Belligerent Bunny's Bad Movie Shrine (BMS)

2003-11-22T15:34:00.000-05:00

Nude on the Moon

With this film, we conclude our rockets-to-the-moon marathon. I've tried to show how the category includes a broad spectrum of cinema. As you know, we've covered the classics, the cat-women, the comedies and others in-between. We've covered all the genres but one: the nudie flick. Today we can cover that lacuna with a really looney lunar movie.

Nude on the Moon (trailer) isn't just an exploitation film; it's a Doris Wishman movie. Her movies are really something special:

Doris Wishman was a filmmaker who wasn't ashamed to admit that she was in it only for the money and that her top priority was "what will sell". Of course, what sells is nudity, but the obscenity laws of the '50's prohibited its public exhibition. However, an obscure law on New York state's law books made an exeption for films that featured nudist colonies, deeming them "educational". So Doris shot several films on the property of a nudist colony and wrote screenplays whose plots somehow included groups of topless women. Her screenwriting method involved coming up with a title and poster tag line, then coming up with a story to go along with it. Since her budgets were about a buck-fifty, she really set up a challenge for herself when she came up with the title "Nude on the Moon". But Doris came through and, by the looks of it, under budget.
(Film Threat)

Wishman never let her lack of training get in the way of her moviemaking career, though; she directed a prolific 28 movies between l960 and l978. Her seat-of-the-pants style often features a hand-held camera prowling the room, focusing on a clock, shoes, or table legs while the dialogue continues; other times the camera shakes and jerks around violently during action segments. Her stories often have moral overtones as wayward, naïve females fall victim to predatory males in vice-ridden journeys through the sexual revolution of the Sixties. However, her themes also frown on the swinging bachelor lifestyle of the time as well. Her movies are distinct from those of her contemporaries due to their direction and plots (Wishman often employed the country-songwriter ploy of coming up with a title and then writing the film's story around it). The wildly improbable plots and the trashy look of her films has since made her a favorite with sleaze connoisseurs (the sharp-eyed viewer will even see a tribute to Double Agent 73 in John Waters' Serial Mom).
(Film Vault)

Before we get started, I want to assure you that while Nude on the Moon is an exploitation flick, it isn't sleazy. Proof?

Is it worth checking out?
Yes, only for the sheer absurdity of it all. Funny thing is, the nudity is actually quite wholesome. There's nothing lewd or lasivious about it. This would be quite comfortable on "The Wonderful World of Disney" (but with black bars covering the naughty bits).
(Film Threat)

Never has nudity been more wholesome. This is a nudie pic for the whole family. Your children can sit and watch it and laugh right along with you. There's nothing offensive. What a great way to dispel unhealthy attitudes towards the human body! You can teach your kids not to have a snickering, lewd attitude towards their bodies and to accept them as a natural part of life. Then they'll get bored and leave to go do something else while you sit there amazed that such a wiggy movie ever got made. With a Doc Severenson theme song!

I also appreciated how this movie so accurately depicts what life is like on lunar nudist colonies. If any of you have ever been, you will understand. Don't you get sick and tired of Hollywood misrepresenting nudity in outer space? I do.
(Imdb comment)

Heh heh. Finally a film that gets space nudity right. Let's have a look:

Our film begins as Dr. Jeff Huntley (William Mayer) arrives at the airport to pick up an important telegram. It's got such great news, he rushes back to his lab to tell his friends.

And here are his friends: the Professor (Lester Brown) and Cathy (Marietta). Cathy's Jeff's secretary and she really has the hots for him. She even keeps a picture of him in her desk drawer, so she can gaze longingly when Jeff's not around.

The Professor's no dummy: he can see what's in Cathy's eyes. He jokes with her about the torch she's carrying, rubbing in the bad news about Jeff's current girlfriend Mary. Ouch!

Jeff shows up and delivers the good news: his rich old uncle just died, leaving a two million dollar fortune to him. Is that enough money to build a rocketship to the moon? Read on to find out!

The Professor's skeptical. Even if he can perfect his miracle rocket fuel, traveling to the Moon is a young man's game. Note the lard smeared in his locks to simulate age. He's about to decline the honor of copiloting the craft, but Jeff is insistent

With the matter of the crew settled, Jeff announces it's party time! He grabs Cathy and asks her to invite over all their friends, including the hated girlfriend Mary. Mind, this is a really low budget film, so the party takes place off screen. The next day it's back to the lab. Over the next six months, Jeff and the Professor slave away in search of the right ingredients to build a rocket to the Moon.

In the above picture, you can see the Professor working on the fuel mixture. The flask has a couple of yellow and red Warning: Radiation stickers on it. Should the Professor be sitting so close? It's practically in his lap -- the last place you'd want something radioactive.

With their work complete, Jeff and the Professor share a pensive moment (and cigarette) on the beach. Then it's off to the launch pad and on to the Moon!

Jeff drives them in his big purple Cadillac. It's probably the best thing in this movie. Do they still make purple cars anymore? I hope so. Anyway, the drive takes forever. This is a short film, and one wonders why Wishman chose to waste precious time here. Whatever the reason, Tarkofsky would steal this idea and include it in his own science fiction opus Solaris. As they drive, they chit-chat about mundane stuff, like the movie the Professor will have to miss on account of this trip.

Hideout in the Sun in Nudearama: Doris Wishman's very first film (Nude on the Moon is her second). This is one of the film's funniest moments. Just two guys driving to their rocket and chatting about adult cinema. Priceless!

The rocket scientists arrive at the unlikeliest of launch pads (off-screen, but somewhere in that forest, I guess) and climb aboard their craft.

And with that, it's rocket day!

By the way, the rocket footage is obviously "borrowed" from another film. Can anyone identify it? I'm guessing it's from an industrial or educational film. Either way, I'd love to know.

Jeff and the Professor fake the gees. This is a rocketship movie, so it's obligatory. But then, for some mysterious reason they fall asleep. They doze right through the obligatory meteor shower.

Fans of the rocketship genre can spot this obvious cinematic error. What is the point of a meteor swarm? To heighten the dramatic tension via the crews' reactions to the danger. And here our crew is asleep. Tsk. tsk, Doris!

Our heroes spaceship detaches the crew module lands automatically. That's either an impressive spaceship or some sloppy writing. And did you know the Moon is green? Neither did I. As the ship touches down it jolts our heroes awake. As they contemplate their tremendous luck, they ponder whether they have truly arrived on the Moon. After all, they were asleep and could have ended up anywhere.

No matter. Our heroes suit up and survey their surroundings. Don't they look dapper in their spacesuits? Those are the *best* *spacesuits* *ever*. I especially like the air-hoses that go up into their unenclosed helmets. That's a nice touch.

The Moon (or whatever they've landed on) doesn't look very lunar. In fact it looks suspiciously like the Florida they just left. Jeff and the Professor take a stroll around, and find large gold nuggets just lying around on the (obviously mowed) lawn.

Upon discovery of the gold, the two debate the goals of the expedition. Jeff's for ignoring the rocks in favor of more scientific measurements. The Professor turns avaricious. He's just seen Jeff blow his inheritance on a Moon junket and is thinking about funding future expeditions. Jeff points out that they don't know what will happen to the gold if they take it back through the radiation belts -- it might change into another element. Is this film accusing Van Allen of alchemy? I think so.

After another stroll, Jeff and the Professor come across signs of civilization. There's a city in the distance. They walk over, climb up a ladder and look over the wall (opening their helmets to get a better view!). What do they see?

Lots and lots of half-nude people with antennae on their heads. I'd post a wide shot of the crowd, but this is supposed to be a PG-13 web log. Therefore the slides must be extremely selective.

While Jeff and the Professor stand there with their jaws gaping, a couple of Moon men in their bathing trunks sneak up and capture our heroes. Each is brought before a Moon maiden whose magic wand renders them unconscious. For the second time in this film, our heroes sleep through a critical scene (i.e., they are carried off to a Moon jail).

By landing on the Moon, Jeff and the Professor have provoked a crisis among its residents. The Moon Goddess (also played by Marietta) assembles the grand council to debate the disposition of the intruders. By the way, because they have antennae, the Moon people are telepathic. The Moon Goddess merely has to think her question to the council.

The council votes to give the Earthmen a chance. And with that, our heroes are freed from their confines.

The Professor goes off to take some notes on a blonde girl. While he's away, Jeff chats up the Moon Goddess. Or tries to: he doesn't have antennae, so he isn't much of a smooth talker.

Despite the language/antennae barrier, Jeff and the Moon Goddess really hit it off. At least Jeff thinks so. When the Professor finishes taking his notes of the Blonde girl, he returns to find Jeff giddy as a schoolboy. Sternly, the Professor reminds Jeff he's a rocket scientist and should get back to taking more notes (of more blond girls, perhaps?).

But not even the Professor can resist the charms of the lovely Moon maidens. Oh he takes more notes. Lots more notes. And that's really all he and Jeff do during their time on the Moon. Meanwhile the Moon people go about their regular business: tossing around medicine balls, canoeing, sharpening their swords...

You know: plain old ordinary Moon activities. The Professor ponders what it all means. Jeff makes sure he gets everything on film as proof for the folks back on Earth.

At the first chance he gets, Jeff runs back to the Moon Goddess.

He's just ga-ga for her, and like any good American he offers her a candy bar. She eats the wrapper. Comedy!

Because he is the film's killjoy, the Professor interrupts our little love birds to announce an oxygen crisis. He and Jeff have only have just enough air to get back to their rocketship. Jeff announces he's staying behind with the Moon Goddess. While the Professor tries to talk some sense into him, the Moon Goddess declares her love for Jeff. Can these star-crossed lovers find a happy life together?

No. The gulf is too great. And what will happen when Jeff's tank runs down to empty? With reluctance, the Moon Goddess unsheathes her magic wand and conks Jeff on the head. The Professor drags him back onto the rocketship before either of our heroes suffocates.

With the oxygen question resolved, our heroes are out of danger. Yet the audience is left feeling unsatisfied. Why? It's a false crisis. Go look over the above pictures. Jeff and the Professor were walking around the Moon with open masks, and were thusly breathing Moon air. That really makes the whole 'dry tanks' conflict difficult to accept.

Jeff certainly won't accept it. He still pines for his Moon Goddess. The Professor cuts him off, reminding him that Jeff and the Professor have plans for the future, too y'know. Um, subtext?

Back on Earth, Jeff's a wreck. He's lost his fortune and lost his heart to a Moon Goddess. Worse: nobody on Earth believes he actually went to the moon. It seems all is lost, until Cathy comes over to comfort him.

Hey! Isn't she...? Doesn't she...? She's a dead-ringer for the Moon Goddess! Jeff takes one look at her (and imagines her with antennae and no clothes) and suddenly he realizes: in a certain, superficial way the love of his life is here on Earth after all.

Love (or at lease look) conquers all as the two embrace. Recall that Cathy always had the hots for Jeff. Now, if she can only put up with his strange antennae fetish she can live happily ever after. The end.

Folks, you've just seen a highly expurgated version of the film. To get the full Nude on the Moon experience you'll have to rent it or buy it. ...with cash. ...in a paper bag. And live with your guilty conscience forever.

Kidding! Nude on the Moon is a really silly film, but it's such a weird premise you can't be a real rocketship aficionado without having seen it once. Sure it's an exploitation flick -- but it's an exploitation flick with a daring vision. It's an article of history: back in the sixties, everybody was thinking about going to the moon. Even the makers of nudie films. That's how deep an impression the space race left on our society.

Oh, and where is the Russian answer? Though so. Nude on the Moon is a bold endorsement of the American free market. To think that someone like Doris Wishman could self-finance her own nudie film (Hideout in the Sun), and then set the next one in space? That shows how far you can go in the free world. Nude on the Moon reminds us that in just about every category through which it is possible to judge a culture, America is unmatched.

Friends, this is the time of year we visit our families and give thanks for what we have. And watch movies together. If you can think of a film more fully encompassing the true spirit of America (e.g., pioneers and nudie-watchers), you obviously are some damn dirty communist. Be a real American: bring it home.

You can always live with your guilty conscience tomorrow..

Two Ears Up on camp and kitsch alone.

2003-11-15T14:33:00.000-05:00

The Dish

Last week's review features a link to group of Australians who are filming their own rocketship movie. Like you, I can't wait to see the finished work, but in the meantime, let's look at the other Australian rocketship movie.

The Dish is an unlikely candidate for a rocketship movie. There's no rocket day. The rocket is never shown, but only implied off screen and glimpsed briefly on television screens. The only bit of space hardware is a giant radio telescope stuck in the middle of a sheep paddock in a forgotten corner of the world. And yet, out of these poor prospects emerges an amazing and charming story about mankind traveling to the Moon.

The Dish tells the kinda-sorta true story about how the tiny town of Parkes, New South Wales played an important role in the Apollo project. Its radio telescope (the eponymous Dish) was the only instrument in the Southern Hemisphere capable of receiving and relaying the astronauts' signals from the Moon to humanity. And it almost didn't. How a plucky band of Australians (and a token American) managed to overcome obstacles and perform their mission -- sometimes in spite of themselves -- became the basis for a superb script and a marvelous movie.

Like another famous Australian movie, The Dish is a fish out of water movie. The formula is an evergreen: take one or more characters imbued with broad stereotypes and place them in an alien environment. Hilarity usually ensues. Mind, it's easy to get the recipe wrong: if either the heroes or the antagonists aren't portrayed sympathetically, the audience may mistake the movie for a smear job (e.g., Edward Scissorhands). Fortunately, this film avoids that obvious error and hides its jibes behind a great big goofy grin.

In a sense, every character in this film is a fish out of water. The token American NASA representative is out of his element in the outback. At the same time, the town of Parkes is unfamiliar with its new and crucial role as part of a major American Moon mission. Even you, dear non-Australian reader, may find the accents and slang odd to the ear. Thankfully, the DVD has got you covered.

(Note: I once watched an episode of Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street Week which featured a very outbacky Strine who did need to be subtitled. Too funny!)

And with that, let's look at the film:

The Dish is bracketed by a brief prologue and epilogue set in the present day in which the film's protagonist Cliff Buxton (Sam Neill, who as a Kiwi is also a fish out of water in this Australian film) travels to the Parkes Radio Observatory. The movie exists as a flashback in his mind. Therefore we can be kind to the script as it takes broad liberties with the true events that transpired there more than thirty years earlier.

To get the audience in a spacey mood, the film presents a musical montage of NASA stock film, from the early pad explosions to the successful completion of the Gemini flights. If you've seen The Right Stuff you've seen this material before. But take a moment to look at the above astronaut. He's a regular space cowboy. Would a ten gallon hat be out of place?

Meanwhile, back in Australia, everybody's excited about the upcoming Apollo 11 flight. Even the school kids are bringing lunar dioramas to show and tell. Here's one kid who's been watching too much Rocky Jones.

At the observatory, a reporter interviews the dish crew. It's a cheap and easy exposition dump. How to introduce the protagonists? Let them introduce themselves to the reporter.

Glen Latham's (Tom Long, center) the shy electrical engineer. Ross "Mitch" Mitchell (Kevin Harrington, below, left) is the dish operator. He's in charge of pointing the antenna and keeping the uninterruptible power source running (foreshadowing). He's also a bit of a cut-up, and he has a major chip on his shoulder when it comes to pushy, know-it-alls from NASA, such as Al Burnett (Patrick Warburton, right-offscreen).

As you can see, Al the token Yank is a cross between Buddy Holly and Clark Kent. He tends Kent-wise with his brusque, nervous demeanor. He represents the scope and power of NASA and the United States of America, contrasted against the threadbare but proud Australia. And the arc of his character illustrates a major theme of this film and a focus of the film's conflict.

As you know, the Apollo 11 mission succeeded. Nearly everybody who attended this film knew the basic facts. How were the writers able to establish dramatic tension in a story whose end was obvious? Wisely, they split the difference. Together the protagonists fought nature to bring the lunar signals to Earth. Simultaneously they fought each other: Yank versus Aussie in one of cinema's most endearing struggles.

At the outset, Al's an über-American. He's married with kids (as are none of the others). He's the sole remaining member of a team from NASA who sojourned from the colossus to a sheep paddock to upgrade and command Australia's largest radio telescope. He's quite a bit taller than his counterparts. And he's not at all pleased to learn that the plucky Australians have rewritten important passages from NASA's manual.

With the trans-Pacific relationship firmly off on the wrong foot, the Australians retreat to the surface of the dish for a game of cricket. Mitch vents his spleen to Cliff. But because Cliff's the senior scientist at the observatory, he tries to placate both sides, seemingly to no avail.

Meanwhile back in Parkes, the townspeople are pleased as punch to be part of the Moon mission. They gather around their screens to watch as Apollo 11 lifts off. And that's the closest this film gets to rocket day.

A minor nitpick: since all the really extraordinary events take place off screen, the only way we see them is through television screens. And through the reaction of folks watching TV. People staring at the magic box aren't particularly lively or even interesting. If I were making this film, I would curtail these scenes. Especially the ones with the little boy (Billy McIntyre, played by Carl Snell) who embodies baby-boom nostalgia.

By the way, Billy's also an expository device. If you don't know how rockets work (and neither does his Dad), Billy will explain it all for you. That's the other reason he's in the film.

The following day, pretty young Janine Kellerman (Eliza Szonert) arrives to deliver sandwiches and pies to the observatory crew.

Who is Janine? She’s sister to security chief (and comedic foil) Rudy Kellerman and a romantic interest to Glen. She’s holding a torch for Glen, and everyone but he knows about it. Oh, and brother Rudy’s holding a gun -- it’s an official NASA requirement (so he claims). Janine’s not particularly impressed.

While Janine distributes her consumables to the crew, Glen tries to explain what he and his friends are doing to support the Apollo mission. She’s all ears, and she’s giving Glen the right signals, but he’s all thumbs and left feet. It’s a painful scene better suited to a puberty comedy. We are grateful when Al cuts them off.

Glen sulks out to the dish, where he is comforted by Cliff. Cliff’s the moral center of this film. A tragic widower, he’s lived a full life and is full of wisdom. Each of the protagonists seeks his advice at one stage or another. Here, Glen wonders about his chances with the fair Janine. Cliff recommends to Glen a risk-taking strategy.

There it is: one of the film’s major themes -- sometimes you’ve got to take a risk. NASA risks the lives of its astronauts to reach the Moon. Australia risks its reputation on the dependability of its dish. The film’s protagonists risk national and personal pride as they strive to complete their mission. And who better to illustrate this theme than the film’s token Kiwi? Like his compatriot Sir Edmund Hillary, Cliff epitomizes the notion: “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Even contemporary NASA can take note: too much caution keeps you on the ground.

(And as an added aside, a note to a certain Democratic politician: if you’re going to talk the talk, you must eventually walk the walk.)

Speaking of taking risks, Al Burnett’s risking his career and national pride on his performance at Parkes.

Remember: Al’s one of a team of NASA scientists who upgraded the Parkes Observatory. Now he’s the only one on-site and responsible for its constant communication. Because the world will watch the moon-walk only if he completes his job correctly, he bears a heavy weight of responsibility. In a private moment, he unburdens himself to Cliff. Through this vignette, Al reveals himself to be less than an implacable edifice and more of a deer caught in the headlights. Were you in his position, how would you feel?

Al is holding on to tightly, and he's a bit overbearing. When he questions Mitch's math once too often, he provokes a fight. Chastened, he leaves the observatory to attend a reception for the American ambassador. Cliff tries to sort it out with Mitch, but Mitch is still sore about Americans.

Cliff tries to reason with Mitch, who at this point seems more French in his attitude than Australian. Frustrated, Cliff cuts him off and reminds Mitch he's part of something important and should act that way.

Rudy shows up with his gun to lighten the mood. As Cliff's wisdom hits home, Mitch reveals he isn't as anti-American as he used to be. It's hard to hate the Yanks when you're on the same team with them.

Speaking of Yanks, Al and the Ambassador attend a ball at the reception hall. A school teacher has commissioned a high-school band to play the American national anthem. The students have had only 48 hours to learn how to play it (hint: God Save the Queen), instead they improvise. They sound pretty catchy!

As the festivities stretch into the evening, the town places an ever greater strain on its power supply. Without warning the juice stops flowing, bringing the party to an end. Good thing Mitch has an uninterruptible power source hooked up to the dish.

Or rather he should have. The dish's computers are dead, and not even 1960's RAM can hold the current position of Apollo 11 without electricity. How will our heroes point the dish to pick up telemetry from the Columbia command module?

In fact, they cannot. Once power is restored, the protagonists have no idea where to start looking for he spacecraft. Houston Control notices Parkes is off-line and asks for a status check. Petrified, Cliff makes a command decision: lie. Stalling for time, he attributes the loss of signal to a relay failure. When Houston accepts the answer, Mitch realizes the Aussies have just BS'ed NASA!

Al arrives and asks for an update. He's horrified at the answer. Note how in the above frame, Al's on one side and the Australians are on the other. Teammates? Not right now they aren't. Al urges them to contact NASA with the truthful explanation. Cliff demurs, asking Al to play along until the four of them can recalculate Apollo's position. If only for the sake of his own neck, Al reluctantly agrees to play along.

Mitch actually takes a secret glee in what's happening. He's the one who loused up the UPS, and he's the reason they can't track Apollo 11. That means he's the center of attention. NASA's up a creek unless Mitch can find a way to get his dish pointed in the right direction. Feeling ever so important, he practically brags his failure to Al. When Al simply shrugs it off, Mitch looks like he's feeling a bit empty inside. The film is making a point here: schadenfreude, like French pride, is unfulfilling. Real pride comes only with accomplishment. If Mitch is willing to gloat over a failure, Al is unwilling to castigate and blame. Instead he urges Mitch to get back on the horse and get going, kinda like an American would do.

Next follows a musical montage of rocket scientists working out the math. These vignettes are so Eighties, and really don't belong in a sixties period piece. But this one has something you see in none of the others: a genuine slide rule!

As our heroes keep calculating, the film returns to the town of Parkes. Mayor Bob MacIntyre (who has his own story I'm omitting for the sake of brevity) is really excited about the days ahead. They're vindication for his long and difficult efforts to bring a large radio telescope to Parkes in the first place.

Here's Bob with his family. Young Billy's explaining what happened to all of the rocket's hydrogen (a running joke). Daughter Marie's (Lenka Kripac) sulking on the couch. She's going through her hippie phase and represents the film's token liberal. What does she think of rockets to the moon? Ask her yourself. Or don't: she thinks it's the biggest chauvinistic exercise in the history of the world. Typically liberal: wrong on every count.

What is Chauvinism anyway? Let's consult the encyclopedia:

Chauvinism is extreme and unreasoning partisanship on behalf of a group to which one belongs, especially when the partisanship includes malice and hatred towards a rival group.
(Wikipedia)

In this film, who personifies unreasoning partisanship? Marie, the anti-American. Who personifies malice and hatred toward a rival group? Marie, the man-hater. If anyone in this film is chauvinistic, it is she. Oh the irony! Enough about her.

I bet you're wondering how Bob MacIntyre -- the mayor of a one hoss shay -- got his government to build such a large radio telescope in his town. Don't look to this film for an answer, instead look to the internet. Here's my theory:

In the mid sixties, the American Arsenal of Democracy looked around the world for friendly places where they could build eavesdropping facilities. There's one at Fylingdales; there used to be one at Peshawar; and hey there's one in Alice Springs, Australia.

My guess is that during the construction of the Pine Gap facility, the Australian government reasoned that now would be the best time to commission a large radio telescope. After all, the contractors who specialize in that type of construction were already in the country, working on similar jobs for the National Reconnaissance Office. Getting the dish up and running was simply a matter of letting out a request for bids (RFB) and picking the right one. And there by the grace of the AoD is my guess at how the Parkes Observatory came to be. And now let's get back to the film.

As the team struggles to pinpoint Apollo 11, the American Ambassador drops by. If that weren't bad enough news, we learn that the fellow is an avid fan of NASA -- he's an expert at space stuff and won't be as easy to BS as was Houston Control. Cliff tries to conclude the meeting as quickly as possible, but the Ambassador wants to listen in on Armstrong. Cliff can either admit his failure or use telephones and walkie-talkies to fake the Ambassador out.

Cliff decides to go with plan B. Al and Mitch gin up some genuine sounding radio chatter. They even fool their own security guard. Rudy's on the same frequency, and he's pleased as punch to talk to the astronauts. Cliff cuts the channel before the game is up. The Ambassador leaves, satisfied. And we're glad to see the team back working together, even if they are only contriving their real jobs.

After the Ambassador leaves, Al has a flash of genius. Apollo 11 is only a day away from the Moon. Instead of calculating the spaceship's position, he suggests that Mitch point the dish at Luna and scan around.

And what do you know: it works! Now they can receive telemetry from Columbia and pass it along to Houston Control.

With the team reunified and reinvigorated with a sense of purpose, Mitch apologizes to Al. This takes quite a bit of courage, and Al responds warmly. We note that Mitch and Al aren't the same characters we first met. There's no longer a chip on Mitch's shoulder; he's firmly in league with the Americans. Al's no longer a pushy know-it-all; he's not omniscient and he candidly admits Americans sometimes fail. It's the response to failure that counts. And in the case of the dish, the team members are back in their saddles and ready for more action. Go you cowboys go!

And with that, it's Moon day!

There are several subplots taking place in town. I've omitted them for the sake of brevity, but they do require resolution before our heroes retreat to their dish and beam the Moon-walk to Earth. Mayor MacIntyre invites the dish-mates to lunch with his family.

Everybody's having a grand old time but Marie the hippy. She can't stand all this conspicuous consumption and smugness. With her sensitive conscience she tries to burst their bubbles. She even tries to smear Al with a CIA connection. Al certainly knows about Pine Gap, and he answers her question honestly and adroitly.

If you watch the film, you'll see it engenders sympathy for all of its eccentric characters -- all but the hippy comedic stooge. I like this movie.

Returning to the dish, Cliff and Al take a "hayride," as they step onto the lowered edge and ride it to the upright position. They chat about the upcoming Moon-walk and discuss the most important thing Armstrong and Aldrin need to do. This is a languid scene, and the viewer gets the sense that the characters are relaxing as their job draws to a close.

Here is where the film almost fails: before the Moon-walk there must be one final obstacle, one hurdle they must overcome before the film's climax. Another man-versus-man conflict would be redundant, so nature must intercede.

Although large, the dish is fairly light and flimsy. It's like a giant sail, and enough wind can tear it off its foundations. And sure enough it's getting really windy!

As instructed by his manual, Mitch bolts the dish in the full upright position. That's the safest aspect it can present to the gale. But the Moon isn't overhead -- rather it's near the horizon. To receive Apollo 11's signals, it must point as low as it can -- increasing the sail area it presents to the wind.

The decision to move the dish is up to Cliff. This is his dish and only he can decide whether to risk its destruction or play it safe. And since risk is one of the film's major themes, he orders the dish tilted to the Moon.

From this point to the end of the film, the dish strains and groans. It shudders every time a cog pops a few teeth. Our heroes risk their lives to aim the dish and relay Apollo 11's signals to the world. Humanity is blissfully unaware of the risks our heroes endure to play their part in the NASA team.

And here are a few small slices of humanity watching something wonderful on their televisions.

[Note: there are far too many scenes of people staring at their screens. We get the picture already.]

As the Eagle approaches the lunar surface, Cliff and his team listen to the unexpurgated telemetry. And because they're working for NASA they actually understand what's going on. They even note when Armstrong nearly aborts the landing. For an outcome we already know, the film does a decent job of raising the tension.

The remainder of the film is strictly for rocket buffs and folks with nostalgia for the sixties. Count me with the former. There's another musical montage of Moon-walking and crowds all over the Earth looking at TV screens. I suppose it's forgivable: that they can watch live television from the Moon is possible only because of the efforts of our heroes (and the crews of other telescopes). The montage ends as the astronauts climb back into the LEM and depart for Earth.

After the Parkes crew congratulate themselves on a job well done, the body of the film is over. We return to the present day, where an older Cliff concludes his reverie and contemplates the old dish.

As he turns his back, the music swells. It's almost the end, but before the main credits roll we read:

Good job Parkes! The end.

The Dish is the kind of film I wish Americans still made. It's a small slice of a grand story. For a low-budgeted fish-out-of-water comedy, it has a huge scope and is full of loveable characters. And the main characters change as they pass through the story -- particularly Mitch and Al. It's got two main conflicts, both resolved successfully. It's got just enough romance and a generous serving of hippy-bashing. What's not to like?

I'm especially impressed at the way the film cleaves together the clash of cultures and the theme of teamwork. When the Americans and Australians are at odds, nothing gets done. Only by taking risks together do they reach success. In the contemporary world, where the risk of terrorist attack is at its highest and must be confronted together, I can think of quite a few places where this film ought to get a second screening.

For the film's flaws, we should start with the story. It's not exactly true. There is a Parkes Radio Telescope and it did relay the Apollo 11 signals to NASA. It did suffer through a windstorm. But it wasn't the only dish. And it didn't suffer a power failure. These last facts undermine the film. The film's most important conflict is the battle of wills between Mitch and Al, and between Parkes and NASA (even if NASA is unaware). I'm a tad crestfallen to learn that these are contrived embellishments to the true story. Of course The Dish is fiction, and we accept it as a tale based around true events. The invented material is spot-on and really makes the movie worthwhile.

Another flaw perhaps: this film is a tear-jerker. It dares you to keep dry eyes. Not tears of tragedy, but of gratitude. Americans walking on the Moon, for goodness sake! You try and hold back. It's probably for the best that you can watch it on DVD. Ever since I went to see The Joy Luck Club, I've stayed away from the tear-jerkers. Who wants to sit in a theater where everybody is blubbering down their sleeves?

For me, the faults are inconsequential. The film appears at first inauspicious and ends with a grand flourish. If you're sad, this one will cheer you right up, and remind you that Americans traveled to the Moon (with a little help from Down Under). I'm personally granting every Australian the honor of being an unofficial American, and I'm awarding this film:

Two Ears Up!

2003-11-08T18:21:00.000-05:00

Destination Moon

For more than one hundred years, people have been making movies about traveling to the moon -- most of them bad movies. But at the mid-mark of that century, a team of top-flight science fiction film makers thought they might as well tell another story and get the details right.

Naturally, they got the Maestro to write the story.

Adapting his novel Rocketship Galileo, Heinlein spun a yarn in which rugged individualists fight communists, environmentalists and even their own government to reach the moon and establish an atomic missile base so the United States could dominate the Earth.

Now that's what I call a good movie!

Costing over half a million dollars, Destination Moon was a big-budget blockbuster for its day (1950). Audiences' expectations were high: charged by profiles of the film in magazines such as Life.

To get the details right, the production crew required more than two years to complete the film -- long enough for a copycat outfit to sneak Rocketship XM into theaters a month or so beforehand. Nevertheless, Destination Moon wowed the crowds and made a nice return of more than five million dollars and won the year's academy award for best special effects.

To this day, Destination Moon remains one of the most accurate and oft-imitated films in the canon of science fiction cinema. You've seen its spacesuits in countless other films, such as Cat Women of the Moon and Radar Men from the Moon, (and you'll be seeing them again, trust me). But did you also know that the film featured a gimbaled rocket cockpit? Indeed, Kubrick nicked that trick for the interior of his Discovery spaceship (which also borrowed the idea of an atomic engine from this film).

Film purists have long insisted that 2001: A Space Odyssey is the most accurate science fiction movie. But look at its errors. Contrast with Destination Moon. As you'd expect, the Maestro's movie is a more accurate depiction of spaceflight -- an accolade made more impressive when you consider that 2001 benefited from the knowledge brought back by Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. Poor old Heinlein had to guess, but his guesses are more accurate than Kubrick's informed postulations.

Destination Moon is the first (and probably the best) of the realistic rocketship films. And because it made so much money in its time, it established the genre and paved the way for many more movies. If you like science fiction movies -- even the bad ones -- you owe it to yourself to find and watch it. You aren't a true connoisseur of the oeuvre until you do.

Now let's look at the film:

As the film begins, General Thayer (Tom Powers) invites Dr. Cargraves (Warner Anderson) out to the blockhouse. General Thayer's been funding the research and development of Cargraves' new atomic engine. Today is rocket day: the Army has installed the engine in a trusty old V-2 and has started the countdown.

But wait: something's wrong! The engine malfunctions, sending the rocket corkscrewing around in the sky.

The V-2 crashes to destruction, converting years of hard work (and lots of government greenbacks) into what Cargraves apologetically calls "the most expensive pile of junk in history." It's back to the old drawing board for Cargraves.

The results couldn't be worse for General Thayer. Like Billy Mitchell, he's a crusader -- bucking the system as he tries to get he armed services into the space race. For him, the crash is worse than a humiliation: it's the end of his career in the service. But he still won't give up the dream of sending rockets into space.

General Thayer (USA, Ret.) pays a visit to his old friend Jim Barnes (John Archer, father of Anne Archer). Barnes runs his own aviation business, cranking out the Connies for the post-war boom.

General Thayer pitches his proposal to Barnes: build me a rocket to the moon. Barnes isn't having any of that.

Barnes reminds General Thayer that Cargraves' atomic engine exploded, and therefore probably isn't spaceworthy. "Did it blow up, or was it blown up?" responds General Thayer, arching his eye to indicate that the failure might be Communist related.

"Doesn't intelligence know the answer?" queries Barnes. "Oh they know... they know..." quips General Thayer.

Folks that's what I like about this movie. Consider its era: right smack in the middle of the Red Scare. While all the screen actor socialists bravely take the Fifth, Heinlein and his friends aren't afraid to make an anti-communist film. The choice of enemy is deliberate. Consider that Destination Moon is a Man versus Nature movie. The story is the struggle to reach the moon. You don't need a human antagonist, but Heinlein includes one anyway. Good for him! Now, back to the movie:

General Thayer's case is persuasive. Since the atomic engine failed only because it was sabotaged, it needs no forther testing. It can serve as the model for the scaled up version they'll use to power their rocket to the moon. The basic design is sound. All General Thayer needs is a company to build it.

Barnes demurs: his company is just too small for that kind of project. General Thayer presses home, noting that he'd always envisioned a consortium of companies for this endeavor, and Barnes is just the man to lead it.

How to raise that consortium? Barnes calls together a meeting of his competitors and venture capitalists. Cargraves shows off his model for spaceship Luna. The builders are intrigued and have lots of questions about the details of the project.

And that's where the movie could have run right into a brick wall. Again, consider the era: in the late forties people freaked out about reports of flying saucers. Others reported being abducted by aliens from Mars or Venus. Obviously the public wasn't very rocket-savvy. And they were the same folks to which Heinlein wanted to introduce a great deal of astrophysical information. Knowing his audiences weren't rocket scientists, he found the perfect dramatic device through which he could get his viewers up to speed.

A Woody Woodpecker cartoon. No really!

As a film-within-a-film, (another Shakespearian touch from the Maestro) the cartoon short is a satisfying way to illustrate how rockets work. The film doesn't talk down to its audience, rather it talks down to Woody. The short opens as the narrator pitches the prospect of a lunar rocket to the little bird-brain. Woody's skeptical, but by the end of the cartoon he's ready to pony up the money. Yes, the cartoon is heavy on the message, but it's directed at the investors and not at the audience.

Now that the venture capitalists know how to get a rocket to the Moon, they want to know why. Perfectly understandable, and General Thayer explains it to them: the Moon is the ultimate high ground. Whoever can put a fort on the Moon will control the planet.

With visions of juicy defense contracts dancing in their heads, the investors leap at the chance to sign onto the project. Now Barnes can begin to build his spaceship. But first he must calculate!

While Barnes futzes with the figures, General Thayer and Dr. Cargraves take care of the smaller details -- like wardrobe.

There it is: the most famous spacesuit in bad movie history. Who knows how many movies have borrowed it? It's a legend, and you're seeing it in its first appearance right here. I think a moment of silence is appropriate, don't you?

Meanwhile, spaceship Luna's coming together quite nicely. You can see the oxygen tank for the crew and the water tank for the atomic engine. Yep, Luna is a steam-powered spaceship. Is that possible? I'd have gone with the Project Orion approach (it's even more nukey).

Like the spaceship, the plan comes together gradually. For the trip Barnes and General Thayer will be pilots. Dr. Cargraves will tend to his atomic engine. Rounding out the crew is Brown (Ted Warde), radio man. He and Joe Sweeney (Dick Wesson) are just finishing the installation of their electronic suite, when Brown's stomach attacks!

Sweeney attributes Brown's cramp to too many green apples. Actually there's another reason, but you'll have to read on to find out.

With almost everything going according to plan, the only way to raise dramatic tension is to introduce obstacles between our heroes and rocket day. Obviously, Brown is one of them. Another obstacle is a group of environmentalists who have petitioned the Atomic Energy Commission to halt the countdown.

Stop right there and name one other movie brave enough to feature both environmentalists and communists as antagonists.

Barnes picks up a newspaper and realizes the full scope of the forces pitted against them. This isn't good old American grass roots protesting, it's organized propaganda (by you know who). Against these odds, our heroes couldn't possibly win. Instead they accelerate the countdown. The next launch window opens in seventeen hours, and that's the new deadline.

As the protagonists calculate into the wee hours, Sweeney drops by with some bad news: Brown's appendix just burst. Now the crew is short one radioman, but Sweeney might just be qualified to stand in. Dr. Cargraves extends an invitation, but Sweeney declines for the best of reasons.

With no other options available, our heroes are insistent: Sweeney must come along. Mind, Sweeney's been skeptical of the project from the beginning. He wonders how a spaceship filled to the brim with water could ever hope of leaving the ground. Playing to his skepticism, the crew point out that if he's right and if the rocket's a failure it won't upset his social calendar. And with that, Sweeney agrees to play along.

As the clock clicks down, another obstacle emerges in the form of a process server, standing at the gate and holding an injunction against rocket day. One of the technicians jumps into his jeep and drives off to warn our heroes: it's now or never!

Of course there's still time for Dr. Cargraves to say good-bye to his wife (Erin O'Brien-Moore). She has all of twenty seconds in this picture At least that's longer than Barnes' secretary.

Narrowly escaping the server, our crew take their stations and initiate an abbreviated countdown. Everybody else clears waaaay back. It's an atomic rocket, after all.

And with that, it's rocket day.

Since this film tries to present spaceflight in a serious manner, it is probably the first science fiction movie to feature actors faking the Gees. At least they're on real acceleration couches, which they'll need because here come some serious Gees (warning: LOUD). Well it is an atomic engine. What did you expect, an elevator ride (as featured in Project Moonbase)?

Once Luna reaches space, Sweeney unstraps and goes weightless. The experience is unsettling, and Sweeney begins to express doubts about the mission. And he gets spacesick (an accurate prediction). Yuk Yuk,

Folks you've seen other rocketship movies. You know they have their clichés. They're here in this film, too. Even if you can't appreciate them for their charm, at least you can admire this film for doing them first and getting them right.

Remember the gimbaled set? Here it is. To simulate gravity, the crew wear magnetic boots (modeled above by Barnes). Naturally they can walk anywhere there's a ferrous metal: floors, walls and ceilings. It's a neat effect, but it does complicate Sweeney's stomach ailment.

Even Woody Woodpecker knows the rest of the flight to the Moon will be one long and boring coast. To keep viewers interested, Heinlein introduces a dramatic episode involving the failure of Luna's radio antenna (as duplicated by Kubrick with his A.E.35 unit). In this film, the antenna's frozen in place because good old Joe Sweeney greased it up back on Earth. If they're to talk with Earth, the crew will have to go on a spacewalk.

(I still love those spacesuits in glorious technicolor.)

Sweeney and Barnes work on the antenna while Dr. Cargraves heads aft to check out how his atomic engine has held up. Dr. Cargraves shouldn't separate himself from the group -- spacewalks are dangerous. But at least he's got his magnetic boots and his safety rope.

When Dr. Cargraves reaches the end of his rope, he lets go and peers into the exhaust bell. And because Luna is titanium hulled his boots don't stick to the surface at all.

Dr. Cargraves shouts for help. But by the time Barnes and Sweeney reach the other end of the rocket, Dr. Cargraves has floated far enough away to be out of range of their lariats. Thinking quickly, Barnes asks General Thayer to bring out an oxygen bottle. Barnes seizes the cylinder and rides to Dr. Cargraves' rescue.

(Note: that's Barnes' radio antenna sticking up behind his helmet.)

With everybody safely aboard, and with the ship's antenna freed, the film advances to Moon day.

Here's where the film really gets eerie: the crew already has a landing site in mind. When they get close, they realize it's just too rocky. Barnes guns the engines to coast out of the danger zone. The maneuver costs them precious reaction mass, and will pose a prominent problem in the film's last act.

Farfetched?

There was no doubt in Armstrong's mind about landing in the boulder field. It wasn't essential that he land the LM perfectly upright. A tilt of up to fifteen degrees would cause no particular problem with a launch. However, if he hit the engine bell or one of the landing struts on a large rock, there would be a real chance of sustaining structural damage. Two minutes after pitchover and about two minutes prior to the landing, Armstrong took action. He decided to follow an old maxim: "When in doubt, land long." To do that, he would have to overfly the crater and land well to the west of it; and there was clearly no point - nor really much time - to give the computer enough of an update via the hand controller. The Landing Point Designator (LPD) was designed for fine tuning and what Armstrong needed was a big change. So he switched to manual control, pitched the LM forward, and began to fly it like a helicopter. Within seconds, he had slowed his rate of descent from about twenty feet per second down to about three and flew the LM about 1100 feet west beyond the craters and the boulders
...
While Armstrong flew the LM toward a good landing spot, his attention was totally focused on the job at hand. Aldrin did virtually all the talking; and he, too, was all business. He read the computer output to Armstrong, giving him their altitude, their rate of descent and their forward speed. Back in Houston, Flight Director Gene Kranz and other members of the support team in the Mission Control Room were watching telemetry from the LM. They did not know about the crater yet - Armstrong wouldn't discuss it until well after the landing - but it was obvious that the landing was taking longer than planned. Indeed, with each passing second there was mounting concern about how much fuel remained. Because of uncertainties in both the gauges in the tanks and the estimates that could be made from telemetry data on the engine firing, the amount of time remaining until the fuel ran out was uncertain by about 20 seconds. If they got too low, Kranz would have to order an abort.
...
(Post-mission analysis indicated that they actually had about 45 seconds of fuel left, rather than 20. Nonetheless, it the smallest margin of all the Apollo landings. Note, also, that, in the interest of reducing uncertainty, the fuel gauging system was improved for Apollo 12.)
(Apollo 11 Summary)

Life imitates the art of the Maestro, of course.

And speaking of art, Destination Moon depicts the surface of the Moon through a giant Chesley Bonestell painting. That fellow really knew how to paint for science fiction. Click on his name to check out other samples of his work.

Once the rocketship settles into its landing site, the crew can switch off the gyroscopes and flywheels (!) and go outside and explore. Naturally, they'll need to bring along their trusty ladder.

Upon setting foot on the Moon, Dr. Cargraves claims it for the United States (and the rest of the world, when we're feeling friendly). But where's the flag? Can you believe they forgot to bring one? Isn't this a Heinlein film? What gives?

No matter: after staking, Dr. Cargraves calls Earth and repeats his claim. Glad that clears things up. I understand some other countries are thinking of taking the trip. But first they'll have to pay us a toll.

The rest of the crew debark and set up all kinds of scientific gear. Sweeney takes a moment to indulge in a little lunar acrobatics. Wheeee!

While the scientists study the Moon, Barnes heads back into the cockpit to recalculate the remaining reaction mass. He's a bit worried whether they'll have enough to make it back to Earth (spoiler: they don't). Sweeney isn't a scientist and thus he's got time on his hands for sightseeing.

Meanwhile, General Thayer scouts around for stuff he can use to build atomic missiles. Remember: that's the purpose of this trip: to prove you can build an atomic fort from which you can dominate the world. And what do you know: he finds uranium. Well done General!

Barnes finishes his calculations and discovers they don't have enough water for their atomic engine to bring them back home. When he delivers the bad news, the crew has no choice but to strip their ship of everything non-essential.

A trash dump on the Moon: another first for Heinlein! But it's not enough. The ship's just too heavy.

Naturally the crew take hacksaws to the fittings. Well you would if your life were at stake. They even throw out their space suits. Or rather, all but one spacesuit. Sweeney still needs his suit for trash detail.

No matter what they throw away, they're still over their water budget. Checking in with Earth (where others are calculating the same figures), Barnes has really bad news: they're 110 pounds too heavy. And that mass has got to come from somewhere or someone. Horrified at the prospect of being stuck on the moon, Sweeney realizes he'll never get his chance at a glorious suicide.

Or will he?

Since he is wearing the last spacesuit, Sweeney jumps out the airlock and volunteers to stay behind. The others plead for him to return, but Sweeney ain't budging.

With less than an hour before they must launch, our heroes desperately search for a way to save Sweeney. With a Flash of inspiration, Barnes realizes that Sweeney's spacesuit weighs enough to meet the critical margin of mass. If he could only remove his suit and get back into Luna, everybody could go home. But of course that's impossible.

Or is it?

If Sweeney can file a notch in the outer hatch, he could lay a rope into the groove. If the end of the rope sticking outside the spaceship were attached to a weight, Sweeney could close the hatch and pressurize the airlock. Sure there'd be a slow leak, but not enough to harm him. If Sweeney could remove his suit, bundle it up and attach it to the end of the rope inside the airlock, he could be saved. All he'd have to do is exit from the airlock into the cockpit and open the outer hatch. Gravity would tug the suit out the hatch and away from the rocketship.

And what do you know, it works. Now everybody can go home!

As our heroes blast off they face the prospect of a long boring coast home on iron rations. Not an exciting prospect, and the film wisely spares the audience the nuisance. Briefly we see the Earth drawing nearer as the music swells and the final credit rolls.

Or does it?

There: the old "will there be a sequel" cliché. Now it really is over. The end.

Now that I've praised the film and presented it to you, I'd like to discuss its flaws. Oh there are a few technical flaws. Here they are again. And the Moon's surface doesn't look like parched mud at all. That's obvious to us now, but not established in the late forties when Heinlein, Pal and Bonestell made the picture.

The biggest flaw in this film is its story. Even though the Maestro wrote it, it's not above criticism. The story feels more like a documentary than an adventure. Frankly it's not exciting. Perhaps its special effects were enough to evoke wonder and amazement out of a audience in 1950. After all, they won the year's Oscar for their achievement. Today they are less impressive and don't hide an essentially pedestrian tale.

Another fault: there are no female characters of any significance. The dames are notable by their absence. You can see why imitators would (ahem) broaden the diversity of subsequent crews.

Some folks fault the film for implying that anything less than a government agency could fund spaceflight. Oh yeah? Tell it to the X Prize (and tell it to Andy Griffith). Heck, it's not even beyond the means of regular folks to make an authentic Heinlein/Ley film.

Lastly, there are no aliens or ray-guns. Maybe that's not fair for a film trying so hard to be realistic (and come to think of it, Apollo 13 is missing the same). But if the following commenter is correct, Heinlein considered their inclusion:

Heinlein actually published a THIRD Moon-trip story in 1950, a novelette featured in the September issue of `Short Stories Magazine' under the title `Destination Moon'. This version is so similar to the film, it was probably intended as a promotional piece, but it does include one fascinating story element not in the film. The explorers find evidence of previous lunar visitors -- either Russians or aliens, they aren't sure which!
(IMDB)

Faults aside, Destination Moon is eminently watchable today. While it's not the first science fiction movie and it's not even the first rocket-to-the-moon movie, it's the one all subsequent films imitate. Whenever bad movie writers pen a lunar trip, they feature the obligatory tropes of Gee-faking, weightless-nausea and all the other clichés first featured here. They must think: if Heinlein did it, so must we. Even (as I illustrated above) Kubrick wasn't above borrowing bits and pieces. Nor was Tintin. And I hate Tintin.

Even if Destination Moon is not a perfect movie (and it certainly isn't), it's head and shoulders above the competition. And goodness: it's less than five bucks (note: I do not vouch for "Bestprices.com." Caveat Emptor.). A small price for an authentic piece of history. Even real space experts agree. You already knew I'd award this treasure:

Two Ears Up (on tiptoes)!

2003-11-02T16:16:00.000-05:00

Radar Men from the Moon

Sometimes, you just can't keep a good flying rocket suit down. In 1949, Republic Pictures released "King of the Rocket Men, a twelve part serial revolving around the adventures of a rocket-powered hero and an evil scientist. Pretty scary stuff, huh kids? Said rocket suit would find its way into the 1952 Leonard Nimoy star showcase "Zombies of the Stratosphere." But before that would come to pass, the same flying suit would serve as the inspiration and introduction of one of Hollywood's most endearing and controversial JATO heroes: Commando Cody, in "Radar Men from the Moon" (Trailer).

Introduced to us in this film, Commando Cody (George Wallace) remains to his fans an enigma. He's a hero in the mold of Rocky Jones, Space Ranger: he brooks no doubts, he suffers no fools and he's always concerned about the hazards posed by ray-guns -- especially the atomic kind.

As the first of the Commando Cody serials, "Radar Men from the Moon" wastes none of its precious 167 minutes establishing the origin of our hero. After all, the film serial needs time to introduce eleven cliffhangers, and resolve them every subsequent week with an altered version of events. Because the film is necessarily redundant, it can spare little time for luxuries such as character development or subplots. Commando Cody is introduced as a full-fledged scientist/superhero. He has no need for a secret identity. Everybody knows who he is -- his fellow scientists, his contact from the government, his supermarket checkout clerk and his girlfriend all refer to him by his nomme de Hero. I bet you wish you had a cool name like that.

The film opens with a series of random attacks. Derricks, bridges, trains and office buildings explode without warning.

Commando Cody's secretary Joan (Aline Townsend) wonders whether these events might be connected. Commando Cody has a theory -- but as he admits, it's only a guess: Moon men might be bombarding the Earth with atomic rays. Really, what else could it be?

Actually, the rays originate from Earth. The Moon is attacking our planet, but being budget conscious, they contract the work out to a couple of mobsters. Armed with an atomic ray-gun, they are charged with disrupting America's potential to repel a Lunar invasion.

When Cody learns of the latest attack, he dons his JATO long johns and speeds to the site.

Cody spots the mafia and engages them with his trusty six-shooter. When the mob boys run out of ammo, they flee, leaving Cody with an odd assortment of booty: a truck and its ray-gun.

Cody recovers the ray-gun and brings it back to the lab for analysis. Oh it's definitely lunar in origin, but before Cody and his assistant Ted (William Bakewell) can scratch the surface, the mob strikes back. And forthwith is the first of many, many fifties fistfights in the film. It doesn't get any better than that.

Back on the Moon, Overlord Retik (Roy Barcroft) checks in with his Earthbound saboteur Krog (Peter Brocco). While he's pleased with the initial results, Retik wants more results: more chaos, more anarchy and more terror. Nothing must interfere with the impending lunar invasion. Krog promises his best efforts, but he's running low on cash (and that's actually a plot element, really).

Meanwhile, Cody and his crew prepare their Flash Gordon Rocket for a trip to the moon. The California Highway Patrol arrives to send our heroes off. But didn't they park in an unfortunate position?

As the crew prepares for blast-off, Commando Cody uncorks something you just can't say these days. Joan takes the comment in stride, turning it into a joke. At least I hope she did. And with that, it's rocket day!

This is what low-budget science fiction is all about. Check out Commando Cody and his crew fakin' the Gees in their roller chairs,

Worth the price of admission, is it not?

Upon landing, Cody straps on the rocket pack and goes scouting around for baddies. Check out the lunar regolith.

It looks awfully familiar, doesn't it?

Commando Cody locates a lunar castle and sneaks inside. There he confronts evil Retik, and compliments him on his English.

Retik reveals that the Moon is slowly running out of oxygen. Even the radar men must wear spacesuits outdoors. With Luna dying, Retik plans to take over the Earth build a new castle, empire, secret army -- pretty standard stuff. Cody scoffs at the notion, but Retik has an ace up his sleeve.

Is there anything atomic weapons can't do?

Well for starters, they can't kill Commando Cody. When our hero initiates another fifties fistfight, Retik decides to settle the outcome with his atomic pistol (!) in an enclosed room (!!). He keeps missing, and the pistol is very difficult to reload. As you would expect with atomic weapons -- it's probably an OSHA reg or something. Anyway, Retick finally manages to make a lucky shot and (KABLAMM!) that's it for our hero.

Or is it?

Chapter two begins with a brief recap of the fistfight. With the help of some additional footage, we see that Cody was hiding behind a thick object and didn't get exploded to bits. With Retik's lair in shmbles, Cody escapes the lunar castle and returns to his rocket.

Cody and crew argue over what course of action they should take. Since they're on a mission from the U.S. Government to determine whether there's an evil conspiracy on the Moon, some say they should return home and report. Cody's for a direct assault, but gets reminded that they didn't bring the right tools for the job. Is there a better way?

You bet: Cody returns to the castle with a cylinder of poison gas. Attaching it to a vent (?), he douses the radar men with RAID. Not too heroic, but it seems to work.

Cody sneaks back into Retik's lair and steals an atomic ray gun. Earth's going to need a few it if has any chance of repelling the radar men.

Because Cody didn't bring enough poison gas, the radar men are slowly reviving. Retik clambers to his desk and orders a moon patrol to give chase and recover the weapon.

Patrol 6 is on the case, in their lunar tank with its own atomic ray gun.

Check out Patrol 6's spacesuits. We've seen them before, and we'll be seeing them again.

Cody and his space-suited assistant retreat to the cover of a moon cave. Blocked by boulders, the tank cannot follow. Instead, Patrol 6 uses their atomic ray gun to melt the mountain surface above the cave, sealing the entrance and sending a wave of lava cascading down to our heroes. Is this the end?

Nope. Chapter three begins as Cody discovers another exit. He and his assistant squeeze out of the cave to safety. Cody flies off, executes a dog leg and returns to deliver a surprise attack upon Patrol 6.

Chucking the hapless radar men over a convenient cliff, Cody retrieves the ray gun and heads back to his rocketship. As he and the crew blast off, Retik orders his anti-aircraft atomic ray guns into action. Things get a bit dicey, but Hank the pilot pulls off their escape. Now, he must successfully navigate all those fluffy-white space clouds to make it back to Earth.

As our heroes approach home, their peril only increases. Retik's phoned ahead, ordering the mob to ambush the landing site (I know: just accept it and move on).

Fortunately, Cody's phoned ahead too: he asks the police to meet him when he touches down. They show up, bringing their high-tech fifties cell phones.

Naturally, the parties engage in a good old gun battle. It's a draw, and when the mob boys run low on bullets they jump into their getaway car and speed off. By the way, they've got bombs in the trunk. They set one on a timed fuse at the side of a bridge. When Cody and his friends cross that bridge...

Oh my, it's really over for our heroes. The end.

Or is it?

Chapter four begins with an extra shot showing Cody and pals jumping out of their doomed car. They hitch a ride back to Cody Labs and begin to analyze their new atomic ray gun.

Meanwhile, the radar men aren't just going to sit around and let Cody reverse engineer their secret weapon. Retik's Earthbound henchman Krog (Peter Brocco) wants to attack immediately. But the mob's not having any of that. They still haven't been paid for their last attacks on Cody labs. Poor Krog is running low on moon gems, so he decides to self-finance his operation.

Friends, I think this is the high point of the whole serial. I'm willing to accept that the radar men would send one man (Krog) to invade the Earth. I'm also willing to accept that he would recruit local muscle. But the notion that the radar men would underfund their operator and try to take over the Earth, one bank at a time is so deliriously goofy, you just have to smack your forehead in astonishment. Don't you wish they still made films like this today?

After a series of bank robberies (and resultant car chases), Krog is flush with cash and confident enough to stage another attack on Cody labs. The mobsters kidnap Joan and fly her to their interrogation center. Commando Cody straps on his trusty rocket pack and chases the enemy plane.

Realizing he can't outrun a rocket man, the mob pilot sabotages his controls, straps on his parachute and bails out. Poor Joan (who is unconscious) is certain to die as the plane prepares to auger in. With only seconds to spare, Command Cody catches up to the plane and tries to rescue his friend. But will they make it?

Nope, the plane crashes and bursts into flame. The end.

Chapter five begins with an additional shot of Joan bailing out with her own parachute (whew!).

Not much happens in chapter five. There's another aerial chase and a car chase, in which a hijacked ambulance hurtles toward Cody's car. The two vehicles collide and careen over the edge of a cliff. Nobody could survive that, right?

At the beginning of Chapter six we learn that Cody and his friend were able to bail out just seconds before the collision. All these chases might be interesting if they advanced the plot. Sadly they do not, and they're getting a bit tiresome.

Retik agrees with this reviewer, and decides to kick the conflict up a notch.

Krog unveils one of his smaller a-bombs and orders the mob to fly out and attack a dormant volcano. Mt. Alta erupts and causes all kinds of natural disasters (and several minutes of stock footage).

Cody and Ted head to the airport to track down the bomber, Their investigations lead them to Al's Cafe, where they get into another fistfight with the mob.

The mobsters escape in their getaway car (is there any other type of mob car?). Rather than flee, they draw Cody into a cliff-side ambush. While one of the mobsters pretends to surrender, the other sneaks up behind Commando Cody with a large rock. He strikes, sending our hero over the edge.

Chapter seven begins with a resolution of the series' lamest cliff-hanger. Slamming a rock into our hero's head and knocking him off the cliff won't work: Cody wears a brass helmet and rocket pack. He's invulnerable to exactly this kind of attack.

With a twist of the knob, Cody rescues himself. Woozy, he retreats to Cody Labs.

With Cody temporarily out of action, the radar men are free to carry out their master plan: a series of (pick a better word) terrorist attacks will sow confusion and reduce the military strength we'll need to fend off the lunar invasion fleet. But how to execute the plan? That atomic ray-gun is bleeding obvious, and will attract the attention of the authorities. The mobsters cleverly camouflage the back of a truck with fake crates. This false front (or rather false back) can open up to reveal the ray-gun, or just as easily conceal it.

With their stealth truck, the mobsters initiate the campaign. Soon the newswires are reporting multiple atomic ray-gun attacks.

Commando Cody proposes an interesting counter-strategy.

Ted loads up his own plane with "light bombs." Apparently, he can do that because he's a friend of Cody. While Ted loiters around, Cody scouts around for ray-guns. If all goes well, he'll be able to act as a forward aerial controller (FAC), guiding Ted's bomber to its target.

The mobsters in their truck spot Cody and fire on him. Cody retreats to the safety of Ted's plane. With Ted at the controls, Cody's free to drop bomb after bomb on the villainous mobsters. But the enemy's packing an atomic ray-gun in the back, and they're not afraid to use it.

POW! A direct hit to Ted's plane. The fuel and bombs detonate and this really, really is the end for Cody and Ted.

Chapter eight begins with an additional shot of our heroes exiting their aircraft seconds before its demise. It's almost as if the editors are cheating.

Cody and Ted hitch a ride back to Cody Labs where they make a breakthrough on the atomic ray-gun front. While the gun itself is easy to duplicate, it requires Lunarium to function. Guess where you can find that element?

Commando Cody and his pals make another trip to the moon. I'm sad to report that the serial depicts the trip using film recycled from the earlier trip.

Cody scouts around until he spies a solitary radar man out in the open and wearing a Destination Moon space suit. Cody engages the hapless fellow in a lunar fistfight. Subdued, the radar man is brought to Cody's rocketship. Cody switches spacesuits with the radar man.

Infiltrating the Moon Castle, Cody steals a box of Lunarium and drags it to the surface. There, he and Ted make their way back to the rocketship. On the way, they're attacked by another Moon Tank. Two guys versus a tank. Guess who wins?

The good thing about films like these is that you can stage a fistfight pretty much anywhere. Cody and Ted force their way through the roof hatch and go a-brawlin'. Of course they win, but it might just be a pyrrhic victory: Cody's air hose comes dislodged, and in the cramped confines of the Moon Tank, he can't reach back to plug it in. Exposed to the lunar vacuum, he's a goner for sure.

Chapter nine shows Ted helpfully reattaching Cody's air hose. Whew!

Cody and Ted return to the rocketship and make plans to return to Earth. Pilot Hank pushes the blast-off button and they're on their way. Suddenly their prisoner radar man attacks!

The fistfight disrupts Hank's concentration and sends the rocket hurtling through a twisty Moon Canyon. Meanwhile, Retik's got his anti-aircraft atomic ray-guns trained on the craft. This is real peril! This calls for heroics, and Commando Cody does not disappoint.

With the ship out of danger, Cody and friends transit the Space Clouds and land safely at home. With their supply of Lunarium, they're ready to reload their stolen atomic ray-gun -- and even start manufacturing more. Now Earth has a plan and a fighting chance to defeat the Moon. But as with any plan, the enemy gets a vote.

Chapter ten begins by resolving a lame cliff-hanger (mob tries to bury Cody under rocks). Frustrated, they try to turn the tables on Cody by attacking him at his Lab with one of his own tricks.

Introducing poison gas into Cody Labs, the mob avenges the radar men who are still smarting from a similar attack back in chapter two. The mob takes the trick further -- locking Cody and Joan inside their lab and leaving them with no escape from the deadly fumes. Joan collapses and Cody struggles for breath before expiring. Now he really is dead, and we saw him die onscreen. He can't possible be around for the next installment, can he?

Chapter eleven begins with a little deus ex machina. It's a good thing the cops were just around the corner. Otherwise they'd have no time to bust down the door before Cody and Joan succumb to the poison gas.

Shaking off the cobwebs, Joan and Cody jump into a police car to pursue the mobsters. Cody takes a moment to show off his egalitarian side. Or maybe he likes to shoot two-handed.

In the ensuing gun battle, one of the police's tear-gas canisters goes off and floods Joan and Cody's car with caustic vapors. Realizing the chase must end right here and right now, Joan rams the mobsters' car and sends both vehicles screeching to the curb. The police arrive to cordon off the crash scene. Despite his heroic protestations, Cody and Joan are arrested along with the mobsters.

Ted goes down to precinct headquarters and bails out our heroes (nice touch!). Cody hangs around, hoping to track the mobsters back to their secret lair. Sure enough, they post bond (with stolen bank money) and drive home, unaware they're being tracked from above.

Rather than wait for reinforcements, Cody barges in and starts another brawl (I've lost count of the fistfights on this film). Even though the fight's three against one, Cody wins -- dispatching one of the mobsters against a clichéd high-voltage sparkling machine. But wait: Cody's caught in the lethal blast of electricity. We see it strike him. Surely no man could withstand all that energy. We see him slump to the ground. Cody's dead for sure, and the film really means it this time!

Chapter twelve begins as Retik arrives on Earth. He's the vanguard of his vast lunar invasion fleet. Sure, we never get to see just how vast that fleet really is, but let's assume it's really, really vast.

While Retik and Krog finish the final details of their invasion plan, the mob sets out to clean out what's left of Cody labs. Meanwhile a certain heroic, left-for-dead figure arises. Cody's back on his feet and ready to fight to save the Earth. He races back to Cody Labs to rescue his friends.

At the lab, Cody receives an important phone call. Remember Al's Cafe? It's the place the mobsters like to hang out. Cody once had a fistfight there. The bartender (Ted Thorpe) promised he'd call if the mob ever came back. Not even mobsters like to fistfight on an empty stomach, so here they are enjoying their vittles.

With guns drawn, Cody and Ted enter Al's Cafe. Even though they are armed, Cody and Ted take a moment to enjoy their last fistfight of the film. And their last car chase. The fleeing mobsters fail to properly negotiate a dead-man's curve and dive to their doom.

With the mob defeated, Cody and Ted race to the evil hideout to confront the radar men. There, Krog sacrifices his life in the defense of Retik. Sensing that not even his vast invasion fleet can save him, Retik leaps into his Moon Rocket and blasts off.

Will Retik escape? Will there be a sequel to this serial?

Answers: No and Yes. Because Cody has both an atomic ray-gun and Lunarium, he's able to get a few shots off in the direction of Retik's rocketship. One of the blasts connects.

No more Retik (and presumably no Lunar invasion). But there would be a sequel: believe it or not, Republic Pictures re-edited this serial into a TV show (with a new Commando Cody). Cody-mania swept the nation. I guess you had to be there.

With the enemy vanquished, and with the Earth safe from the menacing Moon, Cody and friends return to the lab. There a grateful government agent congratulates them for their service to their country. Cody takes the opportunity to pitch a proposal for a government grant. He demonstrates a model of his latest design in rocketships.

Said model rocket careens around the room before exiting via a conveniently open window. Back to the drawing board for Cody, and much merriment for the others and for the audience. The end.

Radar Men from the Moon is a challenge for today's audience. Nobody believes in Moon Monsters anymore, so our willingness to suspend disbelief is not as forthcoming as it would be for a modern film. Furthermore for a space adventure, the serial spends far too much time on Earth as our heroes fight with their fists, chase with their cars and drone through their dialogue.

Even in its day, Radar Men from the Moon represented the last gasp of a dying art. One of the last Hollywood serials, it fought and lost a battle against television. With entertainment in one's living room, who wanted to bother to go to the theater every week for twelve weeks, just to see whether Cody would save the day?

Perhaps Radar Men from the Moon is best appreciated as an artifact of history. With its dodecahedral structure, it is quite unlike both conventional films and series television. Its closest contemporary analogs are "Doctor Who," and "Twenty Four." But beyond those programs there is nothing else to compare to a bona fide, old-fashioned movie serial.

Radar Men from the Moon demands to be viewed on its own terms. It's nearly three hours of stock footage, film recycled from other serials and endless fistfights. Somewhere in there is a stunning, interstellar space opera struggling to break free. Its twelve turgid chapters fail to rise above even pedestrian cops-and-robbers fare. And frankly, I found the film a bit of a chore.

Two ears down

2003-10-18T17:08:00.000-04:00

Crash of the Moons

The blooming 1950s television audience demanded science fiction adventure and drama. Rocky Jones: Space Ranger delivered the goods, bringing rocketships, ray-guns and the occasional robot into the home each week. The program featured (then) amazing models and effects and set a high standard. Too high a standard: the episodes were so expensive, the widely-watched show couldn't turn a profit and failed to win another season.

Fortunately many of the episodes found their way into feature films. To its adoring fans, Crash of the Moons represents the best of the Rocky Jones oeuvre. This film even got the Mystery Science Theater treatment, so it may be available in two different versions. (A complete list of the films is here.)

Crash of the Moons begins on the planet Opheisha. Rocky Jones (Richard Crane), pilot of the Orbit Jet and co-pilot Winky (Scotty Beckett) deliver Secretary Drake (Charles Meredith) to an audience with Cleolanta (suzeraine of Opheisha) (Patsy Parsons). Drake offers Opheisha membership in the United Worlds, but Cleolanta will have none of that nonsense. And since the United Worlds appears to be an extrapolation of the United Nations, she is right. Did I mention Cleolanta is the villain? Generating sympathy for her this early in the film is not a strong start.

Rejected, Rocky and his friends blast off and begin their trip home to Earth. Meanwhile, Professor Newton (Maurice Cass) and his young assistants Vena Ray (Sally Mansfield) and Bobby (Bobby Lyden) rocket out to Space Station OW-9 to greet our returning heroes.

A word about Maurice Cass: a refugee from the Bolsheviks, he and his family fled to the United States. He grew up here, and acted in more than 125 films. The Rocky Jones films were his last (he died shortly after season one). While he played a lovable and goofy foil to stolid Rocky, the man was a true American and it's great to see him in his last role and just months away from meeting his Maker.

When Rocky checks in with OW-9 by radio, Vena answers the phone and befuddles him. She sure doesn't sound like station chief Andrews (Rand Brooks). When Rocky finally gets the joke he almost smiles.

Almost. You see, Rocky is not your average laconic rocket pilot. He's downright unflappable, and conversely not very affable. Every inch the commander and hero, Rocky Jones is a proto-James T. Kirk. But don't take my word for it, here's what another Rocky-fan has to say on the subject:

Rocky Jones doesn't seem human to us today, because he is not paralyzed by doubts, he is serious about what he is doing, he is dedicated to fighting the bad guys who are clearly 'bad' guys. That a woman was aboard was ground breaking just as having a mixed crew was shocking when "Star Trek" hit the air waves. It was futuristic, and though it didn't go nearly far enough, it pointed the way to where our society has actually begun to go.

Rocky was a hero. He was not an ordinary guy with some extra training. He could do no wrong, by definition. Heroes are always in short supply, so it is not surprising that others went to him for advice and took what he gave. The only real difference between a hero story then and one now is that today's heroes need to fight the system to do their heroic deeds and they are tortured by the fear that they may die alone because no one understands their truths.
(IMDB)

That Rocky Jones, he's a baaad motha--
Shut your mouth!
But I'm talking about Rocky!

Professor Newton announces that he and his assistants are preparing to visit the Gypsy Moons Posita and Nagato. Orbiting around each other, the Gypsy Moons pass through the solar system from time to time, and one of those times is now. Rocky hears the news and grows alarmed. Rushing to his charts, he projects the path of the Gypsy Moons and discovers to his horror that they'll pass far too closely to OW-9. The station will pass through the Moons' atmospheric chain and be destroyed by a violent storm. With no other rocketship close enough to rescue OW-9, it's up to Rocky Jones and his trusty sidekick Winky to save the day!

Because Crash of the Moons is recycled from a television series it is necessarily episodic in plot. And since the film abruptly switches gears at this point, we can surmise that the unresolved fate of Space Station OW-9 is the first episode's cliff-hanger.

Meanwhile on Gypsy Moon Posita, Bavaarro (John Banner) and Potanda (Maria Palmer) check on their baby prince (uncredited). By the way, the baby serves as the film's peril-o-meter. You can estimate the risk to Posita by measuring the baby's cries. Really: the characters even remark about it. That he is currently throwing a fit portends badly for this Gypsy Moon. (Foreshadowing)

As enlightened monarchs, the King and Queen rule over Posita with a gentle touch, although their lightning-bolt motif speaks of a sordid and bloody past. [And yes, that is that John Banner you know as Sgt. Schultz.] Cooing and comforting their heir, they discuss Professor Newton's impending arrival.

Said Professor might not be coming to Posita after all. With OW-9 feeling the effects of the atmospheric chain, he's otherwise occupied. The station tosses and turns, and the roller chairs roll back and forth. Ah, roller chairs on space stations. Weren't the fifties grand?

With only seconds to spare, Rocky Jones and Winky guide the Orbit Jet into OW-9's docking assembly. After Andrews throws the switch controlling the magnetic clamps, Rocky guns the engines and drags the space station to safety!

With OW-9 out of danger (and presumably in a safe new orbit), Rocky refuels his spaceship, gathers Professor Newton and his assistants, and blasts off for Posita. Rocky Jones is supposed to be a Space Ranger, but he does seem to spend an inordinate amount of time running a taxi service in this film.

Back on Posita, Bavarro and Potanda wonder what's taking Professor Newton so long. Something's amiss, but Bavarro can't quite identify it.

[George Lucas admits his Star Wars films are an homage to the science fiction series of his youth. I wonder if Bavarro inspired one of Obi-Wan's signature phrases.]

As the Orbit Jet speeds to Posita, Professor Newton and his assistants make the film's second startling discovery. Because the Gypsy Moons are not beholden to any star, they wander the universe and present something of a hazard to rocketships and other planets. In fact, Posita is soon to collide with Opheisha (home to Cleolanta). In other words, Posita and Opheisha are doomed worlds. The question of whether the United Worlds can attempt a rescue at this late stage is difficult to answer. So the crew debate whether to inform the imperiled planets.

By the way: when Rocky announces that the inhabitants of the Gypsy Moons can't develop their astronomical sciences because they lack a fixed point in space, does he realize that the Earth isn't fixed in space either? Is he proposing a Ptolemaic universe? Is it any wonder that Sputnik beat Explorer 1?

Upon landing, the passengers and crew debark and greet Bavarro and Potanda in their castle. The King and Queen are pleased to show off their young prince. As Bavarro greets each of the crew he declares how much he'd like his heir to emulate them. First, he'd like the prince to grow up to be strong and decisive like Rocky. Or wise and diplomatic like Secretary Drake. And what about Winky?

About that Winky: Rocky-fans are split about whether Winky preferred the love that dared not speak its name. Today, the debate continues to divide the Rocky Jones conventions. I doubt that a fifties space show for kiddies would feature such a character, but did the actor imbue the role with his own eccentricities?

Winky is played by Scotty Beckett, who began his film career in The Little Rascals. As one of the original Hollywood child stars, he suffered hard for his craft:

Scotty unfortunately would up like many child stars, living a sad life of depression, becoming addicted to drugs. Scotty's life was especially tragic, considering the promise he showed as a young actor. As a teenager, he began to use drugs and alcohol and his performance on screen and reliability off suffered. What info is available about his adult years indicates he had a bad temper, too. He couldn't hold a job, and his marriage failed. In his last days Scotty, only 38 and an alcoholic, was beaten up by some thugs, checked himself into a Hollywood hospital, and died not long after in 1968.
(Scotty Beckett Shrine)

A sad story, rendered sadder still by the death of Richard Crane (Rocky) a year later. Was the set of Rocky Jones cursed? Hardly, and Beckett's two marriages (and one offspring) vanquish the notion that the actor or the character is batting for the other team.

Meanwhile back on Posita, Bavarro is shocked to learn what fate has in store for his Gypsy Moon. Aghast a the thought of losing his realm, but showing concern for the people he rules, Bavarro agrees to join Secretary Drake on a mission to the other Gypsy Moon, Nagato. There he'll try to reach some accommodation with its ruler, Torvak. If all goes well, the United Worlds will be able to evacuate Posita before it collides with Opheisha. These adventures are barely depicted on screen, suggesting that they comprise scenes filmed for television, but edited out of this film. With their business on Posita concluded, Rocky and Winky attempt to warn the inhabitants of Opheisha, but their mission won't be easy.

In Cleolanta's castle, a young Opheishian officer named Atlasan (Harry Lauter) tells his wife Trinka (Nan Leslie) he's looking forward to an audience with Cleolanta. Trinka's not as pleased as you might expect.

While Atlasan's away, Trinka unpacks her secret astrophone she uses to listen to news from other worlds (Radio Free Universe?). She listens to Rocky Jones (in orbit above Opheisha) as he delivers the grim news of the impending crash of moons.

Having had a change of heart, Atlasan returns to apologize to Trinka, and catches her in the act of treason. Like any concerned husband, he smashes the astrophone and drags her off to his suzeraine.

Pleased at Atlasan's display of loyalty, Cleolanta interrogates Trinka to divine the extent of her treachery. But before Trinka spills the beans, Cleolanta learns that Rocky Jones is attempting a landing on Opheisha. Cleolanta orders her officers to destroy the Orbit Jet. Could this be the end for our heroes?

Turning the tables on her captors, Trinka steals her husband's gun out of its holster and holds Atlasan and Cleolanta hostage. Now Rocky Jones and Winky can land the Orbit Jet unimpeded. Unwisely dropping her guard, Trinka loses the pistol to Atlasan and is imprisoned for her troubles.

Rocky and Winky exit their rocketship and plan their approach to Cleolanta's castle. Rocky urges caution, making the audience wonder why they would bother to bring ray guns in the first place.

Wisely sensing that a direct approach would fail, Rocky resorts to subterfuge. Knocking on the castle door and retreating to a safe vantage, Rocky lures the Opheishian praetorian guards outside before leaping into a good-old fifties fistfight.

When's the last time you saw a fistfight on TV? Almost every episode of Star Trek had one or two. I miss them.

Getting the better of the guards, Rocky and Winky march into the throne room and set Cleolanta straight. Darn tootin'. Cleolanta is speechless.

Meanwhile on Nagato, Bavarro and Torvak reach an agreement. Bavarro and his people may live in their own kingdom on Nagato. Secretary Drake radios the good news so the people of Posita may load up their transport jets and fly through the atmospheric chain to their new world. Contrast the photograph from Nagato with those from Posita. White lightning/Black lightning. Another duality of man analogy? A comment on embracing diversity? We'll never know: the answer must lie in an episode edited out of this film.

In a negotiating room on Opheisha, Rocky and Cleolanta hammer out the details of the rescue of the Opheishians. When Cleolanta asks for a moment alone with her advisor (Atlasan), Rocky is gracious enough to oblige. Cleolanta and Atlasan exit the room. And like any autocrat worth her stuff, Cleolanta takes the opportunity to turn on the sleeping gas.

Why don't our negotiating rooms come with this handy feature?

With our heroes soundly asleep, Cleolanta reveals her evil plan. She'll use her space battleship to fly out to Posita. Bombarding it with Tritanic missiles, she'll blow up the Gypsy Moon and eliminate the threat to her planet. Atlasan observes that Posita hasn't finished its evacuation, but Cleolanta takes no heed. When you're a suzeraine, you've got to be decisive.

As Cleolanta gets the space battleship ready, Atlasan has a change of heart. He can't countenance mass slaughter -- even of Positians. Paying a visit to his wife (who is also held in a sleeping-gas saturated room), he revives her and urges her to do the right thing. And with that, he's off to co-pilot Cleolanta's craft.

Evading the guards, Trinka reaches Rocky's room. Closing the gas valve, she awakens our heroes. Advising Rocky and Winky of Cleolanta's evil intent, Trinka insists on joining the crew to save Posita and, if possible, save her husband too.

After another glorious and gratuitous fistfight, the three reach the Orbit Jet. After Rocky helps Trinka into the funniest acceleration couch ever, he joins Winky in the cockpit. When the talk turns to Trinka, Winky's ready to cut loose with a wolf-whistle, but Rocky curtly cuts him off. Ah, the good old sexual politics of the fifties.

With an imposing lead over our heroes, Cleolanta and Atlasan arrive over Posita and prepare their bombardment of Tritanic missiles. Cleolanta flubs the launch order, but the missiles fly anyway. That's Tritanic missiles, Cleolanta. Everyone else calls'em that. Anyway, the missiles really do a number on Bavarro's palace. Bobby leads Vena down to the bomb shelter. And as a courtesy to King and Queen, they take along the royal heir. Said prince is really howling it up now!

Rocky blasts onto the scene and dispenses justice, one torpedo at a time. A lucky shot konks out the Opheishian craft's engine, stranding Cleolanta and Atlasan in orbit over Posita. Trinka radios her husband in the enemy rocketship, pleading with him to cease bombardment. He obliges, infuriating Cleolanta. When she lunges for the big red button, Atlasan wrestles her back into her chair and ties her up.

With the threat to Posita eliminated, Rocky abandons the derelict Opheishian spaceship and takes the Orbit Jet down to the surface. He and Winky rescue Professor Newton and Queen Potanda from the wreckage of the castle. Once they locate Bobby, Vena and the prince (who is now silent) in the shelter, everything's back to normal, and the evacuation may continue. Winky uses a giant remote control to guide Cleolanta's spaceship down to a safe landing. With the crisis on Posita resolved, our heroes only have one remaining planet to save.

With rumors spreading throughout Opheisha, the streets are a riot of panicked citizenry. The praetorian guards are out to save themselves. Above the planet is the Orbit Jet, bearing Rocky, Winky, Trinka, Atlasan and the embittered Cleolanta. When they land on Opheisha, the guards rush the ship, hoping to overpower the crew and blast off to safety.

Another fistfight, and inside a rocketship! This film has everything!

Realizing the situation can get only worse, Cleolanta orders her guards to stand down. Heedless to her words, the guards cease fighting only when Trinka uses the intercom to appeal to their Opheishian solidarity. Good patriots to the last, those guards. The film plays up this point, putting the propaganda right under our nose.

Fearing she may lose the respect of her people, Cleolanta capitulates and agrees to a United Worlds evacuation of Opheisha. Mind, there's not much time left before the crash of moons, so things get a bit dicey. Trinka establishes a lottery for berths on the evacuation ships. They'll make as many trips to a new planet and back, before the moons crash. Trinka and Atlasan forfeit their berths, pledging to evacuate on the last rocket to leave Opheisha.

And with that, the film treats us to the mother of all rocket days.

With the evacuation drawing to a close, Cleolanta makes a last stand. She'll never leave her homeland. Atlasan must physically carry her off to the Orbit Jet

With everyone evacuated from Opheisha, the plot draws to the eponymous climax. The crew breathlessly await the crash of moons.

With Posita and Opheisha obliterated, Rocky radios Bavarro, who is safe in his new digs on Nagato. Bavarro's not pleased to see his homeland go up in a flash, but he's not going to dwell in the past. He also takes the opportunity to lay on the film's lesson with a trowel.

With literally nothing left to lose, Cleolanta divines hope from Bavarro's words. As long as she has her people, it doesn't matter where she and they may live. Realizing she can retain her role as suzeraine, she thanks Bavarro for his wisdom, slaps up another layer of message, instantly melts from ice-princess to likeable nobility, and cues the swelling end-of-film theme. The End

And that's when the afore-featured lightning bolts really strike home. Cleolanta's character arc reveals that we haven't actually been watching hokey space opera at all. This is nothing less than an epochal update of the Bard's immortal classic. You approach this film wanting rockets and rayguns. You never expect it to dangle those carrots in front of your eyes while it serves up a generous helping of The Taming of the Shrew. That Rocky Jones, he's sneakier than you might expect.

Crash of the Moons is the best of the best of a largely forgotten genre. The film is the best of the Space Ranger series, and the shows from which the films are derived are the best of the fifties television science fiction. At a minimum, they are superior because they commanded the largest production budgets and were shot on film rather than video.

With that said, the best of the best amounts to rather poor pickings. The film's science is... let's not talk about the science. The film has aged poorly: the medium is damaged and the atmosphere is anachronistic. The story is convoluted (necessary in an episodic cliff-hanger) and largely contrived. The characters are fodder for woodpeckers.

And yet I like it. Somehow, Crash of Moons draws you in and compels you to watch until the end. I can offer no explanation for this phenomenon. At the close of the film, I still feel like I've wasted my time, yet I feel strangely satisfied. Maybe it's a function of haughty superiority: I've watched films far better than you, Rocky, so there! Maybe it's hero-worship. Maybe it's the Shakespearian flourish at the end. Maybe it's something else I can't identify.

Whatever the reason, Crash of Moons is a film I endorse and recommend. They don't make films like this anymore, so this may be your only chance to see what the whole genre is like. Heck, IMDB appears to suggest you can watch the whole movie online. [I couldn't make the links work, but maybe you can.]

One Ear Up.

2003-10-11T20:27:00.000-04:00

H.G. Wells' First Men in the Moon

A film difficult to pigeonhole, H.G. Wells' First Men in the Moon mixes fantasy and hard science fiction. On the one hand, it's a thrilling special-effects summer blockbuster, but on the other hand, it hews closely to a volume of classic literature. With something for everyone, the film is one of 1964's must see movies. Now available on DVD, it ought to become one of your library's staples.

Science fiction traces its roots back as far as humans have recorded history. However not until the late Nineteenth Century did it become recognized as a separate literary genre. Men like Jules Verne penned daring and (ahem) implausible stories about exciting vaporware. Not content to let the French dominate the canon, British writers such as H.G. Wells answered with novels of their own. Once the genre established itself as high literature, hack writers raced to the bottom of the niche -- yielding for us countless stories of atomic animals, moon maidens, rocketships and their laconic pilots. But before all that came to pass, H.G. Wells' First Men in the Moon set the standard as a landmark, unadulterated tome of classic science fiction.

Of course filming the novel would be a different story. Not content to simply show the book as Wells wrote it, the film-makers decided to make a few improvements. Adding a prologue and epilogue set in the present day (1964), and throwing in a love interest, the film actually improves on the original. Or, at least does justice to its source.

And with that, let's look at the film.

The film opens well after rocket day as U.N. moon mission one lands on the lunar surface. While the crew is annoyingly international, I'm pleased to report that mission commander Colonel Rice (Sean Kelly) and the first man to walk on the moon, Sergeant Andrew Martin (Gordon Robinson), are Americans. Pretty prescient for 1964, huh?

After the crew checks in with mission control, they decontaminate (foreshadowing) and debark to explore. And wait until you see what they find:

A British flag and a claim for the moon (written on the back of a summons dated 1899) lie atop a large moon rock. Rice radios the news to the U.N., which dispatches a crack team of space detectives to Britain to trace the name on the document. Sadly the detectives discover that the recipient of the summons is dead, but her husband still lives at a nearby retirement home.

Confronted with the evidence, the husband realizes that man has reached the moon (again). Once considered a notorious crank for his lunar ravings, he is now the key to unlocking the mystery. But rather than explain, he bears a dire warning: the U.N. explorers are in grave peril!

End of the (admittedly excellent) prologue.

Here's our husband, Arnold Bedford (Edward Judd), back in his swingin' bachelor days. A playwright, Arnold's got everything: a cocktail in hand, a gun over the mantelpiece and a (just off-screen) typewriter. All he's missing is a girlfriend to complete the picture. And here she comes!

Kate Callender (Martha Hyer), a native of Boston and Arnold's longtime-squeeze has just arrived from across the Atlantic. Arnold's sent letters to her about the wonderful new play he's writing. Imagine her surprise when she checks the typewriter: "Act I Scene I." Oops, Arnold has some explaining! Feigning a temporary case of writers'-block, Arnold assures her that the play will be as good as he promised. And it'll make them well off to boot! Enthusiastically, Kate declares that, with such a bright future, they might as well get married right now. After all, they've been dating quite a while...

Arnold dodges the question with the lamest excuse ever. I'm beginning to get suspicious about that Arnold...

Biking down the lane and singing his poor fool head off is our third protagonist, Dr. Joseph Cavor (Lionel Jeffries). Wealthy and eccentric, Cavor bought the manor next door in order to have a secluded place to carry out his dangerous experiments. Imagine his surprise to see activity at the neighbor's cottage. I'll let him say it in his own words.

Arnold's indisposed at the moment, so when Cavor knocks on the door Kate invites him in. Cavor gently conveys to Kate the risk she faces living so near to Cavor's laboratory. When he offers to buy the cottage, Kate (to whom Arnold has falsely claimed he owned it) bargains up the price and accepts. She's only too glad to oblige Cavor and reap a tidy profit with which she and Arnold can start their life together. So excited is Cavor (and believe me he's excitable throughout the whole film) he leaves his bicycle and dashes back to the lab.

When Arnold returns and hears the good news, he's surprisingly muted in response. He grabs Cavor's bicycle and drives over to the lab to set Cavor straight about the cottage. But the scientist can't be interrupted just now: he's whipping up a batch of his miracle-substance Cavorite.

Dubious that Cavor has invented an anti-gravity paste, Arnold challenges him to prove his claim. Cavor paints the bottom of a chair and Arnold sits down. When the paste cools and dries, hilarity ensues.

Amazed, Arnold insists on investing in Cavor's new invention. Realizing the potential Cavorite has for his stock of surplus Army boots (which he does not own), Arnold decides to apply the money from the sale of his cottage (which he also does not own) to the process of testing and marketing flying boots. All he needs is a nice, blonde patsy to explain to the authorities the circumstances of his landlord's disenfranchisement.

Incidentally, Arnold is supposed to be leading man and the sympathetic foil for the eccentric Dr. Cavor. And somehow he is both.

While Cavor's not unkind to the idea of flying footwear, what he'd really like to do with Cavorite is paint his spherical spaceship and take a trip to the moon. He takes Arnold out to the greenhouse and shows off his craft. Arnold's impressed enough to volunteer to join on the moon mission. It's a bit odd that Cavor would first build the spaceship and then invent the anti-gravity paint. But after all, he's British. And did I mention excitable?

Arnold heads home to explain to Kate the good news about his new sky shoe enterprise. He also convinces her to (reluctantly) sign the deed of sale. Although he assures her everything's o.k., Kate is not so sure. She visits Cavor's lab to see for herself. When she discovers what the two men are really up to, she delivers an ultimatum to Arnold.

One guess as to who Arnold picks.

Ever the decent lady, Kate takes the news well. After all, she's American. And because she is, she thoughtfully packs some provisions for Arnold's trip. Cavor inspects the goods and is not impressed.

As Arnold and Dr. Cavor prepare for blast-off, the recorder-of-deeds grows wise to Kate's false deed. With police escort, the landlord's attorney arrives and delivers to Kate a summons. Since we know this is the summons which will eventually end up on the moon, we wonder: how does it get inside the spaceship?

Yep, she walks over to the space-sphere and bangs on it, hollering for Arnold's scalp. Since said sphere is seconds from lift-off, this is not an especially safe course of action. The crew have no choice but to drag her inside. And with that, it's rocket day (er, sphere day).

Because the sphere lacks for Kate an acceleration ~~couch~~ net, she has to fake the Gees on the floor. And how does Kate handle weightlessness? Not well I'm afraid. In fact she creates a crisis of comedic proportions.

Once the crew settles down, the film adopts a pace better suited to domestic comedy. Kate adjusts the blinds (actually the sphere's control surfaces) sending them hurtling toward the Sun (oops). And when she and Arnold grow tired of canned rations (apparently all sardines), she unpacks her chickens.

Yep, chickens. Weightless in space. That's why you rented this film right?

At journey's end the sphere rumbles to rest against a moon mountain. Everyone is amazed with the success they've had thus far -- especially Dr. Cavor (who by this point you surely realize is not the laconic pilot we would otherwise expect in a film of this genre).

With Kate aboard, exiting the sphere is going to be tricky. You see there are only two diving suits (yep, exposed hands and all) and no airlock. However, there is an airtight storage compartment big enough for her to fit. So Cavor and Arnold suit up, turn the sphere's oxygen gauge to full-open and depart. In other words, they leave Kate in the trunk.

While Arnold bangs on the hull to let Kate know it's safe to leave her compartment, Cavor goes space-happy. He doffs his weights and bounces around, wedging himself between two rocks. With no radio, he can't call for help, so there's some drama before they get about to the part where they claim the moon for Queen and country.

And guess what else they find:

It's a giant lens with retracting cover. Whoever built the thing has air to spare, so when our astronauts crash through the glass nobody takes notice.

Arnold and Cavor find themselves at the top of a deep shaft. And somewhere at the bottom is the answer to a mystery -- and Arnold's helmet. Using a convenient circular staircase they descent into the moon. At the bottom, they find Arnold's helmet and an army of Selenites. They'll need more than helmets to fight!

Heedless to potential ruptures to his diving-suit, Arnold tears into the horde. Since he's feet taller than the Selenites, he has no trouble throwing them by the bushel into a deep chasm. Horrified at the slaughter, Cavor realizes he's missed his chance to make a good first contact. Escaping, they suit up and return to the sphere.

Or rather, they don't. Someone or something has dragged off their ride home. Following the tracks takes our heroes to a giant door. Forcing the door open, they find themselves back in the Selenite city. But how else to write Kate into the rest of the film?

With Kate still aboard, the Selenites begin disassembling the sphere. Like any good American, she picks up a rifle and defends herself. But for how long can Kate hold out? We'll learn the answer after Arnold and Cavor escape the attack of a giant stop-motion caterpillar.

This is a Harryhausen film, what did you expect?

Narrowly avoiding certain death, Cavor is captured by the Selenites. Arnold takes cover in a convenient crevice -- and just in the nick of time. The Selenites wheel out the ~~world's~~ Moon's biggest electric bug-zapper and dispatch the poly-legged predator.

Meanwhile, Kate's lost the battle and finds herself in an observation chamber. It's pretty neato. We could use a few for our airports, I tell'ya what.

Just because Kate's down doesn't mean she's out of the fight. She hurls hurls invective and threatens to do worse! Atta girl Kate!

In any event, she is joined by Cavor. The two try to reason with the Selenites, who aren't as interested in them as they are in the sphere and its miracle Cavorite. To further fathom the mystery, they defrost some chemical scientists and set them to work on the problem. When said scientists can progress no further (apparently because the Moon lacks the secret ingredient of Helium), they are re-frosted until again necessary. Because you don't usually see that kind of behavior in a scientist, Cavor suggests an explanation.

Back to Arnold: he discovers the disassembled sphere and its ever-more-important gun. Date an American long enough and it rubs off on you. He rejoins Cavor and Kate and begins planning their return to Earth. Said plan would necessarily require them to steal back all the neccessary pieces of sphere in the Selenite's possession. I told you that gun would be important..

Cavor's having none of it. He came all this way to explore. Now that he's found intelligent life, he simply must meet the Selenite's leader and reason with him. The Grand Lunar grants his request.

At this point, we become well aware that Cavor isn't feeling too well. Climbing all those stairs to the Grand Lunar's throne exacerbates his cough. Cavor's cold isn't just something thrown in at the last minute. It's an important plot device introduced near the beginning of the film and subtly referenced throughout. Now the prologue's decontamination scene begins to make sense. And yes, Wells is introducing the same theme he put in War of the Worlds. "Steal from the best," I suppose he must have thought.

While Kate and Arnold make repairs to the sphere, Cavor sits down and chats with the Grand Lunar. One's from a freedom-loving capitalist society; the other's from a hive mind and absolute dictatorship. Can they work things out?

Er, no. In fact, they can't even see eye-to-eye: one's got an iris; the other's got some compound structure.

While the film deftly suggests there can be no meeting of the minds, I'm a bit cheesed at who comes off as more decent. The film suggests that because the insect-dictator has absolute control over every Selenite, the Moon has no conflict, and is therefore superior to our war-infested world. That's just Wells at his fin-de-siecle worst. Wells and his ilk -- the new progressives -- are responsible for a good share of the Twentieth Century's evil. Experience shows there's no such thing as an enlightened dictator, and no band of forward-thinking intellectuals has ever led a population out of the woods. And don't try to convince us of the wisdom of the command economy by showing us a race of incorruptibles. That's cheating: even the most decent people retain the capacity for evil; they just don't act on it. But put them into exactly the kind of situation Wells suggests, and...

Or maybe I'm wrong, and Wells wasn't such a fuzzy-head. The Grand Lunar keeps coming back to the subject of war. He wants to know what it's like, and how to win. After all, more men from Earth might be coming this way.

In fact, one does. Nearly finished fixing the sphere, Arnold stealthily arrives to retrieve Cavor. Overhearing the martial conversation, Arnold realizes Cavor's been had. With his trusty rifle, he leaps out to save his scientist friend.

Cavor's still in ignorant bliss. Struggling for the rifle, he accidentally sets it off. The round strikes the Grand Lunar's throne and announces the final Selenite push. To escape the lunar horde, our heroes race back to the sphere. There Cavor has a change of heart. He really wants to patch things up and establish a bond of goodwill between the Earth and the Moon. But he doesn't have time. If he and his friends are to escape, they must leave immediately. Sacrificing himself for the good of humanity, Cavor elects to stay behind and continue negotiating with the Grand Lunar.

Ascending through a lens-assembly, Arnold and Kate return to Earth. And we jump ahead sixty-five years into the epilogue.

As Arnold finishes telling his tale to the space detectives, the matron wheels a television into his bedroom.

The U.N.'s astronauts have discovered the Selenite's city. Are they about to be attacked by a tide of lunar insects? And what about the giant caterpllars -- they can't be far off.

Or rather they are. Far off to the point of being dead and gone. The city is ghostly quiet and empty. It's even falling apart. Deducing what you wouldn't think they could from inside their spacesuits, the astronauts conclude that the mysterious inhabitants must have died from a terrible epidemic. As the city crashes in on their heads, the astronauts run back to their craft.

And Arnold gets the last laugh after all.

H.G. Wells' First Men in the Moon is an amusing look at an admittedly turgid book. Overflowing with charm, the film isn't afraid to feature implausible space gear and sit back and laugh at the clumsy results. Frankly, the idea of Victorians in Space is too good not to turn into a feature film. Of course, nowadays, they'd call it "Space: 1899" and fill it with quickly-dated CGI (go back and watch Star Trek VI, and tell me if the Klingon blood looks real). By contrast, the mattes, blue-screens and stop-motion of this film have aged rather well in forty years.

Of course it's a cliché that you don't find films like this today, but it's true. It hasn't got a potty-mouth, or a power-ballad montage, or any toilet humor. Instead it's got an offbeat sense of humor and nostalgia enough for two features. It's also got the U.N. getting to the moon first. That I could do without, but the rest of the film is like a flawless diamond... covered in cavorite and flitting about your house while you reach for the swatter.

In other words, I can't recommend it enough.

Two ears up!

2003-10-06T22:24:00.000-04:00

Cat-Women of the Moon

Audacious and daring, Cat-Women of the Moon spins a cracking yarn of exploration, intrigue, romance and treachery -- set in a cloud-city deep in the bowels of the Moon. As epic in scope as it is feeble in purchase, Cat-Women of the Moon commands you to sit down and watch.

I'm not claiming that the film is without its faults. To be sure, CWOTM has its detractors. But if you haven't been getting your recommended daily allowance of love starved moon maidens on the prowl, CTOTM is your ideal supplement. Let's look at the film.

Not afraid to defy a major science-fiction convention, the film begins after rocket day. We meet our heroes in their spacecraft and well on their way to the moon.

Look familiar? Yes, it's the spaceship set from Project Moonbase. At least Heinlein had the good sense to leave the roller chairs and chaise lounge back on Earth.

Here's our mission commander, Laird Grainger (Sonny Tufts), faking the Gees. Laird has an incomprehensible mode of speech attributable to either his Boston accent, or his love of the fruit of the vine. IMDB says:

Born into a prominent Boston family of bankers whose patriarch was said to have arrived in America from England in 1683, Sonny Tufts would end his career as a Hollywood "bad boy," immersed in drink and scandal.
(IMDB)

So one must guess that the answer is yes on both accounts.

Laird's crew consists of copilot Kip Reissner (Victory Jory), navigator Helen Salinger (Marie Windsor) and two red-shirts. When the Gees subside, captain and crew make their way to their duty stations (no weightlessness here) and assume their duties. Helen's first priority?

Oh, those B-movie dames... [DSM!]

Once settled into their office chairs, the crew contact mission control at White Sands. After Laird announces the rocket ship's status, he grudgingly allows his crew to say a few words to the folks back on Earth. He admonishes them not to say anything goofy, after all "this is a scientific mission, not a stunt."

Naturally the crew gets goofy. After all, the purpose of this scene is to introduce them. The red-shirts need only the slightest characterization: the young one is homesick, while the older red-shirt is greedy. You can tell because he takes the opportunity to endorse some company's product.

On the other hand, Helen's broadcast is decidedly cryptic.

I'm sure you agree that foreshadowing is best served right in your face.

After the broadcast, the film treats us to the Obligatory Meteor Swarm.

An object strikes the rocket in the atomic engine, and sends the ship tumbling. While the situation is dire for the crew, it's a lesson in film school 101 for the film-makers and for us.

Ever wonder why star trek never showed a shot combining the bridge's main viewer and the ol' shakey camera trick? The answer is that they could not. It's extraordinarily difficult (read: expensive) to superimpose an object (e.g., the viewer) on a moving target.

But CWOTM (bless its heart) gives it the old college try. You could say it goes where no man has gone before. Examine the picture above. As the cockpit lurches upward, the viewscreen's image remains fixed in the center of the screen. It's dreadfully noticeable and nearly destroys the willing suspension of disbelief we must maintain in order to take this film seriously,

Back to the film: With the engine damaged, Kip has only seconds to suit up and stop the acid leak before the ship blows apart. Does he succeed?

No. This is a deceptively short movie. The end.

Kidding! Of course Kip saves the day.

Mind you, Kip saved the ship by contradicting his skipper. Captain Laird is a by-the-book skipper. While Laird's grateful to be alive, he's a bit peeved his co-pilot disobeyed him. Typical male, proud peacock vanity. [DSM!]

With the ship out of danger and back on course (bless the atomic engine), the film sits back and relaxes. A little exposition here, a little romantic triangle (Laird-Helen-Kip) there: not much happens. However the crew begin to notice that the intensity of Helen's weird behavior varies inversely to their distance from the Moon. Odd, that.

Landing on the Moon (off-screen, natch) the crew considers their options. Ex-Navy man Kip wants to start work on repairs. As he says: "we never wanted to enter an engagement from which we couldn't disengage." But Helen is adamant: they're on the Moon, they should start exploring. And with that, they suit up.

I see two suits nicked from Project Moonbase and three from Destination Moon. Both of them Heinlein films. Heinlein's legacy in film is small. I count five:

(1) Destination Moon,
(2) Project Moonbase,
(3) The Brain Eaters,
(4) The Puppet Masters, and
(5) Starship Troopers.

CWOTM is not number six. Not even a pretender. By borrowing sets, models and costumes from previous Heinlein films, CWOTM tries to walk the walk, but it can never talk the talk. Let's just get that out in the open right now.

Oh, and Helen doesn't like her exo-atmospheric wardrobe. Neither does Kip. Together they commiserate and accessorize as best they can.

Helen suggests the crew explore a cave she observed during the landing. Despite Kip's protests that Helen could not possibly have seen a cave from the ship's point of vantage, the crew decides "why the heck not?" After all, caves aren't dangerous.

I forgot to mention that they've landed on the dark side of the moon. How did Helen pick a landing site she could never have seen from Earth? Call it women's intuition. [DSM!] Helen's landing site turns out to be a blessing in disguise: the bright side of the Moon is incredibly hot. Approaching the terminator (the line between bright and dark), Laird borrows one of Helen's cigarettes to illustrate the hazards of walking in the harsh solar light.

Absorbing the full spectrum of unfiltered solar radiation, Helen's (unfiltered) cigarette bursts into flame. And it's not been five minutes since Kip pointed out that cigarettes won't burn in an oxygen-poor environment. Consider your intelligences insulted. And not for the first or last times in the film, either.

As the crew proceed into the lunar cave, they feel their boots growing heavier with each step. The only, possible explanation is that they are passing into an atmospheric environment deep inside the moon. No really. Captain Laird explains why.

Or rather he tries. Listen to him again. Whether from the stress or the sauce, Laird can't remember his line. Listen to the greedy red-shirt recover it. No second-takes on this film, that's for sure.

And with the discovery of a breathable atmosphere (confirmed by one of Helen's cigarette matches), the crew doff their suits. And just leave them in a pile, where any old Cat-Woman could steal them. Really. In shirtsleeves, our crew is now much more vulnerable to any potential giant spider attacks.

Visible piano wires and all, a giant spider lurches onscreen. With bared knives, our crew makes short work of it. Screaming in agony, the giant spider dies. Mind you, it's an official movie rule that every deadly spider has a vengeful mate.

This giant lunar spider's a bit hardier than its mate. When knives fail to silence it, Kip finishes off the beast with his gun. Good thing he brought it along! What, you've never heard a spider scream?

Consider it worth the price of admission.

As the men battle the spider, a Cat-Woman slinks onstage to plant some sort of device into Helen's palm. Is this really necessary? Aren't we already aware that Helen is under the telepathic control of the Moon's Cat-Women? Isn't this the film-equivalent of navel gazing?

Onward! By force of will and sheer women's intuition, Helen leads the crew to the destination of her mysterious quest: a giant, cloud-lined chamber deep within the heart of the moon. Inside, the crew mates discover the ruins of an ancient city.

Not too long into their cloud-city sojourns, our heroes are attacked by vicious lunar Cat-Women

While the fight favored our crew, Helen didn't appear to be a team player. Were her loyalties divided?

In fact they are. Cat-Woman "Alpha" steals Helen away to a secret cat-lair. There, she ~~dumps a major load of exposition~~ explains why Helen has come to be a member of this first lunar expedition.

For several years, Helen has been under the telepathic control of the Cat-Women. Educating her in the ways of celestial navigation, the Cat-Women have strived to secure for Helen a place on a lunar rocket.

Now that Helen is on the Moon (and within the total telepathic grasp of the Cat-Women), she shall be the means through which the Cat-Women can steal the rocketship and travel to Earth.

Why? To take over the world, of course. But how?

As you know, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Helen introduces the crew to the Cat-Women, who promptly ply the men with food and wine.

From the DVD Liner Notes:
Phipps [Homesick redshirt] recalls that Victor Jory [Kip] and Windsor [Helen] "took themselves so seriously," particularly Jory, who grumbled on the day before shooting began that if star Sonny Tufts [Laird] (a known carouser) took a drink during working hours, "I'll knock him on his (bleeping) ass!"

Here's Laird asking for a refill on the wine.

Since the Cat-Women can't establish psychic links with the Earthmen, they try to trick the crew into revealing how the rocketship works. Once the Cat-Women learn enough to fly to Earth, they'll dispose of the crew.

Always the skeptic, Kip's wise to the Cat-Women's treachery. He confronts Helen to make her spill the beans.

Always the gentleman, that Kip.

Meanwhile, the Cat-Women have the greedy redshirt totally bamboozled. He brings a Cat-Woman aboard Moon Rocket 4 and explains how he works the controls. She catches on quick... too quick if you ask him.

Once the Cat-Women learn all they can from him, they lure him with the prospect of gold nuggets to a deadly ambush. One down, three to go.

Sated, the crew retire for the night. They awake to the sights and sounds of the mysterious Cat-Women of the Moon interpretive dance.

The dance doesn't advance the plot, doesn't develop the Characters of the Cat-Women and doesn't really deserve to be in the film. Unless you came to the theater expecting to see Lunar Cat-Women dance. Enjoy it while it lasts, because the rest of the film quickly heads downhill.

With not much time remaining in the film, the love triangle between Laird, Helen and Kip is hastily resolved. An argument reveals that Helen's love for Laird is a hypnotic suggestion planted by the Cat-Women. Her trance shattered by Kip's strong grip, Helen declares her love for Kip. Laird takes the news rather well, considering.

Lambda, the youngest of the Cat-Women, falls hard for the homesick redshirt. Betraying her Cat-sisters, she confesses the Cat-plot and urges the men to leave at once. As the crew make their way back to their spaceship, the Cat-Women attack!

With his trusty pistol, Kip dispatches the Cat-Women (off screen). I suppose the film-makers couldn't think of a heroic way to show a leading man gunning down a gaggle of gals. Come to think of it, neither can I.

Our protagonists return to their rocketship and blast off. Helen (properly disabused of the notion that Cat-Women should take over the world) becomes once again a team player. When Mission Control radios for an update, the crew ruefully sigh that that's a long story. The end.

Upon reflection, Cat-Women of the Moon isn't the epic space struggle I thought it would be. It steals from the best, but churns out the worst. It's possible to film a space-age battle-of-the-sexes. In Like Flint hinted at the possibilities. But this film lacks Flint's charm. In fact, it lacks any charm.

Cat-Women of the Moon shares many of the same faults plaguing Journey to the Far Side of the Sun. Why go to the trouble of putting on the tropes of science fiction if you intend to contradict the science? Why take the pains to establish a presumably plausible (for 1953) journey to the Moon, if the film is more properly filed in the "lost tribe of Amazons" genre?

I'm not saying Amazon films don't have their place in the pantheon of B-moviedom: they do -- right next to the Women in Prison films. Just don't dress them up in Heinlein sets and costumes. That's almost false advertising.

In summary, Cat-Women of the Moon is a pretender to the rocketship film genre. It's not even a good drive-in movie. Would you take your date to a he-versus-she film in which one side won?

Two ears down

2003-10-04T19:37:00.000-04:00

Project Moonbase

Project Moonbase is one of those deeply controversial films. With legions of both fans and detractors, it chronicles the American struggle to reach our moon and establish a military outpost. And bring some of the finest chauvinism into the canon of classic sci-fi movies.

To its critics, the ripeness of this film's potential for mockery is evinced by its appearance in Mystery Science Theater's very first season. Yet I count myself among its strongest fans. Why?

That's right, the maestro has a writing credit.

Set in 1970, the film transports us into the dark and retched world of communist subterfuge. Dr. Roundtree (Herb Jacobs) sits at the center of a cabal of enemy agents seeking a way to infiltrate and destroy America's nuclear-tipped space station.

And he has a neat wireless telephone. Back in the seventies, didn't we all?

Discovering that an American payload specialist on an upcoming flight (Dr. Werhner, played by Larry Johns) bears a strong resemblance to one of his evil agents, Roundtree begins 24-hour surveillance of Wernher's hotel. When the double (also played by Larry Johns) is ready, Roundtree poses as a bellboy to gain entrance to Wernher's room. Boy does he give Wernher what for!

Fake-Wernher swaps clothes with his comatose counterpart, grabs his bags and takes an official car to the United States Space Command (SPACOM) launch facility. Mind you, the official driver doesn't take fake-Wernher through the main gate -- rather he drops his passenger off curbside.

Wouldn't you hate to live across the street from that? Oh, and isn't SPACOM the trendsetter when it comes to headgear?

While fake-Wernher rushes through security, we meet General 'Pappy' Greene (Hayden Rorke, who would go on to serve the American space program again as Dr. Bellows on I Dream of Jeannie. He's explaining to Major Bill Moore (Ross Ford) what an honor it is for Major Moore to command the first circumlunar flight.

Bill's pleased as pie, but an unexpected telegram brings disastrous news: the President of the United States demands that Colonel Breiteis (Donna Martell) be the mission commander. Oops, consider that credit a spoiler. Up to this point, the characters have been really careful not to use any sex-specific articles to refer to Col. Breiteis. Throughout the film, not a single person refers to her by first name. So when she walks through the door, boy are we supposed to be in for a big surprise.

Breiteis is the star of America's space program. She flew the first orbital mission (in part because she weighed a lot less than the other candidates). Having risen so quickly through the ranks, she's a bit lippy. Good thing Pappy's here to set her straight.

In preparation for the circumlunar flight, Pappy assembles the three astronauts (Breiteis, Bill and fake-Wernher) and a reporter for a quick ~~exposition dump~~ briefing. It's pretty standard stuff, but one thing struck me upon the second viewing:

The models he uses to illustrate the flight aren't just the kind of contractor gratuities you often see on the desks of officers, they're the actual models used to film the scenes set in space. Mr. Heinlein, did you sign off on that decision?

Reporter Polly Prattles (Barbara Morrison) attends, because the meeting would drag without a comic foil. She asks Pappy about weightlessness, and he is only too happy to expound on the subject. But when she asks whether she might be able to visit the space station, Pappy very diplomatically declines to extend an offer. His explanation: lifting mass into orbit is tremendously expensive, and Polly could afford to miss a few meals. Of course, that's not what he says verbatim, but -- oh my -- there is no delicate way to construct the explanation, is there?

By now, you might be thinking: "Pappy's not coming off to well. Are we supposed to like him or hate him?" Well he redeems himself with the best line of dialog ever written.

And with that, it's rocket day.

You know what that means, right? Simulated Gees!

Their craft, the rocketship Mexico (Serial #63) is a single-stage-to-orbit rocket with all the latest technology on display in the cockpit. As you will see in subsequent pictures, it's got everything: big clocks, spinning reels of film, banks of elevator lights. About what you'd expect in 1970, really.

Our protagonists arrive at the space station and begin preparing their circumlunar rocket (the Magellan) for its historic flight.

It's the ugly-looking thing stuck to the starboard hatch.

How do our heroes tolerate free-fall? Breiteis gets a bit of the space-sickness, while Bill gleefully leaps out of his acceleration couch -- and promptly drops to the floor. Just like on the Shuttle. Normally I'd let that slide, but in the next scenes everybody makes a big deal about magnetic shoe discipline.

And wearing seatbelts in the briefing room.

This briefing is entirely redundant. Even Pappy's present. Are we going to sit through another discussion about the importance of the upcoming circumlunar flight, just to admire an optical effect? Yes, enjoy.

With the briefing at an end, our protagonists make their way to the Magellan and depart for the Moon.

Is that plastic siding on the cabin interior? What a strange material to use here. In fact, it's a spoiler, but a very oblique one. You'll have to read the BMS's next review to dispel the mystery.

As our protagonists jet off to the Moon, I bet you're wondering: "what's fake-Wernher doing on the moon rocket?" As you recall, he has orders to blow up the space station. Like any self-respecting military space station, the platform has but two vulnerabilities:

-sabotage the magazine's A-bombs, or
-ram the space station with an object of sufficient mass and velocity.

Looks like fake-Wernher's going with Plan B.

And what better way is there to execute a secret plan than to blow one's cover. He arouses suspicion by taking too keen an interest in the Magellan's controls. And because he's using the real Wernher's legend (Brooklyn scientist), he ought to be slightly conversant on the subject of the Dodgers.

Surmising that Dr. Wernher is a fraud, Bill attempts to wake and warn Breiteis. In his efforts, Bill is too loud for his own good. Fake-Werner overhears the conversation and realizes this is a now-or-never moment.

Like any ditzy broad, Breiteis just won't accept Bill's theory. Her doubts dissolve when fake Wernher attacks!

In the struggle, fake-Wernher's hand slips and strikes Breiteis's control board. Igniting the engines, he sends the spaceship hurtling to the moon with tremendous force. How tremendous? Try floor six!

Breiteis struggles to regain control of her ship, while Bill subdues and incapacitates fake-Wernher. With horror, Breiteis realizes the Magellan has arrived at the Moon ahead of schedule. But the extra speed came a terrible cost: the ship hasn't nearly enough fuel to return to Earth. Her only choice is to land and hope for rescue.

And to think that her Academy nickname was 'Free-return Breiteis.' Anyway, she sets the ship down inside a crater on the edge of the dark side of the moon.

Without a line of sight back to Earth, our protagonists will never be able to call for rescue. Is this the end? And why am I including fake-Wernher among the protagonists anyway?

The film answers by presenting us with the script's penultimate conflict: survival. In this abrupt change-of-plot, Project Moonbase reveals the full scope of its ambition. As you know, there are only three plots in the entire library of human endeavor:

1) Man versus Nature,
2) Man versus Man, and
3) Man versus Woman.

Timing in at just 63 minutes, Project Moonbase adroitly encompasses all three. Who said Heinlein couldn't write?

Realizing her efforts at landing the ship have only stranded our heroes to an inevitable end, Breiteis breaks down. Just like any ship's captain would do. Realizing her mistake, she apologizes in a manner I don't think compensates adequately...

Bill proposes a long-shot: use fake-Wernher's payload (television cameras) and part of the radio shack to create a radio relay station on the lip of the crater. With the help of his pistol (!) he convinces fake-Wernher to suit-up and assist him. In fact, fake-Wernher has a complete change of heart and renounces his Communist associations. Either he's scheming something, or the writers needed a likeable character for an upcoming heroic death. As they trek off, they wonder whether their oxygen supplies will last them through their mission. Breiteis breathlessly monitors the situation from back in the cockpit.

And there, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the vaunted 1970's spaceship set.

While Bill sets up the relay, fake-Wernher steps on a squishy moonrock (who knew?). Falling to his death, he neatly resolves the O2 question.

Or rather, he doesn't. Bill must still gasp his way back to the spaceship.

With Bill safely back aboard, Breiteis turns her attentions to the radio. Contacting Earth, she explains our surviving protagonists' predicament. Pappy promises logistical drone rockets, resolving the man-versus-nature conflict. In fact, he designates the Magellan as the new Moonbase One. Now how will a young man and a pretty lady pass the time? That's right, Project Moonbase lurches into plot three. You want witty, romantic banter, you got it baby.

Back at SPACOM, Pappy calls the President to announce the lunar landing. Together they discuss the novel problem confronting them. SPACOM can't have an unmarried man and woman shacking up together. It just wouldn't do. SPACOM must either return our astronauts to Earth or convince them to marry.

SPACOM decides to go with Plan B.

Pappy pitches the prospect to Bill, who isn't as receptive as you might think. After some goading, Bill decides to take one for the team.

Here's his big moment: man's first proposal in space. And just like Armstrong, he flubs it.

Not to worry, as they say: in space, you always get a second chance. And with that, it's wedding day.

But wait, there's more. Mr. Major marries Miss Colonel? Will hilarity ensue? Er, no.

Madame President (Ernestine Barrier) calls the Moonbase to announce Bill's promotion to Brigadier General. Said promotion was Breiteis' secret wedding gift to Bill. Now all's right in the world and on the Moon. The end.

Now that you've practically seen the film, you might wonder why I enjoy this film as much as I do. I'll confess the spaceship models are inferior, and the ambiance is really hokey. But Project Moonbase saves itself in the details. The science is well above film-average. Especially for 1953. The film doesn't always play by its own rules, but the rules it establishes are more or less right. Weightlessness, consumables, commies and fiancés: these are what astronauts worry about. So what if Project Moonbase fails to reach its mark; it sets the mark awfully high and for that I admire and recommend it.

Two ears up.

2003-09-27T22:11:00.000-04:00

Journey to the Far Side of the Sun

In the late sixties, a single film changed the way we think of science fiction. Part puzzling and part profound, ths film featured breakthrough work in miniatures and a languid, evocative score. The script introduced high concepts and asked difficult questions, like do we have identical, yet opposite twins on another planet?

Journey to the Far Side of the Sun is a truly unforgettable film: made in 1969, its effects are only a fraction diminished. In its day, it must have set a visual standard for subsequent films. And you'll not soon stop wondering: "who wrote this junk, and does he or she (actually both) think we're idiots?"

Part of the problem with Journey is its ambition. The film wants to be more than it can accomplish in less than two hours. I suspect the initial shooting draft (if filmed in its entirety) would have timed out at six or more hours. Since that's far longer than the endurance of the average human's bladder, something had to go. And that's the second of Journey's problems: the film has been edited as if to increase bewilderment. It's obvious large chunks of the script have been removed, but the remaining sections aren't properly mended together.

For example:
* A failing marriage between two main characters -- obviously intended to be presented as a full fledged plot element -- is reduced to two or three scenes. You can easily tell there are pages missing from what remains on screen.

* A romance between one of the above spouses and his paramour is gone. Its absence is obvious: whenever these two characters are together, they're making moon eyes at each other. And holding hands. And kissing. Did this relationship cause the marriage to fail? Or did he jump from a dying marriage into the arms of a pretty stranger? Don't expect this movie to supply the answer...

* The wife even takes a lover. Maybe. She keeps giving one particular guy the look. But without any context, she's behaving ridiculously.

* The protagonist is supposed to have an episode where he questions which is right: reality or his memory. We can tell because the plot implies the conflict. But even while the film shows us none of his inner turmoil, towards the end of the film it resolves the conflict by presenting the evidence the protagonist needs to confirm his sanity. In fact, the film shoves the evidence right in the viewer's face, as if to say "notice me. I am significant. I resolve the protagonist's conflict of character which I deleted from the final cut of the film.

* There's a bit of espionage, so brief as to make you wonder why they took the trouble. And more stuff, but by now I think you get the idea.

So the only way to evaluate this film is on its own terms. It's really a six to twelve hour miniseries, but the director won't let you see it all. Instead he'll fast forward from highlight to highlight. Frustrating? You bet.

Also problematic is the film's science. With my willing suspension of disbelief, I'm especially generous to science fiction (hello Star Wars). But Journey is a film which takes your good faith and abuses it. And doesn't stick around or call you the next day or bring you flowers and an apology. I'm not so keen on those kind of films. How 'bout you?

With that out of the way, let's look at the film.

Journey begins with a prologue set in Portugal at the European Space Exploration Complex. Right off the bat you begin to suspect this is going to be one of those boring talky French films. I'm happy to say it isn't, but sad to say your troubles are only beginning.

Here's our spy, Doctor Hassler (Herbert Lom), trying to sneak into the library. He's not in the film very long, but he does move the exposition along. Here's the kind of security you can expect from EUROSEC.

Typical European government efficiency: infrastructure protection and family planning in one convenient scanner!

Dr. Hassler smuggles a camera in his eyeball and takes pictures of secret EUROSEC data by tapping his head. Then he goes back to his house, develops the film and, by watching a slide show, studies the same documents he was just reading. End of prologue, roll the main credits.

I'd like to mention that the credits end at about the eight minute mark. No problem in a miniseries, but this is a 100 minute film. That means we're close to a tenth of the way done with this movie and we haven't met a single main character, nor have we been introduced to the plot. C'mon film: fix it already!

Here's Jason Webb (Patrick Wymark): action bureaucrat with EUROSEC. He kicks off the film by attending a meeting. Actually it's a teleconference and a big cheat on the part of the filmmakers. It's well past time they introduce the main characters and explain the plot. A scene in which the main characters introduce each other by name, sit down and start talking about the plot is simply lazy writing. On the other hand, it is a teleconference (probably novel enough to be neato in 1969). And when the EUROSEC delegate from Bonn announces he won't fund a manned flight to examine the curious results brought back by Sun Probe One, Jason uncorks a mild ethnic insult.

Like any good project manager, Jason needs projects to manage. Now that the French and Germans won't pay for his new rocket, Jason tries to bring the Americans into the project. But they aren't buying either.

Did I mention Jason's a real jerk? It almost works. He brags about his people skills, and demonstrates them by yelling and trying to make people feel ashamed and embarrassed. Dale Carnegie ain't got nothing on our Jason. Besides he's got cool toys like rocket humidors and cardiac watches.

Patrick Wymark died the following year of a heart attack

In the meantime Jason resolves the espionage subplot by dispatching his assassin. I didn't know they issue assassins to bureaucrats over there. First the corner office, then the company car, and lastly the assassin. It's the least you can do for a man who devotes his life to public service.

By killing Dr. Hassler, Jason proves the existence of a spy at EUROSEC. One must assume the Sun Probe One data is compromised. The other side knows or will soon know. Deftly turning the discovery into a race, Jason invites NASA to reconsider. Indeed it does, but at a price: one of the two Astronauts must be American.

As you know Astronauts like to make an entrance. Our American protagonist arrives in a transatlantic VTOL jet/bus.

It's Colonel Glenn Ross (Roy Thinnes), and his wife Sharon (Lynn Loring). Don't they make a nice couple? Not for long!

Glenn meets up with Jason and "Scientist" John Kane (Ian Hendry) to take a tour of the space complex.

By the way, Jason has decided to make John the Astronaut copilot. Is he even a pilot or an astronaut? No, but he's a scientist, and I hear they pick up stuff pretty quick. At any rate, he better. As Jason quips: "training starts tomorrow!"

Cut to some obligatory centrifuge training. I won't post a picture. Seen one, seen 'em all. Glenn takes it in stride, while John gets a bit weak in the knees. But things get worse for John on the rocket sled.

Here in America, we use rocket sleds to test ejection seats. But over there, they train astronauts on them. Go figure. John really suffers for his new calling. Note the wind-blown, flappy-mouth effect.

Yes, that'll happen if you ride the rocket sled. But not if you're sitting in an enclosed cab, as John is in the above picture.

At the end of the day's training, Glenn heads home. Sharon's not there. In fact she's on an unfilmed subplot. Glenn even makes a veiled reference to it as she steps through the door. Unfazed, Sharon heads for the shower. Glenn follows after, touting the good news about the results from his flight physical.

“Everything works... Everything.”

Sharon’s not having anything to do with that double entendre. In fact, she spits at length about all the radiation Glenn’s soaked up on prior missions. “And that’s why you’re sterile!”

Actually, I would have fingered EUROSEC’s full-body scanner as the infertility culprit. But listen to her: Yeow! Both barrels.

How can Glenn respond? With the ace up his sleeve. Or if not an ace, one of these:

And with that, Glenn wins the argument, does a victory dance and slaps her for good measure. Okay, I was kidding about the victory dance.

That’s what the audience paid to see: a likeable hero.

After some more training and flirting with young Lisa Hartmann (Loni von Friedl), Glenn reports to surgery for his Heart-Kidney-Lung machine interface.

It’s a long trip to the far side of the sun (three weeks). Both astronauts need to hook themselves up to the HKL and zonk out for the whole trip. Plausible, really.

Now 45 minutes into the film (or ~45% done) it’s finally rocket day. Note all the cars and trucks parked next to the launch pad. I think they’ll need a washing, don’t you?

Glenn and John blast off, strap into the HKL machine and go to sleep. As their spaceship (“the phoenix”) cruises to the far side of the sun, the filmmakers slap up some psychedelic images.

Hey, you loved this stuff when Kubrick did it. So no sense complaining about it here!

Arriving 1 AU out from the far side of the sun (2 AU from Earth, if you get my drift), they discover a new planet. The following picture is brilliant, and only emphasizes this movie’s wasted potential.

After a few orbits, Glenn and John collect enough data to conclude that the new planet can support their respiratory requirements. They decide to land, using the lifting body (“the dove”) thoughtfully tucked in the back of the Phoenix.

What follows next is a scene many critics have used as an example of the film’s myriad faults. We may grant that it may take the astronauts several minutes to move from the command module to the cockpit of the spaceplane. But that’s no excuse for displaying every second of the process on the screen. The point could easily be conveyed in less than the nearly five minutes of ponderous weightless ballet squeezed into this scene.

Remember: the filmmakers decided to cut out whole subplots in favor of this stuff. Amazing.

The landing does not go well. In fact, it’s a crash. Barely surviving the ordeal, and scrambling to get a safe distance from their exploding spaceplane, our heroes notice an eerie light approaching the wreck.

A strange humanoid figure floats down, snatches Glenn and drags him skyward. When they arrive at the alien’s ship, Glenn is about to cold cock the fellow, when the alien announces he’s part of Ulan Bator’s Air-Sea Rescue.

What the heck? Really, what is going on?

Ulan Bator is the capitol of Mongolia, a land-locked country hundreds of miles from the Pacific. What use have they for an Air-Sea Rescue?

Oh, and what are they doing on Earth, three weeks ahead of schedule? That’s what EUROSEC would also like to know.

Snatching our astronauts out of Mongolia, EUROSEC whisks them back to Portugal for medical tests. They even wheel out the machine with lots of unlabeled switches.

Remind me what that one does?

While John recuperates in a hypo-baric chamber, Glenn reports to the interrogation chamber.

Whoa there. the EUROpean Space Exploration Complex has an interrogation chamber. And assassins. In these departments, NASA is woefully behind.

EUROSEC just won’t believe Glenn’s story. He needed three weeks to fly to the new planet and three weeks to return. That’s a journey of at least six weeks (more if they stayed to take pictures). Why has Glenn returned in only three weeks? Not even Glenn has a good answer. Not yet anyway.

Sharon arrives to collect Glenn and take him home. On this Earth she’s surprisingly friendly (oops, spoiler). Kind of the opposite of the way she was on the other Earth (oops again). Glenn doesn’t notice she’s driving on the opposite side of the car, but he does object to her driving on the opposite side of the road. Like any man, Glenn is fastidious about critiquing his wife’s driving.

When Glenn gets home, he’s annoyed to discover the whole house is rearranged. That darn wife again! She even put the labels on his bottles on backwards. The only way he can read his cologne bottle is by holding it up to a mirror.

Place your bets: who thinks Sharon’s gonna get what’s coming to her? Sharon bets wisely, calling the EUROSEC police. They send looney bin guards to subdue Glenn.

Note the fish tank embedded in the wall. You don’t see that here. We Yanks are such unsophisticated rubes.

In the aftermath of the explosive Glenn, Sharon announces that the marriage is over. That’s a bit confusing.

While I might be inferring too much here, I think the writers want to stress that on this identical-but-opposite planet, people are their opposites. The original Sharon is cold, while opposite-Sharon is kind. Other characters behave in opposite ways. Jason likes to say “never trust the computers.” Later he says “always trust the computers.” Of course it’s the same opposite-Jason contradicting himself, but I think the filmmakers want to stress something about the duality of man. Like the rest of the film, this aspect is introduced and left unresolved.

Meanwhile, EUROSEC is wondering if Glenn’s opposite-planet theory is plausible. So they pump him full of drugs and force him to flashback the movie. Twice. Yep, while under the influence of hazy, psychedelic images he imagines a super-condensed version of the entire film up to this point. And again. I think they are trying to emphasize that EUROSEC really doubt his story. I think they want to convey that EUROSEC force Glenn to repeat his experience many, many more times just to make sure. But think what an opportunity they miss here. Think of all the other lost opportunities in this film. At least one of them could be recovered and resolved instead of introducing this doubly (even triply) redundant scene. My head hurts.

Meanwhile, John dies. That’s it. No dying words. No scientific advice to clear up the mysteries (why else put a scientist on this mission). At least we’re lucky he dies onscreen. Think of all the other useful stuff we don’t get to see and be grateful.

At the autopsy, the doctor reveals to Jason that John’s organs are reversed. With this conclusive evidence, Jason has a heart-to-heart with Glenn. After Glenn explains his opposite-worlds theory, Jason admits he’s come to a similar conclusion. If you haven’t figured out by now that the solar system has two Earths, each directly opposite another in orbit, the film helpfully projects a second, ghostly Glenn to hammer home the point.

Now that everybody’s on the same page, only one thing remains: get Glenn home. It takes a while to put together a new mission. Glenn kills the time with opposite-Lisa.

Three things here:

1) Nobody’s told Glenn that his wife left.
2) Shouldn’t opposite-Lisa be cold to him?
3) If someone did tell him about Sharon offscreen, he’s sure taking the news well.

Since the original lifting body is toast, EUROSEC prepares a new spaceplane to take Glenn back up to the Phoenix. Unfortunately, it’s an opposite-spaceplane, and nobody knows whether the electricity in its systems flows in the same direction as the electricity in the Phoenix.

Hey hold on. I know next to nothing about electricity. But if EUROSEC were worried that the electrical connections on the opposite-spaceplane were reversed from the fittings on the Phoenix, they could build an adapter. Glenn could park the spaceplane next to the Phoenix and spacewalk over with a meter and test the theory. With his results, he could decide whether or not to install the adapter. Problem solved, right?

Electrons are electrons all over the universe. Even on opposite-Earth. Unless of course the film is proposing opposite-electrons. To do that, this film would (in 1969) have to propose a heliocentric view of the universe. A view in which electrons in one half of the universe flow in one direction, and the opposite way in the opposite half. And the dividing line would pass straight through the entire universe, bisecting our sun.

And yes, that appears to be what the film asks the viewer to accept. And no, they don’t wonder whether the sun itself is composed of both electrons and opposite-electrons. I bet you wondered about that too. Well they didn’t.

Either way, Glenn’s off. He executes a fuel-guzzling VTOL take-off (less passenger mass, I guess). He approaches the Phoenix to dock.

Note the retro’s exhaust rising, as hot gasses do in an atmosphere (as opposed to low Earth orbit). Yes, at this point I’m getting spiteful.

When the spaceplane mates with the Phoenix, the electron flows don’t match. Ouch.

Separated, both the Phoenix and the spaceplane descend into the atmosphere with fiery results for the former.

Meanwhile, EUROSEC locks onto Glenn’s spaceplane and guides it down using a homing beacon. Technically that shouldn’t be possible after a total electronic failure. I give up.

Since the beacon will guide the spaceplane back to EUROSEC (a place filled with things that burn), the range safety officer takes no chances. He orders everyone to the retractable blockhouses. Retractable blockhouses?

Glenn can’t disengage the beacon. Without it, he could manually fly the spaceplane -- even safely ditch it somewhere. But the total electrical failure zapped his radio, and he’s out of luck. He strikes a vehicle assembly building and ricochets onto a fully-fueled ersatz Saturn V. The end for Glenn.

The ersatz Saturn V falls over (neato) and demolishes most of the complex. Glenn’s taken most of his friends with him. After all, audiences hate happy endings

But wait: that’s not the end of the film. Because (as I suspect) this film was to be much, much longer, it includes an epilogue. We get to see what became of Jason.

It’s unsaid but implied that Jason’s fiasco forced him into an early retirement. We meet him years into the future, when he has become embittered and decrepit. He mutters about how all the data from Glenn’s mission blew up with the complex. He can offer no proof about the existence of an opposite (read: our normal) Earth. Even his nurse ridicules him about his stories.

When she leaves him alone for a moment, Jason spots his reflection in a mirror down the hall. “Hey, that’s an opposite me over there,” he deduces.

Trust me, I am telling the truth. Here’s how the movie ends.

Jason reaches out. Seeing his opposite respond in kind, he barrels his wheelchair down the hall. With tremendous speed, he hurls himself into the mirror.

Does Jason cross over into the opposite world, or is he impaled on shards of glass and reflective coat? Since you didn’t have to sit through the film like I did, I’m going to be mean and withhold the answer.

Two ears down. Unless you like drinking games. In that case, this film is rich fodder. Spot the plot hole. Spot the whanging implausibility. And endless variations.

2003-01-11T20:23:00.000-05:00

Biozombie

This film is so obscure, IMDB hasn't even heard of it yet. Think of it as our little secret. The soundtrack is kinda neat, too (200 KB, right-click and save).

Biozombie is a tender exploration of friendship, brotherhood, duty and courage -- set against the backdrop of a worldwide invasion of zombies from Iraq (yes you read that right).

Woody Invincible and Crazy Bee aren't just employees at a bootleg adult VCD shop, they're best friends. Inseparable, they like to cruise the mall and pitch woo to the young ladies.

Rolls and Jelly are more than just beauticians, they're best friends too. And they like nothing more than to mooch free food from Lloyd the Sushi Boy.

Sounds like a double-date, right? But what about poor Sushi Boy?

Meanwhile, a secret deal is going down at the docks. A trio of Iraqi bioweapons specialists have smuggled for sale a zombie agent (ZA) concealed in a harmless soda bottle. They've also brought a poorly restrained test-zombie, who closes the deal in the messiest way imaginable.

Only one of the buyers survives the deal, but today just isn't his day. Woody and Crazy happen to be out for a drive, and smack him with their car.

Woody and Crazy are decent chaps and they try to make the dying pedestrian feel comfortable. When he gasps something about a "soft drink," Crazy finds the soda bottle and obliges. Whoops: you should have read the ingredients more closely!

Woody and Crazy put the dead pedestrian in the trunk of their car and drive back to the mall. Isn't that what you'd do? Well yes, if you had dates for the evening. They meet Rolls and Jelly at the Sushi Bar for dinner. (Who is handing out names in Hong Kong?)

When the beer gets to their heads, Woody and Rolls sneak off to the little girls' room. Sushi Boy takes his own bathroom break, and gets attacked by the zombie who has emerged from the trunk of Woody's car. Sure that's big news, but what bad timing!

Woody organizes a posse, but the zombie is nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, Rolls tends to Sushi Boy's neck bite. It's only superficial, but Lloyd's feeling ever more zombie by the minute.

From this point, you can predict the rest of the movie. A small band of humans is trapped in a shopping mall while an ever growing army of zombies prowls the corridors. Sounds familiar, no?

Sure this film's a rip off, but at least it's stealing from the best. Plus it's full of ridiculous characters, and isn't afraid to stop and laugh at them.

Take Lloyd, for example. Sure he turns into a zombie, but he's a monster with a heart of gold. Like the other zombies, he SMASHES and MOANS, but he shows his tender side by dragging back a present for Rolls -- who still won't date him even if he is a zombie and stuff.

Every zombie aficionado will love this film. And so will the 'gamerz.' When the policemen's bullets won't stop the advancing zombies, Crazy Bee remembers the lesson of Resident Evil: only the head-shot does the trick!

Perhaps the funniest scene in the film features Lloyd tending sushi bar. Yes he's a zombie but he still has to work to pay the rent. When his zombie patrons suspect Rolls isn't really a zombie, Lloyd offers her some finger food to prove her bona fides.

Meanwhile the survivors are proving to be not-so-survivable after all. With only five humans left, Woody acts like a regular Hannibal and assembles his A-Team. More fun video game humor!

Unfortunately, the plan doesn't come together. There's just too many zombies. Mr. & Mrs. Kui go down together. The surviving trio retreat to the security room to regroup. But Crazy Bee's been bitten! Woody needs to find a way out of the mall and get his friend to the hospital fast. If only he had the proper equipment!

Crazy Bee is dying, and he knows it. He asks that his corpse be rendered zombie proof. So Woody does what any friend would do, and cuts Crazy's head off. He was already dead, wasn't he?

Now Woody and Rolls must battle their way down to the basement and find a car. But that security door looks formidable, doesn't it?

It's a good thing Lloyd shows up! Because he's still sweet on Rolls, he uses his zombie strength to lift the door and fend off the zombies while our protagonists escape. Lloyd is devoured for his troubles, but since when did any good deed go unpunished?

When they stop for gas, Woody checks the station's TV to watch for emergency bulletins. Meanwhile, Rolls is thirsty. Unwittingly, she takes a swig of ZA.

Woody can only watch in horror. What would you do in Woody's place? I think you'll agree he did the right thing.

I smell a sequel!

Biozombie is not a big budget blockbuster in any sense of those words. Instead it's a cheap yet witty take on a distinguished movie genre. If you like zombies or videogames, you'll love this movie. And if you want to set off your DVD collection with the funniest and most obscure little horror film ever, you'll want to follow the link at the top of the page and get your own copy.

Or -- heck -- go to Suncoast and browse through the bins like I did.

Two ears up!

2003-01-04T18:01:00.000-05:00

Wings

Set in the Great War, Wings is a movie about how America punched its way over to Europe and kicked everybody's butt. Note to Europe: we still have our old maps on file, in case you get any funny ideas.

Jack Powell is an all-American young lad who likes to lie in the grass when he's not working on his hot rod. Mary Preston has a big crush on him, if he would only care to notice. She paints a shooting star on his car, and Jack is all 'yeah, whatever.'

Jack has the hots for Sylvia Lewis. Real bad hots -- like interrupt her date with David Armstrong to take her for a spin in the Shooting Star kind of hots.

By now you're thinking: I thought I rented a war movie. Where is the freakin' war? Well it's here: the Army comes to town and everyone enlists in flight school.

Ah the golden age of diversity. Anyway, the film takes a break while everybody says farewell to their families and reports for basic. Sylvia declares her love for David on the back of a photograph she puts in a locket. Jack drops by and nicks the locket, mistakenly thinking it's for him. Oh I get it: it's a romantic war comedy. This film has everything.

Mary drops by to give Jack a lucky photograph of herself. That'll earn her a shaken hand. Poor Mary!

David would like to say a tearful farewell to his family, but trees don't cry. He heads off, not forgetting to take along his favorite childhood toy. He's ready to cry havoc and let slip the teddy-bears of war!

Welcome to Flight Training lads! First we're going to spin you around, teach you how to shoot machineguns, give you lots of PT and finally let you all bash each other silly. If there's a better way to make fighter pilots, I've never heard of it.

Rivals for the affection of the fair Sylvia, Jack and David aren't exactly best buddies. Not until they really pound the stuffing out of each other do they become good friends. The Army is weird like that. And mind glove there Jack!

Meanwhile Mary wants to join the party. Sorry, the Army doesn't isn't taking lady fighter pilots for another sixty years. But they are taking ambulance drivers (ask Ernest Hemingway).

Gary Cooper drops by to get killed in a horrible training crash. It's not really worth mentioning, but for that remarkable AoD meme: Yanks distributing Hershey Bars.

With their training complete, Jack and David deploy to Europe, where Jack unleashes a bon mot which hasn't aged especially well.

Don't worry Jack, just wait til you get to Paris. You will, you will. In the meantime, you're on Dawn Patrol.

Now we get to the heart of the picture -- the stuff you've been waiting for. The flying combat scenes are really amazing. Especially because -- but for the fake bullets and blood -- this is completely real: real planes, real maneuvering and real crashes (well okay, they used models for the midair collision). There's only one special effect: when a plane catches fire it pops off a smoke pot and someone in post production paints fakey-looking flames underneath the plane. The flames detract and ought to have been omitted.

Jack's plane is hit, and he loses oil pressure. So he forces a landing and escapes to the British lines.

Meanwhile Mary's on the scene in her red cross ambulance (and fetching uniform). First thing she does is plow into a pedestrian (crazy lady driver!). He's okay, but no dummy! He plays sick for a little Florence Nightingale TLC.

Mary continues into town to deliver flu shots. Everyone in town has already got the warning: a mighty Goltha bomber is overhead. Mary finds the town deserted, a fact which strikes her as puzzling (ditzy broad!).

Bombs away! Mary hides under her ambulance and survives. But what about the flu shots? Oh the carnage!

Jack and David to the rescue! David shoots down half the fighter escort while Jack takes on the bomber. Folks this film is worth seeing for this scene alone. Look how close they were flying!

That hot flying's worth a couple of medals. And decorations are nice, but the sloppy French kissing? You can see David could do without.

At least they can take leave and visit Paris. And since they are American they ride into town on horseback and start a couple of bar fights. You show'em guys!

Mary's in Paris, too -- looking for some time alone with Jack. It's too bad he's too busy chatting up the Parisian dames and getting smashed on the French bubbly. He's so Champagne-goggled he doesn't even recognize her.

But he does have eyes for David! This film is getting a little too buddy-cop for its own good.

Getting desperate, Mary changes into a dancing-girl's uniform. Jack's only human, and he makes it as far as Mary's bedroom before passing out.

When Mary begins to tuck Jack into bed she notices his lucky locket. So that must be where he put her photograph! When she opens up the locket she is not amused.

In a snit, she decides not to tell him that his leave was recently cancelled (because of the upcoming big push). While changing back into her ambulance driver's uniform she gets busted by the MPs. No more driving for Mary!

The big push is on! Jack can't wait to take on the Heinies, but David has a bad feeling about this. Worse, he leaves his lucky fighting-teddy bear behind. This film even has its own spoiler alerts!

Yes, David gets shot down. And a bunch of Heinie soldiers think they've killed him. David is wounded, but don't count him out yet...

Jack is utterly distraught at the apparent loss of David. The next day, he takes on the job of winning the war single-handedly! Wow is that ever close air support!

David sneaks over to a Heinie Aerodrome and steals a Heinie plane. He's this close to freedom, but Jack isn't finished killing Heinies today... "Jack, please don't shoot me!"

It's a pity these planes don't have radios. Then we could have avoided this little misunderstanding between best friends...

Jack lands to collect a souvenir, and is horrified at his handiwork. At this point, the movie gets so mawkish, it's creepy. This is the gayest (modern usage) death scene on film.

That is not the brotherhood of arms. Not male bonding. What other word is there to call it?

Anyway, since Jack personally won the war (and resolved the faux love triangle) he comes home a hero. The town throws him a parade.

Jack stops to return David's teddy bear to his parents (and apologize). They don't seem too upset.

The film concludes with the reunion of Jack and Mary. They meet cute and drive around the town in the Shooting Star

Too bad the car hasn't a backseat (we see Jack remove it at the beginning of the film). Well it is a 1927 film, for crying out loud!

Wings is an epic film. I'm only poking fun at it because this is a web log which reviews movies for their cheesiness. To be sure, Wings has cheese, but it has everything else too. It's a darn fine war movie with action, romance, comedy and some of the best flying combat ever.

Two Ears Up!

2002-12-31T20:07:00.000-05:00

Kronos is a film which has pretty much everything you want in a bad movie:

Big Stars,
Big Words,
Big Atomic Explosions,
Big Cars, and
Big Robot Monsters from Outer Space

The film begins on a dark ~~and stormy~~ night. A meteorite falls to Earth and promptly takes over a passing motorist. This trucker's headed to Labcentral, where he overpowers the gate guard and transfers his alien intelligence to Chief Scientist Dr. Hubbell Elliot.

Meanwhile Dr Leslie Gaskell and his trusty sidekick Dr. Arnold Culver ponder the unusual orbit of asteroid M47 (hey, isn't M used to denote Messier objects?). Besides, it sure doesn't look like either!

Leslie's girlfriend Vera works in Labcentral's darkroom. Leslie and Vera have a movie date tonight, if she can pull him away from his giant vacuum tube computer named SUSIE (Synchro Unifying Sinometric Integrating Equitensor)

Sorry, the date's off: Leslie determines that asteroid M47 is headed straight for Earth! The Army launches it's fighting V-2's in an attempt to destroy the asteroid in space (hey, that sounds familiar...)

No luck: the missiles do no damage (but seem to have an effect on evil Dr. Elliot), and M47 crashes into the Pacific off the Mexican coast.

Leslie and Arnold fly down to Mexico in their trusty Bell-47. Hmmm... Asteroid M47 and a Bell Model 47. Coincidence or connection? They've rented space in a beach cottage from a local family. Warning: Mexican Stereotypes Ahead! Apparently Mexican cuisine does not agree with Arnold.

As the afternoon fades to dusk, and with no sign of M47, Leslie and Vera spend an evening on the beach. It looks like this mission is a bust, and Leslie will catch hell when they return to Labcentral. But at least Vera has some time alone with her boyfriend. She proposes marriage:

Vera: Will you marry me?
Leslie: Can you cook?
Vera: I wrote the book!
Leslie: Do you think you'll be able to respect a husband who's probably pulled the scientific boner of all time?

Friends, that exchange makes the entire film worthwhile.

Meanwhile trouble's a brewing in the Pacific. Maybe this expedition isn't a wash after all.

At the same time in America, evil Dr. Elliot (who we now realize has a telepathic rapport with M47) is checked into a mental hospital. Only electro-shock therapy seems to provide relief so his psychiatrist orders daily therapy.

Guess what washes ashore during the night? It's Kronos, ravager of planets. Note the outhouse for scale.

Now what would you do if a giant alien robot washed up on the beach? Fly out and land on it? I didn't think so, but the folks at Labcentral have other ideas. They even get to take a peak inside.

As Kronos slowly creaks to life, Arnold, Leslie and Vera fly off to safety. Meanwhile back in the US, evil Dr. Elliot breaks his restraints and confronts his psychiatrist. He knows too much, so evil Dr. Elliot throws him against his own electro-shock apparatus and electrocutes him. Is there anything electricity can't do?

Kronos is on Earth to drain power ('both electrical and atomic power!'). Evil Dr. Elliot gets a list of Mexican power plants and orders Kronos forth!

Kronos stomps over to Naverros Electro Power Plant. The Mexican Air Force's fighting P-51 are no match for the mighty robot.

Having recharged its batteries, Kronos stomps on in search of more electrical and atomic power. Evil Dr. Elliot is telepathically at the controls.

Terrified Mexicans run for their lives to avoid getting trampled underfoot.

The scientists head back to Labcentral for a strategy session. Leslie can't believe evil Dr. Elliot approved the mighty USAF's plan to nuke Kronos. Doesn't he know the giant robot can absorb electrical and atomic energy? Leslie begins to get suspicious about evil Dr. Elliot. Meanwhile, a B-47 takes off for a rendezvous with destiny!

When Vera accidentally discovers Dr. Elliot's true evil nature, he tries the same electrocution ploy on her. Leslie rushes in to save the day -- it's Dr. Elliot's turn to face the conductors.

First it's daily electroshock therapy, now an accidental zap. Dr. Elliot really gets a charge out of this movie. By the way, each time he gets a shock, his true identity emerges. Fighting back the evil presence, he discloses the aliens' master plan: to suck Earth dry of all energy (atomic and electrical).

Back in Mexico, the B-47 is closing in on Kronos. Leslie contacts the mighty USAF and convinces them to abort the mission. Too late: Kronos unleashes his tractor beam and snags the bomber. Kronos will not be denied his atomic energy!

Oh, great now Kronos is HUGE and headed for Los Angeles. Time for Leslie to hatch a cunning plan...

Got that? All they need is a shower of Omega particles (not defined) to reverse Kronos' polarity and he'll destroy himself. The mighty USAF whips up a jet bomber (stock YF-100 footage) and it's bombs away and bye-bye Kronos.

Kronos goes up like, well, an A-Bomb. And right in the middle of suburban LA. Good thinking Leslie! Anyway, show's over, and the moral is: if they send more, we'll know how to stop them.

Kronos is obviously a film that tries to be a big idea picture. It's got more treknobabble than... Trek. I guess you had to be there in the '50's when people were not as scientifically literate as they tend to be today. I like to watch UFO abduction retrospectives, with old eyewitness accounts of being taken by visitors from Venus. Today that's just to funny. This film suffers from the same lack of authenticity. Hey Kronos, what's the big idea?

2002-12-30T19:38:00.000-05:00

Mars Needs Women

With so many Mars-inspired movies to chose, why not the worst? Let's take a look at the mother of all drive-in movies; the movie which features more former mouseketeers than any other Mars movie. Behold the awesome power of Mars Needs Women.

On swanky planet Earth, women are disappearing into thin air for no discernable reason.

It's up to the mighty United States Decoding Service (NASA Wing) to save the day!

(USDS has a flair for bad architecture)

USDS decodes the eponymous message from the red planet: Mars Needs Women. Colonel Bob Page breaks the news to the Secretary of Defense, who doesn't seem to realize the gravity of the situation.

To avert a full scale Earth vs. Mars war, Martian Fellow Number One (Dop, yes Dop (Tommy Kirk)) beams into USDS central and conveys his demands: surrender five women or face the full Martian onslaught.

You see, Mars has a problem: due to genetic damage, only one female is born for every 100 males. With that ratio, Mars is doomed. Apparently, the only solution is to shanghai Earth chicks. The mighty USAF won't take that ultimatum lying down, and they fire their fighting X-15s off into the wild blue yonder to slay the Martian menace. To no avail: nothing can stop a horny Martian.

Meanwhile, the Martians (all five of them) invade Houston and bury their ship. To conquer the Earth and steal our women, they must first knock over a gas station, clothing store and airport parking lot.

Newly powered by Brooks Brothers, the five Martians are ready to hit Houston's singles-set with the lust one gets from seventy days of celibate space travel. Fellow number three heads straight for the strip clubs.

Fellows one and two need to acquire the most important objective: a hotel room. Unfortunately, the world press is in town to cover the randy Martian story. Thwarted, the Martians regroup at the bar to modify their battle plan. Showing grace under fire, they hypnotize a reporter and seize his accommodations,

A stroke of luck! Dr. Marjorie Bolen (Yvonne Craig (you know her as BatGirl)), noted expert in extraterrestrial amore has booked a room in the same hotel! She's definitely capture-worthy, so fellow number one (Dop) schmoozes his way into her press conference.

Meanwhile, fellow number three has become smitten with his favorite stripper. So he hypnotizes her and takes her back to the flying saucer.

Fellow number four cruises Houston's international airport, trolling for cute stews. He picks a nice girl and hypnotizes her, too (what a guy)

Dop, still romancing Dr. Bolen, takes her to a free planetarium show (what a big spender!). The planetarium is showing "A Trip to Mars;" and when the lights go down you know Dop is going to show everyone why he's the number one interstellar lothario.

What an inopportune time for a school field trip to show up! With the planetarium filled with kids, Dop keeps his hands to himself. And since the subject of the presentation is the planet Mars, when the tape deck fails he pitches in and narrates the end of the show. After all he's from Mars, for crying out loud.

Fellow number five decides to attend a football game. And to his welcome surprise, there's a homecoming queen to abduct! He infiltrates FTD, steals a delivery truch, sneaks onto campus and hypnotizes her, too

Fellow number two has a thing for co-eds, so he cruises past the Delta Gamma house and chats up a budding artist. Now that's four women down and one (BatGirl) to go.

To summarize: everyone has dates except fellow number one (Dop). He's still chasing BatGirl, and true love will wait no matter how long it takes. She's got connections, and when she accidentally slips the beans about the mighty USAF's impending raid on the flying saucer, Dop has no choice but to scrub the mission and race to save the saucer.

In a stunning finale, the Martians take on the mighty USAF (six shots fired, but no one hit). Dop must choose between life on Earth with his new sweetie or another seventy days of space-born confinement. What would you do?

Like every Greek tragic hero, Dop errs. He abandons BatGirl and joins his fellow Martians in a narrow escape and high-tails it back to Mars. For now, the Earth is safe, but what about poor BatGirl?

Mars Needs Women is a hard film to pigeonhole. One the one hand, it's a real cheese-fest. From watching this film, you can tell that the making of film is a skill, and these guys don't have it. On the other hand, it has a strong European art-house quality: it's enigmatic and plays by its own set of rules.

I can't decide, but maybe you can. Put Mars Needs Women on the top of your list of rentals.

2002-12-29T20:06:00.000-05:00

Solaris

Over the holiday, I went to see the big-budget sci-fi epic of the weekend. I'd heard this film was in the news, but thankfully the edit I watched left the controversy behind.

Spoiler alert: as always, I spoil everything. On with the review of Solaris:

Kris Kelvin is a commie-psychologist working for the Solaristics project. Solaristics has a space station orbiting a planet inhabited by an intelligent ocean. For years, the scientists have been trying to investigate and communicate with the planet-brain, to no avail.

A few years ago, funny things began to occur on the space station. A few scientists went down to the surface of the ocean-planet and died. When Astro-pilot Burton tried to save the scientists, the ocean swallowed up his helicopter and showed him pictures of sixteen-foot babies (off-screen). Burton managed to escape, but couldn't save the scientists. At his court-martial, Burton produced his helicopter's flight-data recorder, but it didn't corroborate his story. Burton had to resign in disgrace, and Solaristics had to cut back its research on the planet-brain.

In the present day, Burton pays Kris a visit at his dacha on Earth. Solaristics wants Kris to visit the space station and find out what's up with the station's skeleton crew (three, down from eighty-five). When Kris agrees, Burton drives off into the sunset. [Note: it's a LONG drive: a full five minutes of traffic with no dialog. The sun really does set. It would appear that Burton's taxi driver takes him all the way to Tokyo (where the film was shot).]

Kris rockets off to the station, to find it deserted and dirty. The place hasn't seen a mop in years, and the corridors are lined with junk. The skeleton crew of Dr. Sartorius, Dr. Snaut and Dr. Gibarian is down to two. Kris' friend Dr. Gibarian ate a bullet, but not before leaving Kris a suicide note.

Here's the deal: while the scientists have been trying to communicate with the ocean, the ocean has been trying to communicate with the Solaris station. Naturally, both sides have trouble understanding each other. The scientists only speak radiation, while the planet-brain only speaks doppelganger. When Kris falls asleep on his spacebed, the planet-brain reads his mind and conjures up his dead wife Hari.

Dumbfounded by the apparition of his ex, Kris does what any divorcee would do: he shoves her into an escape pod and blasts her into space. Unfortunately for him, the planet-brain summons up another Hari -- and she will bust through doors to be at his side and nag him.

As a recent bachelor, Kris is at his wit's end. What to do, what to do? Dr. Snaut suggests Kris just live with it, while Dr. Sartorius cracks wise at the expense of bunnies.

Anyway, it's Dr. Snaut's birthday, and the four principle characters gather in the rec room. Dr. Sartorius accuses Kris of getting lovesick, while Dr. Snaut just wants to get drunk. I've been to parties like this, and they always end badly. In this case, Hari decides to off herself with a mug of liquid oxygen.

Because Hari is a figment of the planet-brain's imagination, she is indestructible. She recovers from the LOX, but not before giving Kris the flu. Stricken, he passes out. When he awakes, Dr. Snaut informs him that Dr. Sartorius used the station's radiation-annihilator-beam to sanitize the planet. With the planet-brain dead, Kris might as well return to Earth.

Kris shoves off for home and returns to Earth. Everything seems the same, except now it's raining inside his Dacha. Planet-brains are always getting little details like that wrong. It would appear that Kris isn't on Earth, but instead is trapped on an island on the surface of Solaris.

Will Kris ever get off the surface of Solaris? Will he survive the onslaught of subsequent iterations of his ex-wife Hari?

This film screams sequel.

Two ears up

Note: this film has been called The Soviet 2001. For the sake of truth-in-film-making, I'd have called it: Attack of the Ex-Wives. This isn't sci-fi, it's

Horror!

2002-12-28T20:06:00.000-05:00

The Mother of All Turkeys

So things haven't been going well this holiday. You don't simply want your guests to leave the room, you want them to go home. Good for you. Bring home one of the biggest turkeys in the history of motion pictures. A film so bad, your DVD player will never look at you with the respect to which you are ordinarily entitled. A film that made critics run screaming from the theater. A film that soured kids on Disney for a whole generation. It's Disney's first PG-rated film, and it's the first film to feature CGI. It's only 95 minutes long, but you'll swear it took years off your life. Yes, it's the worst of Seventies cinema, besting Star Trek: TMP by a nose: it's The Black Hole.

The crew of the exploration vessel Palomino investigates the largest known black hole (which looks blue), and is shocked to see another spaceship drifting lazily along the event horizon. Cygnus (thought lost for 10 years) has apparently found or created an oasis of space invulnerable to the black hole. Palomino Captain Dan Holland (Robert Forster) decides to take a closer look, and risks sending his ship into the galactic whirlpool.

When the Palomino springs a leak, plucky flying robot Vincent (Roddy McDowall) goes outside to plug the hole. When his safety tether breaks he finds himself in real robot jeopardy. Using his ESP (yes, the cute little robot has ESP, didn't we all back in the Seventies?), he signals distress to Dr. Kate McCrae (Yvette Mimieux) before launching his backup tether and reeling himself to safety. With disaster averted, Lieutenant Charles Pizer (Joseph Bottoms) guides the ship into Cygnus's docking bay.

Someone's on board Cygnus, because he just switched on the lights. Nervously, the Palomino's crew pass through the airlock and make their way to the Cygnus' bridge. An army of drones quietly tend to their duties, but is anyone alive at home?

Spooky scientist Dr. Hans Reinhardt (Maximilian Schell) arises from the Captain's chair to tell a sad story: with their ship damaged, Cygnus' surviving crew decided to abandon ship and return to Earth. Hans is shocked to learn his shipmates never made it home. In the past ten years, Hans has kept himself busy building anti-black hole technology and a mean-looking robot he names Maximilian.

That's a lovely story, but the Palomino needs repairs. Hans orders Maximilian to help Charlie and Vincent find spare parts. Reporter Harry Booth (Ernest Borgnine) sets off by himself, and takes a closer look at one of the drones, and does not like what he sees. Captain Dan takes his own solo tour and stumbles upon a robot-drone funeral, which he finds a bit odd.

That evening over dinner, Hans confides that he intends to take Cygnus through the black hole. On the other side, he contends, is "the ultimate knowledge." Hans says he'd be honored if Palomino would stick around and record his ground blazing transit. Dr. Alex Durant (Anthony Perkins) finds the notion of black-hole travel intriguing, and considers abandoning his friends. The dinner ends as Hans warns the crew of the Palomino not to go snooping around. Nothing to see here, you know.

Alex can't help but do some more sightseeing (he's a scientist and all). When he unmasks one of the drones, he discovers Hans' fiendish secret: the drones are the Cygnus' crew, lobotomized into complete loyalty to Hans. Evil robot Maximilian protects the secret with his pair of rotating knives.

Too late: Kate knows the secret of the drones, too. Hans orders his robots to take her to the lobotomy lab. Frankly, the old crew has run out of interesting things to say, and Hans wants a new friend. Fortunately, Captain Dan is in the house, and heroically rescues Kate. In the process, he appears to lose a finger to the mind-laser, but in later scenes, the finger has remarkably grown back.

Stunned at this setback (and his repeated slaps to his head), Hans decides "the time has come to liquidate our guests." Harry takes the news badly, and rushes back to his ship. Alone, he can't figure out the controls, and sends Palomino crashing into Cygnus.

The only hope of escape for the Palomino's survivors is Cygnus' probe ship, a tiny vessel that has successfully transited the black hole and returned safely. Using Cygnus' tramways, they race to the probe. Unfortunately, Cygnus' shields are down. A swarm of glowing meteors pepper Cygnus with holes and sever tramlines, exposing our protagonists to the vacuum of space (which isn't as bad as it seems).

Things look dim as Cygnus plunges into the black hole. Hans meets a just reward, pinned under an HDTV (boy were they heavy back in the Seventies). Maximilian confronts our heroes, but is slain by ever-plucky Vincent -- who proves himself adept at things drillwise.

Strapping themselves into the probe ship, the surviving protagonists have no choice but to launch into the black hole.

Meanwhile, Hans and Maximilian share a loving embrace in space, and are transmogrified into hell's newest overlord.

What's on the other side of the black hole? As if I would tell. I had to suffer this film, and you might as well, too.

It's funny: The Black Hole looks great and sounds great. It has a cast of real actors and the folks at Disney obviously sunk a lot of money into it. You'd think that critics and audiences would let little details like story, acting and coherency slide, right? Sci-fi special-effects extravaganzas are crowd pleasers, right? Every rule has an exception, and this is one of them.

Ears down

Unless you like schlock movies, in which case this is your holy grail.

2002-12-27T20:20:00.000-05:00

More Movie Tips

It's holiday time again, and you want to keep the relatives quiet. A simple trip to Blockbuster can provide hours of silence. All you need to do is identify what the folks want, and rent it. Movies shut people up. (And on a personal note, people like to pet bunnies as they watch movies.)

But what about you? What do you want to watch? Judging the torrent of email I receive, you want:

(1) action,
(2) sci-fi,
(3) supermarket-sweeps,
(4) romance,
(5) killers-for-hire,
(6) home-improvement-follies,
(7) character-development,
(8) mafia,
(9) espionage,
(10) internet trivia,
(11) ninja-fighting and
(12) humor.

Twelve themes in a single movie. Boy, you people are tough.

You folks like The Onion, right? And if the Onion's founder made a movie, you'd watch it, right?

With breathless awe, I present to you Scott Dikkers' Opus: Spaceman.

It's the tender story of a young boy, abducted by aliens at birth and trained to be a ceremonial combat killing machine. Think of him as Shaft from Outer Space.

Crash-landing on Earth seventeen years later, his lethal killing instincts leave him completely unprepared for life on our civil planet. Trained to be a soldier, and seeking a chain-of-command he can obey, he does what any obedient soldier would do: he buys a newspaper and applies for a jobs.

Rejected by the FBI and our beloved Army, Spaceman (David Ghilardi) finds work at the local supermarket as a cashier. At last he has a new commander who can give him the orders he craves. Dutiful in extremis, he has no idea the government has located his ship and is stealthily tracking him down.

Challenged by a brazen shoplifter, Spaceman snaps into action. He maims the miscreant and seals his own fate: he is fired from his job. Spaceman heads home, where his spacesuit inspires peals of laughter from his neighbor Sue (Deborah King). Humiliated, Spaceman retreats to the safety of his apartment.

Meanwhile the FBI is closing in on our protagonist. Classifying him as a hostile alien, they dispatch a team of assassins. Spaceman makes short work of them. No one on Earth can withstand his ceremonial combat fighting style. Unmatched but alone and without orders, Spaceman seeks higher ground in an effort to communicate with his mothership.

Feeling sorry for her earlier rebuke, Sue asks Spaceman to house-sit her apartment while she visits her parents over a three-day weekend.

Overjoyed to have a new set of orders, Spaceman takes Sues instructions to "improvise" very seriously. In fact he renovates Sue's apartment. Upon return, Sue is awestruck, and she invites Spaceman to lunch.

Sue rebuffs Spaceman's request for new orders. Leaderless, he prowls the evening streets and is beset by young hoodlums, who quickly taste Spaceman's fury. Captured by the police, Spaceman is ordered to receive psychoanalysis.

Stranded in a mental institution, Spaceman takes inspiration from a paperback biography about the local mafia Don. By this point of the film, Spaceman knows there is little hope he will ever return to his fighting unit. Earthen ways are arousing in him a new sense of individuality. If he can't be a soldier, Spaceman decides he might as well be a criminal. And for his first crime he busts out of the hospital.

Rebuffed by his attempts to join the local mafia, Spaceman goes free-lance. The mob sends assassins to rub out the competition. Spaceman senses he needs to lie low for awhile, so he seeks refuge with Sue (who is happy to accommodate him).

With the help of Google, Sue discovers the secret of Spaceman's abduction and calls his Mom. Her written note to Spaceman is intercepted. Now the FBI, the mafia and a ninja race to Mom's house for the final battle.

While vanquishing his foes in a battle-royale, Spaceman intercepts furtive emissions from his mothership. Will he answer the call? Or will he stay with his Mom and new girlfriend?

I think you already know the answer: Spaceman redeems himself. Rejecting the mothership, he moves in with Mom, marries Sue, raises a family and joins the mafia. The credits roll while Spaceman finds inner peace as a deadly-killing machine at peace with the world in his new role as a killer-for-hire.

The film Spaceman is a vindication of the American (2) way of life (AWOL). Where else can one find one's true calling, no matter how twisted one's upbringing? Spaceman is everyman, his dreams are our dreams writ large. No film vindicates our shining city on a hill better than Spaceman. Rent it, buy it and treasure its wisdom for the ages.

Two Ears Up

2002-12-26T20:46:00.000-05:00

Crowd Pleaser

Again, you’re perusing the collection at Blockbusters, looking for something for everyone.

You want to watch a film with lots of swordfights, Bro wants post-apocalyptic sci-fi, Sis wants a religious epic, Mom wants a tender, flowering relationship story, Dad wants an Elvis picture, and the grandparents want a musical.

How could you possibly satisfy everyone?
You could start by bringing home Six String Samurai.

Who knew there was a film featuring a Buddy Holly rock and roll swordsman?

After the Soviet invasion of 1957, only a single free city-state lives outside the communist jackboot. Now, after forty years of benighted rule, Elvis is dead, and Vegas needs a new king.

Buddy (Jeffrey Falcon) is one of hundreds of princes. Skilled with blade and axe (guitar), he is but one of a myriad of would be successors sojourning to Vegas to compete for the title of Rock and Roll King.

Mid-trek he meets ‘The Kid’ (Justin McGuire), recently orphaned by a pack of arrow and candy wielding brigands. Although Buddy reluctantly saves Kid, he has no intention of making Kid his ward. Instead, Buddy leaves Kid at the hands of a post-suburban family of cannibals, who immediately make dinner plans.

The cannibals’ dinner plans are interrupted by a pack of wild astronauts. The spacemen seem poised to rip Kid limb from limb, when Buddy makes a timely arrival. Could this be the beginning of a beautiful friendship?

Apparently not. Although Buddy and Kid share a series of adventures in which each of them saves the other from peril, at the first opportunity, Buddy ditches Kid with a body-building ‘little person,’ while Buddy chases a schoolgirl adept in the art of chewing-gum seduction.

Meanwhile Death (and his band) stalk the land, slaying the singing, strumming warrior princes one-by-one. When Death draws near, Kid manages to warn Buddy, and the two escape Death’s clutches (but only temporarily). When Death ambushes them, Buddy fights Death to a draw, while the Spinach Monster (yes, that monster) drags Kid down to Hell.

Like a Greek god, Buddy descends into Hades and vanquishes the legions of darkness. Of interest to religious scholars, while Death is away, he leaves the day-to-day administration of hell to the Windmill god, a supercomputer with a taste for freshly slaughtered children. Buddy defeats the Windmill god, but not before Kid gets to dish out American justice to a dead bully with his rock-and-roll fists. Buddy and Kid climb out of Hell and head for Vegas. Kid and Buddy get a chance to bond in a round of dance-fighting lasting through the night. At the break of dawn, the two set off on the last leg of their trip.

The gates of Vegas are guarded by the entire Red Army. Demonstrating his true American fighting spirit, Buddy takes them on all at once. Naturally he wins, but is mortally wounded. Buddy’s death leaves Kid at the mercy of Death, who arrives to claim Buddy’s soul.

Like Christ on Easter, Buddy revives and battles Death to the, um, death. Pitting swords and music against each other (Buddy’s style is eponymous, while Death bears a resemblance to a guitarist whose name rhymes with Slash -- oops SPOILER, don’t look). Death-metal triumphs, but Kid knows Death’s secret vulnerability: metal rusts.

With his trusty canteen, Kid vanquishes Death. Kid puts on Buddy’s clothes (and sword and axe) and completes the journey to Vegas where presumably (i.e., off screen) he becomes the new King. A victory for rock and roll and fun for the whole family (Rated PG-13).

By the way, the film is scored by the Red Elvises, a band of Russian you-know-who impersonators, and they sound wonderful. An epic in every sense of the word, Six String Samurai should be on everybody’s Thanksgiving rental list and in every film aficionado’s DVD collection.

Two ears up

2002-12-25T19:22:00.000-05:00

Worst War Movie Ever

Mike Trettel, administrator of Government Monkey, challenged me to conjure up a list of the worst war movies ever. Not one to back down from a challenge, I present a list, counting down to #1.

5. Rambo III
4. Red Dawn
3. In the Army Now
2. Navy Seals

(Has Charlie Sheen ever looked scarier?)

Before we get to number one, I hear you: those are all American movies. Surely there are bad war movies made elsewhere.

Yes, you're right. We can make some awful war turkeys, but the number one worst war movie honor belongs to a film made in a country which exists no longer. That'll teach 'em to make bad war movies. Yugoslavia cranked out the worst ever war movie back in 1960.

Behold the awfulness of Atomic War Bride!!!

(Spoilers: I spoil everything but don't worry, you should see the film for its own (dis)merits anyway.)

It's John Johnson's (yes, his real name) wedding day. He's psyched to show his new bride his swinging pad, but a neighbor stops by to lend some friendly criticism.

There, that's better. And won't she be impressed by the power of John's electric lights?

What gal wouldn't be? Anyway, John heads off to meet the new in-laws, but war intercedes. Civil defense forces pass out Atomic Radiation Suits and explain how to duck and cover. John hasn't got a suit, so he seeks cover in the trash.

Haha! False alarm. Those were our jets screeching overhead. Plus we've got radiological troops with big electric boxes to save the day.

Jack and his in-laws strike out for the church, despite the air raid. But the bombs fall ever closer...

Newlyweds John and Maria escape the church and hit the deck, while the enemy (just to show they're mean) strafes a cow. [note: This film is cruel to animals (sick Yugoslavs). The cow actually dies. Now we know why modern films post a disclaimer.]

When the enemy jets leave, the Army rounds up every able bodied male for some trigger-finger training.

John's brother in-law Jack can't get the hang of camouflage training. Plus he has a weak heart, and so he dies during basic training.

That's a shame. Meanwhile everybody heads for safety in the fallout shelters and and they watch a message from the maximum leader.

By an odd coincidence, John and Maria reunite in the shelter. Under normal circumstances, this would be a happy moment, but Maximum Leader is broadcasting live footage of his atomic missile strikes.

John Johnson can't take any more of this madness. Once he rouses the shelter into a patriotic fury (by singing the national anthem), he leads them to the Maximum Leader to demand peace.

Naturally, the Army arranges for his benefit a firing squad. Can Maria save him from certain doom?

Maximum Leader arrives to oversee the execution. Little does he know the enemy's missiles are on the way. He seeks shelter in John and Maria's fallout crater.

What a difference an atomic bomb makes. Everybody dies except John and Maria. Plaintively they wander back to what's left of his swinging bachelor pad.

Hmmm, Maria isn't feeling too well. What could be the reason? When she dies, John is grief-stricken. And that's the end of the show, folks.

Atomic War Bride is, frankly, a chore. John is your basic toothpaste model, and Maria is even less dynamic. Unless you have some twisted nostalgia for European nuclear holocaust films, Atomic War Bride is worth seeing only so you can say you have seen the worst war movie ever.

2002-12-24T19:10:00.000-05:00

Best go go dancing ninja assasin film ever

With holidays coming up, you’re probably thinking: ugh, family… how can I make that time pass more quickly. If you’re like most people, you probably haul home a bunch of movies from Blockbuster and say as little as possible.

But what to watch? Upon what can Mom, Dad, Bro, Sis and the in-laws agree? Westerns? Horror? Sci-fi? Romance? Someone will feel left out. What you need is a film with something for everyone.

What if there were a film with action, mobsters, romance, stolen gold, gadgets, and go-go-dancing ninja-assassins? I think you could call such a film ‘fun for the whole family.’ ‘But surely no single film could contain all those elements,’ you say. Well believe it or not, one film does. It’s an obscure Japanese film entitled ‘Ore ni sawaru to abunaize.’

Of course, you know it as the Black Tight Killers

Now here’s a film not afraid to get in your face.

It’s a love story featuring Hondo Daisuke (Akira Kobayashi), an intrepid young war correspondent back from Saigon where he covered the first fight between the NVA and the beloved US Army in which the combatants substituted fireworks for real ammunition. Not since this film has the pink haze of battle been more fully realized on celluloid.

On the flight home, he meets Yoriko Sawanouchi (Chieko Matsubara), a stewardess for JAL who is as pretty as she is unwilling to proof-read her subtitles.

Hondo gets Yoriko’s phone number and invites her out to dinner, where they really hit it off. The perfect night, actually -- but for the ominous presence of a rather improbable ‘Carlos.’ Carlos is quickly dispatched by the eponymous Black Tight Killers

Hondo takes on the Black Tight Killers, and acquits himself fairly well (considering there are six of them). But he is defenseless against their ninja-chewing-gum bullets. With Hondo temporarily blinded, The Black Tight Killers make good their escape.

While Hondo calls the police to report Carlos’ murder, somebody kidnaps Yoriko. Was it the mafia? The Yakuza? The Black Tight Killers? The police couldn’t care less because they figure Hondo as the prime suspect in Carlos’ murder. It’s up to Hondo’s American (2) friend (who also can’t spell subtitles worth a damn) to bail him out of jail.

Now Hondo must find and rescue Yoriko by plunging into the seedy world of nightclubs, go-go dancers and the American (2) military brats of Okinawa.

Kickin’ it American (2) style, Hondo interrogates the mafia with a flamethrower and learns that they seek Yoriko because she may know the location of a cache of Imperial Japanese (14) gold, thought lost since WWII.

Meanwhile, Yoriko can't or won't spill the beans about the gold, so the mafia take her to their secret island fortress.

Hondo arms himself with a ninja cannon, storms the island fortress, shoots down a helicopter and saves Yoriko.

When Hondo and Yoriko make it back to civilization, Hondo asks Yoriko out for a second date. Yoriko wisely declines, as she knows where that might lead (more kidnapping, laughing gas and go-go dancing assissins). Plus she saw Hondo get a bit fresh with one of the Black Tight Killers, and she's looking for a more stable relationship. Chasened, Hondo realizes he has a lot to learn about life.

Oh, what of the gold, and what happened to the Black Tight Killers? Well you'll just have to watch the film and find out. Time well spent, if you ask me.

Two ears up

2002-12-23T19:24:00.000-05:00

Another Holiday Rental

If you've taken my advice and rented a bunch of crowd pleasers , you may have a problem making your guests get up and leave. Not to worry. Nothing clears a room faster than Space: 1999.

What other classic sci-fi show was prescient enough to show us a future where everybody wears Members Only Jackets?

Now if you're going to unleash this show on your friends, you may as well do it right. Play them the best episode ever. Which one is that? Let's hear what the folks at Jump the Shark have to say:

There was one episode of this show that scared the hell out of me. (The one where the guy goes back to battle the slime creature with the glowing light on the front.)

When I was about 7 or 8, that show was my absolute favourite. I also have to say that the tentacle monster episode scared the living bejeezus out of me - by far the scariest episode.

I too am glad to see that other people were scared by that one episode. Anyone know the title of that ep with the terrifying monster that burned up people and ejected their corpse from it's "mouth"? I thought I only imagined it. It still gives me the creeps to this day, and I'm 33.

The episode that stuck with me most was, like many, the one where they are exploring a new planet and find a bunch of derelict spaceships in orbit. They dock with one, and this creature fills the doorway- it has hundreds of tentacles, and a big honking glowing eye in the center, with a slimy mouth under it. The eye would hypnotize the crew, and they would walk into the clutches of the tentacles and slide down into that mouth, and ten seconds later this steaming shriveled up husk would slide back out. Brrr.... Gave me nightmares for a few of my young years!

It's unanimous. The best episode of Space:1999 is Dragon's Domain

This episode has an extensive flashback which makes sense to describe first. Moonbase crewman Tony Cellini (Gianni Garko) is the sole survivor of the 1996 Ultra Probe. After a six-month journey (and coffee-drinking binge), Tony and his crew arrived at the newly discovered Planet Ultra. On the far side of Ultra they found a graveyard of derelict alien spacecraft. Selecting one with a tolerable atmosphere, Tony and crew docked and investigated.

While Tony stayed in the cockpit, his crew opened the airlock. A shrieking wind and eerie presence blasted into the Ultra Probe. Suddenly an alien with long tentacles and a quivering maw appeared inside the ship.

Through its power of hypnosis, the monster caught, devoured and spat out Tony's crew. Eeeeewww.

Aghast, Tony had no choice but to jettison his section of the Ultra Probe and limp home to the Earth and a court martial. Three years later (and in our story's 'present,') Tony is one of the crew of Moon Base Alpha.

Lately Tony's been having nightmares of the Ultra Probe, and they're taking their toll on his job performance. He tries to steal an Eagle-spacecraft, but is thwarted by Commander John Koenig (Martin Landau) in a Tarantino-style gunfight.

Koenig and Chief Medical Officer Helena Russell (Barbara Bain) meet in the Medical Station to ponder what's wrong with Tony. Meanwhile, guess what's drifting past Moon Base Alpha? Yes it's the same pile of spacejunk Tony found at Planet Ultra. Could it be the cause of his nightmares?

Koenig assembles a party to fly out and investigate. Tony hijacks his own Eagle and beats them to the haunted hulk. With his trusty axe, wages a one-man war against the tentacled monster. Unable to best the beast, Tony does manage to wound the monster before he's captured and dragged to his death.

Koenig and his posse burst onto the scene and finish the job. With the monster dead, they fly back to base, where Helena types up the adventure.

Pretty scary stuff, eh? Like I said, guaranteed to clear a room. And yet I find it strangely compelling. Anyone else?

One ear up

2002-12-22T15:56:00.000-05:00

Best Commie Venus Movie Ever

If you're like me, you thought commies were all about long lines, tough toilet paper and bad service, not ray-guns, robots and spaceships. Well we would be wrong, at least in the case of the East German-Polish Summer blockbuster of 1959: First Spaceship on Venus!

Remember that meteor or comet that hit Tunguska back in 1908? Who would have guessed that it was really a spaceship from Venus? Want proof: 'scientists' found and analyzed the flight data recorder.

American Astrophysicist Dr. Harringway (yeah, he looks American alright. Everybody in the states has that haircut.) Announces the findings to a crows of startled 'scientists,' and proposes a mission to Venus to figure out what happened.

Meanwhile, Dr. Sikarna (whose work rivals even that of Einstein) has harnessed the world's largest electronic brain to the task of translating the Venusian black box. Doesn’t Dr. Sikarna have the perfect “the future belongs to the New Soviet Man” stare?

Even though the world’s biggest electronic brain can’t decipher the data recorder, the mission to Venus is on! Everybody heads down to the rocket site (unnamed, but because this is a commie film, let’s assume they go to Zvezdny Gorodok.), where French Chief Engineer Durand is putting the final touches on the CCCP Cosmostrator. Y’know it’s funny: whenever a bunch of commies get together, you’re bound to spot a Frenchman in the group. Why is that? At least this one has a bitchin’ Members-Only jacket.

American astronaut Brinkman drops by in his MiG (continuity alert!). He’s joining the crew, and so is ~~Ernest Borgnine~~ Dr. Orlov. You can tell Brinkman is American by his leather snoopy cap. All the fly fighter-jocks have’em.

One of the Obligatory Sci-Fi Film Elements (OSFE) is the cute robot. And since your basic commie feels an urgent need to keep up with the West, this film has one too. Meet Omega.

Omega can predict the weather, play chess and even hold a decent conversation with an American like Brinkman. One thing Omega can’t do is censor himself. By accident, he almost reveals a state secret!

That was a close one! Good thing the commie film commissariat caught it in time!

Flight Medical Officer Sumiko joins the crew because -- let’s face it -- it’s a thirty-one day trip to Venus, and somebody must look after the men. Do you think they’ll leave the toilet seat down for her sake? Lousy commies!

Sumiko and Brinkman used to have a thing for each other, back when umm... Sumiko was married to Brinkman’s best friend. Now that she’s a widower, Brinkman’s ready to re-ignite the old passion. Could this film really be an interstellar romance?

Now that the Cosmostrator’s crew is all here, the countdown is on. The crew zonk out into artificial hibernation (to be well rested for the trip). Meanwhile the preparations for the launch are broadcast by the gorgeous German babes of Intervision.

Launch time! The cosmonauts board the Cosmostrator, while the ground crew gives them a real commie-style send-off: cheering throngs and a round of The Internationale

Let’s take another look at the checklist.
Cute Robot? Check.
Model Spaceship? Check.
Obligatory weightless scene? Time for ~~Ernest Borgnine~~ Dr. Orlov to float out of his chair!

Now that’s something you don’t see in your typical sci-fi film isn’t it?

Cosmostrator uses the Moon to slingshot off to Venus. The Moon is where Sumiko’s husband died (Brinkman was the only witness, hmm...), so this part of the film is a bit difficult for her.

The trip to Venus is a bit draggy. There’s not much to do except drink milkshakes and wait. And ~~Ernest Borgnine~~ doesn’t seem to care for the milkshakes. Trouble ahead?

Instead of drinking milkshakes, he challenges Omega to chess, and loses again and again. Somebody better keep an eye on him!

A film about a rocketship isn’t officially sci-fi unless it has a meteor shower. This one has two. That will show the imperialists!

The first shower damages the Cosmostrator, so Durand must venture outside and make repairs. Will he finish in time for the ship to avoid the second swarm? The crew hold their breaths and wait!

He makes it! Now the ship is safe, and the second meteor shower takes place off screen. But trust me it was just as cool as the first.

Meanwhile Dr. Sikarna and Astrobiologist Chen Yu use Cosmostrator’s portable electronic brain to finish translating the Venusian black box. And sit down, you’ll be in for a shock when you read the transcript. The crashed Venusian spaceship wasn’t an explorer, but a war party. This is shocking news!

Like every good American, Brinkman remembers Pearl Harbor, and hates anyone who tries a sneaky attack. He sets off in the chrono-copter to kick Venus’s butt!

Brinkman lands in a vitrified forest and gets ready to set the Venusians straight. He unleashes Omega, the fightin’ robot (who knew?) to go find the Venusian menace.

Dr. Harringway lands Cosmostrator and sets up a scientific team to investigate why nobody Venus seems to be nothing but blasted ruin. They drive around in their spacemobiles (which have tailfins, yay!). And they do find something: a giant glowing orb!

Back at the ranch, Chen Yu is taking soil samples and pitching tents (tents? crazy commies!). When he hears the news about the orb, he gathers up the posse and they ride over in their spacemobile.

The area surrounding the orb looks like an atom bomb went off. Could the Venusian war fleet have had a little trouble handling the ordinance? Looks like the answer is yes. Good thing for us their invasion party blew up in their faces. Only their shadows remain etched into the walls.

At least the orb is untouched. The cosmonauts venture inside to explore what's left of Venus.

Brinkman and Sumiko go exploring (with Durand following behind like a third wheel). They find some strange looking spires, but suddenly evil Venusian mud attacks them!

Durand whips out his disintegrator pistol and repels the mud (you know this is a commie movie when the Frenchman is the cowboy).

Believe it or not, this is the climax of the film. What happens next is difficult to follow, let alone describe. Typical commie logic. Let me try to convey it in small points:

1. Durand shoots the Venusian mud.
2. The disintegrated mud causes a chain reaction which reverses gravity on the planet (?!?).
3. Talua falls down (or up?) a shaft and is stranded.
4. Chen Yu tries to rescue Talua, but tears his suit.
5. Brinkman tosses some oxygen cylinders into the trunk of the rocket plane and sets off to save Chen Yu.
6. The Cosmostrator is hurled off the planet, and heads back to earth.

Chen Yu dies, Brinkman and Talua are stranded, but the rest of the crew aboard the Cosmostrator make it safely to Earth.

Oh yeah, almost forgot: Omega goes Tarantino on Harringway.

When they land, the crew disembarks to a hero's welcome. It's up to Sumiko to convey the bad news about the casualties on Venus.

The last ten minutes of the film try to drive an anti-nuclear message into your head with swinging blows. I guess a film isn't really commie unless it has ham-fisted propaganda. Don't be taken in: didn't atomic explosions just save the Earth from evil Venusians?

Thank you, nuclear energy.

First Spaceship on Venus has something of a cult following. Apparently, the original East German-Polish version had an additional 1/3 of material never seen by Americans. (Note: apparently the extra footage doesn't clear anything up.) Some parts of the film look great; other parts look downright silly. The multi-ethnic cast would please today's bean-counters.

But the best thing about FSOV is its origin. This small peek under the iron curtain justifies the billions we spent on containment. Without the Arsenal of Democracy to protect us, what other horrors would the commies have unleashed upon us?

2002-12-22T15:07:00.000-05:00

Our Man Flint (Partial Review)

I have this nagging feeling that someone is putting one over on us. When I read that ~~James Coburn~~ Derek Flint died, I was sad. Then I remembered how he snuck onto evil-mad-scientist-cabal Galaxy’s secret island fortress: by faking his own death

You see, Flint could stop his heart (still can, apparently) and play dead for hours. Knowing that Exotica Cosmetics was a trap, he allowed himself to be captured and allowed them to think he’d suffocated in the vault. So they stuffed him in a coffin and shipped him to their secret lair. All according to Flint’s clever plan…

When his spy-watch woke him up, he snuck off for some reconnaissance, but was captured by the anti-American eagle (diabolical!), and brought before the mad scientists.

When Dr. Wu offered an invitation to join Galaxy and rule the world, Flint just laughed. No utopia could compare to the American Way of Life (AWOL). When evil Rodney accidentally killed the scientists and set the island to explode, Flint figured he’d better round up his five girlfriends and swim for safety.

So I was thinking: the last time an evil cabal we couldn’t find broadcast their demands, the President called Flint – who stopped his heart and saved the day. Seen in that light, Flint’s recent obituary makes perfect sense. It’s all going according to Flint’s clever plan.

I could be wrong about this. If I am, we should honor his memory this Thanksgiving by making Our Man Flint the top rental.

Two Ears Up