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

 

 

Giant from the Unknown (1958)

 

A rather cheap and pedestrian sci fi film with an absurd premise, lots of “stuff” happening, rather unconvincing acting, somewhat dull dialogue and a largely unimpressive “monster’ character. Perfect viewing fare for a rainy afternoon!

 

 

1958: A Taste Of The Times

 

Global Events

 

Europe

 

    • European Economic Community (EEC) is founded.

    • The world's fair in Brussels (Expo 58) is officially opened.

    • Pope Pius XII dies & Pope John XXIII succeeds Pope Pius XII as the 261st pope.

      

 

Middle East

 

•  Gamal Abdel Nasser is nominated as the first president of the United Arab Republic

• In Lebanon, 5,000 United States Marines land in the capital Beirut to protect the pro-Western government there.

 

 

Cold War Foes: US & Soviet Union

 

    • Operation Argus: The United States begins nuclear tests over the South Atlantic.

    • Nikita Khrushchev becomes Premier of the Soviet Union.

    • The U.S.S.R. performs a nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya.

 

“Red” China

 

• China’s People's Liberation Army bombard Quemoy (a group of islands, governed by the Republic of China (ROC) or Taiwan, located just off the south-eastern coast of mainland China) triggering The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis.

• The Great Chinese Famine begins.

      

 

(Spoilers Follow Below…..)

 

Directed by Richard E. Cunha

Produced by Marc Frederic, Arthur A. Jacobs

Written by Ralph Brooke, Frank Hart Taussig

Music by Albert Glasser

Cinematography: Richard E. Cunha

Distributed by Astor Pictures

Running time: 77 minutes

 

Cast

 

Ed Kemmer: Wayne Brooks

Sally Fraser: Janet Cleveland

Bob Steele: Sheriff Parker

Morris Ankrum: Dr. Frederick Cleveland

Buddy Baer: Vargas the Giant

Oliver Blake: Cafe Proprietor

Jolene Brand: Ann Brown (as Joline Brand)

Billy Dix: Indian Joe

Gary Crutcher: Charlie Brown

Ned Davenport & Ewing Miles Brown: Townsmen

 

 

In your endless wanderings throughout the 1950s classic sci-fi universe, you manage to trudge into yet another film world, this time with your coat collar turned up high around your neck and your coat buttoned up tightly against the onslaught of wind and rain from a thunderstorm. As you make your way through a mountain forest, you fail to notice a warning sign in the form of a 16th century ax embedded in a log of wood.

 

You eventually emerge out of the forest and enter the small mountain village of Pine Ridge, California. As has often been the case, you have stumbled into a world where events and characters are rather predictable and formulaic and where everything eventually leads to an inevitable conclusion.

 

Just take a look around you and what do you see? Pine Ridge: Just a “wide spot in the road.” If it still exists years from now, people will describe it as being so small the main road goes straight through the car wash!

 

See the small knot of Pine Ridge’s finest citizens busily airing their concerns about a series of livestock mutilations that have taken place. “Something mighty strange going on here!” says one. “Just ‘taint natural” says another.” Not only that, but a local man by the name of Harold Banks has been found dead and was killed in a manner similar to the livestock.

 

Unseen and unheard by the townsfolk, you are able to easily eavesdrop on their conversations and learn that the incidents seem to have been happening around the area known as “Devil's Crag.” Listen now as Sheriff Parker explains that the coroner's report shows that “Banks died of a brutal beating at the hands of a person or persons unknown."

 

Explanations aside, you feel the same revulsion as the café owner feels when he pulls back the tarp covering the dead body in the back of the truck. Someone expresses the prevalent feeling when he states that “it’s supernatural.” See the Sheriff’s determination not to be swayed by talk of supernatural causes as he orders everyone to stay away from the vicinity of Devil’s Crag.

 

You’re all too familiar with this scenario. Combine something that seems to defy rational explanation with a lack of information and add mob mentality, ignorance and fear and what do you have? Keep watching and listening and you’ll soon find out.

 

Your attention is suddenly drawn to a rather sad and pathetic example of racial and minority stereotyping, so typical a feature of the many film worlds you have traveled through. There before you is an intoxicated Indian, Joe who giggles inanely and warns, "All white men die." Before he is driven away by the Sheriff, you hear Indian Joe warn him that “the spirits of my people return for their revenge” and that, "people who walk on Indian grave, die."

 

Look further out yonder and you’ll notice a local geologist by the name of Wayne Brooks sauntering into town after being three days away in the woods. Yep, you guessed it! Here we have the introduction of a likely conflict between this character and the Sheriff who has just declared Devil’s Crag off limits and has heard about a confrontation that took place between Brooks and Banks several days before resulting in the former being run off the Banks' property with a shotgun. Within the one-dimensional thought processes and conservative mindset of our authority figure Sheriff, suspicions abound!

 

As you wander down the main street with the Sheriff’s suspicious questions directed at Wayne ringing in your ears, you suddenly catch sight of a Jeep coming to a stop. Behind the wheel is Dr. Frederick Cleveland, an archaeologist. Sitting next to him in the vehicle is his daughter, Janet Cleveland.

 

You know the familiar face of Dr. Cleveland from your journeying through the various film worlds of the classic sci-fi universe. It seems as if repeated reincarnation of the physical form is an established fact in this universe. It’s a familiar face that has belonged to anyone from an army general through to a Martian. It’s the kind of face that you are always glad to see.

 

As the sheriff drones on about two tent poles sticking out of the back of the Jeep requiring a warning flag, you overhear that Cleveland is planning on conducting archaeological research in the area and that Brooks was once a student at professor Cleveland’s college and had attended a few of his lectures.

 

Despite none of the characters being able to be aware of your presence in this film world, even you begin to lose patience with Parker and his warning Cleveland to be on his guard and especially with whom he associates, implying of course, Wayne. Despite the efforts of kill-joy Parker, you’re pleased that Brooks, Cleveland and Janet have agreed to have dinner at the lodge later that day.

 

At the dinner, you ensconce yourself at a location close to where Wayne and Cleveland are sitting and overhear Wayne telling the professor about the livestock mutilations and that “all these killings have been occurring around Devil’s Crag.” There’s also the matter of the old Indian legend which states that “someday the spirits will rise and destroy the valley.”

 

Take note of Cleveland’s positive reaction when Wayne informs him that he has uncovered a few artifacts. A delighted Cleveland asks to see them stating that, "this might save me a great deal of time and effort." ‘To do what?’ you’re thinking to yourself.

 

As if in response to your silent inquiry, Cleveland tells Wayne, "I'm looking for a giant, but one that has been dead for over 500 years." You learn that Cleveland has been working on a book about a Spanish conquistador and that in particular he wants to know what happened to the “Diablo Giant” by the name of Vargas. Vargas was the name of a “brutal” and “degenerate” lieutenant who deserted an expedition led by a man named Ptolemy Firello and with his band of renegades headed inland in search of Indian gold.

 

After dinner you join Janet, the professor and Wayne at the latter’s small field lab. As you watch the professor admiring the Indian artefacts, you almost drop your bundle as Janet suddenly cries out when she is frightened by a lizard she sees in a box on the table. It doesn’t help all that much when Wayne explains that the creature is extinct and that he discovered it sealed inside a rock in a state of “suspended animation.” Yep, you’ve seen this before in your wanderings. Set up a proposition however unlikely and if it applies in one case then by golly it’s sure to apply in another case that’s central to the film’s premise.

 

When Janet and Wayne leave the lab to see a movie, you know full well two’s company and three’s a crowd, even though they don’t know you’re there! Besides, you have probably wandered through the particular film world they’re going to see already.

 

So, you decide to stick with Cleveland as he examines the artefacts. However, you wished you hadn’t as you almost soil your pants when you spot Indian Joe peering through the window. ‘What the hell does he want?’ you wonder. Idiot, you forget that he can’t see you!

 

It’s a relief to you when Wayne and Janet return from the cinema. While they were on their date, the professor had been busy. He asks them to watch closely as he pushes a couple of pieces of rock together to form a cross, a Christian cross made by an Indian demonstrating that they had been influenced by Europeans long before settlers had colonised Indian lands. You know as well as Cleveland that this relic is an important lead and you can well appreciate his joy when Wayne volunteers to take him to the very spot where it was found. Nothing will stop you from joining them at the lodge for breakfast next day, except perhaps for the fact that after brekkie they will be going to……DEVIL’S CRAG! 

 

The next day you find yourself perched uncomfortably in the back of the Jeep as it bumps its way to its destination in the mountains. The Jeep eventually stops near a pile of boulders. Janet gets out of the Jeep and is alarmed at seeing what she believes to be a face in a clump of bushes. You don’t see anything but it’s enough to make your heart beat a bit faster and raise the hairs on the back of your neck. Probably just a deer….

 

If that isn’t bad enough, the sheriff has just pulled up and begins admonishing Brooks for leaving town and informs them that Devil's Crag is off limits to everyone. The good old professor knows how to handle and impress functionaries like Parker and presents the Sheriff with a permit from the Commissioner of Public Lands that allows him to do his research. He also states that he will assume full responsibility for Brooks. To top it off, Cleveland assures the sheriff that they are armed and can defend themselves from any danger. Thank goodness, the sheriff agrees to this and leaves. You can’t help but agree with Brooks when he observes that Parker “has a badge instead of a brain.”

 

The next morning you join Wayne as he explores the area. As he notices a broken branch, you catch sight of Indian Joe hiding behind a boulder. You also notice that he is armed with a rifle and seems to be skulking there with malicious intent. Your worst fears are about to be confirmed when Joe takes a shot at Wayne. No, not at Wayne, but apparently in his general direction. Either way, there’s nothing you can do about it.

 

After the shot, Joe approaches and explains that he was shooting at a rabbit, and points out to Wayne, “I not miss what I shoot at.” Wayne assures Joe that he isn't looking for Indian artefacts, but is instead on the lookout for evidence of a Spanish soldier. He tells Joe, “I promise you we will not disturb the sleep of your ancestors.” Joe confirms that he and Wayne are indeed friends, but before departing leaves him with a warning that the place is evil and that “only evil can come to you here.”

 

Later back at camp, Wayne tells Cleveland that the area is changed from how he remembers it and speculates that a recent electrical thunderstorm has altered the landscape which now has “disturbed brush and toppled rocks.” But you feel that is just the rational scientist in him grappling for meaning. Perhaps there is a bit more to it than what such a neat and tidy explanation can provide. Perhaps the answer can be found at Devil's Crag and in the clues provided by a map showing where Wayne found the cross. It is decided that they (meaning the men) will use metal detectors to search for Spanish artefacts seeing that it was the Spaniards that used a lot of metal compared to the Indians.

 

And what of the lovely Janet? Why, in the tradition of many of the classic sci-fi film worlds within the classic 1950s sci-fi universe, she will be expected to perform her seemingly preordained female role – take care of and tidy up the camp and prepare lunch. Never mind Janet, you may now have little recourse but to exclaim, “you men have all the fun!” But in 30 years’ time your daughter will be declaring that “girls just wanna’ have fun!” while your granddaughter in the 21st century will find a way to prevent her man from having too much or indeed any kind of fun! Ah, sweet revenge!

 

As much as it appeals to you to hang around the camp with the lovely Janet close-by, you decide to tail Wayne and Cleveland as they do ‘blokey boys with big toys stuff’ like searching the area with a metal detector. After a while you start to feel tired just by watching them search on and on without success.

 

Hooray! Here comes Janet with coffee but you forget that you don’t consume food or beverages while you travel through the classic sci-fi universe. You are almost surprised when Janet suddenly tries to convince her father to give up the search. She asks him, “don’t you know when you’re licked?” You’re equally surprised when the professor actually agrees to do so due to his lack of progress over the past three years. He admits that his endeavours have been just part of “a dream, an obsession…a long gamble” which he has now lost. You sense that to do what Janet suggests would practically break the professor’s heart.

 

Janet decides to have a go at using the metal detector herself before they all pack up camp for the return trip to Pine Ridge. You follow close behind her and shake your head at her “unique” metal detecting technique. You stop and watch (and shake your head yet again) as Janet sits down to rest by a fallen tree and applies some makeup to her face, essential to any foray into the bush!

 

As if on cue, here comes lover boy, Wayne! What a gentleman he is as he returns to the log to retrieve Janet's compact which she dropped. In accordance with the unwritten law concerning how the best discoveries are made quite by accident, the metal detector goes nuts as it registers the presence of metal. Sounds more like a Geiger counter registering radio-activity!

 

You share the excitement as the other three excavate the site and soon unearth a Conquistador helmet, chest armour, a sword and an ax. A full suit of armor containing the skull of a human is also found. Understandably, Cleveland wants to get the artifacts to the museum and then publish his findings. The find will definitely add “a new chapter to the history of California,” but you feel for Cleveland as he is disappointed that there “was no trace of Vargas.”

 

You can sense that a storm is literally and figuratively approaching and is about to hit. Wayne believes a lightning strike hit the same rock formation where he had earlier found the live lizard entombed in a piece of rock. As quick as lightning bolts, theories will soon flash into existence about Vargas: that he was buried as a result of an epidemic, that he was placed in the burial ground and that he is still alive!

 

As the storm hits and the professor and his daughter head back to camp, you decide to hang back with Wayne. He soon locates the Diablo Giant’s ax, but not being the King Arthur type he is unable to pull it free. As Wayne returns to Camp, you stand transfixed at the sight of a hand moving on the ground beneath a log. Under a covering of leaves, a pair of eyes open and look around. The hand and eyes belong to the emerging body of The Diablo Giant, Vargas who amidst the crashing sound of thunder and the flashes of lightning, stands and surveys his surroundings.

 

Now, you have travelled through sci-fi film worlds replete with monsters of every description ranging from long extinct dinosaurs and giant octopuses through to Kaiju creatures and enormous insects. And what stands before you right now? A big ugly Spanish conquistador in need of a good hosing down with water! Barely able to suppress fits of laughter, you head off back to the camp site.

 

The next day, you accompany Wayne, Cleveland and his daughter to where Wayne located the ax handle. You gape in astonishment to find that it is no longer there. After a search around the area, a medallion and a breast plate are located. Questions soon arise as to whether Vargas could still be alive. More pieces of armor are found and are placed on a post.

 

That evening, while Cleveland works on his notes, Wayne and Janet go into the woods for a walk. You decide it would be better if you remain in camp with Cleveland for obvious reasons.

 

Later that night after Janet and Wayne have returned, you witness events which you are powerless to do anything about. You notice that Vargas has retrieved his armor and gold medallion and has put them on. He sees Janet’s silhouette through the wall of her tent and as she undresses, he slowly approaches. As he does so, he knocks over a can which seems to have startled Janet. She tries to fire her gun but only succeeds in shooting her bed dead but the shot has sufficiently startled Vargas causing him to leave the camp with alacrity. You hear Janet tell the others that she heard footsteps. Suddenly Wayne notices that Vargas’ armor is missing while Cleveland notices a huge footprint nearby. The others can only guess at the cause of these occurrences, but you know!

 

Later, you learn from Cleveland that the armour of the giant was better preserved than the others. He speculates that there is something unusual in the soil – some element that acts as a preservative. He also speculates that Vargas was not dead, but unconscious when the Indians buried him and that his unusual strength helped to sustain him. He was mistaken as being dead by the Indians while in fact he was held in suspended animation by the substance in the soil. Lightning from the electrical storm “rekindled the spark of life” and reanimated Vargas.

 

Oh Oh! Here’s trouble in the form of Parker. He’s turned up here to arrest Wayne for the murder of Anne Brown! It turns out that after Charlie had left to go to work at the lodge, his sister Ann was attacked and killed while taking a bucket to fetch water from a well.

 

Wayne tries to explain that he hasn't seen Ann in over a week but the sheriff produces the medallion that was found in Ann’s hand as proof of his involvement. You know that Wayne is innocent and you join Parker as he leads Wayne away in handcuffs.

 

You concur with Wayne’s explanation that someone must have stolen the artifacts and that the person who did so is responsible for Ann’s murder. On the way to town, Wayne manages to convince the sheriff to drop by Indian Joe’s cabin.

 

Upon arrival at the cabin, it appears to be empty. Suddenly, a cold slice of shock makes its way from the pit of your stomach, through to your chest and on up to the back of your throat as you catch sight of Indian Joe’s bloodied carcass hanging up on the wall like a slaughtered deer.

 

When you arrive in town with Wayne and the sheriff, you spot a large crowd of people in a fairly ugly mood. Cleveland then pulls into town and reports that the giant Vargas has Janet. It turns out that while Cleveland was making a plaster cast of the large footprint, he was knocked out by Vargas. Janet came out to investigate and while she tried to flee using the Jeep, Vargas nabbed her.

 

You decide to stick with Wayne and Cleveland as they “borrow” the sheriff's car and drive back to the mountains. At the camp site, Cleveland manages to chop off the chain of the handcuffs thereby allowing Wayne to grab a gun and run into the woods after his quarry. You hightail after Wayne until you soon catch sight of Vargas carrying Janet over his shoulder. You marvel at Vargas’ strength when he pushes a giant tree towards Wayne, narrowly missing him. Next off, Vargas lays Janet down in a clearing, grabs an ax and takes a swing at Wayne, again narrowly missing him when Janet calls out a warning.

 

Enter the cavalry as the sheriff charges in with guns blazing which manages to scare Vargas away and into the forest. You then get that warm fuzzy feeling when the sheriff apologizes to Wayne and they shake hands. Shucks!

 

With Charlie left behind guarding the camp, the Sheriff’s posse spots Vargas at Box Ledge. Wayne suggests to Parker that the men douse their flares in case Vargas sees them.

 

Suddenly you catch sight of the giant Vargas picking up a rock and heaving it, killing one of the men. Shots ring out in response but to no avail as the giant’s armour protects him.

 

After returning to camp. You hear the sound of rifle shots. It seems that Charlie feeling somewhat responsible for the fate of his sister, has grabbed a rifle and gone off to exact revenge. The rifle shots are a signal from Charlie.

 

You take off with Wayne and Sheriff Parker to go look for Charlie. You soon find Charlie lying on the ground injured, but he manages to tell Wayne that the giant is heading for the Old Mill.

 

You next follow Wayne to the mill and watch him as he cautiously enters. You stand powerless to help as Vargas suddenly swings and misses Wayne with his ax.

 

You breathe a sigh of relief when Wayne jumps out of a window and at once repeatedly takes to Vargas with a tree branch. Vargas then takes off along a walkway over the dam but Wayne catches up to him and a struggle ensues. Vargas suddenly loses his footing and falls down the waterfall into the river far, far below.

 

You learn that there is no hope of recovering the body as apparently the river empties into a volcanic lake that is practically bottomless.

 

With snow falling, you pull the collar of your coat high about your neck and fully button up your coat. As you trudge away from the scene past Janet and Wayne kissing, you hear the Sheriff ask Cleveland, “You think anyone will believe us?” to which Cleveland replies, “No. Come to think of it, I don’t think they ever will.”

 

**********

 

The Stranger

 

Off you go; silent, solitary, invisible Stranger,

Leave this world behind and enter another.

You knew the end had been foretold,

No matter how events were to unfold,

But what can’t always be foreseen

Are choices made when events intervene.

So off you go; silent, invisible Stranger:

Lone onlooker, sole soul voyager,

Enter the next world, but quicken your pace

For Darkness spreads and is ready to embrace

Each world you pass through unnoticed and hidden:

A fleeting shadow on the periphery of our vision.

Go, go now, Stranger, for time is running out,

Step by step to The End of your journey’s route.

 

**********

 

 

Points of Interest

 

“Giant from the Unknown” was theatrically released in March 1958 on a double bill with “She Demons.” The film was shot in San Bernardino National Forest.

 

The film was directed by Richard Cunha who also gave us the films, “Missile to the Moon,” “She Demons” and “Frankenstein’s Daughter.”

 

Special effects

 

The make-up effects were done by Jack Pierce, who created memorable scary faces for Boris Karloff's” Frankenstein” (1931), “The Mummy” (1932) and Lon Chaney Jr.'s “The Wolf Man” (1941).

 

Cast

 

Ed Kemmer who plays geologist Wayne Brooks also featured in “Earth vs. the Spider” and as Commander Buzz Corey on “Space Patrol.”

 

Morris Ankrum who plays Professor Frederick Cleveland has appeared in many sci-fi classic films ranging from “The Giant Claw” and “The Zombies of Mora Tau” through to “Invaders from Mars,” “Earth Vs the Flying Saucers” and “Kronos” – to name but a few!

 

Sally Fraser who plays Cleveland’s daughter, Janet featured in “War of the Colossal Beast” and “It, Conquered the World.”

 

Buddy Baer who plays Vargas the giant was brother of heavyweight prize-fighter Max Baer and appeared as a giant in “Jack and the Beanstalk” (1952), starring Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.

 

Bob Steele who plays Sheriff Parker was a veteran of over 200 films and a familiar face in Western movies.

 

The Monster

 

As far as film monsters go, Vargas seems to be pretty lame. One could say that he is a monster in a moral rather than a scary physical sense. He is described as being depraved and brutal and has remained so even after three and a half centuries of suspended animation.

 

Assessment

 

The film does suffer from continuity and subplot development problems. For instance, we are never quite sure why Parker and Wayne don’t like each other. What is the history behind their animosity? They just seem to detest the sight of each other.

 

Next there is the hint of a possible romantic triangle involving Wayne, Janet, and Anne Brown which is never explored or developed.

 

Finally, one has to ask if Vargas awakens after Brooks has located his weapons, then who was responsible for the murder of Old Man Banks and the farm animals at the start of the film?

 

“Giant from the Unknown” does contain moments of good pacing, and combines some effective creation of eerie atmosphere, and black and white cinematography. In addition, the 77 minute running time doesn’t allow the film to drag too much and Albert Glasser's orchestral score is quite solid and powerful.

 

 

 

 

The Colossus of New York (1958)

 

An under-rated, admirable and well-crafted sci-fi film that explores concepts that are relevant to modern audiences.

 

 

Directed by Eugène Lourié

Story written by Willis Goldbeck

Screenplay: Thelma Schnee

Music by Van Cleave

Distributed by Paramount Pictures

Release date: 1958

Running time: 70 minutes

 

Cast

 

John Baragrey: Dr. Henry Spensser

Mala Powers: Anne Spensser

Otto Kruger: Dr. William Spensser

Robert Hutton: Dr. John Robert Carrington

Ross Martin: Dr. Jeremy 'Jerry' Spensser

Charles Herbert: Billy Spensser

 

 

There’s something about The Colossus Of New York that I still find to be eerie and disturbing. It is one of the lesser known vintage sci-fi films from the 1950s that I believe deserves much greater attention. While watching the film once again recently, I was reminded of the Cybermen characters from the Doctor Who series in which hapless human beings are forced to undergo an “upgrade” by having their humanity and their very emotions stripped away as they are turned into cybernetically augmented humanoids. There have been instances though when the essential humanity of an “upgraded’ individual has managed to break through the impassive impenetrable façade of a Cyberman.

 

So, what is this technological Frankenstein movie all about?

 

Following an accident in which he was killed, Nobel Peace Prize Winner Jeremy Spensser has his brain transplanted into the body of a huge cyborg by his scientist father, William Spensser. William wishes to save his genius son's mind so that it can continue to serve mankind, BUT……

 

What will be the effect on Jeremy Spensser’s brain?

Will there be irreversible changes to his personality?

Will the very essence of his humanity be at stake?

 

 

(Spoilers follow below..…)

 

Following the titles and credits and a view of the (in theory!) bastion of diplomacy and peace, the United Nations General Assembly Building, we see brothers, Dr. Henry Spensser and Dr. Jeremy Spensser viewing a film about factory automation. It seems that the future is not only coming – it is already here in all its mechanized glory.

 

[‘Automation’ – the process that economically churns out stuff for us to consume with such great efficiency and precision. With just a press of a button, the work of hundreds and thousands can be tirelessly performed in a fraction of the time it would take humans to do. In return for freeing us from a life of repetitious and monotonous drudgery and toil, all we have to do is become obsolete or under and unemployed. What need for skilled artisans and the pride and soul of craftsmen when a machine can turn out countless uniform mass-produced objects with templated computer-coded souls and stamped with, “Made in China?”] 

 

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

 

We learn that it was actually Jeremy who was largely responsible for inventing and improving a heat-sensing device that has improved efficiency in automation. We also learn from a newspaper headline that….

 

"International Peace Prize Awarded to Jeremy Spensser."

 

Somewhat idealistically, Jeremy is of the opinion that if, "people of the world get enough to eat, war might just become obsolete." Certainly, it cannot be denied that it is the case (both then and now) that the basis of much of the conflict around the world is the inequitable distribution and access to resources.  

 

We have now been introduced to Jeremy as one who is a great humanitarian. However, there is some question as to the consequences for humanity in the kind of technology that the Spensser brothers have been championing: a machine “that works like a man” and one that could “put the human race out of business.”

 

After returning to New York from Stockholm where he collected his prize, Jeremy is killed in an accident when he is struck by a truck as he tried to retrieve his son’s toy plane.

 

An ambulance unexpectedly takes Jeremy’s body to his father’s home where Dr. William Spensser locks himself in his lab. Despite Jeremy having been “dead within five seconds," his father has decided to perform an operation on him. After three hours, Dr. Spensser opens the lab door and tells his family, "I did, I did all I could."

 

At Jeremy's funeral service, while the eulogy is being presented, Dr. Spensser, hurriedly exits in anger and frustration. Shortly after, in a “theoretical” discussion with Jeremy’s friend, Dr. John Carrington, he ponders whether great brains in human history could have continued their work to better the condition of humanity if they were unencumbered by their bodies. John considers that both the brain and the body are necessary constituents of the soul. Without a body, a brain would regress into something monstrous. It’s as if Dr. Spensser were sounding out John about the dreadful secret he is keeping regarding Jeremy.

 

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

 

[What is the “soul?” Does the “soul” exist? Does each of us have a “soul?” After all, you can’t point to a soul and say, “Look here, there’s a soul!”

 

Many Hollywood films over the years would tritely have us believe that there is such a thing as a soul. Established religions and their institutions tell us that we have souls and if we do doubt it then we are told that all we need is a bit of faith. Many of us just simply and unquestioningly accept the existence of a soul as received wisdom and as a fact.

 

Could the idea of human beings having this thing called a “soul’ merely be an expression of human arrogance. “Hey! Look at us, we’re different, we’re special! None of you other creatures have souls, but we do ‘cause we’re better than you! God says so, so there! Nya, nya, nya, nya, nya!”

 

Perhaps it is too unbearable for us to contemplate complete and utter non-existence once we die. We feel something of us must continue in some form and so we conjure up the notion of an eternal soul to help allay our fears of facing the unknown.

 

This doesn’t bother those who might hold a rather bleak rationalist, materialistic and deterministic view of what it means to be a human being. None of this superstitious mumbo jumbo nonsense about souls. “Can you measure a soul? Can you? Huh?” If you can’t quantify it, observe it, prod and poke it, bounce it around, PROVE it with empirical evidence – then it doesn’t exist, so shut up! We are what we are by virtue of our brains and our consciousness. Once our candle flame snuffs out, it’s cold darkness for us man, with no soul or comfortable afterlife to keep us warm.

 

Well, all I know is that I have respect for those who have a belief in the existence of a soul on the basis of their convictions, beliefs and faith. Equally, I also have respect those who reject the notion of a soul, based on reason, careful thought and reflection. I have no time or respect, however, for those who in a reflexive knee-jerk manner accept or reject the idea of a soul without having spent any time considering the matter before coming to a glib and minimalist conclusion.

 

I certainly don’t know what a soul is, if I have one or not, nor what I would do with it if I did have one. Could the soul be something that transcends anything to do with our immediate existence, with our minds and bodies and what can be perceived via either one? Could the soul be something that links the past, present and future together into a limitless moment of being while being both “here” and “there” at the same time? Could everything we say and do, think and feel as individual human beings be our own way of making small incremental contributions to the eternal cosmic creative process? In that way, could the “soul” in effect live on forever both within us and without? Who knows?]

 

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

 

When John tells William’s other son, Henry that his father will need support during the grieving process, Henry sarcastically responds with the comment, "That'll be something new. He's always needed Jeremy before." He nevertheless agrees to stay and support his father but not because it is the right thing to do. He has, in fact, less altruistic or familial motives….

 

Four months after Jeremy's death, it has become quite obvious that Henry is in love with his sister-in-law, Anne. As they prepare to go into the city for dinner and a show, Dr. William Spensser enters and requests that Henry accompany him to the lab. Oh, Oh! It looks like love is to be put on hold in the interests of science!

 

Inside the lab, Dr. Spensser shows Henry a tank containing a human brain. According to the brain wave activity, it is at present asleep. The brain is soon awakened by Dr. Spensser who asks of it a question to which he already has the answer. A teletype machine soon taps out the answer, and it corresponds to the answer that Spensser has. Henry has now managed to join the dots and exclaims in horror, "No! No, it’s inhuman." His father retorts, "It would have been inhuman to deny the world of his genius."

 

According to Dr. Spensser’s way of thinking, Jeremy’s genius is for the betterment of all mankind and is of the third and highest type of genius. It is not merely concerned with self-preservation; nor even with family and immediate community. Jeremy’s pointless death would have deprived the world of much needed “true genius.”

 

Spensser then seeks Henry’s assistance with providing a mechanical body for Jeremy's brain.

 

Dr. William Spensser is a complex character. We can never be quite sure how much he is motivated by benevolence toward the rest of humanity and love for his son. It seems more often than not that he is intent on trying to impose his will on others as can be seen by his almost tyrannical control of his sons and later by his assertion of power over his daughter-in-law, Anne. In makes one wonder just how much of his character and personality might wind up being projected onto his creation.

 

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

 

In a later scene in the lab we see a shadow or silhouette on the wall, which gives us an impression of the body that will contain Jeremy's brain. Initial suspense is generated but the full shock is yet to come. For that to happen, more detail will need to unfold before our eyes.

 

With the head and top part of the mechanical man’s torso in view, Dr. Spensser makes ready to test the machine. A lever is turned to activate the mechanical man and the brain suddenly awakens in the body.

 

Held upright by a support structure, the reanimated Jeremy is able to see and hear. His eyes light up and his voice activates. The mechanical Frankenstein awkwardly moves around the lab until it sees its reflection in a mirror. Jeremy suddenly emits a strange electronically synthesised spine-chilling scream of horror that reverberates around the house. This catches the attention of Anne who runs downstairs to investigate. It seems to her that the voice she heard was that of her late husband. Henry tells Anne that Dr. Spensser simply lost his temper due to a failed experiment.

 

Back in the lab, Jeremy is once again secure in his support structure. Henry is opposed to his father’s efforts at preserving Jeremy’s intellect and Jeremy himself begs his father to destroy him. Jeremy, however, eventually agrees to his continued existence on the proviso that, "I don't want anyone ever to see me. I will conduct all my experiments in this laboratory with you and Henry and no one else." Dr. Spensser agrees to his terms.

 

As they begin conducting polar plant growth experiments, Jeremy reports that he has been seeing strange new images. One in particular keeps recurring: A ship at sea in the fog, and the collision of the S.S. Viking. The first in a series of unforeseen consequences…….

 

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

 

[The new technologically augmented and enhanced Jeremy reminds me of how much we have become dependent on technology to support us in our day-to-day living. So much of our existence is wrapped up in a protective security blanket of technology. We constantly carry around bits of it with us in our hands, in our pockets, strapped to our arms or wrists, in our cars, throughout our homes. Soon, we will be wearing items of tech as part of our attire and eventually it will be commonplace to have tech implanted within our bodies for various purposes. Day-by-day and layer-by-layer our tech gradually encroaches on our lives, our bodies and our minds. Perhaps we need to take the time to step out from our virtual worlds and consider what the very real unintended consequences might be for us as a species and our sense of humanity….our very “souls” perhaps?]

 

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

 

Love is once again in the air and is about to whisk Henry off to Hawaii on a vacation with Anne and nephew, Billy. Alas, once again the unforeseen consequences of science intervene when Dr. Spensser summons Henry to the study where they watch a TV news broadcast about a disaster at sea – the disaster foreseen by Jeremy! Jeremy does indeed seem to have the power of ESP!

 

Another disturbing unforeseen consequence of Dr. Spensser’s experiment reveals itself when Henry finds himself alone with Jeremy and begins to chuckle. This elicits an emotional response from Jeremy who threatens Henry, "I warn you, Henry. These (hands) are powerful. You know how powerful because you made them. Don't goad me. I warn you, don't!" Is this the real Jeremy talking or is it a result of the technology beginning to distort his sense of morality and his very humanity?

 

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

 

[The effect of technology on our sense of our own humanity can be seen clearly when it distances us from the effects and consequences of our actions on others. The “shock and awe” and “fire and fury” power is at our disposal and is there to be used, so don’t goad us. We warn you, don’t! And so, some operator sits at a monitor and half a world away a drone lets loose a missile and a flash followed by a cloud of debris fills the view on the screen where moments ago there were……but wait! It can all be done by artificial intelligence determined by algorithms! Yay for technology!]

 

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

 

One year after his “death,” Jeremy is determined to visit his own grave. His father tries to prevent him leaving the lab, but Jeremy hypnotises his father by means of a flashing light emanating from his eyes. Yet another unintended and unforeseen consequence has emerged with the development of this new power of control. The creation has grown beyond the power of its creator to control it.

 

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

 

[As suggested in the earlier film documentary on automation and the more recent scene depicting the ability of the creation to control the creator, we have presented to us the possibility of human beings eventually being supplanted by machines. Will our species in the not too distant future be faced with a similar dilemma as we continue to develop artificial intelligence technology? Could we one day be faced with a “Skynet” type of scenario?]

 

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

 

As Jeremy leaves the lab and ventures out into the garden, he comes across his own headstone and grave marker. He hides himself when he hears the sound of his wife's voice. After placing flowers on his father's grave, Billy is drawn to Jeremy when he hears the latter’s voice.

 

Billy does not react to the sight of Jeremy with revulsion and horror. Instead, after an initial moment of surprise, he innocently asks, "Are you a giant? A real giant?” It is as if Billy is able to provide Jeremy the one emotional link back to his humanity.

 

In the lab, Jeremy is understandably upset with his father who had informed him that his son and his wife had died.

 

That evening Anne suddenly wakes up feeling that something is not right. When she goes out into the garden, Henry discovers her there and accompanies her on a stroll around the garden. Henry is determined not to let Anne know of his participation in his father’s creation. He insists that they must soon leave the house. Unaware that Jeremy is close-by, Henry kisses Anne which enrages Jeremy. As he approaches, Anne faints, and Henry in a rather cowardly act runs off! Swine!

 

Notice that Jeremy picks up Anne and carries her back to her bed. The question is why? He chose not to leave her there. He didn’t try to exact some kind of angry or jealous retribution. Was it an act of love and tenderness? It stands in sharp contrast to Henry’s spineless act of abandonment.

 

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

 

Another pillar in Anne’s life is about to crumble when next morning, Dr. John Carrington arrives at the house. While visibly upset, Anne tells him about her encounter with the creature the previous night, but John is skeptical about her fanciful-sounding story. Understandably she shows him the door. The budding hero has turned out to be nothing more than a polite condescending nonentity.

 

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

 

Later on, Henry calls his father from a phone booth. He asks him for money so that he can get away. Jeremy cuts in to the conversation by informing Spensser that he can see where his brother is located. Jeremy then instructs his father who is now completely under the creature’s hypnotic control to set up a meeting with his brother so that Jeremy can destroy him.

 

As Henry waits at the arranged meeting place, Jeremy makes his way along the bottom of the East River. While Henry awaits the arrival of the money from his father, Jeremy gradually ascends the pier and approaches him. Suddenly, by means of a ray emanating from his eyes, he kills his brother.

 

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

 

[For years technology has given us the means to communicate with one another in ever more efficient ways. In tandem with the improved means of communication, it has enabled the location and whereabouts of individuals to be determined with ease. It has also enabled communications between people to be intercepted in a variety of ways from the early efforts at wire-tapping through to the surveillance techniques employed by security agencies like the NSA. Should such capabilities then be allowed to be handed over to an artificial intelligence and be performed as part of an automated process? It is and will continue to evolve ever more so.] 

 

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

 

Later a noisy commotion at the lab alerts Dr. Spensser. Jeremy has run amok in the lab destroying the polar plant terrariums. Jeremy asks his father, "Why create food for the maimed and the useless and the sick? Why should we work to preserve slum people of the world when its simpler and wiser to get rid of them instead? Unfortunately, there are so called humanitarian scientists, and I am one of them, who tried to keep human trash alive. It will be necessary to get rid of those humanitarians first. You understand?" This technological creation has indeed come to a logical Skynet-type of conclusion about humanity……

 

It is a conclusion that Jeremy’s father is compelled to accept when Jeremy hypnotises him into assisting his son with his plan to rid the world of those pesky do-gooder humanitarians.

 

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

 

When the police visit Dr. Spensser concerning Henry's death, the matter of stories and rumours involving a creature is brought up. When Anne is asked about such stories, she is reluctant to mention the subject or admit to any knowledge of such a thing. After the police leave, Anne tells her father-in-law that she has seen a creature, but he resorts to trying to convince her she is hallucinating and that she needs a rest.

 

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

 

[With Anne, we have the depiction of a woman who is expected to be subservient to male control, power and dominance. It is assumed that Anne will simply be compliant when faced with Spensser’s repressive authority and Carrington’s dismissive attitude, all the while having to grieve for the loss of her beloved husband. How different is her demeanour at this point in the film compared to her self-confidence at the start of the film when her husband was alive? Some modern-day audiences might identify with such a character as Anne in light of the “#MeToo” sexual harassment and misconduct revelations and movement and reflect on why it has taken so long for society to acknowledge the damage that relationships based on the abuse of power has resulted.]

 

During another visit with the cyborg n the garden, Jeremy reacts angrily when Billy’s hand accidentally gets too close to his on/off switch. Jeremy’s crazed anger, however does not extend to his son. Jeremy then gives Billy a present: a model airplane, just like the one his father tried to retrieve and was killed while doing so. It is little wonder that later Anne became upset upon learning from Billy that it was a present from the giant creature. In just this short space of time, we have before us the means of Jeremy’s “death” at the start of the film in the form of the plane (Fate? Accident? Chance?), and the potential means of his death in the form of the lever (Choice? Will? Decision?)

 

Having been commanded by Jeremy to attend the United Nations building at 8.30 pm, Spensser accompanied by Anne, Billy and Carrington arrive at the site. Jeremy meanwhile approaches the venue while submerged underwater via the East River.

 

While assembling in the lobby area with numerous other people, Jeremy enters by crashing through a glass partition. He then proceeds to dispatch several of those assembled below him with his death ray.

 

Suddenly Billy runs towards the giant creature in an effort to make him stop but Jeremy continues on with his murderous actions. The truly heroic little boy, Billy confronts Jeremy who tells his son that he is unable to control himself. However, with his humanity somehow touched by the boy, Jeremy asks Billy to stop him by shutting him off.

 

In a very touching act of humanity, Billy throws the switch deactivating the mechanical creature. Jeremy then falls over the railing and plummets to the floor below. As Anne embraces her son, Dr. Spensser says to John, "Well, you were right Carrington, without a soul there is nothing but monstrousness. I only wish that heaven and Jeremy could forgive me for what I did." The film finally closes with a close up of the creature’s head dripping blood - human blood - on to the floor.

 

 

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

 

 

Points of Interest

 

Paramount released The Colossus of New York on a double-bill with The Space Children in 1958.

 

Nathan Van Cleave's music score is provided by a lone piano which serves to add to the film’s overall dark, fearful and melancholy atmosphere.

 

The scene in which the “dead” scientist awakens to find himself in the body of a machine is eerily effective. Note the mounting terror associated with Jeremy’s gradual realisation, his jerky Frankenstein monster movements and the mechanical / electronic synthesised scream emanating from the depths of his human soul.

 

Eugène Lourié was an excellent art director whose competence and skill with effects led to his first directorial appointment with, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), on which he collaborated with special effects genius, Ray Harryhausen. His other films included, The Giant Behemoth (1959) and Gorgo (1961).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Fly (1958)

 

The film treads a fine line between comedy and seriousness. It benefits from a good script, production values and capable performances but wastes many opportunities to become something greater than it is.

 

“It does indeed contain, briefly, two of the most sickening sights one casual swatter-wielder ever beheld on the screen.”

 

"The most ludicrous, and certainly one of the most revolting science-horror films ever perpetrated!"

 

“One of the better, more restrained entries of the "shock" school.”

 

“A quiet, uncluttered and even unpretentious picture, building up almost unbearable tension by simple suggestion.”

 

“It holds an interesting philosophy about man's tampering with the unknown."

 

“Stands in many ways above the level of B-movie science fiction common in the 1950s."

 

 

Directed by Kurt Neumann

Produced by Kurt Neumann, Robert L. Lippert (uncredited)

Screenplay by James Clavell

Based on short story The Fly by George Langelaan

Music by Paul Sawtell

Cinematography Karl Struss

Edited by Merrill G. White

Production company: 20th Century Fox

Distributed by 20th Century Fox

Running time: 93 minutes

Budget: $325,0000 - $495,000 approx.

Box office: $3 million

 

Cast

 

David Hedison as André Delambre

Patricia Owens as Hélène Delambre

Vincent Price as François Delambre

Herbert Marshall as Inspector Charas

Kathleen Freeman as Emma

Betty Lou Gerson as Nurse Anderson

Charles Herbert as Philippe Delambre

Eugene Borden as Dr. Éjoute

Torben Meyer as Gaston

 

 

 

Scientist Andre Delambre is crushed to death in a mechanical press.

 

WHO OR WHAT WAS RESPONSIBLE?

 

It has fallen to his wife Hélène to recount the events that led up to her husband’s death to both Andre’s brother, Francois Delambre and police Inspector Charas.

 

WHAT HAPPENED?

Read on to find out……

 

(Spoilers follow below…..)

 

 

The Fly opens with title and credits shown over a fly-screen containing a small hole. As we zoom in on the hole, a fly suddenly crawls through it and enters into frame. This is a definite message to the effect that (particularly in relation to scientific endeavors) no matter how much we may try to guard against potential dangers, there is always some weakness that can be exploited and penetrated.

 

Montreal, Canada:

Factory of Delambre Freres Electronics

 

It is late at night and we see a black cat by the name of “Satan” being picked up by the night watchman, Gaston. The associations with evil and bad luck will become manifest as Gaston begins his rounds.

 

The sound of a hydraulic press starting up draws Gaston’s attention. He is startled by the sight of a woman, who is surprised by Gaston’s presence and quickly runs away.

 

Gaston approaches the press and discovers to his horror that it is covered in blood. He then notices a body lying on the floor next to the press. The scene closes with Gaston screaming in horror.

 

Home office of Francois Delambre

 

A phone rings and is answered by Francois Delambre. On the other end of the line is his sister-in-law, Helene who informs him, "Francois, I've killed Andre. I need your help." At first thinking she is merely playing a rather cruel joke on him, Francois realizes that something is wrong when Helene begins to sob and beseeches him to, "call the police and come quickly."

 

Before Francois leaves his office, the phone rings again. This time it is Gaston who is at the factory. After Gaston reports that a murder has taken place, Francois calls Inspector Charas who is at the men’s club of which they are both members. He reports the crime to Charas and waits for the inspector to come by his home before they proceed together to the crime scene.

 

CRIME SCENE:

Factory of Delambre Freres Electronics

 

During the inspection of the crime scene, Francois operates the press so it can be raised allowing the remains of Andre’s body to be removed. It is suddenly noticed that the press was set to zero and single strokes. Francois is then able to positively identify his brother by a war wound scar on his left leg.

 

CONFESSION:

 RESIDENCE OF ANDRE & HELENE DELAMBRE

 

At the Delambre residence Dr. Ejoute informs Francois and Charas that Helene is calm and has admitted to the crime. When they meet with Helene she calmly states, "I killed my husband, Andre Delambre, about half an hour ago in the hydraulic press shed." When asked why she replies, "I cannot answer that question."

 

In a strangely cool and unemotional manner, Helene offers the inspector details pertaining to the crime while offering Charas coffee. What she does not offer to explain is why she committed the crime.

 

The bizarre nature of the crime and the subject of the film enters into our consciousness with the buzzing sound of a fly in the room. Helene gets up and searches for the source of the sound and appears relieved upon discovering a fly on a lampshade which she swats away with her hand.

 

Having finished questioning Helene for now, Charas arranges with the doctor to have a nurse care for Helene at the house for the time being. Charas then accompanies Francois to the lab which they discover is in a state of disorder. This is totally unlike Andre. Charas is completely baffled by the murder as, "there appears to be no motive, no reason except insanity." Charas suggests Francois look after his nephew for now.

 

A Question of sanity:

RESIDENCE OF ANDRE & HELENE DELAMBRE

 

During lunch while the nurse sits with Helene and does needlepoint, the subject of the latter’s son is brought up, but Helene pretends she does not know him. WHY? She then suddenly stops eating when she hears a fly buzzing in the room. The nurse swats at it causing Helene to become concerned. WHY? The nurse wielding a rolled-up newspaper then pursues the fly as if she were some kind of a crazed Valkyrie. When the nurse swats the fly, this proves too much for Helene who begins to hysterically sob and collapse. WHY?

 

Charas afterwards asks Francois, "Mr. Delambre, do you think she’s mad?" to which Francois replies, "It's obvious, isn't it?" In spite of the questions raised in the previous scene in relation to Helene’s sanity, Charas isn’t so sure. He states, "In spite of what the doctor thinks. I believe Mrs. Delambre's mind is quite clear. Even when catching flies." Helene is to be charged with murder the next day when the warrant will be issued.

 

A TIME TO COME CLEAN

 

While Francois is having dinner with his nephew, Philippe, he is asked how long flies live for. Francois doesn’t know but it is probably assumed the audience does know that flies do not live all that long. This in itself raises all sorts of concerns along with a sense of urgency in the minds of the audience who would have likely surmised by this stage what has been going on.

 

Philippe then declares that he found the special fly with the white head his mother was looking for. This and the fact it was in the study sets the wheels in Francois’ mind turning. Come on Francois, the audience is ahead of you! He phones up Charas, but changes his mind and hangs up.

 

Francois then goes to his brother's house, lies his way through the nurse and makes his way up to Helene’s room. He confronts Helene and lies to her about being in possession of the special white-headed fly and that she now has no choice but to tell him the whole story concerning the murder of Andre. Helene finally agrees but only on condition that Charas be present. She also demands Francois promise to kill the fly she believes he has.

 

FLASHBACK

 

When Charas arrives, Helene proceeds to tell her story…….

 

A few months earlier. André, Hélène, and their son Philippe together with the family cat, Dandelo presented a happy picture of domestic bliss. While Philippe plays, Andre and Helene go to the basement lab where Andre shows off his new equipment. Helene is sworn to secrecy and Andre then reveals to her his recent research…

 

    1. Take one crappy wedding present: a hideous green plate.

    2. Place said object in a glass and metal container.

    3. Fire up a machine causing the lab to go dark.

    4. Have some neon lights glow gaudily.

    5. Cause the glass and metal container to emit a bright blue light.

    6. Zap with a flash of light.

    7. Have the equipment power down.

    8. Voila! - An empty container!

 

But that’s not all!

 

In the adjoining room the plate has been relocated in an identical container!

 

BUT HOW???

 

It turns out that Andre had been experimenting with matter teleportation or transportation whereby objects are transported from one place to another. In this process, an object is broken down to the atomic level and then reassembled in a receiver situated at another location.

 

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

 

Helene points out to Andre the mirror-imaged "Made in Japan" label stamped on the bottom of the plate!!!! Andre goes back to the drawing board and rechecks his calculations. When he is satisfied with his review of his work he decides to perform another test, this time on a newspaper. The transfer proves to be a success and never one to fail to spot another opportunity, Andre decides to perform a test using the family cat, Dandelo who has wandered in for some face time and a saucer of milk.

 

As with the previous inanimate object, the saucer of milk is successfully transported, but what of poor Dandelo? The echo of his plaintive meowing tells the story of his fate in which he was dispersed “into space... a stream of cat atoms...”

 

PS: No cats, insects, guinea-pigs or other creature human or non-human were in any harmed in the making of this film!  Unfortunately, Dandelo  seems to have disappeared….somewhere….

 

 

PLAYING GOD?

 

After working in the lab for weeks, Andre takes Helene out to celebrate. Upon returning home, Andre takes his wife down to the lab and shows her the improvements he has made to his equipment. He successfully transfers a bottle of champagne and then, much to his wife's disapproval, he successfully transfers a living specimen – a guinea pig. After Andre tells Helene about his earlier failure with Dandelo, Helene declares that his work with the new technology is "…frightening. It's like playing God."

 

Undeterred, Andre does indeed take the next step when he builds a pair of man-sized chambers.

 

A MATTER OF LIFE OR DEATH

 

After a month, the chubby little guinea pig is still its fine old furry squeaking self. Andre is content with life and is looking forward to having Francois come over and see his work. However, when Francois does later come over for lunch, Helene and he venture down stairs to the lab where they are confronted with a note stuck on the locked door stating, “I Am w0RkInG. DO Not DIstURb.” Francoise takes note of the uncharacteristically messy penmanship.

 

Philippe enters the house and informs Helene, "I caught such a funny-looking fly. You want to see it? It has a funny white head and sort of white leg." His mother, however, tells him to release it.

 

After learning that her husband has not touched his dinner, Helene goes down to the lab to check on Andre. A note is pushed under the door and Helene picks it up and reads:

 

"Helene, I've had some trouble. I've had a serious accident. But I'm not in danger at the moment, although it's a matter of life or death. It's no good calling to me or saying anything. I can't answer. I can't speak."

 

Helene prepares a bowl of milk laced with rum as requested by Andre. She then returns to the lab and knocks three times before being permitted by Andre to enter. She reads another note in which Andre explains that he needs her to locate a fly with a white head. Of course! Philippe had found just such fly earlier!

 

A SHOCKING REVELATION!

 

Andre stands there with a black cloth draped over his head. He also seems intent on keeping his left arm concealed in his lab coat pocket. Andre displays some disgusting table manners as slurps his milk. When he gets up, his deformed arm is revealed. It seems to have transformed into an insect-like appendage! Helene screams in shock and horror and Andre indicates that she is to leave the lab. Andre locks the door and will only communicate via typed notes and instructions.

 

The next morning Helene learns from reading Andre’s typed note that in a second experiment to transmit himself;

 

"… a fly which I did not notice was in the disintegrator with me. When we integrated again, our atoms were mixed. Now my only hope is to find the fly. I've got to go through the machine once more and pray our atoms untangle. If you can't find it, I'll have to destroy myself."

 

"Plees help—find fly—LOVE YOU."

 

Andre now has the head and left arm of a fly while the fly has a miniature version of his head and left arm. Andre still has his own mind, but just how much of his humanity will remain to him?

 

AN INSANE SEARCH

 

Now that André needs Hélène to capture the fly so he can reverse the process, Helene embarks on a rather comical, tense and almost demented search for the fly. She enlists the help of housemaid, Emma and her son to find the fly. When Emma dispatches a fly with a swatter, Helene goes absolutely ballistic at her shouting, "I said catch them! Don’t kill them!"

 

Suddenly the white-headed fly is spotted on a lamp shade. Sllllooowwwlllyyy they turn, step-by-step, inch-by-inch when…. Damn! it flies over to the window! Suddenly Helene has a brainwave and decides to use sugar to attract the fly. It seems to be working and Philippe succeeds in catching it in his net but no, the young idiot allows it to escape. The fly’s bid for freedom succeeds when it manages to escape to the outside world through an opening in the broken window pane.

 

A PRESSING DECISION

 

Back at the lab after the unsuccessful search, Helene reads Andre’s next note;

 

"If you had caught the fly, you would not be reading this. I know you will never catch it now. It's hopeless. There are things man should never experiment with. Now I must destroy everything, all evidence, even myself. No one must ever know what I discovered. It's too dangerous. I've thought of a way. It's not easy, but I need your help."

 

Not wanting her husband to destroy himself, Helene convinces him to use his matter transporter one more time, even if the fly is not at hand. The process does work, but without the fly the result is the same. Helene pulls the black cloth away Andre’s face and screams and recoils in horror at the sight of his face. We see what we knew all along - Andre has the head of a fly! We also see Helene from Andre’s perspective via his compound eyes.

 

When Helene faints from shock, Andre tenderly picks her up and places her on a couch and tries to comfort her with his “human” arm and hand. However, there is a kind of war taking place within Andre between his human and fly instincts. It is a war that he is losing as his will begins to fade and he struggles to control his fly arm and prevent it from harming his wife.

 

With time is running out, and while he is still able to think like a human, Andre sets about destroying the lab’s electronic equipment and burning all his notes. Helene suddenly wakes up and approaches her husband but then recoils from him when he approaches her. He puts the black cloth back over his head and uses the blackboard to write another note to Helene,

 

"No use now--help me--

but don't come near me.

Kill fly, please.

Love you."

 

Andre leaves the lab and Helene follows him. Destination: the factory with the hydraulic press. She watches as Andre starts the press and points to the red button.

 

Press the RED button!

 

He then places his head and arm under the press and indicates to Helene to start it operating. The press succeeds in crushing Andre’s head, but his arm remains untouched. Helene resets the press, re-positions his arm, and activates the machine a second time.

 

HERE AND NOW

 

With the ending of the flashback and Helene’s confession, Charas informs Francois that he’ll “be back at 10:00 with a warrant for her arrest on the charge of murder” and that “nurse Andersone is under strict instructions not to leave her for any reason.” He also confirms that he’s “satisfied now. She's quite insane. She won't hang." The only hope for Helene is if Francois can produce evidence of the fly.

 

When Francois returns to the house the next day, he sits on a bench in the garden but is completely unaware that a fly is trapped in a spider's web close by. Its cries for help go unheard by Francois.

 

It is 10:00 am and Charas has returned armed with a warrant and an ambulance to transport Helene. When informed of her arrest, Helene asks Francois to show the inspector the fly but Francois admits to her that he never had the fly.

 

When Francois takes Philippe outside to shield him from witnessing his mother's arrest, he tells his uncle that he saw the fly again in a web and that “a spider’s going to get it, by the bench in the garden." Francois then grabs hold of Charas and together they go out into the garden. Next to the bench Charas and Francois see the minute human arm and head attached to a fly's body along with a ravenous spider ready to devour its prey.

 

The tiny trapped victim screams, “Help mee! Help mee!” while the spider pounces and engulfs it. This is too much for Charas who picks up a rock and crushes both the spider and its hapless little victim. Francois says accusingly to Charas, “You've committed murder just as much as Helene did. You killed a fly with a human head. She killed a human with a fly head.”

 

Believing that no-one would believe the truth, both men decide to declare André's death a suicide so that Hélène is not convicted of murder.

 

WHAT OF TOMORROW?

 

Philippe and Hélène are contentedly playing croquet in the yard when François arrives to take his nephew to the zoo. When Philippe asks about his father's death, François tells Philippe;

 

"He was searching for the truth. But for one instant, he was careless. The search for the truth is the most important work in the whole world and the most dangerous."

 

The film closes with Hélène accompanying Philippe and François out of the yard.

 

 

Points of Interest

 

 

The Fly was James Clavell's first filmed screenplay. His adaptation remained largely faithful to George Langelaan's story, with only the setting being moved from France to Canada, and with the inclusion of a happier ending by removing Hélène's suicide.

 

David Hedison who played André Delambre would later play the character Captain Lee Crane in the TV series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. 

 

The "Fly" costume head piece reportedly weighed twenty-pounds and according to Hedison, "trying to act in it was like trying to play the piano with boxing gloves on."

 

The film took 18 days to shoot.

 

The set for the lab cost $28,000 to construct and consisted of army surplus equipment.

 

The Fly was released in 1958 on a double bill with Space Master X-7. 

 

Director Kurt Neumann died only a few weeks after the July 1958 premier of The Fly, never to know that he had made the biggest hit of his career.

 

The film went a long way toward helping to lift the profile of co-star Vincent Price who went on to become a major horror star. However, I felt that his talents were somewhat wasted in The Fly. How much better would it have been to see him in a sinister role perhaps working or conspiring against the interests of either his brother Andre or his sister-in-law, Helene

 

The Fly was followed by two sequels, Return of the Fly (1959) and Curse of the Fly (1965). It was remade in 1986 as a film of the same name by director David Cronenberg.

 

While viewing The Fly, the film seems to have an odd “old-world” feel about it despite its “modern” mid-20th century setting. The presence of horror gothic actor Vincent Price, the interactions between the characters as well as their attitudes and manners seem to suggest a kind of tension existing between an almost by-gone era’s traditions, attitudes and certainties and the more modern uncertainties arising from technological progress. Only when we see the technology operating do we seem to become aware of the film’s actual time period.

 

I feel that the story should have raised the question in the mind of the audience as to whether or not Helene was insane. We could have been kept guessing about the truth of her story throughout the film; whether or not she killed her husband because she was criminally insane; whether or not the plans for Andre’s machine existed at all and so on. An excellent opportunity seems to have been missed. Instead, we have a somewhat predictable story leading up to a rather lame formulaic ending. I’d rather be kept guessing.

 

André’s matter transporter or “disintegrator-integrator” device is like a forerunner to the transporter system used in the Star Trek series. Now we can understand why Bones always grumbled about having his atoms scattered all about the universe when he was required to transport down to a planet!

 

Andre working on his unholy experiment in his basement lab recalls to our minds the classic gothic horror films featuring the mad scientist on a quest for knowledge oblivious to the consequences that may arise both to himself and to those around him. There’s always the next step to take…….

 

Scientific advancement and progress can seem to be frightening if it is not fully understood. If the implications and potential consequences are not taken into account before embarking on a technological and scientific endeavor, it can also have the appearance in many peoples’ minds of meddling in affairs best left in the hands of a deity.

 

Andre as a scientist had no ill-intent. He simply developed a machine that he hoped would benefit humanity in terms of being able to improve systems of transporting much needed goods around the world instantly. He wasn’t attempting to transgress any laws set down by some god. In fact, he was willing to sacrifice himself in the pursuit of scientific truth. According to his brother, “Andre believed in the sacredness of life…(and) wouldn't harm anything... not even a fly.”

 

**********

 

[It may one day be possible to realise the development of a Star Trek-style of matter transportation. The laws of physics don’t rule out the possibility of teleportation of large inanimate objects as well as living human beings.

 

It has been reported that experiments have successfully been performed in which an atom had been transported three meters with 100% accuracy.

 

In an experiment, three entangled particles consisting of a nitrogen atom locked in a diamond crystal and two electrons were used to transfer spin information a distance of three meters.

 

Four possible states were transmitted, each corresponding to a 'qubit.'

 

We’re used to thinking of a digital ‘bit’ of information as in a computer where each 'bit' of information represents one of two values: zero or one.

 

A ‘qubit’ is the quantum equivalent of a digital 'bit' but it can represent a zero, a one, or a 'superposition' of both states at the same time.

 

What is being teleported is the state of a particle. Since each of us is basically a collection of atoms arranged in a particular way, then it should be possible for us to be teleported from one place to another…...hopefully!] 

 

 

FLY FACT FILE

 

•  True flies are insects of the order Diptera, from the Greek δι- di- "two", and πτερόν pteron "wings."

• There are over 100,000 species of flies on earth.

• A female housefly can lay up to 600 eggs in a lifetime.

• Flies lay their eggs on fruit, food, other animals and even rotting flesh.

• Their larvae are known as maggots.

• House flies taste with their feet, which are 10 million times more sensitive to sugar than the human tongue!

• Flies don't have teeth, but this doesn’t stop them feasting on manure. They also love wet or decaying matter – YUM! MMMMM – Manure!

• Their mouths absorb food much like a sponge.

• Their tongues are shaped like straws which allows them to suck up their food.

•  Flies can only eat liquids and are able to turn many solid foods into a liquid by spitting or vomiting on it.

• Not surprisingly flies carry disease.

• The common housefly lives for about 21 - 28 days and grow to 0.6 – 0.7 cm long.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The H-Man (1958)

美女と液体人間

(Bijo To Ekatai-Ningen)

 

A slow-paced allegory about the effects of radioactivity conveyed via a disconcerting clash of plot elements from both the crime and science fiction genres

 

 

Produced by Tomoyuki Tanaka

Screenplay by Takeshi Kimura

Story by Hideo Kaijo

Music by Masaru Sato

Cinematography: Hajime Koizumi

Edited by Ichiji Taira

Production company: Toho

Distributed by Toho

Release date: 24 June 1958 (Japan)

Running time: 87 minutes

Country: Japan

 

Cast

 

Yumi Shirakawa as Chikako Arai

Kenji Sahara as Dr. Masada

Akihiko Hirata as Inspector Tominaga

Makoto Satō as Uchida the gangster

Korenari Senda as Dr. Maki

Eitaro Ozawa as Inspector Miyashita

Hisaya Itô as Misaki, the dissolved gangster

Machiko Kitagawa as nightclub hostess

Yoshio Tsuchiya as Detective Taguchi

Naomi Shiraishi as Mineko, Dr.Maki's assistant

Kô Mishima as Kishi, gangster in nightclub

Yoshifumi Tajima as Detective Sakata

Tetsu Nakamura as Mr. Chin, gangster

Haruya Katô as Mattchan the Fisherman

Ayumi Sonoda as Emi, lead exotic dancer

 

 

 

Spoilers follow below……

 

(As was the case with many other films featured in this eBook series, some imaginative license has been taken with the film’s plot while still remaining true to it.…)

 

Urban Myths & Legends!

By Flores Kol

 

Chapter 7: The H-Man

 

“If man perishes from the face of the Earth, due to the effects of hydrogen bombing, it is possible that the next ruler of our planet may be The H-Man.”

 

These words spoken by renown 20th Century Japanese scientist, Dr Maki along with the following strange events reported back in 1958 in Japan, have served to spawn the Japanese urban myth of “The H-Man.”

 

A drug deal gone wrong.

A suspect disappears leaving behind only his seemingly discarded clothing.

Police remaining baffled.

A “ghost ship” where all on-board have disappeared leaving only their clothes behind.

Fishermen killed and dissolved by a gelatinous green-glowing living liquid.

A young scientist claiming that H-Bomb tests in the Pacific have resulted in the creation of radioactive creatures dubbed "H-Men.”

H-Men who dissolve anyone they touch.

H-Men who it is believed still inhabit the sewers of Tokyo.

H-Men who it is feared will once again emerge to kill all the citizens of Tokyo.

H-men who still instil fear in the hearts and minds of the Japanese population over sixty years later.

 

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

 

What started off as just an unusual murder mystery eventually grew into something that seems to have been the product of someone’s wild imagination, until it eventually captured the collective imagination of an entire population over the course of many decades.

 

The modern myth of “The H-Man” literally exploded onto the scene with the US hydrogen bomb tests in the 1950s. Added to this was the fact that Japan was only just recovering from the destructive effects of both the Godzilla and Rodan monsters. Is it any wonder then that within the context of a climate of fear, the Japanese psyche became susceptible to rumours and stories involving supernatural, paranormal and otherwise life-threatening, inexplicable and devastating occurrences?

 

The following account has been pieced together from police records and the recollections and testimonies of surviving eye-witnesses.

 

The story began one night on a rain swept street in Tokyo. As a criminal by the name of Misaki was in the process of loading something into the back of a car, he suddenly began to scream out in pain and fire his gun. An accomplice by the name of Uchida quickly drove off leaving Misaki in the middle of the street where he was then hit by a taxi. When the taxi driver went to investigate, all that was found was Misaki’s clothes laying in the street. What had happened to Misaki’s body?

 

The next day at the local police station, narcotics were discovered among Misaki’s belongings. Misaki apparently had obtained the drugs from a locker rented by a “foreigner” named Mr Chin. It was Mr. Chin who identified Misaki as the man who had given him the drugs.

 

When the police went to Misaki’s apartment to arrest him they found only his wife, Chikako, a beautiful night club singer. Chikako told the police that she had not seen Misaki for days and didn’t know what he did for a living. The police decided to let her go hoping that this would draw Misaki out of hiding.

 

While Chikako was performing at the club, someone attempted to make contact with her in the hope of obtaining information about Misaki. After his arrest by the police it was discovered that the man was a respected scientist by the name of Dr Masada. He was apparently conducting research into the after-effects of atomic explosions. He conjectured that on the night that Misaki disappeared, the rain may have been radioactive and that Misaki had, as a consequence, dissolved. He also believed that Misaki may have been on a Japanese ship that had sailed too close to an atomic test conducted on Bikini or Christmas Island. Masada must have seemed like a crackpot to those who heard his theories.

 

In the meantime, it turned out that Chikako had a strange experience upon arriving home that night when she was assaulted by a gangster from a rival gang looking for Misaki. Chikako had observed the intruder exit through an open window, but investigating police found only another complete set of clothes – once again minus a body.

Dr Masada fed more fuel to the fire of fantasy that seemed to be steadily consuming this strange case. He related to the police stories he had heard of men dissolving, and that he had eyewitnesses to just such an event. Two eye-witness fishermen recounted their experience of encountering a ship that had been abandoned at sea which they boarded with a group of other men. Their exploration of the ship yielded no evidence of the crew but instead they discovered piles of abandoned clothes. In the captain’s cabin, as one of the fishermen set about pilfering some articles of clothing, a strange mass supposedly emerged out of the darkness and dissolved him, leaving only his clothes.

 

Only two from the original boarding party made it back to their ship. The Captain would not believe their story, that is until strange green shapes were seen moving around on the “ghost ship.” It was the entries contained in a log book from the strange vessel that seemed to confirm to Masada his theory about the atomic blast being able to melt people.

 

Masada showed the police an experiment he had been working on that involved the use of intense radiation to melt objects. By way of demonstration he subjected a frog to radiation which did in fact dissolve the hapless creature. Masada apparently went on to demonstrate that the frog in its altered state was still capable of killing and absorbing things.

 

From the evidence thus far, it was concluded that Misaki had met the same fate as that of the frog and the dead fishermen. Furthermore, it was believed that portions of the abandoned ship had washed into Tokyo harbour, and that the “H-Men” creatures must’ve been loose in the city of Tokyo.

 

A police operation was organised at the club where Chikako performed where she was to point out the main gangster. When the police moved in, two of the gangsters attempted to escape through the dressing rooms, where they were reported to have been killed by an assailant or assailants unknown. At least that is what was reported in the official police report. Conspiracy theorists have claimed that the gangsters were killed by “H-Men.”

 

From this point on, it is difficult to disentangle fact from fiction. It is almost as if there has been a process of cover-up. Many of the records and reports from the time of the “H-Men” incident have simply disappeared. Freedom of information requests have produced little in way of verifiable evidence with most of the existing documents and files having been heavily redacted. Most of the principle participants in the whole affair are either dead now or have simply disappeared, their whereabouts presently unknown!

 

This is what I have been able to piece to together:

 

A gun-fight apparently continued at the site of the club and when the smoke settled all the gangsters both alive and dead had been accounted for. Rumors persisted for quite some time afterwards that the police officers had been firing at a number of “H-men” as they began infiltrating the club site.

 

Interestingly enough, an article in the Yomiuri Shinbun reported on Dr Maki’s findings that the creatures labelled “H-Men” were not just killing their victims but were also eating them as well. Of course, such reports have since been deemed as being just a hoax perpetrated by those wishing to cause mischief.

 

As an interesting aside to the events described here, it has recently been learned that the now deceased Masada was considered as a possible candidate to receive the medal of honour. The reason for this can be revealed with a measure of confidence.

 

It seems that Uchida had escaped the scene of the club shootout and had kidnapped Chikako. Masada gave chase in his car when he realised this but crashed allowing Uchida to escape with his captive.

 

From there Uchida took Chikako into the sewers where there was a hidden stash of heroine.  Meanwhile, Masada had worked out where Chikako was when he found her clothes outside a sewer exit in the river. Now why were just her clothes found?

 

Conspiracy theorists have speculated that the sewers in fact contained the lair of the “H-men” and that having realised this, Uchida ordered Chikako to remove her clothes hoping that the police would think that she had been killed. Perhaps they are right.

 

They also point out that at the time an operation was being carried out at the underground sewers that involved the use of burning gasoline. They claim that a plan had been drawn up to use a combination of electricity and fire to destroy the “H-Men” creatures that had taken up residence in the sewers under the city. When Masada found Chikako’s clothes, preparations had just about been completed by the authorities to begin their assault.

 

Official statements would later contradict such a scenario by explaining that the burning in the sewers was caused by a methane gas-type of explosion caused by an undetermined ignition source. It may have even been the result of unstable geo-thermal and seismic activity. Whatever the cause, personnel were sent into the sewers to try and stop the flames from spreading and allow the fire to burn itself out.

 

It has been assumed by some commentators that Uchida had been attacked and killed by the “H-men” in the sewer tunnels. Luckily Masada heard Chikako’s cries of help and just managed to rescue her as the flames worked their way through the tunnels.

 

Sceptics of the official line believe that Masada had indeed rescued Chikako from being trapped between the burning gasoline and the intended targets of the conflagration – the “H-Men.”

 

Was this indeed the case? Had the “H-men been trapped and destroyed by the flames? Or is the ongoing belief in the “H-Men” just another urban myth, a kind of allegory warning us about the consequences of continuing to test and explode H bombs around the world? Could perhaps the “H men” ultimately return and rule the world?

 

Points of Interest

 

The H-Man was distributed theatrically in Japan by Toho on June 24, 1958. It was released theatrically in the United States by Columbia Pictures with an English-language dub and 79 minute running time. It was part of a double feature with The Woman Eater (1959) and released on May 28, 1959.

 

Notice how much fuss was made over the fact that Chikako owns a television set. At the time this kind of purchase was a significant expenditure for the average household.

 

The dissolving effect involved deflating life-sized inflatable human figures, filming them in fast-motion, and then running the film at normal speed. This cheap process is quite skin-crawlingly effective as we witness the victims slowly turning into puddles of glowing slime – a convincingly horrible, slow, messy but bloodless process.

 

In some ways The H-Man is reminiscent of the classic 1950’s film, The Blob, but it did come out a bit earlier than the latter film. Unlike the Blob creature, the “H-Men” appear to have human-like characteristics and intent. The H-Men creatures turn out to be scarier than the Blob when it’s obvious that not only are they intelligent but were at one time of our own species.

 

There are also echoes of Godzilla where in that movie a fishing boat had strayed too near a nuclear test at Bikini Atoll, causing the crewmen to become sick due to fallout. In The H-Man, nuclear test fallout cause the crewmen of a boat not just to become sick but to become liquefied and transformed into a dangerous new form of life.

 

The crime melodrama element takes up a significant amount of the plot before introducing the science fiction / horror notion of Tokyo being stealthily invaded by malevolent mutant H-men. It is difficult to determine what The H-Man is purporting to be: a monster movie or an American-style film noir crime drama. It is difficult for the viewer to be sure why police are investigating the nightclub and how this relates to the abandoned ghost ship at sea and the H-Man causing people to disappear. The end result is that the viewer’s patience is really tested as he attempts to wade through a rather slow-moving plot before the pace begins to pick up leading up to the rousing climax in the sewers.

 

It has been over sixty years since The H-Man was released and for a large part of that time we have been asleep snug under the covers of complacency when it comes to the dangers posed by nuclear radiation. Setting aside near nuclear power catastrophes such as Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, we still have the ever-present danger of nuclear arms proliferation and the possibility of such weapons being deployed. The bellicose sabre-rattling centering on the North Korean regime’s nuclear weapons testing and armament has set off alarm bells around the world. So did the Trump-era “fire and fury” pronouncements along with suggestions aimed at “modernising” nuclear arsenals and the possibility of engaging in limited so-called winnable tactical nuclear strikes. And weren’t Russian nuclear missiles reportedly placed on alert during the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022? The H-Men do indeed seem to be standing poised….

 

The H-men does indeed highlight a particular technological development and the effect it can have on individuals and on humanity itself. It is worthwhile to step back from some of the major technological advancements we have incorporated into our lives and consider what effect they might be having on our thought processes, psychological well-being, personal and social relationships, personal liberty, security and safety, individual freedoms and privacy, the democratic process, morality and ethics and even what it means to be human.

 

 

 

The Woman Eater (1958) 

 

An entertaining film containing quite a good yarn sandwiched between a silly beginning and an awful ending.

 

 

Directed by Charles Saunders

Produced by Guido Coen

Screenplay by Brandon Fleming

Music by Edwin Astley

Cinematography: Ernest Palmer

Edited by Seymour Logie

Production company: Fortress Film Productions

Distributed by Eros Films

Running time: 70 minutes

 

Cast

 

George Coulouris: Doctor Moran

Robert MacKenzie: Lewis Carling

Norman Claridge: Doctor Patterson

Marpessa Dawn: Native Girl

Jimmy Vaughn: Tanga

Sara Leighton: Susan Curtis

Edward Higgins: Sergeant Bolton

Joyce Gregg: Mrs. Santor

Harry Ross: Bristow

Vera Day: Sally

Peter Forbes-Robertson: Jack Venner

Alexander Field: Fair Attendant

Joy Webster Joy Webster : Judy

David Lawton: Man In Club

John A. Tinn: Lascar

Maxwell Foster: Inspector Brownlow

Peter Lewiston: Det. Sergeant Freeman

Roger Avon Roger Avon: Constable

 

 

A crazed scientist feeding women to a flesh-eating tree!

A serum that can bring the dead back to life!

 

See the…

 

REIGN OF TERROR FROM EARTH!

(Spoilers follow below…)

 

The film’s title is certainly clever in its simplicity with the combining of two intriguing ideas in order to draw in audiences: women being eaten. Gotta’ see that! The title didn’t even have to be simplified for US audiences at the time! THAT in itself is unusual!

 

We begin at a bastion of privileged male exclusivity, the Explorers Club in London where Dr Moran informs the other club members about “a tribe in the depths of the Amazon jungle” which has “a miracle-working juju that can bring the dead back to life.” It is his intention to embark on an expedition to get the miracle substance.

 

We next proceed to the apparent depths of the Amazon jungle where we find Dr Moran and a party of nonentities sporting safari-style clothing stained with fake sweat hacking their way through artificial foliage on a film set. Of course, there’s a bit of stock wildlife footage thrown in for the sake of ‘authenticity.’

 

The Embrace of Death!

 

Dr Moran and his young nondescript colleague suddenly stumble upon a secret ceremony being performed in which a gorgeous young native woman under the spell of the sound of beating drums, is led toward a large carnivorous tree to be consumed by it.

 

Moran’s younger companion declares that he can't stand by and see this happen. He sallies forth and shouts out, "Stop you devils!" As he turns back around to call out to Dr. Moran to help him, one of the natives launches a spear which catches him in the chest.

 

It turns out that the giant tree feeds on the blood of women and generates a fluid that can bring the dead back to life. The giant tree is worshipped by the natives, who have just performed a sacrificial rite to appease it.

 

See the nerve-shattering “Dance of Death!” 

 

Even in this supposedly ancient and stereo-typically uncivilized and primitive culture, it is women (particularly young beautiful women) who are sacrificed in order to satisfy the needs of their (patriarchal?) society.

 

The good Dr Moran almost dies from 'jungle fever' and is stretchered off the scene……

 

"England - Five Years Later"

 

Five years later, Dr Moran has recovered and is back in England at his manor house. He has moved the plant from the Amazon jungle into a laboratory in his basement along with Tanga, a member of the tribe of worshipers who is tasked with caring for it.

 

We have the scene being set for a depiction of the traditional mad scientist conducting ungodly experiments in his secret basement laboratory and being aided by his sinister ‘Igor’-like assistant. Amid his bubbling beakers and test tubes, our mad scientist, Dr Moran begins to conduct his experiments by first finding women to feed his carnivorous plant. Moran believes that by using his scientific approach, the plant's sap will both reanimate the dead, and even give them - immortality!

 

No Beautiful Woman is Safe!

 

To start with, a beautiful young English woman, Susan Curtis is kidnapped and fed to the tree where according to Moran, “she'll become a part of the plant, and from it I'll get the serum to bring the dead back to life. She won't have died in vain.'

 

In the lab Dr. Moran takes a beaker containing the special serum and fills up a syringe with it. In a giant glass container there is a large heart into which Moran injects the serum. Slowly the heart starts to beat. A "pulsometer" (nicely labeled and worthy of being in the Bat Cave!) indicates the beating action of the heart. All seems to be going well when suddenly the heart starts to beat slower and slower until it stops completely. A shaken Dr. Moran believes that all they need is more serum from the plant and that next time the experiment will work.

 

With the failure of the experiment, a beautiful young woman has been needlessly sacrificed, this time on the altar of science.

 

In the next scene Police Sgt Bolton arrives at the manor on his bicycle to question Moran about the missing Susan. According to Bolton, it appears that she was staying with some friends in the area and then simply vanished without a trace. Moran, along with his housekeeper, Margaret deny any knowledge of her.

 

Upon leaving the manor, Bolton passes a sign on the road advertising a carnival fun fair that has arrived in town. This provides us with a seg-way into the next scene later that night at the Fun Fair. Here we see Sally Norton performing at a sideshow, doing a terrible version of a hula-dance to attract customers to see the show. It doesn’t matter that she has a completely un-Pacific South Sea island girl appearance and that she can’t hula dance to save herself.

 

Hey, who cares! After all, it’s Vera Day and she looks good just being on the screen! A couple of salivating leering men in the audience obviously think so too as they are suckered in to parting with their pennies. A lesson quickly learnt by advertisers and employed to good effect by them!

 

When Sally takes a break, we see Jack Venner at the shooting gallery trying to win a cupie doll, but not succeeding as he’s somewhat attracted to and distracted by Sally. Having improved his aim, Jack comes over to her and gives her a cuddly toy panda bear he won. After several lame pick-up lines Sally informs him that she's leaving in the morning to go do a charity show. Jack not surprisingly offers to drive her there and she readily agrees despite having just met him and not even knowing his name!

 

Just at that minute Sally’s abusive spruiker boss appears on the scene and harangues her about having to be up on the stage and attracting more customers with her wiggling hip routine.

 

When Jack tries to tell Sally’s boss that it was his fault and that he was having a drink with her, the spruiker becomes aggressive and receives a sock to the jaw for his troubles. Of course, this costs Sally her job.

 

The next day we find Sally walking down the street towards Jack’s garage where he's working under a car. She walks in, and after discussing her need for a new job, Jack suggests that she go and see Dr. Moran who only has a housekeeper and might therefore require some more help. We can see where this is going!

 

Jack and Sally drive out to Dr. Moran's house, and once there, Jack for some reason stays at the front gate while Sally takes a long walk to Moran’s house. Why not drive her to the door? Bastard! Sally had a rather cute clop, clop clopping way of walking. In my mind I couldn’t stop going “Clop!” ” Clop!” “ Clop!” in time with her steps. I get easily distracted.

 

After Sally’s trek to the house she rings the bell and Tanga answers the door. After he lets her in to see the doctor, she asks Moran for a job. At first, he tells Sally that he doesn't have anything for her, but then suddenly asks her if she'd be prepared to live in. After a brief discussion which has a rather creepy potential future “Me-Too” campaign implication about it, Sally accepts the job.

 

After her meeting with Dr Moran, Sally walks back to the entrance gate and tells Jack about the job and the weird feeling the place gave her. Jack grabs her bag and accompanies Sally back to the house and tells her that he hopes they'll be seeing more of each other.

 

Back in the study, Margaret the housekeeper lets Moran know that she’s unhappy that he's hired Sally without knowing anything about her. He tells Margaret that she needs some help as she's been overworked lately and that it's been affecting her nerves. Margaret responds by accusing him of just wanting Sally around because she's young and beautiful. Moran is adamant and declares that he won't hear any more argument about it. Suddenly, the doorbell rings and Margaret’s facial expression and demeanour indicates what is seething beneath the surface of this obviously threatened and desperate older woman who fears losing the battle with Time, losing the man she’s devoted to and of eventually becoming ‘invisible’ to the world.

 

Later on, Detective Inspector Brownlow accompanied by Sgt. Bolton drive up to Dr Moran’s house to question Moran again about Susan's disappearance. He becomes irritated by their questions, but he gives them permission to search the grounds.

 

The inspector receives a phone call and while he is talking on the phone he picks up a strange looking knife and inspects it. When the inspector asks the doctor about it Moran almost becomes frantic and snatches it out of his hand. Moran tells the inspector that it's a unique find from the depths of the Amazon. Bolton tells Brownlow that he didn't find anything and the two leave Moran’s place in the car together.

 

See the Woman Eater ensnare the beauties of two continents!

 

One night Dr. Moran is out roaming the streets of London on the look-out for another victim to sacrifice to his tree. Having spotted his female prey, he stalks her until she enters a bar to meet her boyfriend. The man is an absolute tool and he treats the woman as if she were garbage. After they have a huge fight, the tool leaves without even paying for the drinks they just ordered. The bartender comes over and demands payment for the drinks and threatens to call the police when the woman refuses. This gives Dr. Moran an opening to step in and pay for the drinks. He then joins her at the table and soon invites her out to a roadhouse.

 

A lot of women in her situation don’t find much in the way of better men to have relationships with than the kind of loser she was with or perhaps some sleazy old geezer who might want an easy pick up. Their conduct may reflect the way many men perceive them to be and don’t know any better. We know the kind of labels that get attached to them.

 

"Come along now. You trust me, don't you?"

 

As Moran and the woman are driving in his car, she's smoking a cigarette that seems to be adversely affecting her. When they eventually get to his place he takes her down into the basement lab.

 

“There was a time when you trusted me”

 

Margaret later enters and surprises Dr Moran. She castigates him for being out late again and suspects that he was out with other women. It turns out that five years previously they had a relationship before Moran went to the Amazon, hence her current jealousy. She then goes on to suspect him of performing activities of an evil nature behind the iron door which she is barred from opening and entering the room behind it. Margaret questions Moran about what lies behind the door, but he merely responds that it is only his lab behind the door and that he doesn't permit anyone to enter to see his experiments.

 

Margaret then accuses Moran of not trusting her and he replies by telling her, “My dear Margaret, I have never trusted you or any other woman with anything I didn't want anyone else to know.” You can well imagine how a comment like that would make her feel. A shaken Margaret declares, “there's evil all round me. It's here tonight! I can feel it!!” Moran ends the confrontation by telling Margaret that she should go away and never come back. Margaret pleads with him to let her stay, and he warns her that if she ever tries to meddle in his business, it'll be the last thing she ever does. He then dismisses her by sending her back to her room as if she were a naughty little girl. In fact, she is a mature woman probably feeling that her best days have passed her by and that she is caught in a trap of emotional dependency.

 

See the hideous arms devour them in a death-embrace!

 

In the next scene we find Dr Moran down in the lab with Tanga and the young lady he had virtually kidnapped from the bar in London. She is undergoing the ceremony and meets the same fate as the other previous two young women.

 

The next day Sally clip-clops her way over to Jack’s garage where he is working on a car. We then have a silly little fluffy playful scene in which Sally offers to help Jack with the car he's working on. Clearly (being a woman of course) she doesn’t know a damn thing about cars which is fine by Jack who declares, "Good! I hate mechanically minded women." I guess dumb flighty vacuous blondes are preferable.

 

After succeeding in annoying the hell out Jack, he asks her to hand him a screwdriver and unexpectedly follows this up by asking her to marry him! Of course, you would after knowing someone for only two days. But, hey, he did fall for her after only two minutes of having met her. A perfect basis for a lasting marriage!

 

After annoying Jack some more with her version of helping him out, Sally declares, "There's only one thing for it. We'll be married and you'll just have to teach me all about cars." These days in films I suppose they’d have the woman stripping the car and reassembling it in the time it would take her husband / partner / or whatever the current term happens to be, to put on an apron and make them a cup of tea!

 

When Sally returns to Dr. Moran's house, Margaret answers the door and an argument over Sally’s lateness ensues between the two women. Dr. Moran overhears, and he comes out and intervenes by sending Margaret to her room again.

 

Dr. Moran apologies to Sally for the way Margaret treated her. He then informs her that he's decided to send Margaret away as her recent behaviour suggests that she is in desperate need of a rest. It is Moran’s intention that Sally take Margaret's place. The harder Sally tries to refuse, the harder Moran tries to convince her to accept his proposal. Sally leaves without giving Moran a firm commitment. Feeling troubled, Sally then grabs her coat and purse and heads out of the house to seek out Jack.

Meanwhile in the lab, the doctor and Tanga are busily collecting serum in a glass beaker. Dr. Moran declares that what they have collected will be enough and that by that night, they will reach the end.

 

A visibly shaken Sally turns up at Jack’s garage where she informs him that she can't stay in Dr Moran’s house any longer and that she has to get out of there. After downing a glass of alcohol from a medicine kit of all places (Jack’s stash!), Sally tells Jack about how Dr. Moran frightens her and that she saw it all in his eyes when he was talking to her. She then tells Jack that she has to return to the house because Dr. Moran doesn't know she's gone. Jack tells her that he's going to get her out of there that very night.

 

In the next scene an obsessively and frantically determined Margaret is telling Dr. Moran that she won't leave. She accuses him of being in love with Sally and declares that she's still in love with him. He callously responds that to him she's just a thing of the past, making her feel like a used and disposable Kleenex.

 

Such treatment sends Margaret over the top and she tries to stab Moran with a knife, but he manages to prevent her from doing so and she drops the knife. Moran then strangles Margaret to death, the last view of her being a rather long disbelieving and accusatory stare directed into his face.

 

"Did you really think you were going to get away as easily as that?"

 

Later, in Moran’s study, Sally enters bringing tea for the doctor. She then informs him that she can no longer stay, and he replies that she may leave whenever she wishes.

 

After packing her things to leave, Sally is spotted by Dr Moran just as she pauses at the main door. Moran reminds her about her salary that she's owed but she tells him not to bother since she didn't give him proper notice. Moran, however, insists and tells her that he has the salary owed to her in his study. Will she fall for the old salary owed in the study trick?

 

You bet she does! Moran immediately closes the door behind her after she enters the study. After getting her to sit down, Sally tells Moran that she is in a hurry to leave as she's getting married to Jack Venner. Moran demands that she stop being so ridiculous, grabs her by the shoulders and tells her that he loves her and that he's been in love with from the first time he laid eyes on her. Moran declares that he's going to be acclaimed as the greatest man on Earth, and that Sally will share that acclaim with him. He then guides her through the iron door to show her what lies behind it.

 

At Inspector Brownlow's office various pieces of information have been gathered that when taken together serve to paint an interesting picture……

 

• Certain inquiries in Rio Di Janeiro reveal that Dr. Moran had in fact been there.

• There was indeed a plant that had mystical powers.

• Dr. Moran had been looking for that plant.

•  A torn piece of the dress worn by the first young lady who had disappeared had been located in a hedge about fifty yards from where she was attacked.

• That location was in a direct line from Moran's house.

 

All this circumstantial evidence is enough for the inspector proceed to Dr. Moran's house.  

 

In the meantime, Jack has gone to Dr. Moran's house where he tells the doctor that he's come for Sally. Dr. Moran lies to him by telling him that she left in the morning, and that he hasn't seen her since. A sceptical Jack tells Dr. Moran that he thinks that Sally never left at all and that she's still somewhere in the house. Jack gives Moran an ultimatum: that either he sees Sally, or he goes to the police so that they may investigate all the strange things that have been going on there.

 

It turns out that Dr. Moran has locked Sally in a room. After informing her about the tribe in the Amazon and how they can bring the dead back to life, he takes her down to the lab to show her the tree. Before Tanga has a chance to place Sally under the hypnotic spell of the beating of his drums, Moran pulls her away from the tree before she is inadvertently grabbed and consumed by it. Moran has other plans for Sally involving having and holding on to her for his own.

 

A bit later on, Sally watches as Dr. Moran fills a syringe with serum and injects it into a body lying on a table under a blanket. After a pause, the pulsometer starts to indicate the beating of the body’s heart and shortly after the body under the blanket begins to move. As it sits up, the blanket falls away to reveal Margaret.

 

“Only the body, not the mind”

 

There is no response from Margaret when Dr. Moran tries to talk to her. He realizes that he's managed to bring the body back to life, and not the mind. Moran rails at Tanga about how his people had cheated him and about how they only gave him half the secret. Tanga's replies, "our secret not for you." A psychologically crushed Dr. Moran can only mumble, “Failed, failed, only the body, no brain” to which Tanga replies, “the brain for us only.”

 

While this has been going on, Margaret slowly approaches Sally with her arms outstretched with the intention of strangling her. Just then right at the last second, the serum wears off and Margaret falls to the floor dead, this time once and for all.

 

Just as the police turn up, Tanga leads Sally toward the clutches of the tree. Moran then rushes over to Tanga and pulls him back from the tree causing him to let go of Sally. During a struggle, Tanga tries to stab Dr. Moran with his knife.

 

When Jack enters, Dr. Moran tells him to get Sally out of there. Jack takes her out, and Dr. Moran manages to knock Tanga to the floor. He declares, “you've cheated me, now I'll destroy your idol, as you've destroyed me!”

 

Moran dashes to the table and retrieves a bottle containing the serum. He then throws it at the tree causing it to be set alight. Tanga suddenly recovers and as Dr. Moran tries to run up the stairs, Tanga throws his knife which finds itself embedded in the doctor's back.

 

We close with Tanga kneeling down in front of the tree with his arms outstretched…..

 

 

Points of Interest

 

 

Eros Films released The Woman Eater in the UK in 1958 on a double bill with the Swedish crime drama Blonde in Bondage (1957).

 

In the US, Columbia Pictures released The Woman Eater in 1959 on a double bill with the Japanese science fiction film The H-Man (1958.)

 

The Woman Eater was given an X-certificate from the British Board of Film Censors, which meant it could not be exhibited to people age 16 or younger. Nevertheless, the film appears to have been promoted as a children's movie in the US.

 

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

 

In another volume of this series of eBooks I featured the film, The Trollenberg Terror (1958), which I concluded with a brief observation about the role of women in both vintage and modern era sci-fi and other genre films.

 

The Woman Eater presents us with an interesting insight into the exploitative nature of many films at the time in relation to the portrayal of female characters. It does this in an odd way by seeming to make use of and be almost enumerating every exploitative technique under the sun in its depiction of the female gender. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, The Woman Eater highlights the various ways in which a male-dominated society sets about using and as the title suggests, consuming women for its own benefit.

 

Such a situation in both the entertainment media of film and TV and in the wider society it reflects would inevitably produce a reaction that would take decades in the making. Consequently, we now have in film and in areas such as politics and the corporate world, more women being represented and brought to the fore either through personal merit, quota systems or so-called ‘positive’ discrimination.

 

Unfortunately, in many instances the reaction produced has turned out to be just as problematic as the original set of social circumstances that led to it. As women fill more prominent roles in film and the real world, they are often simply being asked to speak and behave in ways that are sadly indistinguishable from their male counterparts. Little that is unique or distinctive about women is allowed to be explored within an already established system whether it be the depiction of female roles in sci-fi and other films or female conduct in the world of politics and the opportunistic and self-serving corporate sphere.

 

We also appear to be treading on dangerous ground with the modern day process of selection and inclusion of women in prominent roles in various sectors of society. Are they being selected on the basis of merit and ability (ie., the best person for the job) or merely to satisfy the requirements of inclusion and gender equity. It would be a pity if mere perception (or ‘optics’ for linguistic lemmings) begins to take precedence and social ‘wrongs’ are tackled by creating a new set of ‘wrongs’ such as fighting discrimination with discrimination and rationalising it by affixing the label, ‘positive.’

 

Could an unintended consequence merely be the eventual creation of an expanded power elite consisting of an equal proportion of male and female members leaving the majority outside (as Orwell might have put it) looking from woman to man, and from man to woman, and from woman to man again; and being impossible to say which was which……

 

We seem to have moved away from a world that normalised the idiotic notion of females being seen as fragile and subservient beings in constant need of rescuing and have instead slipped down a rabbit hole into a bizarre world of elitist jack-booted feminism populated by groups of angry and intense females with men being allocated the roles of irrelevant limp under-performing appendages! Such warped notions and outcomes surrounding gender roles and equality are being frequently depicted in modern films, particularly in sci-fi and action-type films.

 

Certainly, on one level The Woman Eater could be dismissed as being misogynistic in its portrayal of women. However, in a perverse way it also serves to highlight the way in which women have been viewed and treated as objects or things to be used and discarded. The question remains as to the film’s intent? Hedging its bets both ways?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4D MAN (1959)

(THE FOURTH DIMENSIONAL MAN)

 

An imaginative low budget sci-fi film that strives to break the mold

 

1959: A Taste of the Times

 

In 1959 you might;

 

    • Be faced with a yearly inflation rate of just 1.01% (US).

    • Be able to buy a new house for about $12,400.00.

    • Receive an annual average wage of $5,010.00.

    • Drive to work in your $2,200.00 new car.

    • Fill your car up on 25 cents a gallon of gas.

    • Relax at the movies at $1.00 an admission ticket.

    • Pick up a loaf of bread for 20 cents.

 

 

Directed by Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr.

Produced by Jack H. Harris and Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr.

Written by Theodore Simonson and Cy Chermak

Cinematographer: Theodore J. Pahle

Art Direction: William Jersey

Makeup Dean Newman

Special Effects: Bart Sloane

Music: Ralph Carmichael

 

Cast

 

Robert Lansing as Dr. Scott Nelson

Lee Meriwether as Linda Davis

James Congdon as Dr. Tony Nelson

Robert Strauss as Roy Parker

Edgar Stehli as Dr. Theodore W. Carson

Patty Duke as Marjorie Sutherland

Guy Raymond as Fred

Chic James as B-girl

Elbert Smith as Capt. Rogers

George Karas as Sgt. Todaman

Jasper Deeter as Dr. Welles

Dean Newman as Dr. Brian Schwartz

John Benson as reporter

 

"A man, an idea, the equipment and a place to work in secret!"

A man possessed with the ability to walk through solid matter!

A man motivated by greed and jealousy!

A man using his powers for his own personal gain!

 

Ah, but at what cost to himself and to others?

 

“A man, an idea, the equipment and a place to work in secret. All the ingredients are here. He attacks the job of trying to pass a wooden dowel through a steel block with the confidence of a man who knows it can be done. Maybe it will work tonight. This failed many times before but driven by an obsession that it can be done, he is unconcerned with failures of the past or dangers of the future. His only interest is to prove this theory…..but he doesn’t know that his obsession will transform a man into a monster: a man whose life will be changed as he crosses the threshold into the – fourth dimension!”

 

 

 

(Spoilers follow below…..)

 

The brilliant scientist, Dr. Tony Nelson, has developed an electronic amplifier that has been designed to allow any object to achieve a 4th dimensional state in which it can pass freely through any other object.

 

Heedless of any consequences to himself or to others, the reckless and irresponsible Tony fails to notice an electrical overload, which results in a fire that burns down his university lab. As a result, the university terminates his contract and Tony now finds himself virtually unemployable by irresponsibly breaking the university’s rules in his single-minded attempt at breaking the established rules of orthodox science!

 

What choice does the now unemployed Tony have but to seek out his underpaid and unappreciated brother, Scott to help him with his experiment? One couldn’t find two people, despite being brothers and fellow scientists, who are more polar opposites of each other.

 

First, we have Scott, the underpaid, unrecognized and unacknowledged researcher at Carson Laboratories. He is a rather dour workaholic whose achievements are largely appropriated by his boss, Dr. Theodore Carson. Scott's latest achievement is “Cargonite,” a metal with an extremely dense atomic structure that is potentially totally impregnable. It is named after Carson, who is of course taking much of the credit for Scott's work. For Scott, “there’s more important things in life.”

 

It is as if Scott’s invention stands as a symbol reflecting his own impervious personality and character. As Tony later says to him, “you think this cargonite is the ultimate defence…bomb proof, heat proof, bullet proof – absolutely impenetrable.”

 

Then there is younger brother, Tony who is brilliant but irresponsible. Tony theorises that an electrical field could be established that would allow solid objects to pass through one another. Much like galaxies passing through one another without stars colliding, Tony believes that since matter is made of minuscule particles existing and moving in mostly empty space, one object could also penetrate another without ever touching.

 

Tony’s theory is as in his brother’s case, a reflection of his own personality and character but one displaying an emotional and dynamic crash through or crash style. For instance, during a dinner get-together with Scott and Linda, Tony draws a picture of a pencil embedded in a block of metal. When questioned about it by Linda, he replies, “well, if you must know it’s a self-portrait.”

 

The consequences of Tony’s approach to life are symbolised by his later falling down the stairs when he rushes to retrieve the block of steel with the embedded pencil to show Scott and Linda. As Shakespeare’s Friar Lawrence from Romeo and Juliet might have pointed out to him, “Wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast.”

 

 

 

Fairview Research Centre

 

Fresh from the conflagration he caused at the university lab, Tony turns up at the Fairview Research Centre where his brother is conducting his experiments with cargonite. Somewhat ironically, Tony is confronted by a wire mesh barrier fence replete with signs proclaiming, “Badges must be worn in plain sight.” This is the first layer of his brother’s world which consists of impervious barriers and is governed by strict rules and regulations. Not the kind of world a reckless young scientist might feel comfortable inhabiting without disturbing the established order of things.

 

It is also a dangerous world that fosters predatory behaviour as typified by the center's head, Carson as well as by the likes of Roy Parker with his “caveman” approach and obvious designs on Scott’s position of team leader and his girlfriend, Linda Davis.

 

Tony is soon set up in a lab of his own, but as his enthusiasm increases, Scott becomes more bitter and withdrawn. The situation is exacerbated as Linda is all too obviously attracted to Tony who she soon falls for. To make matters worse, Tony has had a track record when it comes to moving in on his brother’s relationships with other women. As he informs Linda at one point, “I’ve taken a girl from him before.”

 

Scott’s rigid emotional barrier, however, wont allow him to display the kind of emotional communication Linda needs. At a later stage Linda tells Scott, “what you feel for me isn’t love. It’s a habit. Working together, spending so much time together. You depend on me so much.”

 

Even with the bond between his brother and Linda increasing right in front of his nose, he does not respond as any other man would. The resulting gulf is filled by Tony and Linda’s developing relationship thereby causing an accepted and unspoken relationship rule to be broken with consequences sure to follow.

 

Scott has also been suffering from migraines and his EEG readings are right off the scale which seem to suggest that his exposure to radiation may be adversely affecting him. Scott’s doctor informs him, “your impulses were so strong, well…I’ve never seen anything like it.” He suggests that it may be related to Scott’s work or that it is a result of “an effect of radiation we don’t know anything about.” The doctor goes on to add somewhat aptly, “There are some things more important to you than your work.”

 

We eventually see Scott lingering outside the facility’s fence which suggests to us that Scott is undergoing a profound inner change that will take him beyond the constricting self-imposed barrier he has surrounded himself with. At this point in time his headaches worsen.

 

When he re-enters the facility, Scott discovers his brother’s requisitioned items in a locker. Yet another rule or procedure flouted by his irresponsible sibling.

 

At about the same time, assistant lab scientist, Roy has stolen Tony's notes and is trying to pass off Tony’s idea as being his own to the facility's director, Carson so he can become a chief scientist himself.

 

An enraged and jealous Scott proceeds to steal his brother's invention. While tinkering with it, he eventually transforms himself into a 4D state. As he demonstrates this process to Tony, Scott leaves the amplifier power turned off, yet somehow manages to successfully pass his hand through a block of steel. Scott has demonstrated the ability to enter a 4D state using his own will. Ironically, it is Tony who cautions Scott not to reveal this ability until he can further test for potential side effects.

 

The feared side-effects soon become apparent as Scott has now become a broken man with a broken personality who has begun to spin out of control!

 

A mere mortal now has a god-like power to penetrate anything at will. Initially he tests out his new abilities by shoplifting a piece of fruit through a grocery store window. He then notices a diamond necklace on display in a nearby jewelry store window but decides against stealing it. His tentative experimenting with his powers also serves as a test of his moral constraints. These constraints are about to be broken as we see Scott’s face break out into a meaningful grin when he spots a bank.

 

LOCAL BANK IS ROBBED OF $50.000!

 

Scott is beginning to relish the fact that he now has “the power of being able to do something no one else can do.”

 

While in the 4D state, Scott can pass through any solid object, however he ages at a greatly accelerated rate. In order to negate this effect, Scott soon learns that simply by touching others, he can rejuvenate himself by draining their life-force. As was discussed and pointed out to Scott by Linda and Tony, “You’ve compressed the energy of years into a moment……That’s like the fourth dimension.”

 

Later on, the police investigate a strange crime in which more than $50,000 was stolen from the bank with no obvious sign of forced entry, or other evidence of the crime having been committed. Even more puzzling is that a $1000 bill was found protruding from a solid piece of tempered steel.

 

It has become obvious to Tony that Scott has been abusing his power and he tries to convince the police to stop him.

 

Scott eventually confronts Carson, who he sees as being responsible for having his life drained from him all these years by denying him his due recognition for the discoveries he’s made. Scott reveals the 4D experiment to Carson and tells him, “from now on I do the taking.” Scott then exacts his revenge by draining Carson's life-force.

 

Scott Nelson's megalomaniac desires for recognition, women, riches and power have been released but he now finds himself trapped in a cycle of addiction in which he must kill repeatedly in order to replenish his lost life-force. He can only do that by repeatedly entering the 4D state which in turn depletes more of his life-force. He is no longer in control of anything least of all himself as his emotions cause him to enter the 4D state involuntarily.

 

Tony informs the police about what has been happening, but they are unable to stop Scott as he shifts through walls, touches and kills policemen, and is able to allow bullets to pass through him. While standing over the dead body of the prematurely aged cop, Tony declares that, “nothing can stop him. You can’t imprison him with men, guns and tanks. No wall thick enough, gun strong enough. A man in the fourth dimension is indestructible.”

 

Scott eventually finds out that Tony is attempting to construct another amplifier, so he returns to the lab. We see Scott reaching into the nuclear reactor with arms outstretched within a blinding blast of fissionable material. Tony, Linda and the police try to stop Scott by turning on the reactor where Scott hid the amplifier while he's inside it. While in a shifted state, Scott cannot be stopped.

 

Linda lingers awhile in the reactor control room when the others flee and she is able to catch Scott while he is in solid form as they embrace. At that moment, Linda shoots him with the gun the detective left behind.

 

Mortally wounded, bleeding and obviously felling betrayed, Scott defiantly proclaims his invincibility and phase-shifts his body through the cargonite reactor wall. "The End" appears on screen, followed a somewhat cliched question mark leaving open the question as to whether Scott died or survived.

 

 

Points of Interest

 

BACKGROUND

 

The idea for 4D Man originated from a scientific pamphlet about the molecular structure of matter which producer Jack H. Harris was looking at. It stated that if it could be worked out how to arrest the molecular structure of two foreign pieces of matter, then these molecules could be allowed to intertwine. Apparently, the pamphlet gave Harris the idea that the 4D state would cause the Scott character to die very quickly from premature old age.

 

4D Man, aka The Evil Force (UK) and Master of Terror (US reissue), was produced by Jack H. Harris, who’s promotional campaign for the film involved an offer of

$1 million reward to anyone who could walk through a wall or perform any of the “4D” feats that were depicted in the film.

 

DIRECTOR

 

Director Irvin S. Yeaworth only directed six feature films between 1956 and 1967 but did also direct more than four hundred short films containing Christian and social messages.

 

Yeaworth had previously partnered with 4D Man producer, Jack H. Harris, and screenwriter Theodore Simonson on The Blob, (1958) starring Steve McQueen in his big-screen debut. That film is featured in this ebook series as well.

 

CAST

 

This was Lee Meriwether’s first appearance (as Linda Davis) in a movie. She had been 1955 Miss America and played Catwoman, in the 1966 Batman movie.

 

A thirteen year old Patty Duke played “Marjorie.” We know Patty Duke from her Academy Award-winning role as a young Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker, and as a teenager in the 1963-1966 TV series, The Patty Duke Show. 

 

Robert Lansing’s role as Dr. Scott Nelson was his first starring role in a movie after having previously been a Broadway stage actor. He would continue to appear in movies and had regular roles in network TV series.

 

James Congdon who played Dr. Tony Nelson had appeared in When Worlds Collide (1951) which is also featured in this ebook series.

 

Special Effects

 

The special effects featuring Lansing passing through walls and people are quite effective, if you are prepared to ignore the visible matte lines. We can appreciate them all the more considering the film’s obvious lack of budget and the fact that the movie was filmed in color at a time when most sci-fi B-movies were filmed in black & white.

 

MUSIC

 

The background music to 4D Man is odd. The decision to use beatnik style bongo drumming within a jazz music score would’ve suited a more gritty crime thriller or film- noir movie instead of a science fiction film. Perhaps it was hoped it would give the film a certain suspenseful edginess to it. It certain places it did achieve that!

 

SCIENCE FACT OR FICTION?

 

The central sci-fi element of the film was certainly a departure from the well-trodden paths that science fiction films had taken by the end of the 1950s. Here we have a talented but irresponsible scientist, Tony Nelson who has managed to develop an electronic amplifier that he hopes will allow any object to achieve a 4th dimensional state thereby causing it to pass freely through any other object.

 

It certainly must have been a novel and almost unimaginable idea to audiences at the time. In fact, when I first saw this film as a small boy in short pants I couldn’t get the terrifying idea out of my mind of having my hand or any part of me trapped within a solid object!

 

Fast forward 60+ years and we have research being conducted, albeit at the atomic scale, examining how electrons travel through energy barriers instead of over them.

 

This tunnelling behaviour can be likened to a person having the ability to walk through a mountain rather than over it. In this kind of a world, quantum mechanics rules while the familiar rules of physics break down.

 

Hamlet’s words, “There are more things in heaven and earth…than are dreamt of in your philosophy” ring so true in a sub-atomic world in which particles could exist in two places at the same time or where two particles separated by distance can behave in exactly the same way as if there were some kind of communication happening between them.

 

We only get to experience and perceive a surprisingly small slice of “reality” via our limited senses. Most of what we can’t account for or perceive directly with our senses in the wider universe we can only label as being “dark matter” and ‘’dark energy.”

 

Faced with the sheer weirdness of the universe, being able to pass through solid objects might not sound so silly after all!

 

Then there are mental games we can all play to get our heads around the idea of the possibility of being able to pass through an object such as a wall. What if there was a two-dimensional creature who exists in his flat two-dimensional world. We can picture him as part of a drawing on a piece of paper or on the side of a house or barn. In his flat two-dimensional world, the poor little fellow has his path blocked by a two-dimensional wall. So, he thinks to himself, “Confound it! I can’t just walk through that wall. HHmmm! What if I had access to another dimension – a third dimension!”

 

If he had such access to a third dimension he could simply step off the side of the house or barn, walk to the other side and step back on, avoiding the two-dimensional wall altogether!

 

Similarly, if we had access to a fourth spatial dimension, we would be able to circumvent obstacles that do not extend into that fourth dimension.

 

Ouch, my head hurts!

 

 

BLUE, BLUE, MY WORLD IS BLUE….

 

You may have noticed a preponderance of the color blue throughout the film – on walls, clothing, lighting and elsewhere. The question is, why? Honestly, I have no idea! Could it be an attempt to achieve a noir-style effect using color or is it an effect of the film’s colour process?

 

The colour blue is generally accepted as having a calming effect on people. It is also associated with the following qualities or aspects of life: faith, spirituality, contentment, loyalty, fulfilment, peace, tranquillity, calm, stability, harmony, unity, trust, truth, confidence, conservatism, security, cleanliness, order, sky, water, cold, technology, depression.

 

Do any of the above words apply to the film in terms of the kinds of emotions that might be evoked. What do you think?

 

Power Corrupts

 

In 4D Man we are presented with the age-old but still very relevant theme of the corrupting influence of power whereby an individual acquires so much power but is unable to handle it and winds up abusing it. The descent into tyranny is often the result whereby the powerful individual feels immune to the constraints of justice or legal checks and balances and believes he OR she can act with impunity. Even in the 21st Century we still have powerful elites who are prepared to exercise power devoid of any sense of morality and who are instead motivated by self-obsession, selfishness, a sense of entitlement, self-delusion, the taking of petty revenge on imagined enemies and a misguided believe in the power and force of their own will.

 

Such dangerous “4D men” turn out to be just weak and pathetic one-dimensional beings who are so easily tempted to exercise power unjustly and arbitrarily.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Manster (1959)

 双頭の殺人鬼,

"The Two-Headed Killer"

 

An imaginative low-budget movie with a cautionary tale that explores questions of identity and what it means to be human

 

Directed by George P. Breakston, Kenneth G. Crane

Produced by George P. Breakston

Screenplay by Walter J. Sheldon

Story by George P. Breakston

Music by Hiroki Ogawa

Cinematography: David Mason

Edited by Kenneth G. Crane

Production company: Shaw-Breakston Enterprises

Running time: 72 minutes

 

Cast

 

Peter Dyneley: Stanford

Jane Hylton: Linda Stanford

Tetsu Nakamura: Dr. Robert Suzuki

Terri Zimmern: Tara

Norman Van Hawley: Ian Matthews (as Van Hawley)

Jerry Itô: Police Supt. Aida

Toyoko Takechi: Emiko Suzuki

Kenzo Kuroki: Genji Suzuki

Alan Tarlton: Dr. H.B. Jennsen

Shinpei Takagi: Temple Priest

George Wyman: Monster

 

A mad scientist!

Experimental drugs!

Two-headed test subjects!

Horribly mutated human guinea pigs!

What on earth is going on?

 

Before the credits even begin to roll, let’s consider the title we have before us: THE MANSTER. Encapsulated within this title we have two concepts which are central to the film – MAN & MONSTER. At what point does a man stop being a man and instead becomes a monster? Does a monster in fact lurk deep within the heart of every man? If so, what forces contribute to bringing that monster to the forefront? These and other questions will be answered in…..

 

The Manster!

 

 

(Spoilers follow below.....)

 

“Larry Stanford, the brilliant and highly underpaid foreign correspondent”

 

Larry Stanford is an American foreign news correspondent working for World Press who has been stationed in Japan for the last few years. Unfortunately, his work has been having a detrimental effect on his marriage as his wife has remained back in the United States.

 

Larry is a real regular kinda’ guy with a manly name who now finds himself faced with having to make a real manly decision – to decide what is important in his life: his wife and his marriage, or his work. However, before he can return to the US and repair the cracks forming in the façade of his relationship with his wife, Larry has just….one…..more…..assignment….

 

Larry is to conduct an interview with the world-renowned and somewhat reclusive scientist, Dr. Robert Suzuki who lives and works on a mountain situated in a volcanic region. He has been secretly conducting research that could hold the answer to the cause of evolution on Earth.

 

What the unsuspecting Larry doesn’t know is that Dr. Robert Suzuki conducts himself in a most unethical manner by having subjected two members of his own family to his experimental enzyme treatment, with disastrous results.

 

His wife, Emiko has undergone a horrific mutation and is confined in prison-like conditions in Suzuki’s lab. Also, before disposing of his brother, Genji, Suzuki declares to him, “you were my brother. You're an experiment that didn't work out.”

 

“I don't think there's much of a story here, but if there is I wanna get it.”

 

After coming “all the way from Tokyo and halfway up the mountainside in a taxi they saved from the ark, and then by making like a mountain goat,” Larry gets his interview with Dr. Suzuki.

 

During the interview, Dr. Suzuki begins to explain his work involving the “principles of existence.” Before proceeding, he asks Larry some rather pointed and impertinent personal questions such as how old he is, whether he has had any major illnesses and whether he has sought other companionship while being away from his wife. Suzuki then pours Larry a “local version” of scotch. Boy, you can see where this is all heading – NO, not in THAT way!

 

While the drugged scotch takes effect, Suzuki talks about cosmic rays coming out of space, and how “every thousand years or so they cause a mutation, cause some animal to give birth to a slightly different species.” Suzuki then goes onto expound his theory “as to the cause of this changing species, this mutation.” He believes that evolutionary change can be produced “not with radiation…. but chemically.”

 

While the doctor goes off to retrieve some photos of his fungus experiments, Larry falls into a deep sleep. Suzuki informs his (damn, she’s gorgeous!) assistant, Tara that Larry is the ideal candidate for his next round of evolutionary experiments. Tara raises an important ethical question when she asks Suzuki, “Do you have the right to do this to him?” After all, the others had volunteered. Suzuki replies that “this is for science, for human knowledge” and that “what happens to one man doesn't make any difference.” Tara doesn’t object any further as she had forgotten to care about anybody a long time ago. Suzuki then injects an enzyme into Larry's shoulder.

 

When Larry wakes up, he is unaware of what has transpired. Nor is he aware of what direction his life is about to take when he unwittingly accepts Suzuki’s invitation to spend the next week vacationing with him around Japan, just “filling in time” till he gets back to New York and his wife, Linda.

 

Forget the not falling for “one more story routine” from his boss or the “no more travelling” and of making “a real start all over again” declarations to his wife. We, together with Linda will learn that Larry “might not be the same person” now that Suzuki’s concoctions are bringing monstrous aspects of his character and personality to the surface.

 

“Please, let me be your host, and let me show you things you have never seen before in Japan.”

 

Ah, yes – Japan! A very exotic location in the minds of mid-20th century Americans. Mortal enemies just 15 years previously. Now a land of inscrutable mystery full of everything that’s dangerously foreign to the unwary upright US citizen. So, watch out Larry, old boy!

 

The setting of male-centric manga-minded mid-20th century Japan will also play its part in stoking the fires of malevolent masculinity in Larry as he allows himself to be led about in endless bouts of Saki-saturated womanising and carousing.

 

Larry’s work, his marriage and other responsibilities are quickly washed away by copious amounts of alcohol and soothing mineral baths, and altogether forgotten within the embraces of the alluring Tara, an” exceptionally beautiful woman” who’s “not unwilling to have a little adventure now and then.” Oh, yeah!

 

Can we just simply blame Larry’s behaviour on Suzuki’s experiment? One moment he is proclaiming his love to his wife and the next moment he’s up to his armpits in all things decadent without any thought to his job or his wife. Is the change merely the result of the enzyme treatment or is there something within Larry that would have caused him to behave so abominably despite the injection he received?

 

Any empathy we may have had for Larry is quickly obliterated when he sexually assaults Tara at the bathhouse, and this is achieved simply by implication rather than the unnecessary graphic details that would be offered up to audiences these days in modern films. Perhaps biological and evolutionary factors may play their part in determining how people behave, but you have to wonder at what point does personal responsibility come into the picture.

 

Another factor that plays a part in shaping the way people are is presented by the character of Tara. It is almost inexplicable why Tara develops feelings for this brute of a man. What we do know is that she was traumatised as a child, which adversely warped her emotional makeup.

 

Meanwhile, Larry's wife has travelled to Japan to bring him back home with her and save their marriage. When confronted, Larry brazenly and cold-heartedly refuses to leave his newfound carousing life.

 

Linda is left standing there in Larry’s apartment with the resolve to fight for him while at the same time realising that “he's changed, he's so different” and that if he doesn’t return by midnight then she may well have “lost the battle.”

 

One has to wonder if good old Ian is poised to move in on Linda judging by his manner! Is he just a good supportive male friend or would he if given the chance take advantage of her vulnerable emotional state?

 

“I'll wait for you to come back, if you'll come back.”

 

We go now to Tara’s place where Larry confides to her that he feels comfortable with her but that something inexplicable has been happening to him lately. Tara, seeming to be laying an emotional / sexual trap for Larry, then says to him, “when I belong to a man, no one else does. If it can't be that way, then I don't want him.” She tells Larry that he must go to Linda and tell her that their marriage is finished. (It would be good if more cheating scumbag spouses would at least have the cojones to do that much!) If Larry does this then that would be one less complicating factor to get in the way of the experiment.

 

“I just became my real self for once.”

 

Larry’s confrontation with Linda back at the apartment highlights the underlying tension in their marriage. It is something that has never been given voice to. Instead, it has been hidden under sweet saccharin sheets of loving platitudes as was evident from their earlier telephone conversation.

 

The injection of serum has removed Larry’s moral, social and emotional inhibitions and allowed him to speak his mind, but in a more brutal and callous way than he would have likely done in normal circumstances. The essence of what they have to say to each other should have been voiced much earlier and not allowed to quietly fester as so often happens in relationships.

 

Larry suggests that Linda knew what she was getting into when she married him. For her “living in hotels, places not even on the map” and “picking up and moving every time there's a new war or a revolution” is not having a life. She believed that he would one day settle down. Settling down for Larry would be tantamount to adopting a life of boring routine with “bridge on Wednesdays, cocktail Thursdays. PDA Fridays.”

 

Linda refuses to give up fighting for their relationship and puts Larry’s behavior down to Tara’s influence or a moment of weakness on his part. Larry’s anger mounts when he hears her reference to him being weak as in his mind it would amount to an attack on his sense of manhood. It triggers a violent verbal reaction from him as he blurts out, “or maybe it's because I never put you in your place before, never slapped you down when you needed it.” The confrontation ends with Larry blatantly informing Linda, as if he were some petulant, overgrown, immature teenager, that no-one will tie him down anymore or tell him what to do.

 

That night, Larry heads off to soak his liver some more with a few drinks. Experiencing pain in his shoulder area, Larry examines it only to discover that a large eyeball has grown at the spot of Dr. Suzuki's injection. (I guess he can truly say that he can look over his own shoulder! Or that it feels like he’s being watched.)

 

Later on, back at Tara’s place, Larry tries to tell her where he had been. To him it was “like a dream, a sort of nightmare.” He had a memory of a temple and he had in his possession prayer beads.

 

We already know that Larry had been wandering the streets of Tokyo late that night where he murdered a woman and then a Buddhist monk. Like a monster or devil of violence and sin, Larry invades the sanctuary of peace and prayer and desecrates it with an act of wanton murder.

 

“Larry Stanford right now is going through the metamorphosis.”

 

Back at the lab, Dr Suzuki considers the results of the experiment and concludes that Larry has now become part of “a different species of men” and is in fact “entirely a new being.”

 

Tara expresses concerns about what they are doing to Larry and Suzuki wonders if she has developed feelings for Larry. She responds by telling him that she no longer is capable of having feelings for anyone and that she has only stayed with Suzuki out of fear of winding up back where he had found her. Was she involved in prostitution? Perhaps she was tied to or was the property of some Yakuza-style crime gang? It’s never really explained to the viewer.

 

Suzuki thinks that he knows Tara only too well by claiming that she likes “to pretend to be a woman without a soul” and that his work really bothers her. He points out to her that when Larry changes “he'll be an alien thing, a species that's never walked this earth before” and that she will not be able to fall in love with a “monster” like Emiko, the woman who was his wife. It begs the question of how his own wife had fallen for such a monster as Suzuki!

 

Larry’s next victim is psychiatrist, Dr. Jennsen who Ian had earlier asked to accompany him to meet with Larry at the latter’s place. Larry refused to have anything to do with Jennsen and ordered both men out of his apartment.

 

“He was conceived in the mountain, he'll return to the mountain.”

 

Meanwhile, Larry is undergoing a metamorphosis in which he is growing a second head. Seeking a cure, he climbs the volcano to Dr. Suzuki's laboratory.

 

Suzuki concedes that he shouldn’t have embarked on his experiment but holds on to the belief that he has given something worthwhile to science and that “it's all in this notebook. The whole case history, except for one detail: The formula for the enzyme.” Suzuki does not want the experiment to be repeated – “Ever.”

 

Suzuki appeals to Tara to try and bring Larry back and that with his new injection “on heat, lots of heat” Larry “might separate completely, split into two human beings.” Any residual sympathy or understanding for Suzuki is wiped away completely when he callously responds to Tara’s decision to leave him by asking her if she wants to go back to where he found her and that he would give her “the illusion of respectability” by marrying her.

 

“There are things beyond us, things perhaps we're not meant to understand”

 

Entering the lab, Larry kills Suzuki and sets the building on fire. He then splits into two completely separate bodies. One is the “normal” Larry while the other is the monstrous Larry. It is the latter who grabs Tara and throws her into the volcano.

 

As Linda and the police arrive, the “normal” version of Larry pushes the monstrous version into the volcano.

 

As Larry is being taken away by the police, consideration is being given as to how much moral or legal responsibility he has for his violent actions. Determining the extent of an individual’s personal responsibility is something that is often grappled with in our legal system when crimes of an evil nature are committed. All that can be said with any confidence in Larry’s case, is that “there was good in Larry and there was evil. The evil part broke through, took hold.” The best that can be hoped for would be to “have faith in the good that's still in Larry” and by implication, most of the rest of humanity…..

 

 

Points of Interest

 

The Manster was an American production filmed in Japan using a mostly Japanese crew and a number of Japanese actors.

 

The Manster had various working titles including, Nightmare and The Two-Headed Monster. In the United Kingdom, the film was released as The Split.

 

In the US, The Manster was released as a double feature with Eyes Without a Face. 

 

Director, George Breakston was wise to have Larry Stanford's hideous, two-headed transformation kept partially concealed by shadows and near-darkness thereby avoiding the horror of Larry's predicament being reduced to the level of unintended hilarity. Well, at least not too much.

 

The Manster does contain a somewhat racist subtext. In a variation of the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde story, we have a decent ordinary American white man struggling with his dark side and being tempted by the carnal pleasures of a foreign culture to stray from the supposed moral decency of his own culture. At the end of the film, the two polar opposite halves of Larry split. It is the corrupted evil half along with the Japanese temptress who are consumed by the volcano, while Larry is able to return to this wife and the kind of morally upright and racially pure kind of life that supposedly typifies their own culture.