Way...Way Out

Just to keep sci-fi from being too serious, 20th Century Fox released, Way...Way Out (WWO) in late 1966 as a spoof on the space program and the Cold War. It stars Jerry Lewis as the reluctant astronaut, Peter Mattamore. He and Connie Stevens are sent to the moon as a hastily arranged married couple to staff America's lunar weather base. Anita Ekberg and Dick Shawn play the Russians.

Quick Plot Synopsis
In the future (1989, according to the poster) NASA has a problem. It's two-man lunar team have gone nuts. One of them has become a woman-obssessed psychopath. Both are sick of each other. The Russian team has been fine, since it is a man and a woman. Professor Quonset must relieve his dysfunctional team in three days, and has been ordered to send a man and wife pair. The trouble is, the young couple he's chosen have had a lover's spat and refuse to go. Next on the list is Peter Mattamore (Lewis), who has been avoiding space duty since day one. Only two women in the program are qualified: the dumpy Miss Davenport and the kittenish Miss Forbes (Stevens). She objects to the forced marriage of convenience (for NASA). Peter tries to coax her by being charming, but fails. They agree to a marriage-in-name-only, for the scientific opportunity. Once on the moon, and the crazed old team departed, Peter and Eileen try to settle in. They are visited by the beautiful Russian cosmonaut, Anna. She immediately clings to Peter, spawning jealousy in Eileen. Anna wants to sleep over, as she and the overly amorous Igor had a spat. Igor comes over too and a Russian Party ensues with much drunkenness. It ends when Peter and Igor have a comic fight with weightless gags. When Peter awakens, three days later, he is told there is a Cold War crisis. He is ordered to "secure the moon". He clobbers Igor, but the crisis was nothing. Nevermind. Anna has decided she wants Igor to marry her. He just wants the informal free love they've had thus far. Anna tells Igor she's pregnant. A virtual wedding is conducted from earth. The Russians crow about the first baby born on the moon being yet another Russian first. Quonset and all of NASA are chagrinned at being "beaten" by the Russians. Eileen tells Quonset not to worry, she is just as far along as Anna -- even though only married for 5 days. Quonset is puzzled but happy. Peter is confused. Eileen is just as pregnant because Anna isn't. She just said it to get Igor to marry her. Eileen hints heavily that she and Peter should work on making America first. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
It's a Jerry Lewis comedy. It is supposed to be fun. The humor is less slapstick and more "adult", with many innuendos or outright sexual references.

Cold War Angle
As a spoof, the Cold War gets its share. At one point, General Hallenby tells Peter that the world is on the brink of nuclear armageddon because the Russians moved troops into someplace (which they can't recall). Three minutes later, the crisis has passed. It was all a misunderstanding. It was the Russian Peace Corps.

Notes
Project Moon Base II -- Back in 1953, Project Moon Base set up the story in which an American male astronaut and a pretty young female astronaut are temporarily alone together on "Moon Base One." Since America would be shocked at an unmarried couple co-habitating, they are married via a televised ceremony. WWO repeats this trope, but with the marriage occurring before liftoff instead of on the moon. Igor and Anna, however, did get the televised ceremony. The notion of America being shocked was more sincere in 1953. By 1966, "free love" was becoming mainstream enough that the moral shock was more spoof than reality.

Lighter Lewis -- Jerry Lewis was already famous for his zany slapstick humor. At 40 years old, his "crazy kid" schtick would have seemed forced. In WWO, he calls on his more subtle style. This, he pulls off rather well. Note the scene where it's their first night on the moon. She insists that he sleep on the couch -- no hanky panky. He keeps delivering lines like, "After being awake for 72 hours, a man needs sleep. All he wants to do is go to be and do it." -- all with a straight face.

Musical Connection -- The title music is played by Gary Lewis and the Playboys. Gary is Jerry Lewis' son. His band was a going concern, starting in 1960 and having a number one hit in 1965 -- "This Diamond Ring." The title, (oft repeated in the lyrics) is so charmingly 60s.

Car Geek Moment -- Not everyone is fascinated by "cars of the future" from the 50s and 60s, but those who are, get a brief treat. Just before the launch, Peter is driven up to the launch site in the Ford Aurora station wagon. Very cool. As he walks to the gantry, in the background are three other "future" cars to help suggest that the story takes place in 1989, not 1966. The red one is the GM X-Stiletto. The gray one looks like the Pontiac Banshee ('64), but it is hard to get a good look. Too many people in the way. Briefly visible, too, is the blue GM Runabout, also from 1964. 20th Century Fox had some pull, apparently.

Bottom line? WWO is an entertaining spoof. While not one of Lewis' bigger, funnier movies, it has plenty of moments. As sci-fi, it is pretty "lite".

Zontar, The Thing From Venus

American International commissioned Larry Buchanan to remake several of their older movies as part of a TV movie package. The first was The Eye Creatures ('65) which was a remake of Invasion of the Saucer Men ('57). Zontar: The Thing from Venus was a similarly close remade of It Conquered the World ('56). As a purely TV movies (no theatrical posters), it would fall outside the scope of this survey, but Zontar is grandfathered in. It's like a "10th Anniversary Edition" of a 50s icon, updated to have mid-60s styles and cars.

Quick Plot Synopsis
Note: What follows is nearly identical to that for It Conquered the World, but with mostly just name changes.
A special laser communication satellite is about to be launced. Keith, a scientist who has become discredited for having too many wild theories, tries to warn the authorities not to launch a satellite. They do anyway. It is lost, but returns mysteriously. Keith reveals to his friend Curt (a rocket scientist) that he has been communicating with a being from Venus, who is coming to earth in the errant satellite. Curt does not believe him. After the satellite comes down, the venusian takes up residence in a steamy cave. It somehow manages to stop all power sources. Electricity, steam, hydro, even mechanical watches stop. It releases eight lobster-like flying creatures who 'bite' their intended target person in the back of the neck, implanting an electronic control device. The alien then directs them to do its bidding. The Army General of the rocket base is bitten, and so is the police chief of the town. They become emotionless tools of the alien. Curt's wife Ann is also bitten, but Curt eludes and kills his lobster-bat. When he realizes that his wife has been taken over by the alien, he shoots her. Keith feels much inner turmoil. He believed that the alien was coming to earth to improve mankind, but events have caused him to doubt. The alien, Zontar, orders him to kill Curt, but he can't. His doubts have grown. Keith's wife, Martha takes matters into her own hands, drives to the cave and tires to shoot the alien. Bullets are useless. The alien kills Martha, which Keith hears over his radio. This is the turning point for Keith. He drives to the cave. A squad of soldiers tried to shoot the alien, also to no avail. Keith uses a special plutonium laser wand to stab Zontar. It grabs Keith in its claws. They die together. Curt (John Agar) gives a longish epilogue speech about imperfect man needing to find his own answers. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
It is amusing to see how closely Buchanan copied the original screenplay. Sometimes it's a more general scene-for-scene copy. Other times even specific lines are copied. It is a curious thing to watch.

Cold War Angle
Whatever there is of this, was inherent in the original. The most blatant line (also in the original) comes when the possessed-general tells the lab folks that the power is out due to a "communist uprising."

Notes
Compare and Contrast -- Larry Buchanan's remake is not an exact line-for-line copy of Lou Russof's original screenplay. Buchanan and Hillman Taylor tweaked the script a bit -- in places. For instance, when Keith is letting Curt listen to a transmission from Zontar, Curt guesses that he's listening to "progressive jazz?" In ICW, Paul says, "the London Philharmonic?" Yet, many times, they kept lines completely intact, such as the general worrying about recovering the satellite, then relaxing a bit, "What am I worried about? I'm not paying for it." Even Martha's final speech is the same as Claire's. Aside from such tweaks (or not), a notable change is that in the original, Tom takes an old-tech pump style blow torch to the monster's eye to kill it. Keith stabs Zontar with his plutonium laser and turns it on, frying them both.

Monster Mash -- The original movie suffered some scorn for having its monster be too silly looking. Paul Blaisdell's foam creation would have worked better in moody dark cuts, but Roger Corman had far too exposed. Blaisdell's monster looked like a mutant carrot. Buchanan at least touched on deeper cultural iconography. His monster, Zontar, played off the more classic villain, Milton's Satan in Paradise Lost. In this one small way, Buchanan's Zontar improved on the original.

Saucer Redux -- Fans of the low-B genre will probably note that the "Laser Communication Satellite" which returns to earth is the same saucer model used in Buchanan's first A.I.P. remake, The Eye Creatures. In fact, the footage is the same. It's just recycled.

Bottom line? Zontar is almost exactly the same as its predecessor. If you liked the original, you'll be amused by the remake. If ICW annoyed you, it might be best to give Zontar a pass. John Agar fans might still want to take it in, as he is the star.

Destination Inner Space

Harold Goldman and his United Pictures team put out a third low-budget film in 1966. Destination Inner Space (DIS) was more sci-fi than Dimension 5, but not much as Cyborg 2087. Arthur C. Pierce again wrote the screenplay, but this time with more quick recycling than originality. DIS may have had a modest theatrical release, based on the poster, but has all the hallmarks of a made-for-TV movie.

Quick Plot Synopsis
Commander Wayne is called to an undersea lab to help identify some odd signals. Is it a sub? A secret Soviet sub? No. It's not an animal either. It turns out to be an aquatic flying saucer, which settles onto the sea floor 2000 yards away. Distracting sub-plots begin. Sandy likes Maddox but he can't make a commitment. Maddox hates Wayne for some misdeed in their past. Wayne likes Rene, but she's too cool for him. Inside the saucer, a triangular block of ice is pushed out of a compartment. The ice melts away from the capsule-pod inside. Wayne, Maddox and Sandy investigate the saucer. Maddox brings back the pod. Once in the heat of the sea lab, it grows to double its size, then hatches a hunch-backed creature from the black lagoon. Said creature kills an expendable crewman, then departs. Creature then kills everyone aboard the surface support ship and trashes the air pumps, winch and radio. Now trapped inside the sea lab, Wayne and Maddox have it out over who did the bad thing years ago. Turns out Maddox was the coward who froze and killed the five sailors, not Wayne being heartless. Thus stripped of pride, Maddox bristles no more. Sandy is impressed with him admitting he was a coward. Wayne plots a trap for the gill man. They rig spear guns to trip wires. Hungry creatures obligingly comes in and gets a chest full of spears. It leaves. Wayne goes after it, followed by Maddox and Ellis. The creature jumps the, but all three men manage to subdue it. They bring it aboard the sea lab, tie it up and have it sedated. Wayne and Maddox then swim up to the support ship. Everyone dead. Nothing working. They do find some dynamite, though. They return to sea lab. Wayne rigs up a timer for their bomb. Wayne, Maddox and Sandy swim to the saucer. Meanwhile, Rene dabs the poor sedated gill man with water like a good nurse, but this awakens the creature. It breaks the chains and escapes to chase Wayne and company. Inside the saucer, the three have the bomb almost ready, but the creature jumps in, interrupting. Maddox holds off the creature while Wayne and Sandy escape. He tries to keep it at bay with a flare, which is predictably knocked into the case of dynamite. Big explosion. The saucer is gone in a cloud of silt. Many days later, later, aboard the sea lab, Dr. Lassiter is morose about the lost opportunity to study the alien. Wayne says it's okay, the President wants him to head up a team to be ready for next time. Dr. L is happy. Rene drops her ice princess act and jumps Wayne with a big kiss. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
Fans of 50s sci-fi will see several of the classics mashed into this one script. While not new or novel, the screenplay is at least comfortably familiar.

Cold War Angle
Other than a brief worry that the mystery sub might be some new soviet technology, the analogies of ruthless invaders (which drove the 50s movies), lingers only as an echo of those more sincere days.

Notes
Medley of Your Favorites -- Pierce cobbled together his screenplay from tried and true 50s classics. There is the element of a crew trapped somewhere with a murderous monster on the loose: The Thing ('50) and It! Terror from Beyond Space ('58) There the alien frozen in the block of ice which thaws and rampages, also from The Thing. From The Atomic Submarine ('59), we get the underwater alien saucer. Of course, there is the inescapable link to Creature from the Black Lagoon ('54) with the amphibious gill-man costume. Similar gill men monsters have terrorized coastal towns and party beaches too. That's just what gill monsters do.

Value Monster -- Most of the special effects budget must have gone into the monster costume. It's actually not too bad, given some of the really poor ones that had gone before it. The monster gets a fair amount of screen time. Yes, the hunch on his back is where his scuba tank is. It is interesting to note that the credits call the creature: "The Thing."

Scuba Padding -- Viewers will probably note how the run time of DIS is padded out with extended -- and a few times repeated -- footage of divers swimming in scuba gear. Swimming, swimming, swimming.

Tedious Subplots -- Also filling out the run time with non-action, are the three (or four) human drama subplots. Maddox and Wayne have a hostile history. Maddox accused Wayne of killing 5 crewmen by sealing up a flooding compartment on a stricken sub. Turns out it was Maddox who killed them by locking the escape hatch. Whatever. Sandy liked Maddox before, but now that he knows that she knows he was a coward, there's no hope for them. He's still a coward. This makes his sacrifice in the end his honor-redeeming act. Wayne has the hots for older-gal Rene, but she's too world wise for some navy wolf. But, when Wayne is all heroic and even kind, she jumps his bones. Whatever.

Logic Gap -- Pierce probably did not have much time to work on his script. It was bound to have a few inconsistencies. He has the premise that the people in the sea lab were trapped and could not escape until a rescue ship comes. Yet, Wayne and Maddox were quite capable of swimming up to the supply ship for a look around, and return with some dynamite. If it was that easy, why couldn't everyone just swim up to the ship?

Bottom line? DIS is a low budget mash-up of previous stories. That gives it some nostalgia value for 50s sci-fi fans. Fans of gill man monster movies will probably like the monster. People expecting an A-quality movie will be disappointed. DIS is a B movie made of spare parts, for TV markets. It might be interesting to do a Goldman triple feature with Cyborg 2087, Dimension 5 and Destination Inner Space.

Dimension 5

The team that brought you Cyborg 2087 produced another time travel story. Dimension 5 (D5) is only marginally a sci-fi film. It amounts to a commie plot spy thriller with a time-shifting belt as one of his gadgets. Jeffrey Hunter stars as the agent with the almost-prescient name of Justin Power. Other recognizable second-teir actors include Harold Sakata ("Odd Job" in Goldfinger), Robert Ito (Quincy, MD) and France Nuyen (Star Trek, Elaan of Troyius).

Quick Plot Synopsis
The story opens to a car chase in which Justin Power eludes police by using his time-shifting belt. Back in the USA, his boss has another assignment for him. A chinese plot to blow up Los Angeles is afoot. The NIA have captured an enemy agent. Powers is assigned to bring him in. He uses his time belt to discover and foil an assassination attempt. Interrogation via a truth-gizmo extracts that the Dragons (a mafia-like gang) are importing a nuclear bomb in pieces and assembling it. Powers is given a pretty new partner, Kitty (France Nuyen). She has also been playing double agent with Dragon. An attempt is made to blow up Power, but it fails by chance. Power goes to Nancy Ho's apartment. (she gave the explosive owl). She tries to kill him, but Kitty saves Power. She also turns him over to Stoneface, an agent of Big Buddha, the local Dragon boss. Stoneface reneges on her deal to meet Big Buddha. She decks them all. Back at Power's apartment, Kitty gets a time belt too, and some lessons. Big shipment coming to Ming Products warehouse. They go check it out. They poof three weeks into the future to see what gets unloaded. They find lead containers (with U238 inside) in bags of rice. Big Buddha and his minions have Power and Kitty surrounded. They poof out to escape, but Kitty poofs back in to threaten Big Buddha. Back story about him being an executioner in Nanking and her as abused girl left for dead. A minion knocks out Kitty. Power finds them in an office. Stand off, then drawn out fist fight. Woman minion stabs Big Buddha. All escape just fine. Happy music. Power and Kitty say they'll go back in time and do it again the right way. Flirting and frolicking. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
Short-jump time travel as practical tool has some interest. The poor-man's-Bond flavor has its amusements too.

Cold War Angle
Instead of the more customary allegory, the Cold War is part of the plot. Chinese communists (this time) are the rogue element, trying sneak a bomb into America. This aspect actually has some resonance to post 9/11 America,

Notes
Budget Bond -- There is an unavoidable similarity between D5 and the various Bond films that preceded it. Hunter plays a similar sort of handsome, suave, gadget-laden special agent. He has a boss and a gizmo-wizard guy. And, there are plenty of babes around. Power's time belt gave him quite the advantage, making up for his apparent lack of observational skills. (the whole gift owl (bomb) in the restaurant thing did not seem just a little suspicious to him?) His beautiful cohort, Kitty, seems the more capable spy.

Odd Job 2 -- Harold Sakata played "Odd Job" in the Bond film Goldfinger. He lends some of that menace momentum to the role of Big Buddha: the Dragon gang's Los Angeles boss. In an odd quirk, the screenplay has him wheelchair bound. Even more peculiar is that he was dubbed by Marvin Millar.

Time Tale Two -- D5 is the second time-travel movie put out by Harold Goldman and his United Pictures group. For D5, Goldman tapped Arthur C. Pierce (again) for the screenplay. Pierce had written the time-travel story for Cyborg 2087. In both, he made a special effort to point out that time travelers to the past had to use non-lethal force (paralyzer darts or rays), to avoid potentially big changes to the future timeline. Apparently, it's okay to kill people in your future, though to be fair, Powers uses his time belt to scope out future events (such as the assassination of Chang) or to test a situation (the warehouse ambush). He would then repeat the event, better informed, so that non-lethal force could be used. Time traveling spies, with a heart.

Storm Clouds Rising -- Note the demands of the Dragons. They will blow up L.A. unless "all American troops are withdrawn from asia." Hidden in those lines is the reality of increased American presence in southeast Asia. The "Vietnam War" would soon become woven into the American cultural fabric. But as yet, it was just storm clouds on the horizon.

Shadow of War Crimes? -- A somewhat interesting bit of back story, is that Kitty was a young girl in Nanking before WWII. "Big Buddha" was apparently a cruel POW warden who executed her parents and abused her. The "Rape of Nanking" is not a common plot nugget in American films. Nazi prison guards or evil doctors in hiding are much more common.

Made Small -- Even though there is a theatrical poster, the whole flavor of D5 smacks of being made for the small screen. From the titles and credits, to the music, to the simple script easily wrapped up in the end, D5 is a typical made-for-TV film.

Bottom line? As a sci-fi, there's not much to recommend D5. It is essentially a very low budget secret agent story. Where some of Pierce's films have a sci-fi setting or tone, D5 is a low-budget, poor-man's James Bond with few gadgets and fewer babes. Fans of cheap spy stories may find more to like.

Cyborg 2087

There were a burst of time travel stories in the mid-60s. Cyborg 2087 added to the trope of an agent from the future traveling to the past to prevent some event which causes mayhem in the future. Michael Renne (Klaatu in Day the Earth Stood Still) plays the cyborg named Garth. Wendell Corey, who played the inarticulate admiral in Women of the Prehistoric Planet, plays the inarticulate sheriff here. Like most time travel tales, it can get a bit confusing.

Quick Plot Synopsis
In a futuristic city of 2087, troops storm a control room in mid countdown. The agent in the time capsule pod is, nonetheless, successfully sent back to the year 1966. His mission is to find Professor Sigmund Marx and bring him back, or destroy him. The agent, named Garth A7, pops into 1966 on the edge of a western ghost town. A man drives up in his red jeep, bringing his uncle Pete and german shepherd for a visit. Garth stuns all three and steals the jeep. He breaks into a clothing store for some less conspicuous attire. Citizens are getting jumpy. Stolen vehicles. Missing people. Burglaries. Garth gets to Marx's lab after he'd gone. Garth uses mind control to turn Marx's assistant, Dr. Sharon Mason, into a helper. He has a tracking beacon in his chest and wants it removied. "Tracer" agents will come from the future to stop him. She takes him to a friend: Dr. Carl Zeller. The Tracers do pop into 1966 in their own pod and start jogging towards Garth's beamer. Carl removes the beamer but they need 5,000 volts to destroy it. They head for the power station. The Tracers catch up with Garth and Carl at the power station. One Tracer is killed and the beamer destroyed by voltage. The other Tracer chases Garth around on the roof for awhile before both elude the cranky Sheriff and his men. Meanwhile, Sharon has swiped Marx's files on his radio telepathy project. Marx catches her. She spills back story Garth told her about how in the future, unscrupulous powers will use it to enslave mankind. Free thought will be illegal. They drive out to Old Town to find Garth. There, Sharon is captured by the other Tracer and used as bait. Garth was willing to leave her to her fate (no feelings) and fulfill his mission of bringing Marx to 2087. But, a spark of compassion brings Garth to Sharon's rescue. After much old fashioned fist fighting, Garth kills the Tracer. Sharon proclaims her love for him, begs him to stay. He cannot and says she will forget he was ever there, if the timeline is altered. Garth and Marx pop out. Later that morning, some generals and officials have gathered to see Marx's demonstration. He comes in (apparently back from 2087) but says there will be no demonstration. Mankind isn't ready to handle the power. It will be abused. The generals go away sad, but Sharon and Carl discover each other and agree to go on a date. In the sheriff's office, bored deputies complain that nothing ever happens around there. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
The plot is intriguing enough, with many possible threads left unexplored, that Cyborg is good food for thought.

Cold War Angle
The focus in Cyborg is more on oppressive state dictatorships, ala 1984, with the military-industrial complex (as Eisenhauer put it) as the bugbear.

Notes
Remake? Ripoff? -- The plot of Cyborg reminds many people of The Terminator ('84). There are similarities, but also some significant differences. The tropes they have in common suggest an inspiration, at any rate. Cyborg sent to the past to find a human who is the key to a dystopic future. Dual good/bad time travelers. Some claim that two Outer Limits episodes from 1964 were the basis for both movies. Again, not so much in their plots as in their tropes. The Soldier episode provided emotionless (but human) soldiers, raised by the state from birth, to do nothing but follow orders -- to kill on command. But there was no time traveling. Demon With A Glass Hand provided the trope of agents (alien humanoids, not machines, nor human despots) are sent from an oppressive, dystopic future to find and stop Robert Culp (actually a cyborg) who has the key to saving humanity. Yet, neither of these TV episodes were the same story as Cyborg or Terminator. T1 is too different in plot from Cyborg to be even a loose remake. Both the Terminator and Garth were after a key human in the past, but one was to persuade, the other to kill. T1 was focused on violence and killing (somewhat creepily previewing the millennial style of real life massacres: Columbine, Virginia Tech and Fort Hood.) Cyborg was focused more on the time-line issue and far less on the violence. One scene could raise an eyebrow. T1 ends with Sarah Conner driving a red jeep, with a german shepherd in it. Coincidence? or intentional nod to Cyborg? You decide.

Stockholm Syndrome -- Presaging the famous bank robbery/hostage event in 1973 that gave the syndrome its name, note how Garth forces his will upon Sharon. Briefly, Garth handles Sharon somewhat roughly, supporting the captor/captive model. He hooks her up to the radio-telepathy machine to "bend" her mind to accept only his point of view so that she'll help him (get the beamer removed). Under this mental control, she begins to develop feelings for him (rather quickly and based on little). In the end, she proclaims her love for him. Garth, quite correctly, tags the Stockholm Syndrome. She only has feelings for him because he bent her will.

Lame FX or Butterfly Effect? -- The script of Cyborg tried to keep the complexity of time travel logical, instead of as a gimmick. The Free Thought rebels could not risk any negative changes, so Garth's ray gun could only stun. Killing anything might ruin the improved timeline they were trying create. The Tracers were not so careful. Their ray guns could kill. Fortunately, but like most movie bad guys, they were very poor shots.

Plot Flaw or Time Paradox? -- The story ends with a sort of "it was all a dream" erasure off all the movie's events. This isn't explained at all, so feels like a too-hasty wrap. Professor Marx's return to 1966, and refusal to do his demonstration would change events from then on. Why would it rewrite the prior day? Perhaps it ran like this: Marx is taken by Garth to the year 2087. The Oppressor State is still in power. The Free Thinkers convince Marx of his error and return him. He does not give the demo. Since they succeeded, their timeline then poofs out. No Oppressor State. No rebels. Jo Ann Pflug (who plays the female rebel engineer who launches Garth to 1966) if she existed at all, might just be some mild researcher somewhere. No one sends Garth, so all those events of the movie caused by him would cease to exist too.

Love Trumps Programming -- Writers (and audiences) loved the notion that human love could conquer just about anything. Garth is the total stoic. He was taught since birth to suppress and deny all feelings. Yet, near the end, Garth's heart is softened by Sharon's plaintive screams for help. He risks the success of his mission to rescue her. The earth-woman-falls-for-outsider trope is reminiscent of Klaatu and Patricia Neal in TDESS (and its many remakes). This is all the stronger since it is Michael Rennie playing the outsider again.

Nasty Cuts -- Betraying the ultra-low budget, note how badly the disappear-appear cuts are done. In the future lab, the camera position is nowhere even close to the same. When the pod appears/disappears outside of Old Town, the camera was at least fixed. But, the sun and lighting are very different. Oh well.

Senseless Dancing -- Perhaps as a sop to the teen ticket buyers, Hoey included some longish shots of two teen couples dancing all groovy-like in Carl's living room. This wasn't a mere establishing scene, but almost a showcase. Viewers are given long stretches of close-ups of the girls' fancy footwork or Rick's asynchronous gyrations. Toss in a garish hot rod and some cool "hip" teen lingo, and the whole segment smells like a sop.

Bottom line? Cyborg is a low budget production with no impressive effects or captivating acting. It does build upon the time travel sub-genre, and aside from a few quirks presents a fair story.

The Navy vs. The Night Monsters

The style of cheap 50s B sci-fi was gone yet. 1966 saw the release of The Navy vs. The Night Monsters (NvNM). Essentially, NvNM a recasting of the popular people-trapped-with-a-monster trope. Instead of an arctic base, such as The Thing ('51) or in a rocket It! Terror From Beyond Space ('58), NvNM is set on a tropical island. Mamie Van Doren stars, but not in her usual way. Anthony Eisley plays the reluctant hero. Bobby Van plays the incongruous comic relief. The navy personnel on the base, and later from an aircraft carrier, must battle the killer trees.

Quick Plot Synopsis
Antarctic scientists discovered some odd plant forms, so loaded them on a plane to ship them to the States for study. As they planned to set down on remote Gow island for refueling, all heck breaks loose. A crewmen goes berserk after visiting the cargo hold. Shots are fired. People fall out. The pilot regains control, but lands gear-up on Gow. He's in a catatonic state, so can explain nothing. With the disabled plane on the runway, no one can come in, or leave. On the island, there is a complex web of would-be love triangles and macho rivalries to distract the viewers. Spaulding has the hots for Nora, but Nora is smitten with Lt. Brown. While fond of Nora, Lt. Brown has commitment issues. Since Spaulding and Brown are rivals for Nora, they don't get along. The island's biologist, Dr. Beecham has the "trees" planted near a hot spring to preserve them. After awhile, one by one, people who walk into the jungle at night, disappear. The catatonic pilot is a suspect, since he periodically gets up and attacks people. This is a red herring. It's the trees. They can walk (sort of),have grabber arms and secrete a powerful acid Several more people are killed and absorbed by the trees. The trees ruin the base's generator.The islanders fight back with molotovs. Doc theorizes that the trees needed to be mobile and carnivorous to survive the 60 months of antarctic winter. The darkness in the cargo plane "awakened" them. The navy dispatches an aircraft carrier to the island. Jet fighter-bombers drop napalm on the hoards of walking trees. The bombers eventually wipe out the trees, saving the day. Cue triumphal music. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
NvNM is almost pure 50s B sci-fi, with all its warts and foibles. This far into the 60s, it's like finding a dollar between the couch cushions. It can be enjoyed as such.

Cold War Angle
This is more monster and horror than political metaphor. There is, still, the strong flavor of American military might, as yet untarnished by the Vietnam experience.

Notes
Based on the Book -- Michael Hoey wrote a screenplay based on the 1959 novel "Monster from the End of the World" by Murry Leinster. The novel was, itself, a variation on The Thing ('51). Hoey kept the basics: antarctic plant samples, plane crash en route back to the States, carnivorous trees. He made some of the usual Hollywood additions. Curiously, Hoey kept the pilot alive, perhaps as a plot diversion. In the book, the pilot shoots himself after the crash landing.

Land Unknown, Again -- The central premise in Leinster's book and Hoey's screenplay used the same source material as Land Unknown ('57). A supposed warm area, with clear lakes is found in the antarctic. See notes on Land Unknown for more on that.

Platinum in Decline -- An icon from the 50s was the platinum blonde "bombshell" starlet. Fox had Marilyn Monroe. Warner Brothers countered with Jayne Mansfield. Universal tried to get in the game with Mamie Van Doren. Where Marilyn had an ethereal charm. Mansfield had a huge chest. Despite type casting as the "dumb blonde", both Marilyn and Mansfield showed some acting ability. A more distant third in the "Three Ms", Mamie also had a huge chest, but not as much acting ability. Somewhat surprisingly, Mamie plays a fairly serious role in NvNM with little flagrant exploitation of her famous features. Hoey did put her in a tight sweater for one scene, but other than that, her assets remained unexploited.

Weak Team -- The people creating NvNM did not qualify as a well-oiled-machine. Mamie Van Doren refused to wear the navy nurse's uniform, insisting instead on wearing several sleeveless (and shapeless) dresses. Hoey relented. She'd be a civilian then. Director Hoey and executive producer Broder did not get on well, nor communicate well. Broder changed Hoey's title from a more mysterious "Nightcrawlers" to the flagrant NvNM title. The most glaring example of their dysfunction was the inserted scenes and hokey ending. Hoey was striving for a darker, moodier piece, more along the lines of The Thing. You can tell what he imagined as his ending -- the scene where everyone is standing shoulder to shoulder watching the tree monsters burn. Hoey wrapped it up as a 78 minute film. Apparently he did not believe Broder when he told him he needed a 90 minute film. Broder than had director Arthur C. Pierce film the shots in the admiral's office, insert yet more stock footage of jets, and a few brief (and badly done) clips of the "crawlers" en masse. Broder then wrapped it up with some triumphal music and air show footage.

Bad Plant, Bad -- Plant monsters have a history in classic sci-fi. Of course, the first of them, The Thing ('51) was very humanoid in shape, but made of plant tissues. The pods in Invasion of the Body Snatchers ('56) didn't do much, but produce duplicate humans, but they were plants. More monster-like, was Tabanga, the walking tree monster in From Hell It Came ('57). Then there was the very similar people-eating tree thing in Womaneater ('59) which actually fed on humans, and was destroyed by fire. The Triffids ('63) added the mobility factor. They too were people-eaters.

Plane Crazy -- Like any average 50s B sci-fi, there is ample stock footage in NvNM. In that, there are the usual continuity lapses. The first one is brief, so easily missed. The plane the scientists (and killer trees) are on, is an R4D (Navy letters for the DC-3). A different DC-3 is shot making a gear-up low pass at the air strip. it is a C-46 Commando that is show doing the belly landing. Note too, that all the shots of the supposedly belly-landed DC-3 are with it in a wheels-down stance. Towards the end, in the new footage Broder inserted, we're shown several clips of the Blue Angels team at air shows, sometimes in F9F Panthers (with the tip tanks), or F9F Cougars (more swept wing, no tip tanks). All the stock footage of napalm bombing runs are P-94 Starfires (with the huge tip tanks). A smorgasbord of late 50s fighters, but not the same squadron.

Bottom line? NvNM is not high art. In fact, after the production polish of Fantastic Voyage which was released before NvNM, its cheapness is almost embarrasing. But it is classic low-budget 50s-style sci-fi. Lots of stock footage, cheap monsters, predictable deaths and heroic heros. NvNM is out of its league in the mid-60s. Fans of the cheap 50s films will enjoy it.

Fantastic Voyage

Fairly rare in its class, Fantastic Voyage (FV) is a big-budget, A-grade sci-fi film shot by a major studio, that was not an adaptation of an old classic. 20th Century Fox produced a modern, forward-looking story in the also-rare biology category. Fox used upper-teir actors such as Stephen Boyd, Edmond O'Brien and the soon-to-be-phenom, Rachel Welch. The trope of shrinking people was not new in the sci-fi movie world, but the setting (the inside of a human body) was quite new. This novelty helped freshen up the usual big-made-small visual effects.

Quick Plot Synopsis
A foreign scientist is brought to America amid high security. Despite the guards, the motorcade is rammed in an assassination attempt. In the crash, Mr. Benes hits his head, causing a life-threatening blood clot in his brain. Benes has the solution to a major technological weapons problem, so must be saved at all costs. Conventional surgery would be fatal, so the government employs its super-secret miniaturization program. A team and a mini-sub will be shrunk to sub-microbe size, injected into Benes' body and preform the surgery from the inside. The catch is that minaturization is only good for an hour. After that, they start growing. Benes has the key to lasting miniaturization. Dr. Duval, the surgeon, will use a laser rifle to cut the clot. He will be assisted by his buxom beauty assistant, Cora. Dr. Michaels will act as back-up doc and navigator. Col. Bill Owens will pilot the sub, named Proteus. Grant, a security agent is sent along too. Once shrunk and injected, the team are caught in a turbulent current. A rare artery-vein connection whisks them towards the heart where they'll be crushed. Doctors stop Benes' heart for 60 seconds to allow Proteus to pass through. The laser rifle is found damaged. Sabotage? Dr. Michaels insinuates Duval. Grant cannibalizes his radio for parts to fix the laser. A valve on one of Proteus' air tanks mysteriously fails. Abort the mission? No. Grant suggests they refill while in the lungs. Grant almost lost when his tether line breaks. Or was it cut? They pass through the ear en route to the brain. All doctors must be silent, but a nurse drops a forceps. The shock waves send the team tumbling. Cora gets "stuck" in some cilia. Grant rescues her just as the antibodies attack. Once in the brain, they locate the clot. Duval, Cora and Grant go out to cut with the repaired laser. The operation is going well. Dr. Michaels clubs Bill, takes control and steers the Proteus at full speed, to ram Benes fragile brain cells and kill him. Grant takes the laser and cuts a gash in the Proteus. It crashes into some apparently hardy tissue. White blood cells converge. Grant rescues Bill, but not Dr. Michaels before the cells dissolve/consume the Proteus. Time is up, so the surviving team must swim to the eye, in hopes of escaping out a tear duct. They do, and grow back to normal size. Congrats and handshakes all around. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
The totally different setting for all the action adds interest. Once you get over the implausibility of a shrinking ray and the physics problems, the script plays out fairly plausibly. It's also fun to see young Rachel Welch (here only 25) before she became the hot-bod sex symbol of the latter 60s and 70s.

Cold War Angle
This is background to the plot, not allegory. Benes is a sort of scientific defector, whom "They" try to assassinate. As a parallel to joint nuclear destruction: the whole miniature army thing is a technology both sides share, but cannot exploit.

Notes
Based on the Book? -- Actually, the screenplay was based on a story co-written by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby. (Bixby wrote a few Star Trek episodes and the "It's a Good Life" story which became a famous Twilight Zone episode. ) Bantam obtained the paperback rights to the screenplay, seeking to release a book based on the movie's story and cash in on FV's anticipated popularity. Such merchandizing co-releases (book, music, action figures, toys, etc.) would become fairly common in decades to come, but were still fairly new in the mid-60s. Bantam recruited Isaac Asimov. He was reluctant, but later agreed. Since such merchandizing was still fairly new, it wasn't managed well. Asimov finished his book early. Bantam released it. The movie ran into production delays, so the book was came out several months before the movie. This gave the impression that the movie was based on Asimov's book, but it was really the other way around.

Asimov's Objection -- The more science-atuned Asimov did not like that the screenplay left Proteus inside Benes' body. Even if the white blood cells had begun dissolving Proteus, chunks of it, or even just all its collective atoms, would still be there. Conservation of matter. Those atoms should begin expanding too, when the hour was up, thus killing Benes. Asimov got permission to change that part. He had the team taunting the white blood cell (hanging onto Proteus) to follow them to the tear duct. That way, the team, the crippled Proteus, and one surprised white blood cell, were extracted. The conservation of matter was maintained.

Flat Rachel -- Rachel Welch's previous screen roles had been as minor eye candy. Her role as Cora in FV did occasionally take advantage of her generous assets. Note the scene in which the three men paw at her chest to ostensibly remove the constricting antibodies. But for the most part, she plays a very flat and conventional female role. She is there to assist, but does little. She is there for the men to impress her. Case in point, Cora is supposedly Dr. Duval's long time surgical assistant, yet once in the blood stream, she has no idea what those large blobs might be. The men enlighten her. Seriously? She is there to get into trouble so the hero can rescue her. The script gives her little beyond "Help. Help me!"

Conventional vs. Nukes -- FV captures an aspect of Cold War thought. Once mutually assured destruction as realized, the focus shifted to superiority in conventional weapons. In FV, we're told that nuclear atoms cannot be shrunk. Only conventional weapons and troops could be miniaturized. The shrinky-ray would allow one side (or the other) to invade conquer without nukes.

Poem From Nowhere -- The Duval character is written to be a bit of a philosopher. When they enter the brain, he begins to quote a line or two from a poem. "Yet all the suns that light the corridors of the universe shine dim before the blazing of a single thought... " Grant, apparently more than just another G-man thug, finishes the line. "...proclaiming in incandescent glory the myriad mind of Man." Even though Grant finishing the line suggests that it comes from some famous poem, it isn't. Apparently, it was the product of the script writers, but presented as if it were a Romantic Era classic.

Lay-Zer -- Another curious bit in FV is how the word "laser" had not yet settled into its final pronunciation. An earlier film called the tool a "Lah-sir". In FV, they call it a "lay-sur". Later, the S would get vocalized, becoming a Z sound. Ears accustomed to decades of "lay-zer" the odd pronunciation stands out.

Bottom line? FV is one of the 60s big classics and not to be missed. The effects were spellbinding in their day, and actually hold up reasonably today. The story and setting are different enough that even non-sci-fi fans can enjoy it.