Sci-Fi Film Fiesta Volume 9: Accidents and Experiments by Chris Christopoulos - HTML preview

 

 

The Gamma People (1956)

 

A mix of adventure, comic opera, '50s cold war paranoia and science fiction

 

 

Directed by John Gilling

Produced by John Gossage

Screenplay by John Gilling, John Gossage

Story by Robert Aldrich, Louis Pollock

Music by George Melachrino

Cinematography Ted Moore

Edited by Jack Slade

Production company: Warwick Films

Distributed by Columbia Pictures

Running time: 76 or 78 minutes

Country: United Kingdom, United States

 

Cast

 

Paul Douglas as Mike Wilson

Eva Bartok as Paula Wendt

Leslie Phillips as Howard Meade

Walter Rilla as Boronski

Philip Leaver as Koerner

Martin Miller as Lochner

Michael Caridia as Hugo Wendt

Pauline Drewett as Hedda Lochner

Jocelyn Lane as Anna

Olaf Pooley as Bikstein

Rosalie Crutchley as Frau Bikstein

Leonard Sachs as Telegraph Clerk

Paul Hardtmuth as Hans

Cyril Chamberlain as Graf

 

“The Gamma People” is set in the mythical European “Iron Curtain” region of Gudavia. The scientist dictators of this Gudavia have been using gamma rays in an effort to create a race of genius super humans. However, they have merely managed to produce emotionless and mindless brutes.

 

The American newsman, Mike Wilson now takes up the story in his special feature article in which he describes how he and British photographer, Howard Meade stumbled into this nightmare…….

 

 

 

(Spoilers Follow)

 

 

Little Land’s Leap To Liberty

 

by Mike Wilson

 

A few weeks ago I found myself aboard a train travelling through the snow-covered European countryside, playing a game of chess with my colleague and friend, photographic journalist, Howard Meade. Not my idea of a thrilling time I thought to myself as Howard kept rambling on about something or other he did back in Bulgaria.

 

Unknown to us, an opening move in the larger chess game of life was about to begin as the carriage we were travelling in became uncoupled from the rest of the train with the result that the engine had forged ahead, while our detached carriage and its two unsuspecting occupants blithely continued to roll on, Apart from a slight juddering sensation, there was little to indicate that our carriage had accidentally smashed through a custom’s check point for the little and until now largely anonymous region of Gudavia. Yes, I said Gudavia!. Now try finding that on a map! It turned out that a couple of the local lads had caused our carriage to be diverted onto a siding when they threw a rail switch.

 

Well, this little twist of fate would not only set in “train” a host of surprises for us, it would also cause a measure of confusion and wonder for the inhabitants of Gudavia. You see, there had been no trains in Gudavia for five years due to government decrees! It turned out that it was not only trains that were in short supply….

 

Anyway, our carriage eventually rolled to a halt, and Howard and I found ourselves confronted by a delegation of government troops. I attempted to explain that we were on our way to a music festival in Salzburg. This explanation didn’t seem to wash with our welcoming committee and matters were made worse when we realized that try as we might, we just couldn’t locate Gudavia on a map.

 

Not only were Howard and I in a country that to all intents and purposes was cut off from the outside world and apparently did not exist, we were provided with accommodation in the local jail at the insistence of a pompous fool of an official by the name of Commander Koerner. So there we were: presumed spies, our fate not known to the outside world and without any kind of diplomatic or consulate protection.

 

It wasn’t long before events seemed to turn in our favor when that Koerner fellow came to release us from jail and proceeded to faun and fuss over us. The commander took us to the local hotel where we were to receive the best service and were offered the bridal suite no less!

 

An event involving Howard gives an insight into the type of unchecked bureaucratic and official mindset that seemed to reign supreme in little Gudavia. Off Howard went to the telegraph office with a spring in his step and high hopes of sending a telegram to the newspaper. The clerk accepted his message like a good fellow but then went on to explain that the telegraph office was not actually open (except on special occasions as that day was!) and that the message would not be sent. As Howard was wondering if he had wound up in some kind of a bizzaro-world, the clerk proceeded to rip up his message. Some of us can relate to this when we deal with government agencies and utility companies where the underlying message to us often seems to be: “whatever it is you are wanting, we are not giving….”

 

A more sinister mind set began to reveal itself at the hotel when we came across a girl by the name of Hedda playing the piano whose performance at the key board absolutely transfixed us. Suddenly a boy called Hugo Wendt, who had been watching Hedda play, ordered her to stop playing. He then harshly instructed her that music is not an exercise of emotional expression, but is something that obeys strict recurring rules and patterns. The brutal reaction of this juvenile Hitler merely caused the girl to burst into tears.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we were shown to our room, one of the staff called Anna slipped us a note with a message stating that the children must be saved and that the man in charge, a Dr Boronski must be destroyed. Naturally we dismissed it as being absurd. I then proceeded to contact my office in London by phone. No surprises that I was given the run around there!

 

Suddenly we were startled by a woman frantically screaming "murder, murder!" in the street below. We decided to go down and investigate but instead of finding a woman in distress, we bumped into that idiot, Koerner. He assured us that what we heard was merely the result of hysteria caused by an accident to a local child. Koerner then informed us that Dr Boronski would see us in the morning.

 

As Howard and I continued on our way, a strange incident occurred in which we both became separated after a bunch of locals dashed passed us. Howard managed to eventually tell me a bit later that at the time I was investigating a shop, a strange man appeared out of the shadows and darkness and he seemed to be unable to speak. This was then followed by the appearance of a group of similar men who all suddenly and mysteriously ran off. At the time I just thought that Howard was merely a bit tired.

 

Back at the hotel I decided to question Anna about the note and whatever else was going on. Anna did try to deny everything until she let slip that the man who gave her the note was now dead and that if anyone were to find out what she did she would be in trouble with Dr Macklin but then corrected herself by using the name, Boronski. At that moment I began to wonder where had I heard the name Macklin from…..

 

My thoughts were suddenly and rudely intruded upon by the ringing of the phone. It was that knuckle-head Koerner confirming the details of next day’s visit with Dr Boronski.

 

During our meeting with Boronski the next day, we finally got him to admit that he was indeed, Macklin, a famous biologist who left the West when he became depressed and frustrated over his work in longevity. He then went on to claim that he was now just the local school principal.

 

Dr Boronski soon introduced us to Paula Vendt who was the school’s senior tutor. who gave us a tour of the school and the preparations for the upcoming cultural festival.

 

During the tour, we met that obnoxious boy, Hugo, who it turned out was the school’s most gifted student. Figures! Hugo had been working on this large mask and as he showed it to us, Howard was stunned to see a resemblance between the mask and the facial appearance of the group of men he told me about from the previous evening when we became separated.

 

Later that day Howard and I witnessed a funeral and we figured it was for the man who wrote the note that Anna passed to us. We then decided to do a bit of sniffing around and eventually located the deceased man’s widow, Frau Bikstein. When we showed her the note she readily authenticated it, and proceeded to tell us about the experiments her husband was doing with Dr Boronski. Frau Bikstein wouldn’t give us any more information out of fear but she did give us access to a diary from Boronski that her husband apparently stole from the laboratory.

 

The diary gave us valuable insight into the kind of experiments Boronski was conducting. His experiments involved exposing young immature brains to gamma radiation enabling both geniuses and imbeciles to be created at will. The gamma rays were supposed to be able to accelerate the brain’s development and allow its full potential to be used.

 

We learned later from young Hedda that our little bully boy Hugo was throwing his weight around by criticising Hedda for playing what he saw as weak sentimental music and telling her father, Lockner that he had no rights because the state was raising Hedda and that he had better beware of the likely consequences of his actions. Little wonder that Hedda and her father were making plans to escape to Vienna. Thank goodness for the existence of countries that are prepared to take in those from elsewhere who face threats to their lives, liberty and well-being!

 

We also learned that Boronski had instructed horrible Hugo to retrieve a photo that Howard had taken of Hugo’s mask. In fact it was Howard who caught Hugo in the act of sneaking into the house to locate where the photos were being kept. Hugo acted all innocent in front of Howard and tried to deflect attention away from what he was up to by taking about chess. Clever move kid!

 

In the meantime, I came across Paula Vendt riding a horse and began questioning her about what was going on at Boronski’s laboratory. It turned out that her father was a friend of Boronski, and had come to Gudavia to work for him. When I expressed doubts about her support for Boronski’s research, she became defensive and galloped off. Paula was sure one gal I’d like to ride off into the sunset with!

 

The next part of our adventure I’m a little bit embarrassed to tell you about. You see, ladies’ man Howard spotted Hugo and sprinted after him in order to retrieve the photo that was taken. Our super-fit hero managed to catch Hugo at a playground. He then admitted to Hugo that he had the negative and confidently refused to give it to the young hoodlum. At this point Hugo called on the services of a gang of ……..school boys……yes, you read it correctly…..school boys who then proceeded to make mincemeat out of Howard and take the negative from him. Well, Howard old boy, that is one story that won’t impress your lady friends!

 

Late at night I spotted Paula and followed her to the spot where Lockner had been killed by being thrown off a cliff. It soon became apparent that Boronski and his goons were behind this incident after Boronski learned about Lockner’s intentions to leave with his daughter. I tried to question Paula but she felt that I was merely there to write a story rather than being interested in helping.

 

I was soon able however, to catch up with Boronski and show him Lockner’s lifeless and mangled body at the bottom of the cliff, He acted as if he didn’t know anything about it so I told him that if anything was to happen to Hedda, I would come after him. After issuing this threat to Boronski, he signalled for his goons to chase after me. I barely managed to escape until my pursuers were called off by Boronski.

Next morning it transpired that Boronski ordered his lap dog, Koerner to prohibit all public gatherings and to cancel the festival. I managed to confront Koerner in the street and demanded to know where Hedda was. As a crowd gathered around us, I informed them all that it was Boronski who was behind the murders and that it was Koerner’s function to conceal the truth.

 

That night, a new mood of civil disobedience bubbled to the surface with the population ignoring the official proclamations not to gather in the street. They were determined to have their festival. Meanwhile, I tried looking for Howard at the hotel and couldn’t find him, so I went back out into streets and met up with Frau Bikstein who then led me to a hiding place where I saw Paula. Paula was now determined to help me bring Boronski down. What a gal!

 

I learned from Paula that Hedda was being held in the castle, but before we could decide on a further course of action, we were discovered by the authorities. After a brief melee, we managed to escape by mingling in with the festival goers on the streets.

 

Suddenly good old Howard popped up driving a car which we used to drive to the castle, well almost to the castle seeing as a puncture forced us to abandon the car along the way. As we proceeded to walk with alacrity, the car exploded! No coincidence there! Realising the lengths that Boronski and his boys were prepared to go to be rid of us, I decided to send my athletic pal Howard back to town for help, while Paula and I continued on to the secret labs. I realised then just how funny Howard looks when he runs. Arms and legs going every which way!!

 

It wasn’t long before Paula located Hedda but Boronski soon returned to conduct an experiment while I had to hide in a dark corner. Thankfully Paula made her way to me with Hedda.

 

As we were close to leaving the castle, we were confronted by…you guessed it….Hugo. Paula tried to talk Hugo out of setting off the alarm by informing him that she was his sister and that it was Boronski who had killed their father. That heartless little so and so wouldn’t listen and he set the alarms off.

 

The three of us found ourselves now trapped inside a control room and we were given an ultimatum by Boronski: Our lives in exchange for Hedda’s.

 

To assist with our decision, Boronski explained the Gamma ray process to us and then proceeded to turn the instrument on us. He thoughtfully informed us that we would suffer extremely before our brains were shrivelled. Our agony increased as Boronski continued to intensify the ray leaving us only with seconds left to live.

 

I learned a bit later that Hugo was unable to deal with what was taking place and was ordered by Boronski to go to his room. It turned out that when Hugo spotted Howard with his reinforcements entering the castle, he warned Boronski and as Boronski climbed the stairs for a better look, Hugo pushed him, causing the doctor to fall.

 

Hugo then triggered a series of explosions causing the whole area to be engulfed by fire. Meanwhile, I managed to recover and help Hugo who was being attacked by one of Boronski’s goons. It turned out that Boronski had not been killed by his fall as testified by the fact that he set about attacking me. After a struggle, I finally managed to eliminate Boronski by pushing him into the flames of the raging fire.

 

We all managed to get out of the castle just in the nick of time as the entire edifice of Boronski’s abomination was consumed by flames and rendered asunder by a series of explosions.

 

Howard’s words in the best British tradition seem to best sum up the feeling at the time of the close of the whole Gudavian affair: “I say, it was a jolly grand street parade they gave us in our honour. Rather fitting I’d say on account we just helped save them, what! Even that boorish fat fellow, Koerner arrived with a brand new car for us-splendid! Yes, I shall never forget the adoring crowds…..”

 

And so good reader on a more serious note to end this piece: a little land languishing under the iron grip of dictatorial rule threw off its shackles and became a free society. It serves as a warning to us to beware of those powerful Boronskis who would seek to use any means at their disposal such as the manipulative and controlling power of technology, the use of fear and the tools and agencies of oppression in order to gain and maintain control over their societies’ populations. The question remains: Do we allow ourselves to become their compliant "zombies" or do we maintain our humanity and dignity by saying “NO!” and by resisting?

 

 

Points Of Interest

 

It is very difficult to determine exactly what “The Gamma People” is aiming for: suspense and terror; sci-fi with socio-political commentary; comedy involving the interactions between the unlikely looking heroes, Mike Wilson and Howard Meade; or action with its frequent fight and chase scenes. It’s very hard therefore for the viewer to see this film as having any kind of real credibility and probably helps to explain its obscurity.

 

The standout character in the film is probably the despicable young genius, Hugo played by Michael Caridia. We get shivers just by witnessing his ability to inspire terror in those around him as in the piano scene when we are first introduced to him and later during the chess playing exchange between him and Howard.

 

Director John Gilling’s other films include: The Flesh and the Fiends (1960); The Pirates of Blood River (1962); The Brigand of Kandahar (1965); Blood Beast of Outer Space (1965) and his last film, Cross of the Devil (1975).

 

 

Fact File: Gamma Radiation

 

Gamma radiation is electromagnetic radiation of an extremely high frequency and consists of high-energy photons. They are produced by the decay of atomic nuclei as they transition from a high energy state to a lower state known as gamma decay. They can also be produced by other processes. Natural sources of gamma rays on Earth include gamma decay from naturally occurring radioisotopes, and secondary radiation from atmospheric interactions with cosmic ray particles.

 

Gamma rays are biologically hazardous and could even pose a threat to our entire planet!

 

Pioneers

 

French physicist, Henri Becquerel in 1896 discovered that uranium minerals could expose a photographic plate through a heavy opaque paper. He concluded that uranium emitted some invisible light similar to x-rays which he termed, "metallic phosphorescence.” What he indeed found was gamma radiation being emitted by radium-226 which is part of the uranium decay chain and commonly occurs with uranium.

 

Paul Villard, French chemist and physicist also discovered gamma radiation in 1900, while studying radiation emitted from radium. The term "gamma rays” was coined by Ernest Rutherford in 1903.

 

Gamma photons travel at the speed of light and can pass through many kinds of materials, including our own human tissue. Materials, such as lead which are very dense are used as shielding to slow or stop these gamma photons.

 

Gamma rays have the smallest wavelengths and the most energy of any wave in the electromagnetic spectrum.

 

Hot and energetic objects in the universe such as neutron stars and pulsars, supernova explosions, and regions around black holes produce gamma rays. Here on Earth, gamma waves can be generated by nuclear explosions, lightning, and radioactive decay.

 

Even the Incredible Hulk owes his existence and anger management issues to an accident involving gamma rays!

 

 

 

 

 

X: The Unknown (1956)

 

Imaginative, action-packed, thought-provoking, suspenseful & a lot of fun

 

 

Directed by Leslie Norman, Joseph Losey

Produced by Hinds

Written by Jimmy Sangster

Music by James Bernard

Cinematography: Gerald Gibbs

Edited by James Needs

Production Company: Hammer Film Productions

Distributed by Warner Bros (US)

Running time: 81 minutes

Budget: $60,000 (US)

 

Cast

 

Dean Jagger: Dr. Adam Royston

Edward Chapman: John Elliott

Leo McKern: Insp. 'Mac' McGill

Anthony Newley: LCpl. 'Spider' Webb

Jameson Clark: Jack Harding

William Lucas: Peter Elliott

Peter Hammond: Lt. Bannerman

Marianne Brauns: Zena, the Nurse

Ian MacNaughton: Haggis

Michael Ripper: Sgt. Harry Grimsdyke

John Harvey: Maj. Cartwright

Edwin Richfield: Soldier burned on back

Jane Aird: Vi Harding

Norman Macowan: Old Tom

Neil Hallett: Unwin

 

“X the Unknown” is a British science fiction horror film made by the Hammer Film Productions company. Over the years the British have made some fine sci-fi films and series and have done so using far less resources than their US Hollywood counterparts. This film, together with “The Quatermass Xperiment” (1955) and “Quatermass 2” (1957), form part of a trilogy of films that convey the prevailing Cold War anxieties of the time, as well as painting a picture of a modern Britain struggling to come to terms with its diminishing status as a world power. “X the Unknown” stands as a kind of audio-visual social document that conveys the atmosphere of Britain in the late '50s.

 

(Spoilers follow….)

 

Click Go The Geigers; Click, Click, Click…

 

To the accompaniment of James Bernard's ominous music score, the film opens with the credits and title over a bleak muddy field used as a military training ground somewhere in Scotland. The rising crescendo of string instruments almost serve to jangle our nerves and set them on edge.

 

A soldier, corporal "Spider" Webb wields a Geiger counter and is searching for a buried target. Our expectations are set up as the element of potential danger and the nature of the possible threat are apparently indicated by the incessant clicking of the Geiger counter. It is soon obvious, however, that this is merely a military training exercise.

 

After Webb locates the cylinder and the soldiers are about to pack up for the day, Lancing declares, “Please sir, I haven’t had a turn yet!” A fateful decision on his part! In one of several aside scenes showing events from the point of view of minor characters, our local Rosencrantz and Guildenstern duo, Haggis and Webb, find plenty to complain about Lancing’s show of eagerness: “I’ll give ‘im ‘I haven’t had a go yet!’” As Lancing begins his search. Webb tries to guide him to the target, and observes in frustration, “he couldn’t find his nose on his stupid face.” The nifty camera work effectively aids in this minor character view of events.

 

Lancing suddenly picks up a stronger radioactive source. Sgt. Grimsdyke states that “We’ve got a reading on the counter we shouldn’t have.” Lt. Bannerman orders Sgt. Grimsdyke to get hold of Major Cartright. Major Cartright soon pulls up in a Jeep and is taken to the location of the strong radioactive reading.

 

We are once again invited to see events from the minor characters’ perspective whereby the two soldiers believe “It’s a bloomin’ uranium mine” and consider the possibility of being able to “stake a claim.” Not a far-fetched proposition at the time when prospectors did try to make their fortune during the uranium mining boom just as people had done during previous gold rushes.

 

After Lancing marks the location with a stick, he notices the water starting to bubble just where he placed that stick. Suddenly the ground begins to open up and appears to almost swallow the seemingly transfixed Lancing. Amazing what consequences for an individual’s life can result from just one decision or choice made by that individual! Destiny? Fate? Accident? Circumstance? Coincidence? Luck? The whim of the Gods? God’s will? Shit happens? Only a fool will try to tell you for certain!

 

 

The Establishment

 

At the Lochmouth Atomic Energy Facility, the director's son, Peter Elliott is busily processing nuclear material (Cobalt) and is substituting for Dr. Royston who is performing experiments in his lab. The director, John Elliott enters the scene in search of Royston who has the audacity to fail to respond to repeated pages for him.

 

In the meantime, Dr. Adam Royston is conducting an experiment when suddenly static on this radio indicates that the chemical element he has been working on is highly radioactive.

 

As soon as Royston returns to the facility, the director points out to him that he is only to work on approved assigned tasks, and not his own projects: “I shall decide what you should do and shouldn’t.” He then sends Royston to check out the site of the radioactive discovery.

 

At the test site, the press have got wind of the story and are asking pertinent questions such as, “Do you think it is atomic?” and “How do you account for its absence now?” Royston inspects the injured soldiers and obtains some partial answers. His experience soon tells him what the nature of the injuries are: Radiation burns! Royston later informs the Major, "There's nothing more we can do out here. I suggest you leave a couple of men on guard."

 

As destiny, fate, accident, circumstance, coincidence, luck, the whim of the gods, God’s will, shit happens or whatever would have it, we know who will be chosen to stand guard! Our two selected erstwhile British soldiers reveal what is really important to them: “It’s alright for him; he’s had something to eat.”

 

Road To Wisdom

 

That night Royston and Peter drive back to the atomic facility and discuss the mysterious affair. Royston declares that it is important that they not be carried away by “nameless horrors creeping around in the night.” The reaction of the driver and his expression upon hearing this reveal the impact that such an event of apparent scientific curiosity can have on the minds and imaginations of those unfamiliar with the world of science and the occurrence of extraordinary natural phenomena.

 

When called on to explain what he thinks has been going on, Royston can only reply with, “I don’t know.” He says this several times throughout the film. Here we have an unusual protagonist hero who does not follow the rules, is a senior citizen, wields a walking stick and can only offer up “I don’t know” by way of explanation as to what has been taking place! Admitting that one does not know is in fact a first step on the path toward acquiring true wisdom and knowledge.

 

The first important bit of obvious and self-evident useful knowledge gained by Royston is that “forces don’t just split the earth and burn people with radiation.”

 

Go on; I dare you to!!

 

Two boys, Willie and Ian, venture out into the woods to play a game of dare involving one of them going to a tower in which resides "Old Tom." Willie Harding furtively makes his way through the brush and approaches the tower. In a most creepily effective scene, we see Willie via a stalking creature's point-of-view shot and are then presented with a close-up of Willie’s face as his eyes widen in horror. He then backs away terror-stricken and runs headlong past Ian.

 

The terrifying nature of the entity is so far conveyed solely by its impact, by Its association with other dangerous elements, by conjecture concerning its nature and by the reactions of those who come into contact with it. No need to confront the audience with its physical appearance just yet!

 

Pieces To A Puzzle

 

Willie has now wound up in hospital with severe burns. Royston is there with the doctor to examine the burns which it is suspected have been caused by radiation. Willie’s father, Jack Harding asks, “Burned? By what?” Royston replies, “That’s what we’re trying to find out.” Willie’s parents then tell Royston that he should talk to the boy, Ian.

 

Royston goes to the church to question Ian who is reluctant to talk about what happened: “I canny! I canny! I swore an oath!” Ian, however, finally divulges what happened and where.

 

Royston then drives out to the tower where “old reprobate” Tom is ensconced with his whiskey still. Royston notices a soot-like substance on the floor and a liquid from the still dripping through the ceiling. After waking Tom up, Royston spots a radioactive container on the shelf which contains Tritium (Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen) which has been taken from his workshop. Royston barks out at old Tom, “Stay away from it man! It may kill you!” The substance in the container however proves to be inert.

 

At Royston's lab it is obvious that a burglary has taken place with evidence of broken glass and damaged equipment. There is also the presence of the soot-like substance around the lab. Royston explains that the container holds tritium which is unstable and has a half-life of 28 years. However, it now gives no reading at all and is inert. It is as if the energy has been “sucked right out of it.”

 

Inspector McGill played by Leo McKern is part of Internal Security from the Atomic Energy Commission. He has come to investigate since a crime involving radiation has apparently been committed.

 

Director Elliot believes that this “crime” has nothing to do with the “establishment.” For “establishment” we could understand the word as signifying the atomic facility or we could view it in terms of The Establishment, that bastion of British tradition, authority and orthodoxy. In opposition to this, we have the maverick and unconventional Dr Royston who has the capacity to think outside of the box and who, according to McGill, understands “the basic facts of science.” It is Royston who McGill turns to for help with his investigation of the mysterious crime.

 

In a heart-wrenching scene, poor Willie Harding who “never regained consciousness,” soon dies. His father, Jack Harding confronts Royston. He tells him, "You meddle with things that kill…. You're not safe, you're a murderer." This outburst hurts but is understandable. Royston firmly believes that scientists like him “only try to create. Not destroy.”

 

Not so, Dr Royston. Even that true Renaissance man, Leonardo Da Vinci applied his talent to developing the art of warfare, not to mention how much scientific and technical ingenuity ever since has been devoted to coming up with ever increasingly efficient ways of wiping out human beings from the face of the earth. Then there are the destructive unintended consequences that are often the by-product of human scientific progress to consider…..

 

Lab Limbo: 'X'-Rated!

 

In one of the scenes whose explicit special effects served to earn “X-The Unknown” an 'X Certificate,' restricting it to adult audiences, lab technician, Harry Unwin engages in a bit of hanky-panky with nurse Zena. Suddenly the lab equipment starts on its own and Harry goes into the lab to investigate.

 

In another point of view shot we see a terrified Harry backing away up against the wall. Zena, in the next room, witnesses what is happening through the glass shielding.

 

We have a close shot of her terror-twisted face and hear her demented screams as she watches Harry being devoured by the creature, with the flesh on his face and hands melting like wax and being stripped away, leaving only bone.

 

The camera then zooms onto Harry’s hand, the fingers of which are shown to be swelling and blistering.

 

Royston and McGill later examine the lab. The radium storage vault is melted and covered in the soot-like substance as on previous occasions elsewhere. Royston concludes, "Obviously the radium was the target" and that the creature “can take up any shape it needs to.” McGill informs Royston that the Major has posted soldiers (yes, our two friends!) at the original location of the fissure.

 

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead

 

Here we have two of the British military’s finest, Haggis and Webb, on guard at the fissure. Haggis hears something and spots a luminous glow out by the fissure. Our dynamic duo are right on top of things as can be judged from bits of their conversation:

 

“You better go and have a look.”

“Why me?”

“Why don’t you and me go to Glasgow at our next 48?”

 

Haggis eventually gathers together his cahonas and goes to have a look. He calls to his buddy Spider Webb and then suddenly screams. Webb then takes off after Haggis but only manages to find his rifle covered with the sooty substance.

 

We next have yet another point of view shot through the eyes of the approaching menace through which we see Webb’s look of horror as he futilely fires his machine gun at the creature. Our last sight of Webb is of him screaming and falling down. Later a torn cap is retrieved and stands as pathetic testimony to the fact that our two fellows indeed may have had no control over their destinies; that it was all just written for them as part of the script and like all of us they just merely played out their parts before exiting!

 

Must be some kind of logical explanation?

 

At the atomic facility, Royston calls a meeting at which he puts forward his ideas concerning the creature which amount to “partly fact” but “mostly theory.” He suggests that the creature lives underground and is intelligent, inasmuch as certain forces in the center of the earth have managed to develop an entity with intelligence. Over time, energy has been gradually compressed by the earth’s crust. Every fifty years or so, a planetary alignment exerts a greater pull on the earth. The creature has had to come to the surface as the area in which it inhabits constricts. In order to live, it requires energy and only fifty years previously there was nothing on the surface for it to eat. Energy can only be fed with more energy which now it has in abundance!

 

As our experience of the universe increases, we may well be faced with the possibility that extra-terrestrial life forms, including intelligent and sentient forms of life, don’t necessarily have to be of the carbon based humanoid variety. There may very well be silicon-based, gaseous and even energy-based forms of life that will force us to reconsider all that we thought we knew about what constitutes life. Right now, we just “don’t know.”

 

In answer to the question as to what to do about the creature, Royston with his characteristic honesty replies with, “I don’t know.” The director, on the other hand, with his equally characteristic arrogance brands Royston’s hypothesis as being "absolute rubbish."

 

The Decent

 

"You there! What saw you down there,"

That filled you with such terror?

In dark and deadly depths of despair

Saw you a thing of such horror,

As “something out of a nightmare?”

 

The military have made the necessary preparations for a decent into the fissure. Peter volunteers to go down into the fissure. On the way down, he encounters a uniform and skeletal remains of one of the soldiers on a ledge.

 

As he continues his decent, his Geiger counter suddenly registers a radiation reading. In a panic, Peter quickly reacts and calls out, “Get me out of here quick! Faster! Faster!”

 

We can do this either the easy way, or the hard way…

 

After extracting Peter from the fissure, The Major informs Royston that his orders are to “kill whatever it is and concrete the area all over.” Here we have a conflict between the military mindset (“I think it’ll do the trick”) and Royston’s more considered scientific approach which is seen by the Major as being too “complicated.”

 

Back in his lab, Royston expresses his doubts to McGill. In relation to the nature of “this ‘X’ – this unknown quantity,” he asks, "How do you kill mud?" He then informs McGill who is leaving for London that he has been investigating the possibility of disintegrating atomic structure without the need for an explosion.

 

Come and get it!

 

At the fissure, the creature bursts out of its concrete tomb and is finally revealed and seems like a precursor to the creature in “The Blob” (1958)! Meanwhile, the atomic pile at the atomic facility is now inactive and the cobalt is being moved elsewhere. McGill calls his headquarters to request a delay in his return to London but the phone line is crackling and he has difficulty hearing his boss. We don’t need three guesses as to what’s causing this!

 

McGill then overhears a police report about, "people melting." He grabs the police report and rushes to the location. Once there, in a scene that shows how lucky we are in the 21st Century to have mobile phones in an emergency, McGill finally is able to call Royston at the facility and inform him that four people have been melted.

 

Royston, the Director, and Peter make use of a map of the area. Royston suggests that the creature can sense radiation and moves in a straight line. Making use of the map, Royston is able to determine that the creature is "on its way for the biggest meal of its life." - the Atomic Energy Establishment.

 

The creature makes its way to one of the guard posts and melts a guard before moving on to a building and absorbing the cobalt. A path is cleared for the creature when it returns to the fissure. Urgent action is needed that night for its next target will be a larger nuclear facility with the city of Inverness lying between the creature and the facility.

 

In Royston’s workshop another test is performed with a sample being bombarded with radio waves. Success seems likely as the Geiger counter reading eventually shows zero. Suddenly, the container starts to glow and then it explodes. Despite the possibility that it won't work, there is little choice but to undertake this experiment on a larger scale and try it on the creature at the fissure site where the required equipment is situated.

 

“Bring out the Geigers!”

 

Royston comes up with a plan to use a container of cobalt as radioactive "bait" on the back of a Jeep to entice the creature out of the fissure and have it situated between the radio scanners which need to be in sync.

 

The tension is ramped up when Peter takes over driving the Jeep from the ill driver. Against orders he reverses closer to the fissure to lure the creature out. All the while Royston is shouting to him, “Peter, don’t go any closer! Don’t be a fool!” How ironic seeing this comes from a maverick who plays by his own rules!

 

The creature does eventually emerge and pursues the Jeep until it is situated between the scanners. A high-pitched sound is heard as the creature begins to glow and expand. Suddenly it explodes and disappears. Royston calls for Geiger counters to obtain a reading. As they approach the fissure, an even larger explosion occurs.

 

At the end, Royston approaches the fissure, peers into it and makes a strange almost enigmatic comment in answer to a question about what happened: “I don’t know. It shouldn’t have happened.” Perhaps Royston’s answer is elaborated for the viewer by the film itself in its articulation of the fear of science perhaps being allowed to run amok with such drastic consequences for the world…..

 

 

Points Of Interest

 

“X The Unknown” was inspired by the success of “The Quatermass Xperiment” and was intended to be a sequel to that film, but writer Nigel Kneale refused permission for the character of Bernard Quatermass to be used.

 

The original director of the film was Joseph Losey but he was replaced by Leslie Norman from Ealing due to illness. Losey was an American director who had moved to the UK after being placed on the Hollywood blacklist.

 

It turns out that Leslie Norman was unpopular with the cast and crew due to his not being able to direct people very well despite his proficiency with the technical aspects of directing. He apparently, according to some, complained a lot, could be very harsh and employed abusive language. Still, this didn’t stop him putting together a very decent film of its type.

 

The location of Buckinghamshire in South East England was used in “X the Unknown” for some of the exterior shots of the moors and the surrounding countryside.

 

“X The Unknown” is an excellent example of a film that works so well in black and white in which the high-contrast black and white photography serves to create a very creepy and moody atmosphere.

 

The film works well for many reasons apart from those outlined above. First, there is the film’s concept, and premise, which though a bit far-fetched, holds together quite well with its own logic. Second, the cast does quite a good job with roles that are not overplayed nor are the characters particularly stereotypical. Thirdly, a good story more than makes up for some rudimentary special effects. Finally, there’s the almost happy ending with a good tinge of ambiguity thrown in for good measure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Man Who Turned to Stone (1957) 

 

An interesting and well-paced film hampered by low-budget constraints

 

Directed by László Kardos

Produced by Sam Katzman

Written by Bernard Gordon

Music by Ross DiMaggio, George Duning

Cinematography: Benjamin H. Kline

Edited by Charles Nelson

Distributed by Columbia Pictures

Running time: 71 minutes

 

Cast

 

Victor Jory: Dr. Murdock

William Hudson: Dr. Jess Rogers

Charlotte Austin: Carol Adams

Jean Willes: Tracy

Ann Doran: Mrs. Ford

Paul Cavanagh: Cooper

George Lynn: Dr. Freneau

Victor Varconi: Dr. Myer

Friedrich von Ledebur: Eric

Tina Carver: Big Marge Collins

Barbara Wilson: Anna Sherman

 

 

(Spoilers Follow Below……)

 

The film, “The Man Who Turned to Stone” begins with the title and credits over the shot of a man carrying a woman. It opens at night with a truck pulling up to the “La Salle Detention Home for Girls.”

 

In a dormitory room containing beds occupied by slumbering young women, the camera zooms in on one young woman who is apparently distraught and racked with sobbing. She is told by one of the other women. “Look kid, we all went through the same things at first.”

 

Suddenly a scream outside the dormitory flings off the covers of sleep and draws the other women to the dorm room window. One of the detainees by the name of Marge says, "They're at it again” and adds with a premonition, "there will be somebody dead in the morning."

 

The next scene reveals a Frankenstein-like character called Eric carrying a terror-stricken screaming young woman to the main house. As he ascends the stairs to the second floor, we notice on the walls various portraits of men from previous centuries suggesting a long lineage or genealogy surrounding those in charge of the detention home. Or perhaps the paintings are indicative of refined and expensive tastes in art? Odd for a detention home for girls!

 

Carrying his young burden, Eric enters an attic room which also serves as a treatment room or lab where Dr. Murdock instructs him to place the girl in a tub of water.

 

The next day Marge accompanies one of the girls, Anna Sherman to the Dispensary. Anna informs a cold and emotionless Mrs. Ford that she can't keep her food down. Marge is also there to have a bandage on her leg changed by Dr. Freneau. Mrs Ford’s responses give us an insight into her attitude toward those who are placed under her charge. “Take that one (Anna) to the Infirmary” and “Let her (Marge) bandage it herself.” In fact, Marge is sent to an isolation cottage in response to her insubordinate attitude. It is obvious that from Mrs Ford’s perspective, the inmates are less than human and are viewed as being little more than inanimate objects.

 

One of the female inmates, Tracy has a clerical job working for Carol Adams the Social Welfare worker who has been working at La Salle for about 3 months. There appears to be a good rapport between Adams and Tracy.

 

Tracy asks Carol if the screams from the night before kept her awake. Carol heard nothing as she had taken a pill which sent her soundly off to sleep. Tracy tells her, "I'll bet you a box of girl scout cookies that somebody died last night" and that “it happens much too often.”

 

Carol contacts Mrs. Ford and inquires if anyone has died. She is told that Angie Collins had a heart attack and died. Tracy then suggests that a review of the death records would make interesting reading. Carol agrees to look at them.

 

Carol finds the records in Mrs. Ford's office and begins to scrutinize them as Dr. Myer stealthily enters the room. He asks Carol, “What are you doing Ms Adams?” She then asks him if the records, or death certificates, are available chronologically, to which he responds with the question, “Did you get permission from Dr. Murdock or Mrs. Ford?”

 

Mrs. Ford suddenly enters the office igniting an apparent clash of opposing temperaments, attitudes and approaches. Adams declares that there seems to be “something unnatural about the number of young girls that suddenly die.” Ford quickly snaps back with the question, “Which girls?” Intriguingly for any impartial observer, knowing the identity of the girls in question seems to be more important than identifying and addressing an obvious problem.

 

Ford informs Adams that she is “part of the administration,” that she is to “stop fancy fripperies” like movie viewing sessions and that her “immature notions of discipline” are proving to be disruptive. Ford tells her to stay in her own department and mind her own business.

 

As a tub is being filled in the treatment room, Eric goes to the infirmary to collect Anna Sherman. With the light shining upwards into his face, he has the appearance of one those archetypal monsters from an old Frankenstein horror movie. When Eric returns to the treatment room with Anna, it is obvious that he is physically deteriorating.

 

The “staff” lie to Anna by telling her that they will not hurt her and that they are only going to give her a test, something like an ECG for her heart. Cooper, however, protests: “I’ve had enough of this!” He wonders how many young lives must be sacrificed to keep Eric alive.

 

An electrical headband device is placed on Anna's head after which an apparatus transfers Anna's life force into Eric resulting in Anna’s death and Eric’s temporary revival.

 

When the girls return to the dorm after the film, they shockingly find Anna's body hanging above her bed. After the matron is called, Tracy tells Carol that Anna “was making big plans” and that “it just doesn’t add up” with her taking her own life. Carol remains dubious.

 

The findings of a coroner's inquest conducted at the main house show that Anna’s death was “due to a severed spinal cord” and was deemed to have been “self-inflicted by hanging.”

 

Carol informs the coroner of her doubts about Anna having been suicidal. Dr. Murdock then asks Carol a series of very strategic questions designed to cast doubt on her professional credibility and credentials;

 

“You have been at La Salle for 3 months?” (So brief!)

“Any incidents of unsavoury treatment?” (She agrees there weren’t any)

 

Murdock suggests that Carol was busy showing films and giving less time to inmates. (My, perhaps she wasn’t doing her job!)

 

He also gets Dr Rogers, a psychiatrist for the State Department of Mental Health, to agree that an experienced psychologist would be able to detect signs of a patient being in a self-destructive frame of mind. (Clearly Adams is not an experienced psychologist)

 

The strategy to discredit Carol Adams has the desired effect as evidenced by such newspaper headlines as:

 

PRISON PSYCHOLOGIST SHOWING FILMS WHILE SHERMAN GIRL HANGS HERSELF!

 

The next day an apparently resigned and defeated Carol begins the process of clearing out her office in anticipation of her losing her position at the detention facility. When Dr. Rogers arrives to take over her duties and asks her to stay and assist him with the inmates, Carol asks, "weren't you sent here to whitewash the prison administration?" Rogers replies that he only wants to get at the truth.

 

Dr Rogers goes over to Murdock’s residence but finds that Murdock is absent. When Cooper shows him in to Murdock’s office, Rogers is immediately struck by the presence of exquisite antiques, especially a Rembrandt painting on the wall. Cooper says it was picked up for $100 in 1850, but he suddenly corrects himself by saying it was in 1950. Ah Ha! An interesting clue to add to Roger’s wondering as to “who’d ever dream of looking inside a prison to find all of this!”

 

Questioning of the inmates soon begins. Through their investigation, Carol, Rogers, and Tracy discover that the medical staff came to the facility about two years earlier "when all the funny business started." They also obtained the names of 11 girls who had died under mysterious circumstances. Ford even informed them that, as luck would have it, the death certificates were destroyed in a mysterious fire!

 

Rogers and Carol go to see Marge who is in isolation. Marge makes an interesting observation that lends weight to doubts concerning Anna’s supposed suicide: “Did you ever hear anyone scream when they hang themselves?” Anna was screaming but only Marge heard as everybody else was watching the movie.

 

Being unable to review the death records due to the “unfortunate accident” of the "mysterious fire" in the file room, Rogers requests a complete history of all the detainees. He also wants to obtain tissue samples of Anna Sherman to examine as well a full autopsy performed.

 

In the face of Murdock’s objections and orders, Rogers enters the morgue to obtain the samples and to perform the autopsy himself. While examining a tissue sample under a microscope, the staff come to the morgue to confront Rogers. He lies to them by saying, “I found some haemorrhaging…. I found nothing” and that Anna was alive when she hanged herself, and had therefore committed suicide as was concluded by the coroner.

 

Rogers later confides to Carol, “I’m convinced she was already dead, but I can’t prove it.” However, he had noticed that Cooper was not with the others at the morgue and surmises that there is some animosity between Cooper and the other medical staff.

 

Rogers goes to see Cooper. Their conversation occurs to the accompaniment of a steady audible heartbeat. It is coming from Cooper! Cooper warns Rogers to take Adams and leave the facility. Rogers tells Cooper, “Murdock is through with you” to which Cooper replies, “it is I who am through with him.” Cooper also adds, “I expect to die suddenly or disappear.” He informs Rogers that even though he wants to, he can’t tell him the whole story of what has been going on. Cooper tells Rogers that he has written it out and the information is contained in a book or journal. Should Cooper die or disappear, Rogers will receive instructions in the mail as to where he can find the information. In order to convince Rogers of the truth of what he has told him, he proceeds to repeatedly stab his hand with a pair of scissors. He then holds up his hand and says, “Look at it, not even a mark!”

 

At a meeting with Murdock and the other staff members, Cooper is informed of their decision not to "renew" him due to his increasing “disaffection” and his becoming a “menace to the project.” Cooper’s changing physical appearance indicates that his time is almost up. He admits that “220 years is too long for any man to live" and reach a point whereby “you think you can give life and take life.”

 

Cooper suddenly panics and seems to have second thoughts. He pleads with the others, “I feel I’m close to an answer…. I just need a few more years!” Cooper then abruptly dies without divulging the whereabouts of his notes. The others suspect that either Rogers or Carol have his notes.

 

It turns out that Rogers received the instructions in the mail informing him that he will be able to “find his (Cooper’s) diary under a large rock near the cliffs” not far from the grounds of the detention facility. As Rogers goes off in search of the diary, he is followed closely by Eric.

 

As Eric follows Rogers, it is apparent that he is in physical distress as he keeps falling and clutching his chest through which the sound of his pounding heart clearly and loudly emanates.

 

Rogers locates the diary in a metal box under a rock. In the diary Cooper explains that he was born in 1733 in England. In the 1780s he came to Paris to work with the Comte de Saint Germain (an actual historical figure!), a scientist working on animal magnetism and a project to prolong life indefinitely.

 

After a brief tussle with Eric, Rogers continues to read the journal. In it Cooper explains the life-prolonging process which involves the transfer of bioelectric energy from one person to another, whereby the donor dies and the recipient lives. It was discovered that the best source of life is young women of child bearing age. The medical staff at the detention facility have been aiming to synthesize the life force by using copper sulphate.

 

Eric suddenly goes berserk and runs amok through the dorms of the facility. Meanwhile, Rogers discovers from his reading of the diary / journal that “except for the last few hours before transfer, we’re the same as other people” and that a stone-like shell encases the affected person when they are close to death. In Eric’s case, he had been a “casualty of our first experiment.”

 

After hiding the journal, Rogers returns to the facility where Eric has in the meantime gone to the Isolation section. Once there, he grabs hold of Marge and carries her back to the main house and the treatment room.

 

Eric physically forces Murdock to start the renewal treatment, this time using Marge’s life-force. The process results in Marge’s death and Murdock resorts to sedating an agitated Eric. From the others’ perspective, Marge’s death was not immoral but merely a “waste” and all that remains to be done is to “get rid of her.”

 

Meanwhile, Carol tries to telephone the State Police for help but is informed by the facility receptionist / operator that only Dr. Murdock can approve the call but that he's out somewhere on the grounds.

 

Rogers decides to take more direct action by kicking in the locked treatment room door. He finds Eric there who then chases Rogers until Murdock and Mrs. Ford find Eric and escort him back to the room.

 

After re-joining Carol and Tracy, Rogers accompanied by his two fellow mutineers make their way to the facility’s switchboard where Tracy and Carol try to put in a call to the State Police. However, before the call can be completed Myer shoots out the switchboard.

 

Mrs. Ford injects Carol with a sedative while Rogers armed with just a box of matches enters the facility’s basement where he finds a “stone” dead Cooper along with one of the girls who is totally devoid of her life-force. Man-of-action Rogers quickly shuts off the water supply to the house and pulls the fuses to the treatment room hopefully rendering it inoperable. Note the bundles of lovely combustible newspapers in the basement along with Roger’s profligate use of matches. A bit of foreshadowing perhaps?

 

While Eric fetches a sedated Carol, he manages to nab Rogers and drags both back to the treatment room. Murdock and Mrs. Ford tell Eric they are going to renew him, but they lie to him to reassure and calm him down. They’re counting on the fact that Eric “will die a natural death.”

 

While this is going on, Rogers surreptitiously pours a chemical into the tub containing Carol in order to neutralise the copper sulphate solution in the water.

 

When Eric’s body finally (and quickly) succumbs to the inevitable universal process of atrophy, Rogers is placed in the life-force transference chair. Before the others can bestow their gift of immortality on Rogers, he tells them that he neutralized the solution in the tub with sodium salts.

 

Freneau goes to the basement to reconnect the fuses and turn on the water main. However, the clumsy klutz manages to (you guessed it!) start a fire in the basement.

 

Revolution and anarchy ensue with inmates flitting about in their nightgowns and Rogers engaging in fisty-cuffs with Murdock, along with a bit of gun fire.

 

While their version of Rome burns down around them, Murdock and Mrs. Ford stay in the treatment room to complete their notes. The film closes with the girls returning to their dorms and Rogers and Carol walking away while in the background the house continues to be consumed by flames.

 

 

Points of Interest

 

 

Beware, Lest We Turn to Stone!

 

From the title of the film, “The Man Who Turned to Stone,” we gain the impression that it will likely be a horror film about some unfortunate soul who becomes petrified or who turns into a statue and perhaps launches into a murderous rampage. The film, however, does not neatly fit into just the horror genre. It also has elements of the science fiction and mystery genres, along perhaps with some social-political commentary ….

 

The importance of the film lies in its commentary on the potential dangers associated with any system that is created to govern the affairs and lives of people. This could apply to any political, bureaucratic, legal, religious, military, corporate, workplace and other system.

 

One of the dangers of such systems is that those who are in control may wish to perpetuate their positions and grip on power indefinitely by whatever means necessary, even at the expense of the lives and liberty of those under their authority.

 

The bulk of the people under the control of those in authority can run the risk of becoming objectified instead of being viewed and treated as human individuals.

 

The power and control of those in command of such systems often depends on various means of indoctrination and the active complicity of those engaged to enforce, manage and administer the system. There can be a tendency toward compartmentalisation of knowledge and skills instead of a wider holistic interconnected understanding of a particular system’s functioning.

 

The established authority may seek to sustain and perpetuate itself by resorting to lies, corruption and creating a climate of fear, thereby sucking the very life out of those under its control.

 

Opponents of the established order and system of authority often find themselves ridiculed, demeaned or can face far worse consequences. This, however, cannot completely stop those who have the pursuance and uncovering of truth as their main focus.

 

The roll of whistle-blowers is essential in any process of resistance involving the investigation of deception and corruption by those in authority.

 

Another way to fight a corrupt system is to exploit its inherent contradictions and any signs of internal dissent.

 

A system that runs the risk of existing solely for the benefit of those in charge at the expense of those being governed, can be recognised by a rising tide of conservatism in which people soon become mired and stagnate in the self-perpetuating swill of mundane, close-minded and intolerant points of view and perceptions of reality. This can affect any organisation, institution or political system, from the most lunatic left-wing through to the most rabid right wing system. In either case, true creative and reformative thinking and approaches are replaced by a more restrictive and punitive mindset that focuses on more discipline and tighter control. Change and radical new ways of thinking and doing is an anathema to such a system that seeks to maintain the kind of status quo that serves the interests of those in charge. What remains is a petrified world view set hard in stone…….

 

To Reform & Rehabilitate or “Fancy Fripperies,” and “Immature Notions of Discipline”?

 

The women in LaSalle Detention Home for Girls form a segment of the population that few people would care about. Being “bad girls” in detention, they would be considered to have quite rightly lost all their rights. They have in fact no power, are anonymous and largely forgotten.

 

On the other hand, there are those like Carol Adams, the social worker who thinks it is important that the girls are helped to reform, instead of just being incarcerated and punished.

 

These diametrically opposed views of the purpose of imprisonment are still being debated at the time of writing. Take the issue of Aboriginal deaths in custody in Australia or the revelation in 2016 concerning the ill-treatment of juveniles in detention in the Northern territory. Also, community perceptions of the increasing incidence of juvenile crime, as well as the flaws in the bail and parole system has reignited debate about the nature and role of detention and incarceration.

 

Let’s hope we can come up with sensible solutions that stops us all on both sides of the wall from turning to stone….

 

 

The Comte De Saint Germain

 

“A Man Whose Riddle Has Never Been Solved”

(Frederick the Great)

 

Who was this enigmatic figure from history who was mentioned in Cooper’s diary and who figured in the development of the life-prolonging process used by the staff in the girls’ detention facility? Yes, that is the question: Who was he indeed?

 

Suddenly appearing in the early to mid-1700s, this “man without a past” gained a reputation as a scientist / alchemist, philosopher, musician, artist, composer, diplomat and something of a religious figure.

 

Also known as Marquis de Montferrat, Comte Bellamarre, Chevalier Schoening, Count Weldon, Comte Soltikoff, Graf Tzarogy and Prinz Ragoczy, Saint Germain would tell people fantastic things about himself, such as that he was 500 years old!

 

The following have been attributed to him either by himself or by others;

 

•  Of unknown origin but claimed he was the son of Francis II Rákóczi, the Prince of Transylvania.

• Educated in Italy by the last of the Medicis.

• Arrested in London on suspicion of espionage during the Jacobite rebellion but released without charge.

• Could sing, play the violin and compose music.

• Described as being odd but well-bred.

• Employed by Louis XV of France for diplomatic missions.

• Excellent conversationalist who was “everything with everybody.”

• Was a linguist who spoke or understood Italian, French, Polish, English, Spanish and Portuguese.

• Never ate any food in public.

• Claimed that he had a mastery over nature, that he could melt diamonds, and even form one large one from ten or twelve small diamonds without any loss of weight.

• Was said to possess the elixir of life and could to make gold at will.

• That he had invented a new method of dyeing or colouring cloth.

• He would tell listeners that he was actually present during historical events, or would describe things in such detail that led others to believe that he had personal and intimate knowledge of those events.

•  Was reported not to have physically changed by elderly people who knew him when they were younger.

• For an entire century, it was claimed that he kept the physical appearance of a man of between forty and fifty years old.

• That he died on 27 February 1784.

 

Such a man may have been The Comte De Saint Germain - "A man who knows everything and who never dies,” (Voltaire)

 

Victor Jory  played Dr. Murdock  in the sci-fi film, “Cat-Women of the Moon” (1953) while Friedrich von Ledebur who plays Eric, appeared in the sci-fi film, “The 27th Day” (1957) as the self-sacrificing scientist.

 

 

 

 

The Unearthly (1957)

 

A rather predictable, low-budget but strangely watchable film

 

 

Directed by Boris Petroff

Produced by Boris Petroff, Robert A. Terry

Screenplay by John D.F. Black, Jane Mann

Story by Jane Mann

Music by Henry Vars

Cinematography: W. Merie Connell

Production company: AB-PT Pictures

Distributed by Republic Pictures

Running time: 73 minutes

 

Cast

 

John Carradine: Dr. Charles Conway

Myron Healey: Mark Houston

Allison Hayes: Grace Thomas

Marilyn Buferd: Dr. Sharon Gilchrist

Arthur Batanides: Danny Green

Sally Todd: Natalie Andries

Tor Johnson: Lobo

Roy Gordon: Dr. Loren Wright

Guy Prescott: Police Captain George Reagan

Raymond Guth: Police Officer Miller

Harry Fleer: Harry Jedrow

Gloria Petroff: Screaming Woman

Paul McWilliams: Police Officer Ed

 

 

(Spoilers Follow Below…..)

 

Professor Charles Conway, an archetypal mad scientist, attempts to develop the long sought-after fountain of youth.

 

At his isolated psychiatric institute, he uses patients who have no family as subjects in his research into increasing human longevity.

 

Conway’s method involves surgically implanting an artificial gland in their skulls.

 

Conway will not let scientific ethics stand in the way of his research.

 

His research has so far had disastrous results for his subjects!!

 

Who can put a stop to Conway’s scheme???

 

The film’s title, “The Unearthly” suggests that the film will contain “not of this world” elements that are typical of the science fiction genre. It also suggests that it will be dealing with matters beyond the natural order of things, an essential ingredient of horror genre films and stories.

 

At the beginning of the film, our attention is immediately drawn to an image of an illuminated upstairs window of an old house. Our view shifts to the room’s interior where to the accompaniment of a woman’s high-pitched scream, we catch a fleeting glimpse of a monstrous bald figure attempting to strangle a desperately struggling young woman. Title and credits are then shown over the painted image of the old house.

 

After a car pulls up to the house, a man and woman ring the front doorbell. Lobo (the character we saw in the upstairs room) opens the door to Dr. Loren Wright and Grace Thomas who are greeted by Dr. Charles Conway.

 

Dr. Wright introduces his patient, Grace to Dr. Conway. The beautiful Grace appears to be very quiet and subdued. They then proceed to the study where they meet Dr. Conway's assistant, Dr. Sharon Gilchrist. Sharon’s manner of dress and speaking suggests that she has a very impersonal, clinical and rigid type of personality. Her icy coldness reminds me of the Borg character “Seven of Nine” from Star Trek Voyager.

 

Dr Wright informs Conway that Grace has agreed to “place herself in your care.” To Conway, Grace expresses her hope that “you’ll be able to help me.”

 

Already an unequal power and dependency relationship based on establishing trust is being set up between Grace and Conway. It is a relationship with the potential for exploitation.

 

After Sharon takes Grace to her room, Dr. Wright makes mention of Grace's father to which Conway angrily asks, "Father? What's this business about her father? Our agreement was that patients you brought to me were to have no relatives. No ties whatsoever!" Dr. Wright calmly responds, "Grace Thomas committed suicide. Yes. Her bag and coat will be found floating in the bay."

 

Self-assured under the seemingly protective blanket of lies and deception, Dr Wright and Conway toast each other with, “To youth! To eternity!” Grace has entered a world in which the perceived ends justify the all too real means used to achieve those ends.

 

The above point is made all too clear when we witness the results of the last experiment on a “subject” named Harry Jedrow who is being held in the basement.

 

Harry sits motionless in a chair and is in a catatonic state, or according to Conway he has “slipped into this state of suspended animation.” Conway believes that Jedrow’s brain has “internal radiation burns” and advises that they “must have younger subjects.”

 

A complication arises when Dr. Wright declares that Jedrow has a living relative, a sister who is trying to locate her brother.

 

Conway visits Grace in her room. She reveals to him that she’s “always so frightened” and that she “often (wants) to cry – just cry.” Conway displays his manipulative side whereby he uses a kind of grooming and molding technique. Playing on Grace’s vulnerability, he tells her to “trust “him “implicitly.”

 

Another complicating factor stands silently in the background, her seemingly impervious emotionless mask covering a seething cauldron of tension and jealousy. Perhaps it is Sharon who should be taking the sedative as she witnesses Dr Conway’s attentions being focused on the beautiful Grace.

 

After Dr. Wright drives off, a man stealthily enters the grounds. He is wearing a leather jacket and jeans and is obviously up to something as he checks his revolver and hides it in nearby foliage. Suddenly Lobo the large appears on the scene and grabs hold of the man and takes him to the house where he announces to Conway, “I found him in the garden.”

 

The captured intruder claims that he is lost and that his name is Mark Houston. Conway tells him point blank, “you told me a fabricated story that wouldn’t convince a child.” (This is quite an ironic comment considering later revelations!) Conway then accuses him of being Frank Scott, a killer and thief wanted by the police. Conway had obtained this information from a newspaper story.

 

For Conway, information is power and he is quite prepared to use it to blackmail Mark into cooperating with his nefarious scheme. He informs Mark that, “I’m willing to offer you sanctuary – here!” and that “I might easily use a man like you.” The offer is too good to refuse especially as Conway points out “you’re a killer Scott, a hunted man.” It appears that Mark has no choice but to comply.

 

Seeing that Mark appears to be check-mated, Conway’s hubris is further stoked as he declares, “I’m a scientist. Thinking is my business.” To which Mark observes, “Doc, I’m afraid you’re a very clever man.”

 

The next morning at breakfast, we meet two more of Conway’s “subjects.” There’s Danny Green who appears to be very agitated as he complains to Natalie Andries that his meal is cold and that he is fed up with, “six weeks of ‘get up, do this, don’t do that!’”

 

Gorgeous blonde off-the-shoulder Natalie, calmly continues to read her pulp romance fiction which only further ignites Danny’s volatile temper as he shouts at her, “idiots like you spend your time reading it!”

 

Mark soon walks into this maelstrom of bickering outrage. Natalie seems quite interested in Mark and Mark quickly becomes fed-up with Danny’s antics. Before blood can be spilled, Sharon enters the room and takes Danny upstairs to see Conway.

 

In the lab, Danny is given an injection (“the usual amount of R16”) which quickly settles him down. He seems to be displaying all the signs of drug addiction. In fact, when Mark enters the lab to offer his assistance, he tells Conway, “I’ve seen guys go through that before.”

 

Conway informs Mark about his research on human glands and describes it as being a medical project “beyond the realm of possibility!” Lobo was an early test subject in a process that employed a seventeenth gland that can control aging. Conway offers Mark the opportunity to be the first man to remain “eternally young and vigorous.” In other words, he can attain “eternal life!”

 

While Conway believes that he has the “secret of life, of growth and the cause of death” and that he is able to “take every precaution,” Conway sums up his achievements by using Lobo as an example: “Now you’ve got yourself an overgrown moron as a pet.”

 

Conway’s complete lack of scruples and ethics is revealed by his view of human subjects as being little more than “rungs in the ladder” he has to climb.

 

Unable to convince Mark to cooperate willingly, Conway resorts to blackmail. If Mark tries to disclose what is going on, it would merely come down to the word of a reputable scientist versus that of a hunted man. Conway threatens to turn Mark over to the authorities and certain death in the electric chair.

 

As a plastic anatomical human torso stands somewhat ironically between the two men as if transfixed by their conversation, Mark appears to have no option but to swear to secrecy, while Conway declares, “Old age will be conquered!” Yes, but at what cost? People’s humanity stripped down to a collection of removable parts for constructing inhuman plastic facsimile dummies of people?

 

Later on, Dr. Wright informs Conway over the phone that Jedrow's sister is determined to find out about her brother. Conway orders Wright to make out a death certificate for Harry Jedrow. After hanging up the phone, a somewhat surprised Sharon declares, "But he's alive!" Conway corrects her, "No, my dear. Harry Jedrow is dead." Another nail in the coffin containing the deceased mouldering remains of ethics and morality!

 

When Natalie arrives for her appointment, Conway tells her she has improved over the last three months and that she is “almost well enough to leave.” However, rather ominously she is told that she needs to undergo “one final treatment’ before she can leave in a day or two.

 

At dinner Mark, Grace and Danny are joined by Conway who proceeds to play a work by Bach (Toccata and Fugue in D Minor BWV 565) on the organ. Our minds are immediately turned to all those horror movies featuring mad scientists or vampire counts in which such music is played on an organ in order to create a creepy and suspenseful atmosphere.

 

While the music plays in the background, Lobo enters with a tray and Sharon spikes Natalie’s soup with a sedative. Lobo leaves the tray for Natalie and monosyllabically orders her with the words, “You eat!”

 

Lobo later takes the unconscious Natalie to the operating room and places her on a gurney. Sharon tells him to send all the others to bed. When he re-enters the dining room, Lobo in a slightly syntactically strangled sentence announces, "Time for go to bed."

 

After the others have supposedly gone for to bed, Sharon and Conway prep for surgery on the hapless Natalie. This is to be “the final test.” During the course of the surgery, Conway calls for the all-important “No. 23 scalpel” followed by a small dark and pulsating gland.

 

Mark meanwhile calls on Grace in her room to inform her that she is in danger and that Natalie is gone. Mark then tells Grace about Conway's plan, but she responds by telling him, “I can’t accept what you’re saying Mark!”

 

Natalie now undergoes the final part of the procedure which involves calibrated exposure to electricity. With clipped efficiency, figures are read out and checked: “Plus 2.48…. Increase slowly to 55.” Finally, current is allowed to surge through Natalie.

 

Eight hours later, Sharon and Conway check on Natalie. Her scarred and horribly disfigured face bear witness to the results of Conway’s grotesque experimentation. Conway cannot see past personal failure: “No! It can’t be...I took every precaution!”

 

Sharon too can only see the results of the experiment in terms of Conway’s potential for eventual success: “Don’t be discouraged Charles, you’ll succeed.” Meanwhile their victim, poor Natalie, a ruined rung on the ladder to success, lies there moaning.

 

Conway later continues to work on gaining Grace’s confidence. He tells her she is improving, that Natalie “made a perfect recovery” and that he released her himself. In order to drive a wedge between Grace and Mark, Conway advises Grace to “limit (her) association with Mark” on account of him being “a dangerous man" who is “suffering an advanced persecution complex.” It appears that Grace has acquired almost complete emotional and psychological dependence on Conway as she tells him, “you’re so good to me Dr Conway.”

 

The exchange between Grace and Conway opens a fissure or two in Sharon’s seemingly impervious façade out of which begin to flow lava streams of hot jealousy. She tells Conway she loves him and suggests Grace be the next test subject. Conway observes, “you’re sounding like a jealous woman” and he assures her that when the time is right, Grace will be the next test subject.

 

As Mark searches the house, he locates the basement entrance and descends the stairs. He soon spots Jedrow in a locked room. Mark then returns to Grace's room to bring her down to the basement where she will see “positive proof” and she’ll have no choice but to believe.

 

When Mark and Grace enter the basement, they find that Jedrow is no longer there as Lobo had not long before come down there and removed him. They then stumble across Natalie's room where they both see the horrific results of Conway’s work. “How could he?” Grace asks in horror.

 

Lobo meanwhile carries a coffin outside. It is obviously quite heavy and it contains the body of Jedrow. Lobo lowers the box into a hole and starts to fill it in with dirt until a dog’s barking alerts him to the presence of someone on the grounds. As Lobo goes to investigate, Mark finds the coffin and opens it to reveal that Jedrow is still alive. Lobo soon returns and continues to fill in the hole.

 

Mark pays a visit to Danny, explains the situation to him and convinces Danny to join him later. Later that night, Danny joins Mark and Grace in the living room. Mark tells Danny to take Grace away from the house to safety, but before they can proceed, Conway, Lobo and Sharon suddenly appear on the scene. Danny and Mark are taken to the basement while Conway takes Grace to his office.

 

In the basement, an escape plan involving distracting the slow-witted Lobo is put into action but Danny is shot in the process. In the lab, while Grace is being prepared for surgery, Conway is confronted by Mark who has him covered with a gun.

 

Conway is now aware that Mark is a policeman and he quickly makes a bid to escape. Mark calls the police and then searches the grounds for Conway who has meanwhile returned to the house. The police soon arrive and are deployed to search for Conway.

 

While Lobo escapes the room in which he had been locked in the basement, Conway encounters Jedrow in the living room and a shocked Conway blurts out at him, "No. You're dead. I had you buried." Jedrow who has been holding a knife uses it to stab to death the cause of all his suffering.

 

Loyal to the last, Lobo disables Jedrow just as Mark and Captain Reagan enter the living room. Lobo and Sharon are arrested and Grace is located unharmed. Unfortunately, they also find Danny’s dead body.

 

In perhaps the most unnerving and chilling part of the film, Officer Ed and Reagan opens a door on to a scene from a demented hellish nightmare. Conway's previous disfigured subjects are crammed together, imprisoned in a small room. Within this segment of purgatory, they aimlessly wander hither and thither screaming and moaning incoherently. In response to the observation, “it’s a good thing we have institutions to take care of them,” a horrified Reagan exclaims, "Good Lord, what if they do live forever?"

 

After this scene, the last couple of seconds of film don’t really matter…..

 

 

Points of Interest

 

The film, “The Unearthly” seems to be more at home with the kind of horror pictures featuring mad scientists that were produced in the 1940's. By the 1950s, such films had all but died out to be replaced by the scientist-hero saving the world from alien invaders and the monstrous products of the atomic age.

 

The film does adequately make do with what its meager budget allowed for. For instance, most of the action takes place inside the single locale of one house with only a couple of scenes away from the house itself. With such budgetary constraints, much of the film focused on the tensions developing between the characters.

 

Perhaps the best feature of “The Unearthly” is the cast that was assembled for this film:

 

•  First, there is the familiar and unforgettable John Carradine with his gaunt, contour-lined and furrowed facial features, along with his booming, authoritative and stentorian voice. Who better to play the mad doctor role than the man who made a career of playing such parts?

•  Next, there is beautiful B-movie actress, Allison Hayes who had roles in The Disembodied (1957), The Undead (1957), Zombies of Mora Tau (1957), The Hypnotic Eye (1960) and Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958), a cult classic that is featured in this eBook series (Vol. 10) 

• Marilyn Buferd who plays Dr. Gilchrist was Miss America in 1946. It was a shame that at the end of her scenes, she was almost left hanging by seeming to stand in one spot pointlessly until the scene ended. Instead, there should have been close-up shots focusing on those beautiful eyes of hers to reveal her inner thoughts and feelings locked behind her emotionless facial mask.

• Sally Todd who plays Natalie was Playboy's Playmate of the Month in 1957 and I certainly wouldn’t worry about what she was reading if I were Danny!

 

[There’s just something about women on screen back in that era that can’t be matched these days! There’s a certain appeal, style and presentation factor that seems to be absent in the modern era. Maybe it’s just me?]

 

•  Myron Healey who gives quite a competent performance as the uncover cop was a familiar supporting television actor with about 300 performances to his credit.

• Of course, we can’t leave out wrestler Tor Johnson, who also appeared in Bride of the Monster (in which he also plays the character of Lobo}, Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) and Night of the Ghouls (1960) The Black Sleep and I think probably the worst film ever made, The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961). Ed Wood obviously saw something in him! Perhaps Tor started a trend that has continued to the present day in which former and current professional wrestlers embark on film careers with varying degrees of success: Randy Orton, The Miz, John Cena, The Rock Dwayne Johnson, Stone Cold Steve Austin. Ah well, there’s always politics! Just ask Mr Ventura and Rhino!

 

The value of the film, “The Unearthly” lies in its handling of issues to do with power and its abuse as well as of trust. How much power and control should we hand over to individuals, organisations, institutions and the State just because they tell us to trust them? Should we unquestioningly accept their dictates and control over our lives and affairs based on their expertise, traditional function and prestige?

 

Our individual medical, psychological, financial, relationship, and other difficulties are often either self-inflicted or a product of forces beyond our control resulting from ailing, destructive and dysfunctional global, national and community structures and processes.

 

Remedies for such losses of individual control are sought from individuals and institutions which are perceived to have the power to redress our problems. Immediately an unequal power relationship is established that leaves the way open to exploitation. The danger lies in the exercise of that power, the purpose for which it will be used and for whose benefit?

 

The danger signs of the abuse of power can be recognised when people are no longer seen as being unique individuals but are instead dehumanised by being viewed as nothing more than “subjects,” part of a “cohort,” “these people,” “them,” “consumers,” “recipients,” or any number of collective nouns.

 

We’re also well on the road to the abuse of power when the achievement of the ends, or final outcomes takes precedence over the processes or means taken towards achieving those outcomes. People tend to get hurt when this happens.

 

Power often provides the wind to blow the sails of personal prestige, status and glory. It is often the case that ordinary trusting individual people provide the rungs of the ladder used by the unethical and unprincipled few to climb higher and higher and higher…..

 

 

TRUST ME

 

You can trust me, I’m a doctor!

Then why do I feel sicker?

Vote for me, I’m your voice!

Do I really have a choice?

Your future’s secure, I’m a financial adviser!

So how come I’m suddenly poorer?

Feel safe as I watch every move you make.

Will my privacy be the last thing you take?

Have faith in me for a god am I ,

An Ipad app and tune on my Spotify?

If you wish to go on,

Click the “next” icon….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teenage Monster (1958)

 

Is it a Western?

Is it Horror?

Is it Sci-fi?

NO!

It’s a monster case of Teenage angst!

 

Directed by Jacques R. Marquette

Produced by Jacques R. Marquette, Dale Tate

Written by Ray Buffum

Music by Walter Greene

Cinematography: Taylor Byars

Edited by Irving M. Schoenberg

Distributed by Marquette Productions Limited

Running time: 65 minutes

Budget: $57,000 (approx.)

 

Cast

 

Anne Gwynne: Ruth Cannon

Stuart Wade: Sheriff Bob Lehman

Gloria Castillo: Kathy North

Chuck Courtney: Marv Howell

Gil Perkins: Charles Cannon

Norman Leavitt: Deputy Ed

Gabe Mooradian: Fred Fox

Stephen Parker: Charles Cannon as a Boy

Jim McCullough Sr: Jim Cannon

Frank Davis: Man on Street

Arthur Berkeley: Man with Burro

 

 

It is 1880, not far from a small town in the American southwest where we find a frustrated Jim Cannon, together with his wife Ruth and young son Charlie hoping to find gold in an abandoned mine. Times are tough for the Cannon family and it’s beginning to show.

 

One day while Charlie goes to help his father at the mine, a strange object falls from the heavens, killing Jim and badly injuring Charlie.

 

Under his mother’s care, Charlie has grown into a teenager, but with a little child’s intellect and hideously deformed physical features due to his exposure to the object’s rays that fateful day seven years previously.

 

Ruth has managed to keep Charlie's existence a secret from the local townspeople, but this proves to be difficult as he often runs away. In fact, Charlie has unintentionally killed sheep and cattle in his attempts to play with them.

 

One day, Charlie defies his mother’s instructions, escapes his confinement in a cave and manages to kill a man when he refuses to allow Charlie to pet his burro. Upon returning to the cave, Ruth admonishes him for running away and uses fear to reinforce this by reminding him that if he is ever caught, he will be taken away from her.

 

Later on, after the long-awaited discovery of a rich gold vein in the mine, Ruth goes into town with an ore sample to have it evaluated by the assayer, Fred Fox.

 

While the ore sample is being appraised, Ruth dines with sheriff Bob, who has long held hopes that Ruth will move into town and accept his offer of marriage. Suddenly, Bob's deputy, Ed rushes in to report that a dead man has been found outside of town. When Ed mentions that this killing is similar to an unsolved murder that occurred the year before, Ruth quickly puts two and two together and comes up with her son, Charlie as being the culprit.

 

Ruth soon learns that the mine strike is successful and genuine. She then decides to negotiate a deal to buy Fox's house at the edge of town, hoping that this will be a positive environment for Charlie.

 

Weeks later, Ruth goes on a date with Bob, which will mean that Charlie will have to be left alone. Feeling resentful about this, Charlie throws a tantrum and defiantly decides to venture outside where he attacks a neighbor and terrifies some children. If that was not enough, Charlie proceeds to kidnap a waitress by the name of Kathy North and takes her back to the house.

 

In town, news of a new murder reaches Ruth’s ears, along with stories and descriptions of a monster at large roaming around the area.

 

When Ruth returns home, she finds Kathy passed out in the closet where Charlie has hidden her. After reviving Kathy, Ruth admits to her that Charlie is her son and offers to pay Kathy $500 a month to remain silent about him. Ruth also suggests that Kathy become her companion which would help to explain how Ruth could be in possession of so much money.

 

A few days later, Kathy meets her boyfriend, Marv Howell, who is obviously only intent on using her to obtain money. When he discovers the $500 in Kathy's purse, he assumes that she has stolen it. He then threatens to expose her and takes the money.

 

Kathy returns to the house and manipulates Charlie into agreeing to kill Marv for what he did. After committing the deed, Charlie returns home to find Bob kissing Ruth goodnight. Overcome with rage and jealousy, Charlie attacks Bob from behind. After Bob recovers, Ruth passes off Bob’s assailant as being the same creature that the children had earlier described.

 

Later, Ruth confronts Kathy who freely admits to convincing Charlie to kill Marv. Kathy, sensing her growing power, threatens to blackmail Ruth for even more money to keep silent about Charlie. Despite the shifting balance of power, Ruth refuses to sign a note promising to pay Kathy $20,000.

 

After Bob and Ed discover Marv's body, they decide to question Kathy but she feigns ignorance of the matter. Kathy then asks Bob to serve as witness to signing the $20,000 promissory note.

 

While overhearing Bob once again proposing to Ruth, Kathy works on Charlie’s jealousy and anger by convincing him that Ruth wants to abandon him.

 

From this point, a series of events forces Charlie into a maelstrom of confusion. First, he overhears Kathy’s disdain for Ruth’s self-sacrifice concerning her son. Next, when Charlie follows Bob and Ruth to the barn, he overhears Ruth turning down Bob's proposal on account of her having other obligations. Finally, Kathy goads Charlie into attacking Bob and Ruth but this only enrages Charlie and he then seizes Kathy and drags her away.

 

Soon after, Bob, Ruth and Ed follow Charlie up a steep mountain where Kathy is about to pay the ultimate price for callously using Charlie against his own mother. Charlie hurls Kathy off a cliff as the others watch in horror. Despite a mother's plea to save her son, Bob shoots Charlie, who then plummets to his death.

 

 

Points of Interest

 

Teenage Monster was shot under the title, "Meteor Monster" which was changed to Teenage Monster to cash in on the success of monster movies containing the word "teenage" in their title. When released to television, the title was changed back to Meteor Monster.

 

The film was made as a cheap half of a double feature with The Brain from Planet Arous (1957), included elsewhere in this ebook series.

 

Cinematographer Jacques R. Marquette kept production costs low by shooting the picture himself and hiring an inexpensive director who actually wound up quitting the day before principal photography was to begin, claiming that he had been offered a 14-week contract by a major studio. Marquette’s solution to this development was take over the job himself, making this his only film as director. The job of cinematographer was given to a new cameraman whose first job was on this film!

 

The new director of photography was inexperienced in shooting “day for night,” and so the entire first day's "day for night" shooting had to be scrapped because an acceptable image could not be printed from the resulting underexposed camera negative.

 

Anne Gwynne who plays Charlie’s mother, Ruth Cannon was a former 1940s Universal star and she featured in such movies as Black Friday (1940), Weird Woman (1944), and House of Frankenstein (1944). Her opinion of Teenage Monster (her final film) was that she thought it was the worst thing she ever did and that it led to the end of her movie-making career.

 

Charlie was played by stuntman Gil Perkins who was over fifty years of age at the time and was a former “Wolf Man” and “Frankenstein” monster double from the Universal horror classics of the 1940s.

 

Gloria Castillo who appeared in Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957) probably gave the best performance in the film as the scheming and ruthless waitress. She wound up being more of a “Teenage Monster” than was Charlie!

 

The low standard of the film’s special effects and make-up department can best be gauged from the appearance of the 'meteor' being little more than a lit sparkler held close to the camera. Then there’s Charlie’s hairdo and bad teeth! Need I say any more?

 

The film’s most important feature is its portrayal of what teenagers often find themselves dealing with: unfamiliar and complex feelings and emotions; inappropriate and destructive ways of dealing with problems such as lashing out at those around them; exploring relationships with the opposite sex; holding naïve notions of love; feelings of betrayal, etc.,

 

 

Teenage Mutant Monster

 

Times were tough when you were just a kid,

And no matter what your father said or did,

Your mother was there to make things right

And pierce the darkness with her light.

 

Lucky strike dreams kept nightmares at bay

Until death descended and to your dismay

You waved goodbye to unhappy childhood

And took up a path much misunderstood.

 

While Tree of Life sheds days like leaves of Fall

You’ve become so strong and grown so tall,

Yet still just a child but not quite an adult,

But what you’ve become, it’s not all your fault.

 

You cannot live in a world that shuns difference

And recoils in horror from your appearance,

Nor can you comprehend the world’s cruel taunts

With a mangled mind that knows not what it wants.

 

Why is that you manage to destroy

That which you only wish to enjoy?

What are these rushes of rage and frustration

Each an uncontrollable and terrible sensation?

 

You act as if to confirm prevalent perceptions

Of you and your kind’s apparent aberrations;

Solutions are sought to keep you out of the way:

A cramped, cribbed and confined castaway.

 

Resentment rises and roars out disobedience;

Impulse impels you to seek out experience,

To be caught in the seductive embrace of temptation

That she-monster of deception and self-destruction.

 

Jealousy reigns not knowing who or what to believe,

Lately learning those you know and love may deceive,

Worsened by a love that excuses all that you’ve committed

Of crimes for which you have no right to be acquitted.

 

“There atop a cliff, I the precipice await

You Monster, pushed there by many hands of Fate,

Guided by your own footsteps toward the abyss,

To put an end to your internal apocalypse.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Terror from the Year 5000 (1958)

 

A low budget lacklustre sci-fi with uneven performances, sloppy direction, uneven editing and a multitude of plot holes. So bad, it’s oddly good!

 

The 1958 independently made American black-and-white science fiction film, Terror from the Year 5000 (a.k.a. Cage of Doom in the UK) was produced by Robert J. Gurney Jr., Samuel Z. Arkoff, James H. Nicholson, and Gene Searchinger. It was directed by Robert J. Gurney Jr., and starred Ward Costello, Joyce Holden, John Stratton, Salome Jens, and Fred Herrick. The screenplay was based on the short story Bottle Baby by Henry Slesar, that was published in the science fiction magazine Fantastic (April 1957). American International Pictures released the film on a double bill with The Screaming Skull. 

 

The story involves Prof. Erling and his financial backer, Victor who have constructed a prototype time machine which they use to obtain various objects from the past. On one occasion they discover that one item - a modernist Venus de milo-like statuette – that materialized in the machine, radio-metrically dates to the year 5200 AD! It turns out that 20th-century objects that are placed in the machine appear to be "traded" for objects from the future by someone or something. It also transpires that Victor has been secretly trying to get a living intelligent specimen from the future to materialize in the time machine.

 

What does the future hold in store for humanity?

What present danger is humanity faced with now!

 

Directed by Robert J. Gurney Jr.

Produced by Robert J. Gurney Jr., Samuel Z. Arkoff, James H. Nicholson, Gene Searchinger

Written by Robert J. Gurney Jr., Henry Slesar

Music by Richard DuPage

Cinematography Arthur Florman

Edited by Dede Allen

Running time: 66 minutes

 

Cast

 

Ward Costello as Dr. Robert Hedges

Joyce Holden as Claire Erling

Frederic Downs as Prof. Howard Erling

John Stratton as Victor

Salome Jens as Future Woman / Nurse

Fred Herrick as Angelo

Beatrice Furdeaux as Miss Blake

Jack Diamond as First Lab Technician

Fred Taylor as Second Lab Technician

Bill Downs as Dr. Blair

William Cost as Joe the Bartender

 

In an odd little basement bookshop located in an obscure little corner of New York City, a bald bespectacled middle-aged man pries out a dusty old book from a crammed assortment of equally dust-clad printed material dealing with a variety of esoteric subjects.

 

The selected prize from the shelf is a book entitled Terror from the Year 5000 by nuclear physicist, Professor Howard Erling. The book was published in the late 1950s and it involves an account of the professor’s work on a machine that he had designed in order to break what he termed “the time barrier.”

 

Needless to say, Professor Erling’s time experiments and his published account of them were roundly ridiculed by the scientific community.

 

As the current new owner of the long-forgotten text emerges from the twilight solitude of The Ol’ By-gone Book Shoppe and steps into the taut turmoil of the modern metropolis, his mind meanders through corridors filled with thoughts of TIME.

 

While moving from point A to point B, Professor George Wells’ mind traverses in an instant the space between the now and the many occasions in the “past” when he devoured any material concerning the theories and possibility of time-travel, as well as related subjects. From the early ideas of Hermann Minkowski to Einstein’s theory of relativity; from wormholes to black holes and from Cosmic String Theory to the concept of a Multiverse, the ravenous mind of Professor Wells greedily gobbled them up.

 

Nothing on the subject of TIME had escaped the professor’s notice, even seemingly absurd publications like the one he is clutching tightly under his arm as he opens the door to his apartment.

 

As Professor George Wells settles himself in his favourite easy chair, pours himself two or three fingers of whisky and proceeds to read Erling’s, Terror from the Year 5000, we will be able through the magic of imagination to read various excerpts from that book. We will also have some insight into Professor’s Wells’ thoughts and mental images as he reads Erling’s account……

 

 

**************

 

(The following excerpts contain spoilers……)

 

 

Terror from the Year 5000:

“How I Broke The Time Barrier”

 

By Professor Howard Erling Ph.D

 

 

Prologue

 

…….“In the year nineteen hundred and forty-seven, man broke through the sound barrier!.....In the year nineteen hundred and fifty-eight, man launched the first satellite and pierced the space barrier!.....Now, in an isolated area of central Florida, man struggles to penetrate the most imposing barrier of all!.... the time barrier!” And from the very pages of this book, I shout out to the world: that man was I, Professor Howard Erling, nuclear physicist, who has throughout his life resolutely set himself the task of probing “relentlessly into the future!”…….

 

How I wound up on my Florida island began with a local newspaper report that my “theory about crossing the time barrier was ridiculous.” It was this article that got me “disqualified from doing top-secret work,” so the missile centre where I worked fired me!

 

……The situation soon turned serious when I began receiving “anonymous phone calls” calling me a traitor and telling me to leave town. This, together with the fact that my “electrical equipment is so powerful, it messes up TV reception for miles around,” made my island sanctuary an ideal place for me to pursue my research……

 

…..But in this story of what took place, I must warn you that my experiments ran the risk of “ultimately unleashing upon the world… TERROR! FROM THE YEAR 5000!!”

 

[Professor George Wells looks up from reading the book and ponders…. ‘1958! Why had Erling omitted the fact that the Russians beat the Americans into space in 1957 with their Sputnik? He wouldn’t make such a mistake unless….Perhaps at the time it was felt to be prudent not to rub the American public’s face in the fact that the Commies “pierced the space barrier” first.’]

 

Chapter 1: Eureka!

 

Working in the isolation and privacy of my Florida island estate, I struggled “to penetrate the most imposing barrier of all!” I finally managed to construct a machine that broke the time barrier itself. With the help of my financial backer and assistant Victor, I performed a number of experiments culminating in the successful transportation of a small statue……from the future! 

 

……Curiously, at one point in our experiments, Victor called out to me, “Professor, look quickly! A woman!” I went over to the machine to see what if anything was inside it, but all I saw was another statue that had seemingly materialized out of thin air. I told Victor that he had merely seen an “optical illusion. No doubt a refracted image.”

 

Unfortunately, the temporal transportation process required vast amounts of energy. Also, our work required outside verification from another professional colleague. With this in mind, I called a halt to the research, much to Victor's chagrin and disappointment……..

 

[Professor Wells: ‘Energy? What energy? Negative energy?’]

 

I had quite a heated argument with Victor who desperately wanted to move forward. I fully appreciated the fact that he was bankrolling the experiments but it was obvious that it was “more for personal than scientific reasons!” Nevertheless, I had accepted Victor’s money on the condition that I would be the one who made the decisions.

 

Victor pointed out to me, “Look, Professor, I never pretended to be a scientist, but I know one thing: My old man didn’t get rich waiting for ‘outside verification’! He just ploughed ahead and he got results!”

 

I would not relent and I told Victor that he was free to take his money and go. Victor then replied, “You know I wouldn’t walk out,” adding, “and you know why.”

 

I then arranged to send the statue we received to archaeologist and museum curator, Robert Hedges for his appraisal and determination of its true age.

 

…..Supposedly as a result of a mix-up with communication and transportation and delivery of the statue, Dr Hedges received a telegram purporting to be from me stating: “Do not understand why you have not returned my letters [stop] You have proof that I am not insane [stop] Please establish date of origin of statue to your own satisfaction [stop]”…….

 

I learned that eventually, Dr Hedges had conducted a carbon dating test on the statue and discovered that it came from the year 5,200 A. D. He also discovered that the statue was radioactive, as “hot as a firecracker!”

 

I found myself chuckling at the thought of Robert shaking his fist at the statue and banging it on his desk while yelling out in frustration, “…you she-devil! You can’t exist! Not here, not now! Not for another three thousand years!”

 

[Professor George Wells: ‘My dear professor, you would surely have known that you can’t use carbon dating to determine that something is from the future! Carbon-14 is also a radioactive isotope, and the process of carbon dating involves measuring the presence of that isotope. By carbon dating an object, it could surely be determined that it contained deadly levels of radioactivity. Furthermore, carbon dating can only be used to date organic material and not something like a metal statue.’]

 

 

 

Chapter 2: “Wonderful Surprise!”

 

…..Unable to reach me by phone, Bob flew out to Florida to see me personally. He told me later that upon leaving the airport he realized that he was being followed. After a hair-raising pursuit, Bob came to a halt, got out of his car and confronted his pursuer only to discover it was my daughter, Claire who was also Victor's fiance. She went to meet him at the airport but had just missed him. It was in fact Claire who sent the statue to Bob to speed up the verification process.

 

[Professor George Wells: ‘Ah Ha! Very sneaky, Ms Hedges!’]

 

…….As Claire and Bob approached the island in a small motorized boat, the motor suddenly cut out. It seems it was caused by a power drain from my lab where the “electrical equipment is so powerful, it messes up TV reception for miles around!” It turned out that someone had been conducting further experimentation in secret……

 

[Professor George Wells: ‘Yes, yes! Enormous quantities of energy must be required for a time travel process!! But not the kind of energy we are familiar with!’]

 

…..As soon as Bob Hedges entered the house, I should have been more aware as to the possibility of some kind of conflict or trouble beginning to develop. Victor seemed to be resentful toward Bob and suspected that he was there with the intention of refuting our work. For my part, however, Bob’s presence was the “outside verification” I’d been waiting for……

 

 

Chapter 3: Unlocking the Future

 

…..It was Bob Hedges who provided a clue as to something being wrong with the experimentation process. I informed him that Victor and I had stopped our experiments when we found out just how radioactive the statue was. Bob then told me that he thought I must have been operating the machine when the motorboat’s motor cut out. I insisted, however, that we had not touched the time teleportation machine since we received the statue.

 

……I learned later that night, that Bob heard Victor enter the guest room next door to the room they were sharing and followed him as he opened up a chest of drawers and removed two metal suitcases. Victor then proceeded to take the suitcases outside where he threw them into a pond.

 

The next morning, while out swimming with Claire, Bob dove into the water at the spot where Victor cast the suitcases. He managed to locate one suitcase and opened it to reveal the carcass of a small animal. How? Why? More about that later…

 

……Later on, I showed Bob the lab and demonstrated how Victor and I managed to successfully engage in "trading objects with the future." You see, the first activity of any explorer of a new region is usually barter or trade. He watched as I sent a small bottle through the machine and received in exchange a similar object. After suggesting that the experiment had “all the earmarks of a magician’s trick” Bob asked if he could “reshuffle the cards.” Bob then suggested that I send something unusual and offered up his fraternity key. After repeating the process, we were astonished to see a medallion materialise with the words "save us" in Greek engraved upon it.……

 

[Professor George Wells: ‘Hmm! This chamber that the professor supposedly used. I wonder if it might hold the clue to providing the time stasis chamber I’ve been theorizing about for my own time travel research? I actually think of it as a “time stylus.” “Save us” indeed! From what, I wonder? And how would someone in the far future be familiar with ancient Greek language, let alone modern American English?’]

 

I also later learned that while we were preparing to retire for the night, Victor apparently had re-entered the lab to continue his time experiment by increasing the power levels. Unbelievable as it sounds, it seems that the higher power level enabled a human being from the future to materialize in the machine! Victor did manage to return the figure to the future, but sustained a nasty gash on his arm when the being grabbed him.

 

……When Bob told me about Victor's strange behaviour the next morning, I wouldn’t believe him until he could provide evidence. I told him I was “disappointed” in him for making up “wild accusations against Victor” and that his obvious interest in and involvement with Claire had caused him to lose his “objectivity.” Bob then returned to the pond to retrieve the suitcases, but Victor managed to intercept him and attempted to stop him. A fight then broke out between the two men and when Claire and I arrived on the scene, Bob revealed Victor's badly injured arm – burned by radiation…….

 

[Professor George Wells: ‘Radiation! From the future! Now I think I know what the message “Save us” might have been referring to. HHMM! We often optimistically believe that the future will be full of wonders that we would love to see if only we could live longer. We forget that it could also contain horrors we would not care to live to see!’]

 

Chapter 4: Rising Danger!

 

….We had to do a bit of persuading to get Victor to the hospital. I was particularly concerned about the “secondary radiation” he received. When we did eventually get Victor to the hospital, the doctor asked us to return in a few hours’ time to give him a chance to examine him properly.

 

….It turned out that while Claire, Bob and I were taking in a movie (“I Was a Teenage Frankenstein”), Victor left the hospital and wound up at a bar which he eventually exited – or was helped to exit - in a somewhat inebriated state. He then returned to the island and broke into the lab in order to work on the machine using the higher power levels……..

 

…..When Bob, Claire and I stopped off at the bar, the bartender informed us that Victor had been there most of the afternoon. Suddenly, we noticed that the bar's television reception had cut out. Bob declared, “Let’s not get all jumpy because a TV set goes on the blink!” However. I knew then that Victor had started operating the time machine which creates “a distinctive pattern of interference” and that someone, namely Victor, had been operating the machine at “a higher voltage than ever before!” …….

 

Chapter 5: Mysterious “Guest”

 

As we drew nearer to the island, Claire noticed the lights were flickering on and off at the house. I felt that Victor would succeed in blowing out the generator. Unsurprisingly, the motor on our boat cut out and died. Not for long, however, since Victor had managed to blow all the fuses allowing the boat’s motor to start again.

 

When we got back to the island, we found Victor in a semi-conscious state. He had apparently succeeded in materialising a human female from the future, but was rendered unconscious by his mysterious guest. I quickly ordered my what some may call “chief cook and bottle washer,” Angelo to contact a doctor. When he eventually came out to examine Victor, he arranged for a nurse to come out later and care for the patient.

 

……With the time traveller roaming around the island, Bob managed to retrieve one of the metal suitcases from the pond, which contained the body of a four-eyed mutated cat…….

 

Soon after, Bob and Claire came upon the dead body of Angelo who had obviously been killed by the woman from the future. Upon examining his body, I concluded that Angelo had the same kind of burns as Victor.

 

…….We then went to Victor’s room, where he informed us about his secret activities. He told us that after he brought the deformed cat through, he thought he was really on to something significant. Victor then went on to say, “I thought that I had contacted savages…..and that cat was something their witch doctors had made.”……..

 

[Professor George Wells: ‘That is one of the most preposterous conclusions I ever heard of!’]

 

Bob explained to Victor that the cat in the case had been mutated by radiation, and that was why the woman from the future was so deformed. Bob then burst out with the comment that “If she came from the same place as that cat, it’s a wonder you could still recognize her as a woman!”

 

Chapter 6: A “very remarkable woman. Very unusual!”

 

……There was still the matter of the nurse coming out to the island to take care of Victor. Also, since the woman from the future had committed murder and was obviously dangerous, it would be necessary to stop her from getting off the island……..

 

Much of the following account is based on what we could deduce from events and piece together from the evidence available to us……

 

…….It appears that later that evening, as the nurse approached the house, she was accosted by the woman from the future who attacked her. It turned out that this mystery woman was able to pose as the nurse by using a rubber-like or synthetic face mask which she placed over the nurse’s face. By the application of some advanced technology, she was then able to place the mask on her own face and therefore have the same facial appearance as the nurse.

 

Meanwhile back in the house, Bob and I heard some screams and decided to go and investigate. I thought it prudent for us to put on anti-radiation suits.

 

At that point the nurse arrived and while she sat with Victor, Bob and I put on our radiation proof gear and went out to search for the time traveller.

 

…….It appears that somehow our time traveller managed to hypnotize Victor with the intention of getting him return with her to the future in order to use his healthy genes to save her people from extinction. Perhaps too many of their young were born mutants due to the high levels of radiation. It seems that only with “new blood, with undamaged pre-atomic genes” would the human race be saved in the future…….

 

……While Bob and I were outside making use of a Geiger Counter, Claire burst in on Victor in the lab just as he was putting on his radiation suit. Victor yelled out to Claire, “I’m going into the future! I must go!” As Claire attempted to get him to go back to bed, the woman from the future jumped out and a confrontation ensued between them.

 

According to Claire, the woman declared: “Our history clearly records how the women of the twentieth century stood idly by while the atmosphere was contaminated! And the children of the future doomed!” She then admitted to having committed murder while Claire asked of Victor, “Now what do you think of your angel of mercy?”

 

…A physical altercation erupted between my daughter and the woman in which Claire accidentally ripped off the latter’s mask and revealing her radiation-scarred features.

 

While this was going on, Bob and I came across the faceless nurse’s body. Realizing the full implications of this, we both hurried back to the house. There we discovered Victor trying to defend Clair from the time-traveler. Suddenly both Victor and the time-traveller found themselves up against the machine, which electrocuted and killed them - “dead, both dead.”

 

Epilogue

 

If this is what the future holds for humanity, then what is it we are doing right now that could lead to such a fate for the human race?

 

Bob and Claire wondered if one of them should go to the future to help. If we could somehow repair the time chamber, we could help our mutated future descendants by correcting their “hereditary genes.”

 

I felt, however, that only by changing the present could we hope to avert a future atomic holocaust. “The future is what we make it…. Whether there will be more like (the woman from the future) depends on us! On all of us! On mankind! On what we do in the present!”

 

****************

 

Professor George Wells closes the book and turns his gaze toward the window as the last rays of this day’s setting sun wearily wanders along the top half of the wall before disappearing into a corner of the ceiling.

 

After switching on a floor lamp, the professor switches on his turntable and takes out a vinyl album, the Beatles “Let It Be.” He selects a track, John Lennon’s “Across the Universe” and sits back down in his chair.

 

As the music washes over him, Professor George Wells thinks about the cosmic turntable upon which the album containing everything that exists is placed. On that album can be found the time tracks of our lives, with each track representing a different time-period. Each time-period we cross over to exists simultaneously on our album and on the infinite number of albums we could choose to play.

 

“Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes

They call me on and on across the universe..”

 

No matter what album is played, the same cosmic turntable exits with its figurative pre-set speeds of 33 1/3, 45 or 78 RPM. But what if we can intervene and circumvent the seemingly immutable laws of time and space? What if I could design a device that would allow a person to enter any time period at will? Let the turntable spin as it wishes for I would be able to go when and where I like!

 

“Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box

They tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe..”

 

What if my device – my “Time Stylus” chamber – could capture an individual moment in a person’s life, that one micro-groove, and isolate it in a kind of stasis state? The Time Stylus chamber could then be used to extract that person and his individual life moment and deposit him in any time-period, as well as return him to his original point on the life-album.

 

“Nothing's going to change my world..”

 

Nothing would change. The life album representing one reality would exist as it always has. Choices that could be made to change events and outcomes would simply be tantamount to selecting another album from the infinite collection available.

 

“Nothing's going to change my world…”

 

The question of whether or not the future is what we make it; whether or not we can act to change it; whether or not the future is pre-determined of if there is indeed “A FUTURE” as such may soon be settled. But first, Professor George Wells must locate the last surviving participant of the events surrounding “The Terror From The Year 5000” –Erling’s daughter, Mrs Claire Hedges. If they still exist, it would be she who would be in possession of her father’s plans for his time teleportation chamber. These plans will provide Wells with important guiding principles for the construction of his own time device.

 

As Professor Wells drifts off to sleep. the stylus needle comes to the end of the last track. The turntable halts briefly and with a click the record player's arm automatically lifts and moves the needle over to the first track and the album starts over…..

 

Points Of Interest

 

The film's outdoor scenes were filmed in and around Dade County, Florida. USA.

 

The working title of the film was The Girl from 5000 AD. 

 

Terror From The year 5000 was the first feature film credit for Salome Jens who plays the woman from the future and the nurse.

 

Although it is stated by the film’s narrator that the first satellite launched by human beings was in 1958, it was in fact the Soviet Union who launched the first satellite with their Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957. The first satellite launched by the USA was Explorer I, on January 31, 1958.

 

As mentioned above, Carbon 14 dating does not work with metal or mineral objects and substances, but only on materials that were once living or part of a living organism such as wood, leather and bone.

 

What is interesting about Terror From The year 5000 is that it was possibly one of the first American feature films involving time travel using a time machine.

 

As with the film, The Astounding She Monster, it is a rather disturbing notion to have a life-threatening, evil, radioactive female far removed from any role as a protective, care-giving and nurturing force.

 

Equally disturbing is the idea of peeling off someone’s face to wear as a mask. That shock-provoking device may have given more than one youngster back in the day a few nightmares!

 

Certainly, the film reflects the fears that were prevalent at the time concerning nuclear power, atomic weapons and the danger of atomic fallout, all within the context of mounting Cold War tensions and rivalries. It also highlights the misconceptions about the nature and effects of nuclear radiation. Consider the characters’ rather cavalier and nonchalant attitude and behaviour when in the presence of radiation. Why create a lot of fuss, "just because that statue was a little radioactive?" And who knew? They actually had radiation proof suits which no-one considered wearing until well into the story!

 

Hopefully our greater understanding of the effects of nuclear radiation these days will prevent certain political and military leaders from embarking on a course of action too terrible to contemplate and with a consequence even time travel would not solve!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Curse of the Faceless Man (1958)

 

An undemanding low budget sci-fi / horror genre film that has just enough tension to keep fans interested.

 

1958: A Taste Of The Times

 

Sci-Fi Films of 1958

 

1958 was certainly a standout year for sci-fi movies, many of which combine science fiction and horror genres. That year saw the screening of two sci-fi classics that have had an enduring cultural presence: “The Fly” and “The Blob.”

 

Other sci-fi films from 1958 that are included in other volumes of Sci-Fi Fiesta eBook series include;

 

• Terror From the Year 5000: A scientist, Prof. Erling and his backer, Victor have created a time machine that allows them to snatch objects from other time periods. One such object dates to 5200 AD! Victor, however, is intent on obtaining a living and breathing specimen, not realizing that he could be placing the present in great danger.

• Giant From the Unknown: A mutinous group from the Spanish Ptolemy Firello expedition in 16th century California is led by a very large Conquistador, Vargas. They head off into the mountains to search for gold and are never heard from again. Fast forward to modern times when a lightning bolt frees Vargas from a subterranean state of suspended animation. He is now free to terrorize the local area.

• Attack of the Puppet People: A lonely inventor creates a ray that he uses to miniaturise people to doll size so he'll never be lonely again.

• The Flame Barrier: A space probe returns to earth and winds up in the jungles of Central America. Carol Dahlmann tries to locate her missing husband who was tracking the space probe through the jungle. It turns out that the probe has brought back with it a life form which is killing the animals and natives and is expanding.

• Attack of the 50 Foot Woman: An abused and unhappy wife grows to giant size after an alien encounter. She then goes after her cheating husband to exact vengeance on him.

• War of the Satellites: Aliens interfere with Earth's space program. Some scientists try to prevent the alien sabotage efforts from succeeding.

• War of the Colossal Beast: (sequel to Amazing Colossal Man). After a series of inexplicable food truck robberies, the giant Glen Manning is discovered in a desolate mountain range in Mexico. He is now insane and horribly disfigured. After he is drugged by the military, Manning is brought to Los Angeles where he goes on a rampage.

• Colossus of New York: A neurosurgeon encases his dead son's brain in a large 9' tall robot body, with terrible unintended results.

• The Space Children: An alien brain lands near a missile research base. Its consciousness sets about controlling children to help sabotage the project.

• The Fly: Scientist Andre Delambre invents a matter transporter in which his atoms become accidentally merged with those of a fly, leading to his wife having to make one of the worst possible moral and ethical decisions.

• Space Master X-7: Yet another satellite returning to earth film, this time with an alien cargo of the flesh-eating kind called "the blood rust." A scientist's wife is unaware that she is a carrier as she travels the country.

• Long before the movie Alien, there was, It! Terror From Beyond Space: In a then future 1973 on a return journey from a Mars mission, a monstrous alien stowaway sets about killing off the crew, one by one.

• Night of the Blood Beast: An astronaut returns from space supposedly dead but manages to revive at a base. Inside him, however, are alien larvae. The base is then cut off from the outside world by an alien and it seems humanity itself may be in peril.

• The Queen of Outer Space: Three American astronauts on the first manned mission to Venus land to find a civilisation of beautiful women ruled by a queen. However, they are quickly imprisoned, as the ruling queen hates men and suspects the astronauts of being spies. As a consequence, she now plans to destroy the Earth.  Zsa Zsa Gabor plays the part of the rebel leader who enlists the men's help to overthrow the queen and save the Earth. Sank you darlink!

• Earth vs. the Spider: A giant spider is discovered living in a cave. After apparently having been killed by DDT spray, it is stored in the high school gymnasium. However, it awakens with the sound of a teenage band’s music and runs amok through the town.

• The Brain Eaters: In Riverdale, Illinois a mysterious metal structure appears outside of town. People begin acting mysteriously as creatures from the centre of the earth take over their minds, infiltrate and cut off the town from the outside world.

• The Blob: A meteorite lands, releasing a blob-like alien life-form that consumes everything in its path as it continues to grow and grow.

• I Married a Monster from Outer Space: (A feeling many of us have had from time to time!) As a prelude to an invasion, aliens switch places with humans. One victim is a young groom about to get married. His new wife begins to realize that something is wrong, while other townspeople are being similarly affected.

• The Lost Missile: A mysterious alien missile enters low earth orbit and proceeds to burn a wide section of the earth with each orbit. A young scientist works against the clock to stop the missile before the Earth is destroyed.

• Cosmic Monsters: In a small English village, Dr. Laird and his assistants conduct experiments with magnetic fields. His equipment can rearrange molecules to make metal brittle and pliable. His experiments also affect the Earth's protective radiation belts causing harmful rays to mutate insects into deadly giants.

• The Trollenberg Terror (The Crawling Eye): At a remote mountain resort in Switzerland, huge aliens telepathically take over the minds of the locals to cover up their planned invasion. These beings inhabit a mysterious, radioactive cloud at the base of the Trollenberg mountain.

• Monster from Green Hell: Yes, you guessed it! Déjà vu! A rocket with wasps aboard lands in central Africa. The problem is that the wasps have mutated into giant deadly critters.

• Fiend Without A Face: As a result of radiation, a scientist’s thoughts cause an army of invisible brain creatures to materialize and terrorize an American atomic-powered radar military base.

• From the Earth to the Moon: Based on Jules Verne's classic story of a trip to the moon. Just after the American civil war, businessman and inventor Victor Barbicane invents a new source of power called (what else?) Power X which he plans to use to power rockets. With this in mind, he plans to send a projectile to the moon. but is met with resistance and an act of sabotage.

• Monster on Campus: A college professor examines a newly discovered specimen: a prehistoric fish. When he is accidentally exposed to its blood, he turns into a murderous Neanderthal-like creature. You’ll find many such creatures wandering campuses!

 

And now it’s time for,

 

Curse Of The Faceless Man……..

 

Directed by Edward L. Cahn

Produced by Robert E. Kent, Edward Small

Written by Jerome Bixby

Music by Gerald Fried

Cinematography: Kenneth Peach

Edited by Grant Whytock

Distributed by United Artists

Running time: 67 minutes

 

Cast

 

• Richard Anderson as Dr. Paul Mallon: a doctor who specializes in tissue culture.

• Elaine Edwards as Tina Enright: Paul’s fiancée, who is a painter and the object of the Faceless Man’s attention.

• Luis Van Rooten as Dr. Carlo Fiorillo: works at the Museo di Pompeii and who examines the strange body removed from the ruins of Pompeii.

• Adele Mara as Maria Fiorillo: Carlo’s daughter, who once had a relationship with Paul. She has finished her training as a doctor and now works with her father in the museum.

• Gar Moore as Dr. Enricco Ricci: a rather undeveloped character who has feelings for Maria but the jealousy angle and resentment of Paul didn’t really feature.

• Felix Locher as Dr. Emanual: works at the museum and translates the inscriptions contained on a medallion from a box found with the Faceless Man. He tries to convince the others about the truth of the curses and strange forces surrounding the Etruscans and the Faceless Man from Pompeii.

• Jan Arvan as Police Inspector Renaldi: Investigates the first murder but unlike Dr. Emanual, believes that a human killer was responsible.

• Bob Bryant as Quintillus Aurelius: a Roman slave/gladiator in love with his master’s daughter. Due to their respective stations in life, Quintillus was denied marriage to this daughter of a senator. After Pompeii’s destruction, he had been preserved in a state that was not quite life, nor was it death. He has now risen from the ruins of the past to be reunited with his lost love who he believes is his beloved Tina.

 

****************

 

What if you lived in a “future time” where our current notions of time as being a linear progression starting from the past, moving to the present and then proceeding on into the future were replaced by something different?

 

What if you saw time as being flexible in which the past, present and future all exist simultaneously in an infinite series of combinations and possibilities? If you couldn’t prove this by physically moving to some era in the “past” or by flinging yourself forward into the distant “future,” perhaps a way will eventually be found in which you could peer across into, for instance, a period in the “past.”

 

Time itself might be seen as being like a giant circular vinyl LP record (for those who can remember!) consisting of grooves grouped into tracks representing different time-periods. The album might be infinite in size and there may even be an infinite number of such albums. The question is; how might one move out of a particular groove, escape from the track it is a part of and cross over into another track?

 

What if we all had a latent or dormant ability to witness events occurring in the past and that such an ability could be stimulated by micro or Nano bio-technical enhancements, chemical stimulation and intense meditation practices?

 

What if such procedures could enable you to produce behind your closed eye-lids a kind of small time-lens or bubble through which you could see events in the past unfold before you like in a movie?

 

Of course, what would unfold before you would be from a random era and would consist only of visual images devoid of the auditory and olfactory elements of life in a given time period and location. Ah, but the colors! Who would’ve thought such colours would’ve been possible at that period of time that we were used to seeing on monochromatic film?

 

One such time mind-traveller might be witnessing a street scene in which some young men sporting straw boater hats with coloured ribbons around the crown boisterously striding past a couple of young ladies attired in long pastel colored afternoon dresses. Suddenly, on a rather uneven and rutted road, a metallic mechanical monstrosity shakes and vibrates into view. The cacophonous sounds it makes and the stench that emanates from its exhaust can only be guessed at from the terror-stricken reaction from a nearby horse pulling its load of produce, as well as from the fumes that seem to lash out in all directions from the metal monster’s posterior.

 

Another time mind-traveller, however, might be witnessing the destruction of the city of Pompeii in 79 A.D. with the eruption of Vesuvius. Just imagine what events our mind-traveller would be witnessing only "79 years after the birth of Christ, (when) the city of Pompeii ceased to exist! Destroyed by a mountain of seething hell known as Vesuvius. (Imagine!) On a quiet August afternoon, almost 2000 years ago, the volcano erupted, the Earth shook, day became night, birds fell dead from the sky, fish died as the oceans boiled, and the people of Pompeii perished under an avalanche of volcanic ash and stone, burned, suffocated, crushed……"

 

From the above temporal flight of fancy, it is this view of a slice of the past that leads us to our consideration of the film, “Curse of the Faceless Man.” It is a tale in which past and present seem to merge in a most terrifying way….

 

First of all, as the film opens, we see title and credits roll over the featureless form of a man lying on a marble slab in a museum: a petrified snapshot in time from the year 79 AD of one who bore witness to the eruption of Vesuvius and its laying waste of city of Pompeii.

 

“The startling narrative of the faceless man begins on June third of this year when a gold jewel box was discovered by a workman of the expedition unearthing the ancient ruins of Pompeii.”

 

While a labourer is working at the Pompeii dig, dirt in the trench he is working in suddenly moves and a box then emerges, followed by a hand pushing its way out of the ground…..

 

“The terrified labourer was the first to bring the news of the white, stone-like hand to the headquarters of the expedition. That same day, a body was taken from the earth, where it had been buried for two thousand years.”

 

The body has been uncovered and is on its way to the museum. Dr. Paul Mallon, an expert in tissue culture, is greeted by Dr. Carlo Fiorillo who tells Paul of the discovery at the dig of “a body almost 2000 years old.” He then tells Paul that he is “not even sure it is dead.”

 

As the mysterious featureless body is being transported to the museum, it begins to reach out from its wooden packing crate at the back of a VW truck just behind the unsuspecting driver.

 

After Maria, daughter of Dr. Fiorillo, and Dr. Enricco Ricci arrive at the museum, Enricco tells Maria that he would have preferred her father had called in someone other than Paul to assist. Enricco is jealous as Paul and Maria had had a previous relationship. Could this form a sub-plot or a basis for some kind of developing tension?

 

Dr. Fiorillo informs his daughter, Paul and Enricco about the gold jewel box and its contents that was discovered with the mysterious figure. The bronze medallion contains an inscription in Etruscan and was sent to Dr. Emanuel, a specialist in ancient languages.

 

Meanwhile, back in the truck, the featureless figure breaks free of the crate and attacks and kills Tony, the “reliable driver.”

 

Later at the scene of the accident. Dr. Fiorillo and Enricco examine the seemingly petrified ancient body while Paul and Maria examine the damaged truck. Paul informs Maria that he is engaged to be married to an artist, Tina Enright. Does Maria still harbour feelings for Paul who appears to have had no trouble moving on?

 

Dr. Emanuel has managed to translate the inscription on the medallion. He observes that “one man is already dead and there could be more.” The inscription is by Quintillus Aurelius (the featureless body) and is in the form of a warning containing a curse:

 

“The house on the fourth hill of Pompeii shall fall.

Its people shall perish, and whosoever stands

Between me and what is mine shall perish.

I shall visit the curse upon them until eternity…

…. The fires of the earth shall consume them.

I am the son of Etruscan gods.

I will live when the Roman is no more.”

 

(Quintillus Aurelius)

 

The body of Quintillus is brought in and an examination conducted by Paul shows blood (most likely from the truck driver, Tony) on one of the hands. Paul is sceptical about the curse, or that Quintillus killed Tony, or that the body is alive. Maria simply states, “it is the most frightening thing I have ever seen!”

 

Paul visits his fiance, Tina Enright at her apartment. Tina has been painting a figure of a “bound man.” The subject of her strange painting was inspired by a dream she had the night before. It was as if she had been “forced to paint it….to bring it to life.” The figure in the painting has his “hands bound as if in slavery.” Not surprisingly, Paul is sceptical and thinks that the matter concerning Tina’s dream and the death of the truck driver is nothing more than a coincidence. Paul is to return to the museum to answer further questions by the police and Tina demands to see the mysterious body.

 

“Dr. Paul Mallon began to feel a deep concern for his fiance, for he was wondering now if the faceless apparition she had painted was an impossibility.”

 

At the museum, Police Inspector Renaldi questions Dr. Fiorillo, Maria and Enricco. He informs them that Tony was indeed murdered, but believes that the killer is a “great deal younger than 2000 years.” As far as he is concerned, his job is to go after “motivation’ rather than chase ghosts.

 

“Dr Fiorillo was puzzled and worried over what was obviously more than just a coincidence. For Tina Enright, the strange dreams persisted, as though the stone-like man lying in the museum had forced her to think of him, having pressed himself so indelibly on her mind, that she had to go to him…so that his portrait might be finished.”

 

After Paul and Tina arrive at the museum, Tina relates her story to Dr. Fiorillo and the others. She then asks Dr. Fiorillo if she can sketch the body but is refused permission to do so, at least not until Paul completes his examination.

 

Later on we see a restless Tina at home in bed having nightmares. As if under a spell, she then gets up, dresses and proceeds to the museum. Once at the museum, Tina enters the display room and begins sketching the remains of Quintillus. At first Tina seems to be unaware of the subtle movements of the body on the slab but there is a sense of unease and tension as Quintillus moves almost imperceptibly slowly.

 

Suddenly Quintillus sits up, leaves the marble slab and begins walking towards Tina. She notices his advancing form and screams, which alerts the guard who is on his rounds. Tina faints just as the guard enters the room. The guard fires his revolver at Quintillus but the bullets have no effect on Quintillus’ impervious outer crust.

 

Quintillus strikes the guard, knocking him into a display case. He then approaches the broken case and picks up a single brooch which he then pins onto Tina's blouse. Meanwhile, Dr. Fiorillo and his daughter have been awakened by the noise and enter the display room to find the guard lying dead and Tina in “deep shock.”

 

“Dr. Fiorillo studied the ancient book in his library for hours and finally found what he wanted: a picture of Roman women at the time that the Roman Empire flourished…”

 

Dr. Fiorillo later peruses a book that contains a picture of a Roman woman wearing a brooch similar to the one Quintillus pinned on Tina’s blouse. Meanwhile, Paul and Maria take Tina home and put her to bed. It is later observed that she appears to be “suspended in a vague twilight between past and present.”

 

“An ancient brooch, yet the mystery of it had survived the ages to make itself felt again in the presence of Tina Enright. Now perhaps the face of the mystery might be solved.”

 

Paul and Maria return to the museum and together with Dr. Fiorillo conduct a kind of an experiment. Dr. Fiorillo places the brooch on the floor close to where Quintillus is lying. Suddenly, Quintillus comes to life, gets up off the slab and picks up the brooch. He then advances towards the three observers. Paul tries to wield an axe and strike Quintillus with it but it has no effect on Quintillus’ protective outer casing. Quintillus merely brushes past Paul, breaks through the display room doors and exits the museum. It appears that Quintillus is making his way to Tina's apartment.

 

“For the first time since the destruction of Pompeii, Quintillus Aurelius was a free man.”

 

“The dreams in the mind of Tina Enright returned. Baffling dreams that she could not understand. Yet, the dreams were very real, for she could see approach of the man of stone, could feel his terrifying presence as he neared the apartment in which she slept.”

 

“……the stone man’s strange memory and instinct guided him surely toward Tina Enright.”

 

Dr. Fiorillo, Maria, and Paul arrive at Tina's apartment and as they remain outside, Quintillus arrives, breaks in and makes his way to where Tina is sleeping. Tina awakens with the sound of the door breaking. She screams and runs in terror when she sees Quintillus. Tina soon finds herself trapped in the basement of the building. Just before Quintillus can grab hold of her, he suddenly collapses to the floor. But why? Tina confesses, “I knew it was coming for me” on account of a dream she had.

 

The next day sees Dr. Emanuel arriving at the museum armed with a couple of books on alchemy and the black arts of Egypt. He asks Paul to study the two books before he conducts a series of tests on the body of Quintillus who he reminds Paul was found in the Temple of Isis in the “Egyptian section of Pompeii.”

 

In relation to Quintillus pinning the brooch on Tina, it is explained that it was the “custom of Etruscan civilisation” for a man to pin a brooch on the one he loved; in this case despite a separation of 2000 years!

 

Dr. Emanuel asks Tina to accompany him to his home to talk, but requests that they stop on the way and visit the Cove of the Blind Fisherman. This will be a kind of test in which Dr Emmanuel will observe Tina’s reaction to the location which was where those fleeing the volcano in 79 AD attempted to make their escape.

 

“Only scholars of ancient history had ever heard of the cove of the blind fisherman. The test which Dr. Emanual was about to conduct would be a conclusive one for Tina Enright.”

 

“For Quintillus, the cove of the blind fisherman as it had been for the people of old Pompeii, was a reality, not a name long lost in the archives of musty history.”

 

As Dr Emmanuel and Tina walk to the water's edge, Tina starts to remember events that took place 2000 years previously at this “scene of violent death.” In grief and horror she cries out that she can see, “hundreds of them all trying to escape the volcano….I can almost hear their screams!” Soon after this seeming recovered memory episode they both drive away in Emanuel's car.

 

Back at the lab, Paul and Dr. Fiorillo discover a chemical (which sounds like “Thalidomide?”) which is derived from ammonia and was used in the mummification process by the Egyptians. They deduce that Quintillus must have been saturated in this chemical and that the heat of the volcanic eruption may have resulted in his life force.

 

Meanwhile, Dr. Emanuel has employed hypnotic regression on Tina and has recorded her utterances on tape. We hear Tina recounting her past life as Lucilla, the daughter of a Roman Senator. She goes on to state, “I feel that something terrible is going to happen” in reference to the curse placed on her family by the slave Quintillus Aurelius. Quintillus threatened to escape and take Lucilla Helena as his wife. However, Tina (as Lucilla) declares, “How can I return his love? I am an aristocrat and he is a slave!” Lucilla’s house is destroyed with the eruption of the volcano.

 

Dr. Emanuel shows Paul the photo of a bust of the historical Lucilla and it looks exactly like Tina. Lucilla’s father had trained Quintillus to be a gladiator while the object of Quintillus’ love was the daughter of a Roman aristocrat. And so, we have before us the makings of a “tragic love affair that began 2000 years ago when a slave in bondage had dared to love a girl from the Roman nobility.”

 

“Doctor Emanual knew that Paul Mallon could never run away from what had happened. The only escape was in death – Tina’s or that of Quintillus….”

 

Paul informs Dr. Fiorillo that he intends to get Tina out of Italy that night, but Dr. Emanuel believes that Tina can only be free when the curse itself is broken.

 

When Paul arrives at Tina’s apartment, he finds her gone. The painting of Quintillus now shows a hand holding a knife cutting the bonds of slavery:

 

“The hand holding the knife could mean but one thing: the release of Quintillus from his bonds of slavery…and the canvas was still wet. The hand and the knife had just been painted, but Paul was too late. Quintillus had already been released from his bonds.”

 

At the museum in a scene where in this case life seems to mirror art, Tina is seen holding a knife with which she has cut the canvas bonds securing Quintillus. Meanwhile, Enricco in the display room, hears a noise and notices Quintillus advancing towards him. He fires his gun at the approaching figure but it has no effect. As Quintillus gradually strangles the life out of Enricco, Paul arrives on the scene and tries to help Enricco. The more powerful Quintillus throws Paul to the to the floor while Quintillus picks Tina up in his arms and carries her out of the museum.

 

Dr. Fiorillo and Maria drive up to the museum and notice that the front door is open. They enter to find Paul and Enricco on the floor. Paul is OK but Enricco is taken to the hospital for treatment.

 

Dr. Fiorillo later proposes that it was radioactivity in the ground that kept Quintillus alive. X-rays showing a human being inside the casing of Quintillus outer covering had apparently given him mobility. Renaldi soon springs into action and orders his police force to scour Naples for Quintillus and Tina.

 

“For Quintillus and Tina Enright, the terror of that August day in the year 79 A.D. when Vesuvius erupted and destroyed Pompeii, was being relived. For them, this was the day. Pompeii was beginning to die under flaming ash and stone.”

 

“There was only one escape for Quintillus and the girl he had loved for all eternity: the sea.”

 

“Vesuvius was reaching its terrible climax of death and destruction, and the strange unreal strength of the stone man drove him on, seeking escape, seeking the water of the cove of the blind fisherman to save his beloved Lucilla Helena.”

 

In a scene in which Quintillus seems to be acting out an escape from the erupting volcano, he is carrying Tina towards the sea. He is soon spotted and the police are dispatched to the Cove of the Blind Fisherman. When they arrive, there is concern that an attempt to save Tina might result in her accidentally being shot.

 

As soon as Quintillus lays Tina down on the beach, the police open fire with their guns, but their bullets have no effect on him. Quintillus swats two officers as if they were flies and proceeds to pick Tina up and walk into the surf with her. However, it is soon apparent that the sea water has a corrosive effect in Quintillus much like acid and we witness his body dissolving away into a

powdery substance.

 

Paul quickly leaps into the surf and rescues Tina. As he carries her up onto the beach, Tina awakens from her trance and wonders why they are all at the beach.

 

"The strange narrative of Quintillus Aurelius ended here in the quiet waters of the Bay of Naples. The story is finished, and perhaps Quintillus Aurelius has found the true Lucilla Helena where mortal men don't walk and time is eternal."

 

The Curse of the Faceless Man finally closes with a shot of the body of Quintillus on the marble slab in the museum.

 

I hope you enjoyed the film, Curse of the Faceless Man, an accidental and fateful visitation of sorts from another time and place. but just remember: The next time you have the feeling that you’re being watched, consider who might be watching you and instead of from where they are watching you, you might be more tempted to wonder from when they are watching you……...

 

**********

 

Remember, Remember….

 

Neither contented ignorance of the past,

Nor glib and flippant views of history

Can help us avoid or outlast

Ancient probing hands’ ability

To reach out from depths of antiquity

And slap us out of our recurrent stupidity.

 

**********

 

 

Points of Interest

 

Curse of the Faceless Man with its somewhat cliched and predictable plot does tend to repeat many of the elements contained in Universal Studios, The Mummy (1932), so we do feel that we’re on very well-trodden and all too familiar territory. The premise of a man having been saturated with Egyptian embalming chemicals, then sealed in volcanic ash and preserved by the radiation deep within the earth is at least an interesting one.

 

Shot in only six days, the film was originally released on a double bill with the excellent, It! The Terror From Beyond Space (1958), also scripted by science fiction author Jerome Bixby and directed by Edward L. Cahn.

 

Felix Locher who plays Dr. Emmanuel was the father of actor Jon Hall (Charles Locher) and did not begin acting until he was 76 years old! He also played Dr. Carter Morton in the movie classic, Frankenstein's Daughter (1958).

 

The "Museo di Napoli" featured as a location in the film was in reality Griffith Observatory. “The Cove of the Blind Fisherman” was actually a stretch of beach in Venice, California.

 

The annoyingly frequent narration was spoken by the character actor, Morris Ankrum who we are acquainted with from his performances in several sci-fi films from the 1950s.