Sci-fi of the 1950's Week: The Day the Earth Stood Still

Howdy all and as promised we begin our late week with a 1951 Sci-fi classic brought to us from the pulp Sci-fi novelist Harry Bates (Farewell to the Master, Space Hawk: The Greatest of Interplanetary Adventurers, Hawk Carse, The Affair of the Brains, The Bluff of the Hawk and The Passing of Ku Sui) this humble black and white mono recorded number about a humanoid visitor from another world bringing with him a large and powerful robot and a message for all mankind.  So prep the Army, check your weapons and vehicles and by all means shoot profusely at the unknown.  This is The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Wow Gort, they drop some clams on this set, huh?

Klaatu: You must go to Spoiler. You must then recite these three words. Klaatu barada nikto.

A flying saucer lazily approaches the Earth and eventually lands in Washington, D.C.  Naturally the US military completely encamp around it awaiting any sign of life and/or trouble.  A hatch and gangplank opens from the ship and a tall humanoid name of Klaatu (Michael Rennie of The Robe, The Third Man, The Lost World, Lost in Space and The Time Tunnel) exits the craft announcing that he comes in peace, but as he just jets down from the gangway he draws a small cylinder from his side which a twitchy soldier mistakes for a weapon and shoots him.  Yeah we are off to a fine start of intergalactic representation.   Without any warning a large robot name of Gort (7’7” Lock Martin of Lost in a Harem, Lady on a Train, Off Limits, Invaders from Mars and The Snow Creature) pops out of the ship and proceeds to disintegrate every weapon around him with a ray of awesome power from his head visor Cyclops style. 

Optic blast...fire.

Klaatu gets him to cease the destruction and goes on to explain the device he held would allow the President to see other worlds; a sort of an inter-dimensional View Master full of wibbly wobbly timey-wimey stuff.      

Rushed to the hospital he floors the Army medical by applying some healing salve that heals the wound instantly while the Army attempts to get inside his spaceship to no doubt reverse engineer the thing.  So blasting the guy wasn’t insult enough they now move on to the lesser crime of breaking and entering.   

After escaping military personnel, Klaatu snags a suit and calls himself Mr. Carpenter to better blend in and learn of this primitive backwater world that still think atomic power is a neat idea.  Staying at a boarding house under this alias he befriends the residents and listens with great interest on his fellow boarders’ opinions of why the alien is here on Earth. 

From petty fear to typical kneejerk reactions to the unknown, Klaatu is then attacked by the Army yet again as he flees off world stopping his servitor from killing the lot of them and leaves the assembled scientists with these thoughts how the penchant of humanity’s blood lust, harnessing the power of the atom and the exploration of space that the Earth will be viewed as savages of the cosmos and to tread carefully for it could very well mean the end for the planet.

From the paranoia of the Americans only six years after World War II and the Cold War coming to affect; this really is an excellent example of human behavior large and small.  Showing the military’s standing on zero tolerance to the innocence of a small boy befriending a total stranger, director Ray Wise (The Body Snatcher, Born to Kill, The Haunting, The Andromeda Strain and The Hindenberg) and crew go the message across that the jumping to conclusions without clear thinking or rational behavior could lead to devastating consequences. 

No Helen, Scientology is complete and utter crap. 

Douglas Sirk Week: The Tarnished Angels

Howdy doo boys and girls and welcome to Day 4 of Douglas Sirk Week and this movie is derived from the master novelist himself William Faulkner (The Story of Temple Drake, Slave Ship, To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep and As I Lay Dying) a story of a fallen World War I flying ace that has been so diminished to appearances at this run down stunt aerobatics carnival.   So let’s all go to the lobby, grab ourselves a treat and plunk in your chair.  This is The Tarnished Angels.

Go around!!!

You better change spoilers…

Screenwriter George Zuckerman (Border Incident, Under the Gun, Written on the Wind and The Brass Legend) takes on Faulkner’s novel with ace reporter Burke Devlin (Rock Hudson of Lover Come Back, Send Me No Flowers, Seconds, Blindfold and A Fine Pair) steps in for a boy being teased and returns him to his parents.  On the way to the boy’s house Devlin finds out that young Jack is the of World War I flying ace Roger Shumann (Robert Stack of Written on the Wind, House of Bamboo, Sail to Glory, Story of a Woman and Airplane!) is hosting an aerial show of sorts with a series of battered plane and little to no money from it.  His grease monkey Jiggs (Jack Carson of Mildred Pierce, Arsenic and Old Lace, A Star Is Born and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) and just about every male with a heart beat looks in LaVerne (Dorothy Malone of The Big Sleep, Written on the Wind, Tip on a Dead Jockey, Warlock and The Last Sunset) Roger’s wife direction Burke tells Roger that he wants to write a story on the Flying Shumanns and as they are near destitute they all bunk it down at Devlin’s apartment for the time.

Better believe it, baby!

 

Devlin drinks and smokes like a man of the era with a hybrid of cynicism and optimism that manages to be give his all to push for a human interest story when he is reassigned to a senator’s re-election campaign.    Devlin tells his editor to go pound sand and pursues the human interest story that has meaning.

I have just a few observations of the movie if you don’t mind.  Stack’s character is a cold fish with gambling tendencies and doesn’t mind tormenting people mentally.  Dorothy Malone is a curvy blonde bombshell that could wrap men around her finger until doomsday.  

At least 4 members of Written on the Wind are starring in this film giving Sirk some familiar dedicated actors to draw on.  This film captures the despair of humanity from the adrenaline junkies to pursuit of a dream with the near prostitution of LaVerne for a plane.   The misery of dreams failing and the inability to reach them dragging further into the dirt creates such turmoil. 

Yer mom's red hot sonny boy.

Sirk captures the scope of desperation without giving into crude needs or crass comments.   The cinematography captured again by 35mm Spherical from aerial shots, rear projection, tight zooms and dolly tracked, this film has it all and keeps a nice steady pace of interest on the human element, the sorted parties and how each life conflicts with the other.  It is torrid tale of lost souls reaching out for just one chance to make things better.