News and Advance Film Reviews Direct from Hollywood's

FORREST J ACKERMAN

from Nebula No. 2, Spring 1953.

My friend Ray Bradbury has just put the finishing touches to a 28,000 word original screenplay treatment called “The Meteor!" Universal is to produce this scientifilm of Earth's first contact with interplanetary visitants.

The BBC hit by “Charles Eric Maine” (olden Anglofan David Mcllwain) has been turned from a radio play into a screenplay, and American star Howard Duff imported London-­wards to play the lead. Its title: Spaceways.

Merian C. Cooper, man responsible for the creation of KING KONG, has a new scientifilm up his sleeve, known only as "Operation X." The classic "Kong," which grossed around 2 million dollars when it was new, back in 1932, is expected to rake in about 8 million during its popular revival.

Abbott & Costello go to Venus in their next comedy, after which they are scheduled to meet Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. Not to be outdone, Crosby & Hope hit "The Road to Mars" in their forthcoming farce.

Paramount is to produce a future film titled “Turmoil” based on the classic Astounding story "Nerves," by Lester del Rey, currently editor of Space Science Fiction. Philip Wylie is doing the script.

Geo. Pal will follow up the success of WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE with its equally famous sequel, AFTER WORLDS COLLIDE. But before that he'll take us on a Clarke's Tour of the Solar System, based on Willy Ley’s “Conquest of Space” with artistic assistance (as in "Destination Moon") , from Chesney Bonestell.

Turning from the future to the past “The Neanderthal Man” is next on the docket for one of the low-budget Hollywood producers.

Beware of something called "Untamed Women,” a prehistoric type picture which was not released but escaped. For approximately the fifth time the dinosaurian and volcanic sequences from "One Million BC" are repeated.

"Amazons of Venus," replete with man-eating plant, is scheduled to throw science fiction back to 1926.

High hopes are held for "Crack of Doom" (nee “A-Men”), the new Curt Siodmak scientifilm which Curt tells me incorporates the spectacular sequences from the pre-war German sf hit, “Gold.” It's about implosion: energy uncontrollably building up into matter and menacing the world!

"Zombies of the Stratosphere" may be seen at your own risk. Also "Lost Planet Airmen," which has no airmen, and the only planet concerned is good old Terra Firma, which hasn't been reported missing yet to my knowledge.

People at the bottom of the ocean - that's the notion of "Project X,” a proposed science pic. And Universal has announced it will shoot "The Sea Monster," a – quote - science fiction thriller about a 7-foot thing that comes out of the Amazon river , with the body of a Tarzan and the face of a frog. (Bet you a guinea, mates, that in the end the frogman croaks!).

While we're dunking ourselves, will take the cue to mention that an adaptation of Bradbury's popular Saturday Evening Post story, ''The Beast from 50 Fathoms," will be used as part of the picture THE MONSTER FROM BENEATH THE SEA. The monster will be animated by sf fan Ray Harryhausen who, after seeing KING KONG seventy-eight times, animated his successor, "Mighty Joe Young" ­and won an Oscar for it from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences!

Busy American book editor, sf author and anthologist, Kendell Foster Crossen, has collaborated on an original scientifilm script called "Barrier to the Stars."

Somebody named Forrest J. Ackerman has collaborated (with Uni­versal Studio's Charles Beaumont, TV-scripter and author of "The Beautiful People" in IF, “Elegy” in Imagination, etc.) on a scientifilm adaptation of the noted sf novel THE VICARION. James Mason or Dana Andrews will be sought for the role of the inventor in what is expected to result in a 5-year video series. Same Ackerman has, teamed up with producer Jack Seaman, turned out the first three screenplays for the Hull-van Vogt vidipic serial, "Mel Pelton: the Man from the Moon."

L. Sprague de Camp's "Johnny Black" yarns (Astounding) are curr­ently under consideration as a possible “Francis” type series. If you arc not familiar with the character of Johnny, he is an educated bear who talks.

The Four-Sided Triangle, as a novel is an enduring credit to Britain and its author's genius, has been filmed - with what results we await with considerable trepidation. Its first announced title change was ominous: "Bad Blonde." Its second leaves us shuddering at the rape of things to come: Girl in Trouble!

Edgar Rice Burroughs lives on in “Tarzan and the She-Devil.”

Dagmar & Lily Sr. Cyr, two United strips burlesqueens, are being approached for leading roles in "Space Girl." 'They should be stand-outs. But there is no truth to the rumour that Jane Russell, Miss Bust-up of 1953, is being sought to pad a part in "Blowups Happen": this report is strictly a falsie.

Darryl F. Zanuck has announced that he'll sponsor an immensely expensive technicolor scientifilm of an undersea kingdom, "The Face of the Deep." Ray Bradbury is expected to have a hand in polishing the original script by Curt (FP1) Siodmak.

John Collier informs me over the phone that he is putting several of his fantastic storys together for a "Trio" type film.

  "3000 A.D." has been completed but is being released as "Captive Women." A thousand years hence civilization has been desolated, but warfare rages on between the Norms, the Uplanders and the Mutates. Radio-actively disfigured men are seen, but what is seen of the women's figures leaves link to be desired.

"Invaders from Mars" will be a Republic offering.

"Voyage to Venus" will be a Monogram offering.

There's also a "Spaceship to Saturn" on the docket, and, sticking closer to home, a " Space Island ."

"Atom Outpost" . . . "Ground Zero" . . . "Within the Volcano" . . . "The Gamma People" . . . "Alraune" . . . "Atomic Monster" . . . “Sky Gir!s” . . . "What Mad Universe" . . . "The Lost One". . . "The Lost Wor!d" (Doyle in technicolor) . . . "I Captured the Sun" . . . “Destination Unknown” (color) . . . "Thunder from the Stars" (British) . . . "Miss 2000 A.D." . . . "Far Horizons" . . . "Professor Hagge's Private Planet" (Ida Lupino project) . . . “Atlantis”. . . "Woman Hater" (about the last bachelor in the world) . . . "The Cave Girl" (Burroughs) . . .”Lady In Space” . . . "Dream of the Stars" . . . and many others! Watch NEBULA regularly for the latest developments on the world scientifilm scene and screen.

FORREST J ACKERMAN

 

 

 

from Nebula No.36. November 1958

 

THE BLOB (at least it isn't “Colossal”, "from Another World" or “Teenage”) could have been the surprise film at the 16th World Science Fiction Convention. Paramount Studios offered it (with a string: call the masquerade the Blob Ball), but the title did not inspire con­fidence and the con committee feared another fiasco like the Souwestercon ( Texas ) preview of THE SPACE CHILDREN. As it turns out, THE BLOB is not America 's equivalent of QUATERMASS I (THE CREEPING UNKNOWN, cis-Atlantic), but it is not a bad job. It's a plot that was prevalent in the amazing stories of the late 20's, reaching the screen 3o years later but not too late to entertain audiences yet unborn when Gernsback was in flower. In the crude old days we had the monthly menace that seemingly couldn't be stopped but penultimately was and the world was saved for another four weeks for scientification, and my very real regret in these crud new days of earth-in-peril pix is that the authors who pioneered - Hamilton, Cummings, Williamson Starzl, even John Russell Fearn­ – are not reaping the yellow harvests of Hollywood gold rather than the Odd-Johnnies Come Lately who do the “original” stories.

 

THE BLOB is a voracious gob of carnivorous goo that arrives via meteor express on the out­skirts of a small town in Pennsyl­vania and ingests its way, victim by victim, into the heart of the community. There it puts in an impersonal appearance at a mid­night Spook Show, devouring the movie operator just as he is projecting the final frightening reel of Daughter of Horror, a mythical Bela Lugosi film co-billed with (also imaginary) The Vampire and the Robot. People generally like jello, and this switch on jello liking people is novel enough for the general public to eat it up. The Blob itself, in colour, is convincingly realistic, and while it is not destroyed but only frozen into inactivity, a sequel seems unlikely unless Son of Blob melts the polar ice onto which his pop has been parachuted.

 

I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE will inevitably be compared with THE INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, to which it is inferior, but it is not inferior per se. In the Andromeda con­stellation the lethal rays of a pre-nova sun kill all of an in­habited planet's females before survival ships can be con­structed. The hardier males escape by saucer and land on earth to perpetuate their race. By gaseous absorption, an absorbing process to watch, they kidnap earthmen, wire them for matrix-transmissions, and there­after appear as simulacrum twins of their captives. During brief lightning flashes, or when one wills himself to make his true appearance evident to a fellow Andromethan, the alien form is glimpsed beneath the human guise. When forth­rightly revealed, the complete aliens are fine horrors by earth standards, hideous, phosphores­cent, with criss-cross trunks for noses. When they disintegrate at death, as 99 per cent of film monsters have the tendency to do, they really go in a glue of glory. The special effects are very effective and the acting quite acceptable. This may be classed as one of the better monster pictures.

 

EARTH vs THE SPIDER may not be classed as one of the better monster pictures, and I say this realising I am biting the ham that feeds for producer Bert Gordon throws a plug my way by including (ta) four shots of my FAMOUS, MONSTERS OF FILMLAND magazine. I am surprised that after TARANTULA a lesser studio would attempt the same theme so soon. In the hierarchy of THE BLACK SCORPION, THE DEADLY MANTIS, THEM! ad insec­turn, this one is pretty low on the scale. A few characters spend most of their time in the Carlsgood Caverns endangered by a giant spider. Super arachnid spins some time rather unconvincingly superimposed here and there in a small town. Once when the spider's been doused with a super dose of DDT and is presumed kaput, a group of rock 'n' rollers jolts it back to life with their raise-the­ dead dance session.

 

TEENAGE CAVEMAN reprises the by-now-prehistoric stock shots from ONE MILLION BC and UNKNOWN ISLAND (magnified Gila monsters and men in dime store dinosaur suits) and introduces the monster later to be seen in NIGHT OF THE BLOOD-BEAST. There is one surprise: at the end we learn we have been viewing savages of the future, after Atomigeddon.

HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER is distinguished for the do-it-yourself frontal lobotomy formula prepared in simple salve form during the unfolding of the picture by a rich man's Paul Blaisdell, Disenfranchised by the studio to which he has given his awe for 25 years, the un­wanted make-up artist wreaks revenge by manipulating zom­boid teenage actors as though they were real werewolves and frankensteins.

In a HOUSE OF WAX type finale 17 monster masks go up in smoke and flame. The last reel’s in colour, otherwise the instruc­tions on HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER are, like the players, black and white. Good haunting!

FORREST J ACKERMAN