Creature Features revisited – Flying Saucers Attack

Creature Features revisited – Flying Saucers Attack

A look back at the golden age of sci-fi, the 1950‘s. Our subject today… Flying Saucers Attack!

Earth vs. The Flying Saucers (1956)

In this film, Ray Harryhausen applies his stop motion animation to a non-living thing for the first time, Flying Saucers! The film has an almost documentary feel to the b&w scenes of Giant Saucers attacking Washington DC which adds to the appreciation of Harryhausen’s work. Military stock footage of firing weapons and a battleship encounter was used to maximize authenticity. Aliens shoot down several satellites for which scientist, Russell Marvin (Hugh Marlowe) is investigating with his wife, Carol (Joan Taylor). A saucer lands at a science lab and is immediately fired upon by the military, escalating an inevitable battle. Flying Saucers appear in the skies over London, Paris, Moscow, and DC. In a coordinated attack the begin firing at the cities and people. However, Dr. Marvin has devised a weapon to penetrate their force-fields and fight against the invaders. The amazing scenes of saucers destroying the Capitol building, and crashing into the Washington Monument are classic 50’s Sci-fi images and were most likely frightening to folks at the time it was released. Ray does quite a bit of explaining about how he captured those scenes in the special features on the dvd and blu-ray. On a side note: Joan Taylor also starred in 20 Million Miles to Earth.
 

War of The Worlds (1953)

Technically, these are not saucers but shaped more like manta-rays. This is often called George Pal’s adaptation of the H.G Wells classic for which he was the producer, but it was directed by Byron Haskin. Bryon Haskin had worked on special effects for The Outer Limits, so he was no slouch. It’s fair to say that it was the combination of both men that brought WOW to life. It was granted a big budget, enabling them to film in color during a time when most Sci-fi films were only b&w. It starred Gene Barry and Ann Robinson as Dr. Forrester and Sylvia van Buren. Everyone knows the story, a meteorite shower drops a bunch of space stones all over the damn planet. In LA, where this film version is set, a guy pokes a meteor with a stick. It hatches a flying saucer thingamajig. The saucers spend some time in the valley gearing up for a war as the earthling scientists study them. Then they attack, destroying everything in their path. This is a wonderful version of the story and a great example of the Golden Age of Sci-Fi. However, with today’s Hi-def, digital dvd/blu-ray, super-clear technology, you can see the wires holding up the alien craft. I never saw any wires when I saw it as a kid – though I probably would have ignored it if I did. But, just to make sure, I asked some older individuals about it and they say, No, the wires were not visible when they saw the film in theaters nor when it was on TV in the early years. So, if you do see the film today with its ‘better than 20/20 vision’ resolution processes, just be aware that you will see the wires.

Trivia notes:
1) Gene Barry and Ann Robinson made a cameo at the end of the Spielberg version (2005) as the grandparents in Massachusetts.
2) In the 1953 version, when the first meteorite/war-crafts fall form the sky an image of Woody Woodpecker can be seen hiding in a tree, center screen. This is an homage to George Pal’s good friend, Walter Lantz, creator of Woody Woodpecker.

Battle in Outer Space (1959)

This is an Ishiro Honda film that portrays the UFO invasion with the type of destruction that only Toho Studios would be capable. The alien race has an anti-gravity weapon that is demonstrated by a train wreck caused by train tracks lifting off the ground, an ocean liner lifting out of the panama canal, and a flood in Italy. When the Japanese Space Station is destroyed, the ‘world community’ works together to battle the invaders. The battle escalates on the Moon and soon spills onto earth. Saucers come down to destroy buildings and launch meteor torpedoes at New York and San Francisco. The American rockets equipped with Japan’s ‘heat ray’ weapon launch to defend earth. A dogfight ensues in space that is something to see, considering the year it was made. It reminds me of Star Wars as UFOs and rockets battle. Laser beams and death rays crisscross the screen in some high action sequences. Though the film doesn’t share the same intimacy or character involvement that the other films in this post have, it is worth a look-see for fans of 1950’s sci-fi and Toho Films. This film was a loosely based sequel to The Mysterians, although they never mention a previous UFO attack in this film.

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Earth vs. The Flying Saucers Gallery:

War of The Worlds (1953) Gallery:

Battle in Outer Space Gallery:

Creature Features revisited – Dinosaurs Invade (aka: Rex in the City)

A look back at the golden age of sci-fi, the 1950‘s/early 60’s. Our subject today…
Pseudo-Dinosaurs Invade our cities: (aka: The dinosaur films of Eugene Lourie)
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Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)
This is one of Harryhausen’s greatest creations. Eugene Lourie and Jack Dietz approached Harryhausen about creating a dinosaur for their creature feature film. He came up with the Rhedosaurus, a four-legged carnivore. Its head was T. Rex inspired and its body resembled a Komodo Dragon. They brought in Ray Bradbury to help write the screenplay, enabling them to encompass the lighthouse scene, which was a recreation of Bradbury’s story, The Foghorn Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, originally published in The Saturday Evening Post. Thus, came about the title of the independently financed film. They sold the film to WB outright for a measly $4k, upon completion, never realizing that it would become a hallmark of 1950’s sci-fi and dinosaur invasion movies.

Nuclear testing releases the Beast from the artic Ice, where it was frozen in suspended animation for millions of years. A young scientist observing the blast sights the Beast but no one will believe what he claims to have seen. Working with a Paleontologist, he identifies the beast as the extinct dinosaur, Rhedosaurus. After a sighting in Nova Scotia, the beast emerges on the NYC seaport in all its glory, ready to trample its way through Manhattan. There, it stomps cars, eats a police officer, and when fired upon, crashes through buildings, toppling bricks and mortar upon the fleeing people. They finally corral the Beast in Coney Island and our scientist/hero climbs the Cyclone (roller coaster) to the top where he can shoot a poisonous radioactive isotope into an open wound on the Beast. The Beast dies as the Cyclone burns.

The foam latex rubber-over-armature beast model had some impressive detail which really brought the creature to life. Its stride, tail movements, skin textures, expression and eye movements were unique to Ray Harryhausen’s trademark work. Along with his rear projection and masking techniques, this work set him apart from others as the premier monster-maker for years to come. There are some fantastic special features on the dvd including, “the making of the beast” and “Harryhausen and Bradbury” about the working relationship these two men had and how it helped shape the 50’s sci-fi era. The Science: Rhedosaurus was never a real dinosaur. There was an homage to Rhedosaurus in Planet of Dinosaurs -1977.   ‘When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth’ – 1970, has a Dino that is often mistaken for a Rhedosaurus but was actually designed from a pic of a Scelidosaurus.  Rhedosaurus had features and a design more associated with a giant reptile than dinosaurs.

 
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The Giant Behemoth (1959)
It seems that Pete Peterson did a lot of stop motion in films as part of Willis O’Brien’s production team, therefore giving O’Bie credit in a lot of movies he did not actually animate. This one and The Black Scorpion are two examples. The film begins with nuclear testing in the deep ocean. Soon after, a fisherman from a small Scottish fishing village dies upon the shoreline with radioactive burns upon his skin and dead fish wash up upon the shore. Scientists, Dr. Steven Karnes sights some kind of serpent in his binoculars. Eventually, a giant carnivorous sauropod with a radioactive death-ray rises in the harbor of Great Britain. First the dino attacks a ferry in a not-so impressive scene where you can tell the monster is a puppet. But when Behemoth steps onto land it is a nice looking stop-animation Dino that stomps cars and tears down loading dock cranes. Best scenes include Behemoth attacking the power lines in an explosion of electric sparks and the dino knocking a building wall down, on top of cowering city folk. The fight against Behemoth is not all that impressive, we see a few stock scenes of moving troops and Navy ships but gunfire is actually limited. Behemoth meets his demise by a small submarine diving underwater and a torpedo hit into the soft lining of the monsters mouth.

Its not the greatest movie of its kind but there are reasons I like it. Firstly, there are not too many sauropod/brontosaurus style dinosaurs in movies. This one closely resembles a Brachiosaurus with longer front legs than rear. Behemoth was made with foam and rubber over armature, with scale impressions from perhaps an iguana pressed into the rubber outer coating. This made for a nice texture overall, but close-ups had much less detail and expression than the work by Harryhausen around that same time. Close-ups also showed some of the flaws in its design like the seams where the rubber parts connected. This film was also directed by Eugene Lourie. The Science: all sauropods were herbivores (no they didn’t even eat fish) and they lived out of the water their entire life.
 
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Gorgo (1961)
A volcano rises in the ocean sending a shipping vessel aground upon a nearby island off the shore of Ireland. There, the crew discovers a legend that turns out to be a dinosaur, with fins on the sides of its head, alligator-like skin and red glowing eyes. They take the creature back to London for a Piccadilly Circus attraction. They corral and enclose it in a caged area where they sell tickets for its viewing to the general public. What they don’t know is that the dinosaur is a baby and big mamma dino is soon smashing London to bits in hot pursuit. As with most of the era’s sci-fi films, Gorgo is a little slow to start, but when it does, massive destruction abounds. Gorgo lays waste to Big-Ben, London Bridge and a half a dozen other British landmarks. Although it doesn’t breath fire like its Japanese counterpart, Gorgo makes up for it with sheer destruction, as it swats its big paws around, crushing the city to ruble. The military response is formidable and there is quite a bit of explosive firepower unleashed against the monster, although the film uses quite a bit of stock footage from the British Royal Navy. Gorgo finally finds Gorgo Jr. and both head out to sea, leaving the Brits to scratch their heads in wonderment.

This British film produced by the King Brothers and directed by Eugene Lourie (Beast from 20,000 Fathoms) is made with highly detailed miniatures and a guy in a suit. There is a lot of destruction in the film as Gorgo devastates the city of London. Gorgo was released during a lull in Godzilla films after the original ‘Godzilla’ and ‘Godzilla Raids Again’ (1955) but before ‘King Kong vs. Godzilla’ (1962). It beat Toho to the punch of putting out a film of this genre in Technicolor. It was first released in Japan (1960), where it was a huge hit, then released to the world-wide audience where it was a big box office attraction. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a really high-quality release of this film to be found on dvd or Blu-ray.
Update: since the posting of this article they have re-released Gorgo on dvd and BluRay, completely restored, and with special features worthy of the films contribution to sci-fi/monster filmdom
 

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Amazingly, all three of these films were directed by Eugene Lourie. It is said that “Beast…” influenced Ishirō Honda into making “Godzilla” which in turn influenced the making of “Gorgo“. Naturally Godzilla/Gojira would fit quite well on this list, but I think a review of it would be redundant at this point in time.

Both Pete Peterson and Ray Harryhausen worked with Willis O’Brien on Mighty Joe Young. Soon after Ray branched out on his own, while Peterson stayed with O’Brien as part of his production team.
 
Ray Harryhausen   …………….  Pete Peterson

Eugene Lourie

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Stay Away from these:

Reptilicus
The Giant Claw
Even a die-hard monster movie fan like myself find it difficult to get through these films. Cartoon-ish monster designs and mediocre miniature modeling. There is just not enough monster action in either to make up for the poorly written story-lines.
 
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And, here’s some pics from the three featured films:

Creature Features revisited – Giant Bugs

Creature Features revisited – Giant Bugs

A look back at the golden age of sci-fi, the 1950‘s. Our subject today…
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Giant Bugs:

Them! (1954)
The film starts out with a catatonic little girl walking alone through the desert in New Mexico. The State Police pick her up and this leads to a discovery of her parents decimated camper-trailer a few miles away. Further investigation leads to a colony of giant ants. James Whitmore (Bonanza, Gunsmoke) and James Arness (Gunsmoke) play the State police and Edmund Gwenn (yeah, Santa Claus from Miracle on 34th  Street) plays the scientist. He explains the ants gigantism as a fallout from nuclear radiation. The giant ants were filmed nicely for that time – mechanical creatures with giant mandibles that crushed their prey. They also emitted a strange whining noise when they were near which ramped up the tension. The troopers manage to destroy the colony but they discover that two queen ants have escaped and must be re-colonizing somewhere. That somewhere is in the Los Angeles storm-drain canal system, where the Terminators would battle with motorcycle and truck many years later. This is the epitome of 50’s sci-fi films, playing off the concerns and dangers of nuclear testing in the 1950’s mid-west and man’s inability to control what he has accidentally created. The film created a lot of suspense, action, and giant creature terror for its time. One of the best of the era.
 
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The Deadly Mantis (1957)
A volcanic eruption causes the polar ice-packs to shift and releases a giant praying mantis. The ‘prehistoric’ insect has a hunger for humans, killing several men in a military outpost then attacking some unsuspecting Eskimos. From there it takes flight, stops briefly atop the Washington Monument in DC, then finds refuge from the military attacks in the Manhattan Midtown Tunnel. The special-FX in this classic sci-fi giant bug flick are fantastic. The mantis looks mostly realistic (if you don’t look too closely) and the artic scenes are chilling (chilling, get it?). There is some minor destruction at the military outpost and some fine work within the tunnel for the movie’s finale. Despite plot similarities to The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, this is one of my top picks in the giant bug film category. There is something intriguing about a real praying mantis itself, and the films giant replica is nicely portrayed. Naturally, we have the love-story sub-plot in the face of this catastrophic event, a common staple in many 50’s sci-fi films.
 
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 The Black Scorpion (1957)
Believe me, the cover of the dvd, poster, blu-ray and vhs box, does the film no justice. I had been looking for this film by memory, not knowing the name and kept dismissing this dvd because of the cover art. But, low and behold, I discover this is Willis O’Brien’s giant scorpion movie! (w/Peter Peterson). A volcano and resulting earthquake in Mexico releases a nest of giant scorpions who proceed to feed on Mexican farmer’s livestock. When the Mexican army, with the help of an entomologist tries to seal the cavern containing the scorpions, the beasts escape and attack the nearby village and a commuter train. Eventually, the big daddy of scorpions is released from the cave and first attacks and eats the smaller scorpions, then sets its hungry claws on Mexico City. There is no need to tell you that the stop-motion, special effects in this film are outstanding. The train attack sequence is a plethora of destructive action. The big scene at the end that really impressed me was when the Giant Black Scorpion fights the military helicopters in Mexico City. It manages to grab one and throw it to the ground in a heap of twisted metal, then stings it several times to make sure the helicopter is dead – a fantastic sequence. Starring, Mara Corday and Richard Denning.

The special features of the dvd feature an interview w/Ray Harryhausen about his friendship with O’Bie and clips from test footage of never made films, The Las Vegas Monster and The Beetlemen, amongst other fine tidbits. A must have for any 50’s sci-fi fans and O’Brien/Harryhausen fans!

 

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