Cinema Futura (edited by Mark Morris) Page 3

  As a footnote, I believe When Worlds Collide is being remade. Keeping in mind our own prophesied impending doom, currently penciled in for late 2012, I’d like to see them get a move on. Although, for me, TWO YEARS UNTIL NIBIRU doesn’t have quite the same ominous ring to it.

  INVADERS FROM MARS

  (Director: William Cameron Menzies; starring: Helena Carter, Arthur Franz, Jimmy Hunt, Leif Erickson - 1953)

  Joe R. Lansdale

  Invaders From Mars, directed by William Cameron, is a child’s nightmare pasted on celluloid; a cinematic presentation of the inner, dark, archetypical fear that someone you know, love and trust, is not at all the person you think they are. The truth is colder – they can’t be trusted at all. It’s all a front, and one day, they will be different. And you will suffer for it.

  If that isn’t enough, the film messes with the childlike mind inside of all of us. Invaders gives the viewer the sensation of a sick bed dream, fueled by the flu and an over dose of codeine cough syrup.

  The first time I saw Invaders From Mars was on television in black and white, a few years after it appeared in theatres. A sneaky late night viewing unknown to my parents that was perfect for the paranoid tone the film set. Years later I discovered it was originally shot in color. But my set was black and white, as were pretty much everyone else’s in the late fifties and early sixties.

  Later, when I saw it as it was meant to be, I discovered in spite of its beautiful colors, that the surreal sets, tilted camera angles, use of shadow and shading, gave it a noirish atmosphere normally reserved for films of crime and violence, and that surprisingly, and uncharacteristically, its noir roots were heightened by colour. It gave the film a dimension that has stuck with me for years.

  The film appeared dark one moment, then suddenly it was as bright as a comic book – a horror comic – because the furniture of the film is not only that of science fiction – green men from Mars and flying saucers – but of creeping horror. It’s the commie menace, the threat from beyond, and the psychological dissolve of all that you think is real, rolled into one doozy of an experience. It taps directly into the primitive part of our brains.

  Told from a child’s point of view, this is one of the few films in my life that ever gave me nightmares. Most likely due to the fact that, like the kid in the story, I lived in a rural community with a town nearby, and my room was arranged in a similar manner to the hero of the piece. For weeks, I kept glancing out my window at the night sky, expecting a moving white dart between the stars, a space ship that would drop down behind the trees, accompanied by the film’s terrific sound track that sounded like all the demons of hell sighing contentedly to the accompaniment of a psychotic choir.

  There are times, in my dreams, when I still imagine that saucer falling down behind the hill and out of sight, companioned by that eerie hum, a sound also present when anyone went to investigate the landing site. For the ship had nestled itself beneath the ground by use of a powerful earth-melting ray, and when an unsuspecting pedestrian stepped in a certain spot, the sand shifted, a hole opened up, and down the saucer hatch they went, with that eerie sound filling the scene as surely as the glow of the film.

  Beneath the ground green men in zippered suits hauled their victim away to have their earthly brain altered to zombie status by a drilling needle device that slammed into the back of the neck, all of this overseen by the head Martian – literally the head Martian: a bulbous, eye-shifting noggin sprouting tentacles encased under what looked like a cake glass.

  It was so powerful, that I unconsciously checked the necks of people around me for a week, and the image of the whirling drill is still as clear in my mind as this morning’s breakfast. Perhaps more so.

  Seen as an adult, the first twenty minutes or so of the film still packs a punch, but the later part of it wavers as it turns into a standard alien invaders meets the U.S. Army plot. And, of course, the invaders come out on the bottom.

  But, there’s another twist, and I warn you that this is spoiler.

  It’s all a dream.

  Even as a child, I disliked the ending. It seemed like a cheat, and fell far short of its reassuring intent. It was just wrong. I never believed it, any more than I believed the Pollyanna ending tacked onto the later 1956 film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

  An interesting note is Invaders From Mars predates the novel, The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, by two years, and the film based on that novel, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, by three years. Thematically, they are very much the same film, with Finney’s novel, and the film based on his book, being designed more for adults than for children at the Saturday matinee.

  In the final analysis, the Finney-inspired film is superior, as is the later remake of 1978. But for my taste, nothing has ever quite hit me the way the early minutes of Invaders From Mars did, and I can’t help but wonder, did Jack Finney see the same film? Was there some influence on his book? Or was it just another filmic expression of the then current Red Menace/Communist invasion fear? The concern not only that the commies might take over, but that, in some intrinsic way they might change us so that we become less the human beings we believed ourselves to be?

  Despite some dating, Invaders From Mars still works, though never to the degree it does on the young and uninitiated psyche. Still, I highly recommend it, best seen late at night while in a relaxed and suggestive state, near a window where you can see the stars.

  As an added note, I may be one of the few that finds the 1986 remake, directed by Tobe Hooper – which was more of a parody, and less of a nightmarish piece – entertaining.

  Still, if ever there was a film that cries out for a proper remake, told from the same dark perspective of the original, but with a more adult sensibility, it’s Invaders From Mars.

  I’m waiting.

  THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN

  (Director: Jack Arnold; starring: Grant Williams, Randy Stuart, April Kent, Paul Langton - 1957)

  James A. Moore

  Now and then Hollywood gets one right. That is decidedly the case with The Incredible Shrinking Man. No small part of the success of the movie comes from the screenplay, written by Richard Matheson and based on his novel of the same name.

  I remember watching the movie for the first time, mesmerized. There was a part of that seven-year-old child who wanted only to see the infamous fight between man and spider at the climax of the film – but, oh, the wonders that awaited me before we were to finally reach that much-longed-for moment.

  One part science fiction, a liberal dash of horror and a surprising amount of psychological thriller, that crazy little movie became the gold standard against which I held all other movies.

  One day, whilst out on a boat during his vacation, Scott Carey (Grant Williams) is caught in an unusual cloud bank that leaves him covered with an odd, glittering residue. At the time it is only a small, unusual incident for which there is no immediate consequence. Six months later, however, Scott begins to find that his clothes no longer fit him. Dozens of medical examinations later Scott discovers the reason for this: he is shrinking at a rate of one quarter inch per day.

  Through a series of vignettes we learn exactly how challenging the world becomes for Scott as a result of his diminishing size. His marriage to Louise (Randy Stuart) is one of the first casualties of the change. Interestingly, it is not necessarily his size that is the problem, however, it is his reaction to his altering circumstances. Scott is used to seeing the world in a certain way, to being 6’2” tall and the head of his household. His perception of himself, however, changes drastically as he gets smaller and smaller. In one of the finest moments of the movie, Lou attempts to comfort him through his frustrations – with his sense of powerlessness in the face of his condition, and his (literally) diminishing self-worth when he realizes that he is now a little shorter than she is. She assures him that as long as he wears the ring on his finger they will always be together. For a few moments, Scott is mollified. He smiles gratefully as he sett
les into the driver’s seat of his car and prepares himself to turn on the ignition. As his hand reaches down, however, his wedding ring falls to the floor at his feet. His fingers have shrunk too much to wear the ring any longer. The expression that the two share tells us very aptly that the situation is going to get far worse before it gets any better.

  From that moment on, the true horror of Scott’s changing physiognomy becomes readily more apparent. Scott has worked for his brother, Charlie, at an advertising agency and as a result of his decreasing size, his work has lagged a bit. Despite wanting to keep him on, his brother is eventually forced to let him go. Charlie does have a suggestion, however. He recommends that Scott sell his story to the media in order to make ends meet and pay the bills. By this point Scott’s condition has worsened noticeably; he stands barely four feet high.

  Whatever pressures Scott thought he was under are magnified immediately by the media circus. His bills are being paid and he has a book deal, but privacy is a thing of the past, and intimacy in his relationship with Lou is long gone. The press attention results in a constant barrage of phone calls and people outside his house, throughout which Scott attempts to write his memoirs as the writing implements he uses grow awkwardly large in his hands.

  The stresses are only made worse when Scott is given a reprieve of sorts, in the form of a medical procedure which retards his continuing miniaturization. Excited by the change, he asks his doctor when he can expect to get back to his normal height – currently he stands three feet high – and is informed that the cure will not increase his height, but merely stop him from shrinking further.

  Lost in a miasma of self loathing and self pity, Scott heads out to find an escape from his problems. Briefly he has the chance to feel normal again, to feel like a man again, when he meets Clarice, a midget working at a visiting circus. For a time he has a new love interest – Louise is absent from the scene and it is implied that she knows what is going on and, if she doesn’t exactly approve, she at least accepts that this is Scott’s only realistic chance for happiness. For two weeks he finds a certain peace with his new existence, only to have that stolen away from him as he once again begins to shrink. For the second time he finds himself shorter than the woman he loves, and the realization drives him into a deep depression.

  Emasculated by the continuing reduction in his size, and devastated by his various losses, Scott lashes out at Louise again and again, turning the woman that was his life partner into little more than a whipping post for his frustrations. It seems only appropriate then that a small error on her part results in Scott’s final downfall. With Scott barely larger than a mouse by now, an open door leads to a terrifying encounter with the family cat. The house he once called his home is now a massive hostile landscape, a combat zone in which he must use whatever he can to save himself. In the process, however, Scott is wounded and driven into the basement, a desolate area filled with unexpected dangers.

  Lost in a world that to him is growing larger and more dangerous by the day, Scott is forced to fight for survival. He is now too small to climb the stairs to find Louise, and his voice will no longer even carry up to the first floor of the house in order to catch her attention. He is left with only himself for companionship, though is forced to confront one final, terrifying obstacle before the conclusion of the movie – a black widow spider that is close to twice his size.

  The Incredible Shrinking Man is a perfect study of the loss of power on a personal level. Everything that Scott Carey believes about himself is challenged and destroyed as his world grows larger and out of his control. But in the process of that massive change, Scott is forced to face his place in that world and to change his perceptions. His struggles reflect the same battles that each individual has to deal with in life, magnified to overwhelming proportions – a quest for survival against the pressures of jobs, relationships and ultimately the need to make our mark in the world. Now and then Hollywood gets one right and The Incredible Shrinking Man is a perfect example of how it should be done.

  QUATERMASS 2

  (Director: Val Guest; starring: Brian Donlevy, John Longden, Sid James, Brian Forbes - 1957)

  David Pirie

  The English writer H.G. Wells effectively invented the idea of alien invasion in 1898(1), though it was very much a martial fantasy of machines and armies. For the idea of highly developed engineering and weapons probably excited the late Victorians even more than the aliens operating them. And it would be half a century before another English writer, Nigel Kneale, brought the theme to full maturity in the TV serials he built around scientist Professor Bernard Quatermass.

  Kneale is now hailed as one of the great heroes of the British horror and fantasy tradition, making us forget that his earliest work was regarded as experimental and literary. His collection of short stories, Tomato Cain, had won the Somerset Maugham prize in 1950. Today we would regard most of it as horror or borderline horror, but it is not how he was viewed at the time. Which is hardly surprising, because Kneale’s insidious approach to horror was always as allegorical and psychological as it was thrilling.

  While America – the world power that succeeded Britain – inevitably co-opted our martial fantasies into movies where US generals mobilised armies against alien creatures, Kneale was advancing the theme into much more original areas. He grasped at once that what was truly terrifying about alien invasion was that it would never be obvious, direct or familiar. By its very nature it would feel utterly different. And this gave his stories their incredible sense of the uncanny.

  All the stories had their strengths, but Quatermass 2 is surely the cruelest, most allegorical and also the most gruesome of all. Fortunately the original – whose first episode was transmitted by the BBC at 8pm on the 22nd October 1955 – survives and deserves its longevity. The filmed sequences are still effective and there are some splendid moments of expressionist melodrama at the end of episodes (always toned down at the start of the next, for they would be impossible without the break). There is also one phenomenal sequence which the censor would later deny Hammer completely (see below). But the TV version was made during the era of live transmitted drama and this live material now feels very stagey, containing several dialogue fluffs.

  So it is fortunate that, when Hammer came to make their version, they had just had a huge success with their first Quatermass film, based on The Quatermass Experiment. As a result they had a motive to spend more than they had on any other film up to that point and also to placate Quatermass’s creator, Nigel Kneale. In fact they had tried in vain to persuade Kneale to sell the character to them so they could use him for their own purposes (in X The Unknown as a start). But Kneale had refused and now they needed his agreement to mount the venture at all, so he was brought in to write a first draft.

  Kneale was notoriously critical of most of the movies made from his work, especially loathing the recasting of the lead here. That much is well known, but what is less known, and much more relevant, is that he always lavished praise on producer Anthony Hinds, who had collaborated with him to reshape the TV show into a movie script. Evidently this was a very positive experience for Kneale, and with good reason. For once you accept Bernard Quatermass as an irascible American maverick, the rest of the film could hardly be more faithful to his vision.

  And what a vision it is. Put baldly, Kneale had imagined an authoritarian paranoid England in which aliens – protected by violent thuggish humans under their mental control – are secretly constructing a plant to manufacture poisoned slime in which they can live and breathe. To cover this up, the government is busily invoking a wartime spirit of secrecy and patriotism and – in a typically mordant touch – maintains the plant is producing synthetic food. The irony of this phrase would not have been lost on the original audience at a time when fresh food was still scarce and tinned slurry masquerading as meat was sold everywhere.

  The aliens in Kneale’s vision are triply powerful. Not only are they controlling many of us secretly, they also
have at their disposal units of vicious armed guards. And they exist too as vast slimy things in huge poisoned domes. The imagery of utter subversion was of course all the more credible because governments were then seen to be more powerful, more secretive and much more faceless.

  Structurally the full horror of Britain’s implosion was revealed slowly, starting with just a few wisps of unease. Few sequences in cinema have ever had more effect on me than Quatermass and Marsh’s strange journey at the start through the borders near Carlisle searching for something that has fallen from the sky. There is an odd fairytale quality here, even more pronounced in the film than in the serial: “a road that leads nowhere”, wrecked villages, intimidating police state notices (associated now with Area 51, but so much more threatening when unfamiliar) and finally a strange installation with guards who – like the witch in Hansel and Gretel – insist you come inside.

  The eerie cinematography of Gerald Gibbs has long been celebrated here: the dim overcast skies (often achieved despite bright sunshine and making even the House of Commons look like a Gothic castle), the ominous figures shading into forbidding rural landscapes, the endless vistas leading towards the domes. But the production also benefits from three other Hammer regulars. Designer Bernard Robinson milks every location with his usual deftness, including even the foyer of the House of Lords; Phil Leakey made the make-up effects of burning slime infinitely more tactile than on the TV show; while composer James Bernard (a protégé of Benjamin Britten) added a wonderfully hysterical score, anticipating Psycho in its jarring use of strings.

  All were crucial, but in the first edition of my book Heritage of Horror I was probably unfair to director Val Guest, just because I found all his subsequent work so uninteresting by comparison. Guest (and Anthony Hinds who co-wrote and produced and must have the lion’s share of credit for the way it turned out) demanded quite rightly that the film’s look was never prettied up but consistently harsh and sinister. And it is hard to criticise Hammer’s decision to alter the serial’s ending, eliminating a journey into space which seemed unrealistic even for its time.