomiro (Jose Wilker), getting drunk at an interminably early hour, along with Mirandao (Nelson Xavier) and the rest of the irredeemables of the town. They start to samba as a crew comes by, but Valdomiro’s dance is cut short by a fatal heart attack.

His newly-minted widow, Dona Flor (Sonia Braga) rushes out to hold him one last time, and claim him for his funeral while people dance in the street. And if they could, most of the mourners at the funeral would dance, too, knowing what kind of husband he was…

And for the next hour, we get an extended flashback where we get some of his ‘high’ lights, such as his running off whenever he could to go back to his drinking buddies, no matter what she’d try:

We also get to see some of his other ‘redeeming’ features, such as his abuse, the way he stole money that Dona Flor earned from giving cooking classes, the way he would fondle some of her students as they watched her cook. It makes one ask, what did she see in him?

In short, what kept her from leaving him was his abilities as a lover. Whatever else happens, the sex is so good that she allows him way too much leeway, right up to the moment when he dies.

Widowhood give Dona Flor room to breathe, as well as considerable frustration without her lover. This prompts Dona Flor’s mother (Dinorah Brillanti) and friends to get her set up with another beau as soon as it’s appropriate.

Which doesn’t take long at all. They have no trouble finding their man, Theodoro (Mauro Mendonca), a doctor with a thriving practice, who absolutely adores Dona Flor. And he’s everything Valdomiro was not; he’s sober, level-headed, adores and worships his wife…

…and is lousy in bed. Which for many women might be a deal breaker, but for Dona Flor, it just makes her wistful that Valdomiro isn’t in her life when she needs him..

…so wistful, in fact, that Valdomiro’s ghost shows up, in the nude, right when she doesn’t need him. He’s no less a dick in the afterlife, as he watches Dona Flor and Theodoro making love from atop the wardrobe and heckles them, popping out now and then to help Mirando break the bank at the casino. But his purpose in coming back to this plane gets fulfilled soon enough, as Dona Flor realizes what she wants, deep down, and finally gives in to her desires…

Not that she’s that quick about it. In fact, for a two-hour film, the first half is reliving the flashback in detail, and Valdomiro’s ghost showing up with only 20 minutes to go. In a film that did not take a few moments to watch its characters get carnal and talk about how badly they want it, this would have been fatal, but here it’s just a slow burn.

Adapted from the novel by Jorge Amado, Barreto and his co-writers in adapting the book put most of the focus in the film on Dona Flor. And for a story about lust and the afterlife, Barreto shoots it like a light romp in bright sharply defined colors, with a score by Francis Hime and Chico Buarque that could have been used in an American comedy film with no trouble. By approaching it this way, Barreto allows the audience to relax amidst some intense depiction of female desire, which brilliantly gives her a chance to have her own agency.

And Bragia as Dona Flor allows her character to do what she wants, and want what she wants, quite naturally. In addition to her looks, Bragia also brought a heartfelt performance that makes her character a living, breathing, easy to relate to being, something women in film (with sex drives or otherwise) don’t get much of a chance to be. As powerful as her performance is, she’s generous with herself in that Wilker and Mendonca are never pushed aside when she takes the screen, but actively engaged in give and take with her.

Whether because it was its sexual politics or just a good sex comedy, Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands found a receptive audience. The film held a record as the highest grosser among Brazilian films until 2010, and Braga was able to use this role to help break into American films and television, with a career here in the US that’s still quite active.

Sadly, we never got many more Dona Flors onscreen after this. In fact, the likelihood we’d have gotten more daring films with agency in hands we’d never seen before pretty much ended for decades when an American remake of the film came out in 1982:

Talk about frustration…

NEXT TIME: Everyone’s gone to the moon… For the rest of the month, in honor of the 50^th anniversary of Apollo 11, we’re going to look at the films that beat Armstrong and Aldrin to get there first…

…and we’re serious, here; there better not be any funny stuff, or I will pull over this spaceship…

The post FANTASIA OBSCURA: A Brazilian Sex Comedy for Women? appeared first on REBEAT Magazine.

There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.

Sometimes, when you’re doing something for the first time, your impulse is to take it oh so seriously…

Destination Moon (1950)

Distributed by: Eagle Lion Films

Directed by: Irving Pichel

As we head to press, the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11’s landing on the moon is upon us. The impulse is to recall and marvel at what was done all those years ago at the undertaking; whether you consider it an unalloyed triumph or a waste of resources, there is still something breathtaking as one looks back with wonder.

Mind you, there’s a lot to say in favor of looking forward in wonder too…

We open in the near-now. We watch a rocket test take place, observed by Dr. Charles Cargraves (Warner Anderson), the designer of the rocket, and his patron/cheerleader, General Thayer (ret.) (Tom Powers). The rocket crashes soon after take-off, which Thayer assumes must have been sabotage, a point that’s mentioned and then just dropped. Which is probably for the best and not worth dwelling on, considering how few successes the US had with rockets back in the day…

Thayer is anxious to get us into space, and not willing to allow for the snail’s pace for the project that would have been dictated to it by a peacetime government. (Remember, Kennedy won’t be elected for another ten years…) He reaches out to industrialist Jim Barnes (John Archer), believing that if he can be persuaded to help privatize the project, that he could bring in enough investors to fund the effort and get things moving quickly.

(Insert SpaceX joke here…)

Barnes and General Thayer give their pitches to the collected captains of industry to get them on board. Thayer uses fear of what would happen if America doesn’t get to the moon first, while Barnes relies on a Woody Woodpecker cartoon he screens for the backers:

Between laughs and fear, the pitch meeting is a success, and within a year they have almost finished building their rocket. As their design relies on using an atomic engine to superheat water, however, there’s considerable opposition to testing the rocket, and at one point someone tries to serve an injunction on them to halt work.

And so, faster than you can say Reed Richards, the decision is made to make the trip in a hurry to the moon. Aboard the rocket are Cargraves, Thayer, and Barnes; the fourth position is a replacement for their original radio operator, Joe Sweeney (Dick Wesson in his first theatrical role), who’s not as fanatical about committed to the project as the other three.

Which actually works out well, as far as we’re concerned: Having someone on the voyage who didn’t eat and breath the project for the last year, Joe serves as a good audience surrogate, asking questions to give the other three a chance to explain what they’re doing. Think of it as like one companion being shared by three Time Lords…

Despite Joe’s constant questions, and occasional loss of nerve as he encounters the wonders and dangers of space travel, the intrepid patriotic-and-privately-funded moon shot makes it to the moon. It’s not an unalloyed triumph, however; the landing was poorly executed, leaving the ship unable to take off from the lunar surface, unless the crew can figure out something…

In terms of thinking things out, the film’s crew definitely did their homework. The film boasts as its producer George Pal, one his first forays into genre, who strove for as much accuracy regarding space travel as could be found. His source material came from two novels by science fiction master Robert Heinlein, Rocket Ship Galileo and  The Man Who Sold the Moon, and Heinlein is one of the credited screenwriters for the film, along with James O’Hanlon and Alford Van Ronkel (his first professional credit) as well as the film’s technical advisor. Scenic paintings of the lunar surface were done by Chesley Bonestell, the go-to artist for many pieces of SF-tied artwork and the inspiration cited by NASA for his ability to realize their concepts so well.

One thing the film did not have, however, was a big budget. Made on only $592,000 (just under $10M in today’s value), the film took what it had and made the most of it. The practical effects and occasional stop-mo (of course, as Pal had gotten his start in Hollywood on Puppetoons) for long shots made the most of what they had. With the close attention to detail in scientifically grounded facts, the craft used to give us something fantastic yet realistic makes up for whatever deficiencies the budget had.

The other thing the film did not have, unfortunately, was a compelling plot. In many ways, the story is as wrapped up in the quest for the lunar mission as most of the crew of the ship; there are very few motivations beyond just getting off Earth and going to the moon, which gives the film a cold feeling. Its deep perusal of the nitty-gritty of space travel and rocket science can be compelling for the seriously curious people looking for details about how to do this, but if you’re not so aligned you’re going to get bored quickly with the lack of depth the crew has.

While the film may have put more into its head than its heart, audiences would love it for its mind. The spectacle of a serious examination of how to win the space race, especially just as the contest was heating up, made the film a commercial success in theaters, and also a major touchstone in SF in general. The film would be remembered for years afterwards as the first serious look at space travel, getting many details right about what to expect years later as Marooned would in its time.

Among its hard facts that it stuck to, was having the crew of the ship finding nothing but a barren lunar surface when they got there. Which made for an interesting thought piece, but didn’t do much for the story.

It was certainly not a popular choice for the crew of this next film…

NEXT TIME: As we continue going to the moon, we gotta ask: Sure, they walked on the moon 50 years ago. But what about the folks who walked inside the moon before them…?

The post FANTASIA OBSCURA: Is this 1950’s Sci-Fi the First Great Space Travel Movie? appeared first on REBEAT Magazine.

There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.

Sometimes, you find something that could have used Graham Chapman to keep it from getting too silly…

First Men in the Moon (1964)

Distributed by: Columbia Pictures

Directed by: Nathan Juran

There are lots of props you can give H. G. Wells for his body of work. Novels like The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, and countless other books and stories are essential pieces of canon for any genre fan; among speculative fiction writers, he could be considered akin to the gods.

But, he was human, which meant that not every story he wrote was worth reading.

Let alone being used as the basis for a film for the third time:

Based on Wells’ 1901 compendium of a set of stories first serialized in The Strand, this film opens sometime in the near future, as man’s first mission to the moon is about to put a lander on the surface. The world awaits word, then celebrates as our biggest satellite is visit by a UN team made up of British, Soviet, and American astronauts.

(No, they don’t bother to acknowledge the space race in the film, but hey, give them props for suggesting the Apollo-Soyuz mission a good eleven years before it happened…)

The mission takes a sudden turn, however, when the astronauts come across something that shouldn’t be there: A British flag atop a note scribbled on a warrant that claims the moon in the name of Queen Victoria… in 1899! Desperately, the astronauts relay what information they could get off the warrant back to the UN, and soon a team of researchers are tracking down the clues, ultimately finding an elderly man in a nursing home, one Arnold Bedford (Edward Judd), who claims to have placed it there.

When they ask him about it, the film shows us the story he tells them in flashback. We then follow a younger Arnold, always one step ahead of his creditors and the law, trying to make a quick buck before the game ends, all the time keeping from his fiancée Kate (Martha Hyer) just how perilous everything is.

And as complicated as things are for Arnold, they get even more so when he finally meets his neighbor, Professor Cavor (Lionel Jeffries). Cavor’s developed a wonder material, “cavorite”, which has properties that nullifies gravity and pushes objects away from the ground, which Arnold sees as a miracle material that if properly marketed will allow him to get out of debt quickly, if not become able to buy out all his creditors outright.

Cavor has other ideas, however: He wants to paint cavorite on a sphere and launch himself to the moon. At first Arnold is aghast at the idea, but faster than it takes to read “The White Man’s Burden” he comes around to the plan, and soon we watch the scientific process in all its details as the ship is built and launched, with both men aboard. As well as Kate, running from Arnold’s creditors and asking “WFT, dude,” when she’s served papers…

The three make their way to the moon, and soon encounter the Selenites, the insectoid overlords of Luna. Technologically advanced to the point where they have a solar collector powering a perpetual motion generator, the Selenites do their best to try and deal with the visitors from another world; between Cavor trying to open a dialog with them and Arnold beating them up, they’re not quite sure what to make of these blokes…

We’re not quite sure what to make of this whole endeavor, either. The film opens with a mystery that takes 15 minutes to unravel, then goes into a long flashback where we sit through a further 38 minutes of Cavor inventing carvonite and Arnold inventing excuses for not going to jail. That’s asking a lot of the audience, especially in a 103 minute-long film.

When we do get to the moon, where the meat of the piece is supposed to be, the experience is underwhelming. For a film produced by Ray Harryhausen, which included some of his ‘Dynamation’ work, it feels disappointing, even viewed against later effects-light works such as The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. And when he looks back  and discusses the project in his book Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life, he chalks up the results to the competition between a limited budget and the studio’s dictate that the film be shot in widescreen; had one on those not gotten in the way, we likely would have had more than three notable set pieces from Harryhausen that would have grabbed our attention.

The biggest issue with the film that gets in the way of this adaptation of Wells’ fantasy, however, was the script from Nigel Kneile and Jan Read. Their adaptation plays up the lighter elements of the original story to the point of jejunity, probably on the assumption that the audience for this would skew very young. Because of this approach, Jeffries tries to get as many laughs as possible out of the material, while Judd in what feels like an effort to be the poor man’s Richard Burton comes across less an active protagonist than a straight man. And because most of the film is a flashback, they didn’t have a lot of dramatic tension they could introduce into the experience of the first lunar expedition from 1899, looked back upon by a participant discussing it decades later.

Which does the work a disservice. Even if it was not one of Wells’ greater pieces, it still deserves some respect as an effort that inspired both Georges Melies and C. S. Lewis, who’d go on in their works to bring us even more inspiration. It’s unfortunate that this try at the piece ended up being…

…well, rather silly, really…

NEXT TIME: Sure, we all talk about men getting to the moon, but what about the women already there, huh…?

The post FANTASIA OBSCURA: A Lunar Adventure That’s More Silly Than Fantastic appeared first on REBEAT Magazine.

There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.

Sometimes, though, you should just pass on reheated leftovers…

Missile to the Moon (1958)

Distributed by: Astor Pictures

Directed by: Richard Cunha

In 1953, Astor Pictures released a cult classic that was embraced by lovers of cheesy cinema, Cat-Women of the Moon:

The film found love among people who were into so-bad-it’s-good movies, and played roles in the legends of such music acts as Pat Benatar, Is It Man Or Astro-Man?, and Shakespeare’s Sister. It never garnered or deserved much respect, but enough folks saw it and could not forget un-see it that it became a touchstone for that decade, a point that would help start a number of conversations, some of which were actually good.

So of course, a few years on, when Astor needed another hit to distribute to theaters, they went and remade the film…

Our second trip to the poisoned well begins out in the desert, where Sheriff Cramer (Lee Roberts) calls in to HQ. He’s not having much luck looking for two escaped convicts who broke out and are on the run, and he decides to try his luck at the Dayton Compound.

We get there before the Sheriff does, where we watch Steve Dayton (Richard Travis) as he receives Colonel Wickers (Henry Hunter) while Steve’s associate, Dirk Green (Michael Whalen), looks on unhappily. Wickers is there to federalize the rocket project that Dayton and Green have been working on; he’s especially smitten by the use of solar energy for the power supply, complimenting Green, who doesn’t want to hand over his rocket to the feds. Dayton’s a bit more sanguine about it, especially as his fiancé June Saxton (Cathy Downs) believes that with the government taking over, she’d get Steve to pay a little more attention to her.

Soon, the Sheriff arrives, and Dirk volunteers to help him find his wanted men: Lon (Gary Clarke), the hardened criminal looking at the gas chamber, and Gary (Tommy Cook), the bright kid who made one mistake when he pulled off a robbery for which he was jailed, and a second one when he was talked into helping Lon break out of the joint even though he only had six months to go on his sentence. (Maybe three mistakes if you count his being in this movie…) Both of them are hiding in the rocket, hoping to stay there until the coast is clear.

Dirk Catches them on board however, but surprises them by making them an offer: They crew his ship for a trip to the moon, he’d let them have the rocket to return to Earth in. Not having a lot of options, both boys agree to the bargain, which gets slightly complicated when Steve and June get warned about the impending launch of the rocket, come aboard to investigate, and end up being shanghaied along for the ride.

The five of them speed through the void towards the Moon, though only four of them land. Dirk, after defending June from Lon who was in the middle of committing a Class D felony, gets whacked by loose gear that lands on him during a meteor strike. Before he goes, he hands Steve a medallion as he gives accolades to a “Lido” with his dying breath.

The four survivors soon land, where they encounter creatures made of rock who shamble after them, unrelenting and unaffected by the two guns brought along for the ride.

The rock creatures force the party into a cave, where they find there’s enough oxygen to breathe unaided. They also discover the inhabitants of the moon, gorgeous ladies whom the producers spared no expense in bringing to Hollywood from all over the world:

Yep, from places as exotic and far-off as… Minnesota, and, um, Florida…

So anyways, our not-so-fantastic four end up before their leader, the Lido (K. T. Stevens) whom Dirk was going on about. Ends up that Dirk was actually a moon man himself, perhaps the last male in the place, and the intended for Alpha (Nina Bara in her last feature), who decides that since Dirk didn’t make it to his own wedding, that Steve will do in a pinch. This leads to a catfight between Alpha and June, who gets sent to the giant spider cave as punishment for biting and scratching.

In addition to having such abilities as keeping giant spiders and winning the swimsuit portion of the contest, these moon women also use their psychic mind control powers, which Alpha exhibits through extreme eyebrow sculpting sheer force of her mind. With these abilities, she carries out a coup against the serving Lido, makes Steve give up June for her, and paralyzes Lon and Gary when they get troublesome.

One thing her advanced powers couldn’t do, however, was make this mess of a film work. The script by H. E. Barrie and Vincent Forte takes many of the aspects of Cat-Women of the Moon wholesale, not even bothering to change some of the names of the villains between the two. However, unlike the, “aw, what-the-hell” casualness of the prior film, they try and earnestly offer a plot that attempts to be better grounded than its predecessor, with the whole “spaceship stolen by convicts” wrinkle that tries to be I Am A Fugitive from a Chain Gang in space, while also giving more depth to the space travelers than the predecessor did.

And for all they try, it ends up being a mistake. The premise of the original, about space travelers going to the moon and finding cheesecake intelligent life under the moon’s surface, looks even sillier when you try and ground it in something more realistic. Astor’s efforts to twiddle with the formula, giving us a movie about space exploration that draws in the kids while adding in a matriarchy on the nubile side for the chaperones bringing them to the theater, just could not support itself.

As Cunha was no Arthur Hilton, who made the original work despite itself with actors less earnest than the ones in this film, there was no chance the film would meet its own personal moonshot, saving Astor Pictures. The distributor would hang on for a while after this feature broke them and distribute foreign films, allowing for Astor to do one good deed to make up for this, bringing Fellini’s La Dolce Vita to the US, before disappearing, along with this film.

Missile to the Moon ended up being a wasted effort to save its producers, and could be considered the lowest of the low, a mark of true ineptitude that couldn’t have been worse…

…until the film ended up getting a re-release in a colorized version in 2007, which managed to make the original seem like 2001 by comparison.

And you thought it was bad the second time around…

NEXT TIME: We start making our way back from the moon, taking a few moments rest at a revolting space station…

The post FANTASIA OBSCURA: The First Beauty Queens on the Moon? appeared first on REBEAT Magazine.

There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.

Sometimes, if you just give her a chance, you will look her in the eyes and not have your gaze wander over onto… other parts…

Mutiny in Outer Space (1965)

Distributed by: Woolner Brothers Pictures

Directed by: Hugo Grimaldi

When the Apollo 11 astronauts came back to Earth, they spent 21 days in quarantine to insure that they didn’t bring back anything from the moon other than rocks and great pictures. No one had any idea what kind of organisms might be there, so it made perfect sense to play it safe with them on our behalf.

Which is probably something the folks in this film should have considered…

Our film takes place in the far of world of 1990-something (someone mumbles the date as they read it off of a correspondence). It’s an interesting time to be alive; we apparently won the Third World War, we have regular service on one lunar base with another in the planning stages, and we established the US Space Authority to oversee our efforts off-world (which seems a lot better managed than what we’ve got right now).

When we open, we’re on the bridge of Space Station X-7, commanded by Col. Frank Cromwell (Richard Garland). He has a crack crew who are well prepared and able to handle any emergency; we watch as he and most trusted aide, Lt. Connie Engstrom (Pamela Curran), perform an evasive maneuver, staying clear of a discarded communications satellite from the 1960s.

(Which, hey, considering what a real problem discarded orbital junk is today, kudos to them…)

On their way to X-7 is a flight from the moon, carrying samples from ice caves found on the moon that could make building the next base cheaper, according to USSA chief General Knowland (Glenn Langan). Piloted by Major Gordon Towers (William Leslie) and co-pilot Capt. Dan Weber (Carl Crow), the ship has orders to deliver the samples and wait for extraction on a later supply ship. This is fine as far as Towers is concerned, as serving aboard the station is his girlfriend, civilian biochemist Dr. Faith Montaine (Dolores Faith). She’s aboard to run experiments on whether plants can grow normally in space, whether she paid $52 million to go up there, we don’t get told…

Try as Towers and Montaine might to initiate docking maneuvers, ifyoukonwwhatImean, they never get the chance; we find out that Weber is sick, having picked up fungal spores from the ice caves on the moon. Within a short amount of time, the fungus consumes him, putting an effective end to his burgeoning career with the USSA as fast as it takes to put on a red shirt…

The fungus is the least of their problems, however. We find out casually that Cromwell requested a two-month extension as commander of the X-7, and has lately been running himself into the ground. When Cromwell fails to avoid a meteor swarm as easily as he did the com-sat, it’s the first sign we have that he’s worn himself down to the point that he needs to be replaced.

Which proves difficult to do; when Towers tries to relieve Cromwell of command, Cromwell gets the upper hand, and reports the matter back down below as a mutiny. He’s fully committed to his career and command, even though “fully committed” is a loaded choice of words to use as he cracks up and endangers everyone around him.

And that’s not even taking into account the fungus, which soon spreads throughout and over the station…

Much like the fungus that took over Captain Weber and the X-7, there’s a lot of dross in the film that threatens to kill the living entities under it. The effects work and sets are pretty threadbare, which was to be expected for a film shot over six days for $90,000 (about $558,000 in today’s dollars). Grimaldi’s direction was pretty sloppy, which considering he was doing The Human Duplicators at the same time in order that both pics be released on the drive-in chain as a double feature, was probably to be expected. Such little things as his wildly inappropriate choices for stock music to score scenes, and using sonar pings to represent items being tracked in space, are especially notable.

That said, there’s the basic story that Grimaldi came up with along with Arthur C. Pierce, who got credit for the screenplay (and avoided blame for directing, which he supposedly did in some scenes). The basics of the story are pretty straightforward, but as noted above, there are details thrown in that make the script crackle at points.

And then, there’s the women in the script. Both Engstrom and Montaine are hardly your stock female characters found in other cheapie-sci-fi films of the time (or a lot of tent pole films today). They have their careers, and when called upon to rely on their training they perform exceptionally, especially Engstrom’s efforts to get Cromwell off the con and Montaine’s examination of the fungus. They both contribute to the story in ways we usually don’t get to see women do.

Admittedly, it may be hard to notice this: In this alternate history, uniform regulations are not standardized for both sexes, so the women end up in form-highlighting gear that accentuates their features, and neither of them would pass the Bechdel Test by any measure. It’s not perfect, but sometimes you have to take what you got and make the most of it.

It’s kinda sad, really, that the best place for a woman to get into STEM happens to be an alternate universe where somehow World War Three wasn’t the end of everything and when the Americans took over space they had to constantly worry about some satellite that used to beam the sitcom Quark to the west coast for NBC.

Still, be it ever so cheaply humble…

NEXT TIME: We just came back from the moon, and you want to go to Venus now? Are you serious?

…looking at you three numskulls, probably not, but still!

The post FANTASIA OBSCURA: The Dangers of Space Travel and Ice Caves on the Moon? appeared first on REBEAT Magazine.