The Valley of Gwangi

Warner Brothers / Seven Arts produced an A-grade film that defies easy categorization. The Valley of Gwangi (TVG) proved that cowboys are a versatile story component. You can mix them almost anything: dinosaurs, aliens, whatever. The stop-motion animation of the various critters, great and small, was done by the great Ray Harryhausen. While not his last animation, it was his last go at dinosaurs. James Franciscus and Gila Golan star, but Harryhausen's work dominates the movie. The story, originally written by King Kong effects master, Willis O'Brien, was itself an adaptation of the basic Kong story. A giant creature is captured from his native Eden, hauled into civilization to be exhibited, breaks loose, rampages, and dies. But, instead of a giant gorilla, the beast is an allosaurus.

  Quick Plot Synopsis A battered and bloody gypsy man staggers and dies just as his family find him. In a burlap bag is the miniature horse he took from the Forbidden Valley. The old woman of the clan warns that it will bring a curse on them. Carlos gets the miniature horse for T.J. Breckenridge (Golan) who is running a traveling wild-west show cum circus that travels around Mexico. The tiny horse is to be the star act that makes her show profitable again. Enter Tuck Kirby (Franciscus) who was once TJ's boyfriend, but he left her. The gypsies sneak in and steal back the eohippus. Carols blames Tuck, but it was actually Professor Bromley who tipped off the gypsies. He wanted to follow them to find the source. They find a narrow passage cave through the ring of mountains. In the forbidden valley, a pterodactyl almost carries off Lope. Carlos wrestles it and kills it. They chase an Ornithomimus, thinking to capture it for TJ's circus. However, a big blue allosaurus, named Gwangi, catches and eats it first. They all flee Gwangi, while a Styracosaurus intimidates him. They find a cave to hide in. Tuck asks TJ to settle down with him in Wyoming. She agrees. Eventually, Gwangi finds their hideout cave, but the Styracosaurus arrives again. While they do battle, everyone rides away, like the wind. Gwangi gives chase, catching and eating Carlos. Everyone else gets out through the cave. Gwnagi is too big, so gets stuck. In freeing himself, he causes a rock slide which knocks him out. Tuck, Champ and the others tie up Gwangi and take him back for TJ's circus. TJ fancies a world tour with Gwangi over settling down in Wyoming. Tuck is hurt. Meanwhile, the gypsies conspire to free Gwangi before he is exhibited. The dwarf gypsy loosens the bolts on Gwangi's cage, but gets caught and eaten anyhow. Gwangi breaks out of his cage, causing the stadium crowd to stampede for all exits. Many people flee to an old cathedral under renovation. Gwangi follows them in, so they trap him inside. His big tail knocks over conveniently placed pots of open fire. This catches the drapes on fire. Soon the whole place is engulfed. Gwangi screams in pain and takes a long time to die. Outside, the crowd watch in stunned silence as the cathedral crumbles amid the flames and plaintive roars. The End.

  Why is this movie fun?
That's easy. Cowboys AND dinosaurs. What's not to love? Harryhausen's work is excellent and usually well integrated into the live-action.

  Cold War Angle
Since the story is a recast of the classic Kong theme, and Kong was pre-Cold War, TVG has no Cold War to it. Just good ol' monster rampaging.

  Notes
Cowboy-Dino Redux -- As unusual a mix as it is, TVG is not the first time cowboys and dinosaurs have been together. In 1956, the indie film Beast of Hollow Mountain had a group of cowboys, also in Mexico, discover a T-Rex. They don't want to capture it for exhibition, just to stop it from eating their cattle. Instead of the beast burning in a church, they lure it into some quicksand in the swamp. TVG is a far superior film, just not the first. Before all of that, and even before King Kong, there was the silent film version of Conan Doyle's "Lost World" which also featured some dinosaurs brought back from a hidden valley, for exhibition, who also break free, rampage and die.

  Gila Revoiced -- Actress Gila Golan is obviously dubbed with some other woman's voice, but why? The dubbing job is only passable at times, suggesting that it was a last-minute decision. Watch Our Man Flint ('66) to hear her real voice. She is clear and articulate enough, but does have something of a latent eastern European accent, like a mild Gabor sister. The original producers and director must have been okay with Golan's accent when they cast her. She was hardly the only well-built beauty available at the time. It may be that some late-to-the-table producer at WB/7A, who viewed the final cut and didn't like the sound of her. Perhaps he thought it was too close to the Green Acres scenario of an eastern european accented beauty amid American rustics. So, he ordered all of Golan's lines dubbed with a blandly American-sounding voice.

  Harryhausen's Last Dino -- Ray would continue to do stop motion animation after TVG, but this was his last dinosaur movie. Dinosaur films were falling out of favor at the box office and would remain so until CGI-animated ones made a comeback in Jurassic Park in the 80s. Some scenes in TVG look like inspiration for scenes in Jurassic Park.

  Great Score -- One of the highlights of TVG is the rousing musical score by Jerome Moross. The motif is pure western, full of galloping cadence and manly brass. It ranks right up there with the themes from The Magnificent Seven and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and How The West Was Won.

 Bottom line? TVG is often listed as a sci-fi movie, but has little science to it, beyond a backwater paleontologist spewing some blather about evolution and wanting to study the dinosaurs (which by their very existence seem to disprove his blind faith in evolution). Beyond that, it's essentially a ramping monster film. As a film, TVG is rollicking and fun, provided one does not take it too seriously. Harryhausen's work is worth watching, regardless.

The Bedford Incident

Columbia pictures put out yet another atomic doom film in 1965 that fits in well with its two '64 films: Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe. While more tightly focused, The Bedford Incident (TBI) follows the same Atomic Angst. Tensions build between nuclear-armed rivals. A mistake occurs that touches off disaster. In several ways, TBI is a blend of the prior films' elements. Everyone dies. Richard Widmark stars the tough captain. Sidney Poitier plays the journalist. And while Poitier is black, his role is race-neutral.

  Quick Plot Synopsis
Journalist Ben Munceford (Poitier) and Dr. Chester Potter (Martin Balsam) are dropped aboard a US Navy destroyer on patrol in the arctic. As they both go about their different tasks, they both discover that something is oddly different about Captain Finlander (Widmark) and his crew. Finlander is certain there is a Russian submarine sneaking around the waters off Greenland, scouting for nuclear missile launching positions. Eventually, they detect the unseen sub and follow it amid the ice floes, far inside Greenland's territorial waters. Finlander forces the sub to stay submerged, using up its air and batteries. He wants to force it to the surface, as he had to a sub off Cuba years ago. He wants to "catch" the commies red handed. His superiors, however, order him to only watch and wait. This infuriates Finlander. The sub makes a break for the open ocean and slips back into international waters. While all this cat-and-mouse action is going on, Ben slowly exposes Finlander as a driven and somewhat unstable mix of Ahab's obsessiveness and Queeg's paranoia. Potter comes to see the crew as over-stressed and Finlander as an heartless authoritarian. Out in the ocean, Finlander still manages to keep the sub submerged, making the sub commander increasingly desperate. Finlander demands it surface "and be recognized." The sub radios to its mother ship. No answer comes, so the Russian commander is on his own. The sub rises enough to put its air vent up. Finlander has the Bedford charge it and force him back under. The Bedford's crew are on edge, having been at battle stations far too long. At one point, asked why he has his weapons systems armed if he doesn't plan to fire the first shot, Finlander replies, "If he fires one, I'll fire one." Ensign Ralston, often castigated for hesitating, hears "fire one" and pushes the button. The rocket propelled nuclear-warhead torpedo flies off the ship. People scramble to try and send disarm signals, but it's too late. The torpedo finds its mark. Four sonar blips indicate that the Russian commander fired his torpedos too, before he was destroyed. The Bedford cannot evade all four. Still photos of the significant actors each get a melted-film effect. A mushroom cloud rises into the sky. The End.

  Armageddon
Where the well-known films in the doom genre dealt with armageddon on a global scale, TBI plays out the same scenario, but in microcosm. The American destroyer Bedford and the Russian sub, nicknamed "Big Red," serve as proxies for the two super powers. The two jockey and maneuver, each armed with nuclear weapons. In a blend of the tropes of the doom genre, both a madman and a mistake cause the mutual doom. The ending, in which the still images of the key players degrade with a melting-film effect, is similar to the ending in Fail Safe. Brinksmaship goes bad. Everyone dies.

  Cold War Spotlight
The scenario in TBI is pure Cold War. At the margins of the globe, isolated elements of both sides' military play games of cat and mouse. Yet, it is not mere play. Even small "gains" in the game are seen as national victories. Any loss, no matter how small, is seen as the first domino in the chain to national ruin. Such inflated stakes infuse any loss with a flavor of disaster. Ensign Ralston, then, personified the average soldier. In their microcosm, the Bedford and Big Red play out the doctrine of "Mutually Assured Destruction", and nightmare everyone feared. Somehow, someone would launch the first rocket -- even if by mistake. From there, all hell would break loose. Everyone would die.

  Notes
Moby Dick II -- TBI is based on a 1963 novel by Mark Rascovich. His story was a Cold War recast of Melville's "Moby Dick". Knowing the classic tale, it's easy to see how Captain Finlander fits the role of Ahab. Journalist Ben Munceford assumes somewhat the role of Ishmael as the audience gets, essentially, his outsider look at everything. The submarine, "Big Red" takes on the role of the white whale, though with none of the destructiveness that the whale was given. In Melville's tale, the whale smashes some ships and kills some men -- almost more out of anger at being hunted than simple malice. In both Rascovich's novel and the screenplay, the Russian sub much more benign than the white whale.

Faceless Foe -- Interesting for a Cold War doom film, the "enemy" remains nameless and faceless. Finlander talks of untrustworthy "commies" and implies the terrible things they would do, but the lone representative of the Evil Empire is almost always unseen. For most of the movie, a sonar ping is the only evidence that there even is a foe. Towards the end, we hear some intercepted Russian radio and see the tip of the periscope. The Russian crew, relentlessly hunted into desperation are cast in an almost sympathetic light. This is unusual for a Cold War doom film.

  Wolf On Deck -- Enhancing the sympathetic tone (mentioned above), but complicating things a bit, is the presence of Commodore Schrepke, a German naval officer who had commanded a U-Boat in WWII. We're quickly told that he was not a Nazi, but an officer in Doenitz's navy. (Doenitz being the originator of the "wolf pack" tactic) As the veteran submarine commander, he was Finlander's "native guide" for the hunt. As much as Schrepke might dislike the Russians and be dutiful to his job as a guide, he was clearly torn. His heart was quietly rooting for "Big Red". On several occasions (such as when they almost lost the sub at the iceberg) it was subtly shown that Schrepke wanted the Russians to escape Finlander's relentless (and remorseless) pursuit.

  The Button -- TBI plays out one of the scenarios feared during the Cold War. A lower officer, somewhere, would get jittery and by mistake, "push the button." In TBI, this is played out by Ensign Ralston. He is constantly chided by Finlander for not acting quickly enough or obeying orders without question, etc. Near the end of the movie, Ralston is a hair-trigger. When he overhears Finlander say, "…I'll fire one…" he doesn't hesitate. He pushes the button, unleashing the doom of "Big Red" and the Bedford.

  Star Gazing -- Look for a young James MacArthur as the stressed-out Ensign Ralston. MacArthur would go on to become the famous Danny, in the TV series Hawaii-5-0, hence the immortal line: "Book 'em Danno." Martin Balsam plays the misfit doctor. Watch for Wally Cox (the voice of Underdog) as the "Radar O'Reiliy"-like sonar man, Merlin Queffle.

  Models Ahoy! -- A minor, but notable concession to budget, is that most of the shots of the Bedford as a whole ship, are models in tanks. The icebergs are foam or paper mache. Some actual footage aboard a British destroyer are used, but they're tight shots that mask (pretty much) the differences.

 Bottom line? TBI is a well made thriller with great acting too. For some of its tension, it relies on audiences already knowing and fearing a global nuclear war. Viewers without that fear (or understanding of it) could find themselves asking "what's all the fuss over?" Yet, TBI can be a good lesson in Atomic Angst for those trying to understand the zeitgeist of the era. This fear of total destruction underlies many Golden Era sci-fi.

The Green Slime

MGM produced this odd Japanese-American-Italian hybrid film in 1968. It played in Japan in 1968, America in 1969. The Green Slime was shot in Japan, using western actors speaking english (though often still dubbed). The story was written by one of the writers of the Italian Gamma One quadrilogy. One of the screenwriters was from the Batman TV series.The extensive models and miniatures work was done with former Toho craftsmen, guided by Akira Watanabe -- special effects director for many of Toho's kaiju epics. The resulting film is a medley of many flavors.

Quick Plot Synopsis
Space radar has detected a rogue asteroid named Flora which will hit Earth in 10 hours. General Thompson of United Nations Space Command sends up his best man, Jack Rankin and a team, to set explosives on the asteroid and destroy it. En route, there is a stop at space station Gamma 3. We learn of a former team mate and now simmering rivalry (for command and Dr. Lisa) between Jack and Vince Elliot, commander of Gamma 3. The beautiful italian doctor Lisa Benson is also abroad Gamma 3. The team embarks and lands on Flora. They drill for their explosives, but also discover green slime which is attracted to their gear. For no apparent good reason, Jack smashes the doctor's sample in a glass jar, spattering a bit of slime on the leg of a team mate. They all return to Gamma 3. They're decontaminated, but the slime fed on the energy and grew to a monster. It kills a couple of expendable crewmen. The doctor wants to save it for study, but it gets loose and kills still more. They discover that even drops of its green blood can grow into a new monster, so shooting them is a bad idea. Instead, they try to lure the (now) herd of monsters into a store room with a generator as bait. This eventually works, but the one they trapped in the infirmary grows too strong to contain and rampages, setting the others free too. After an explosion, the creatures are on the outside of the station, gathering energy from the sun. The station crew can't escape while creature keep the hatch closed, so Vince and a team go EVA and fight the monsters with laser rifles. Two escape ships get away. The last ship is ready to go, but Earth command can't control Gamma 3 remotely (to send it to a fiery doom). Jack stays behind to set the controls manually. He gets in trouble, but Vince comes to his rescue. In the fight, Vince is killed by a monster. Jack sets the controls, sending Gamma 3 hurtling earthward. He, with Vince's body, escape and are picked up by the third ship. Gamma 3 burns up obligingly, along with all the creatures stuck to its hull. On earth, a solemn ceremony (of sorts) commemorates Vince's sacrifice.

Why is this movie fun?
GS has many faults, which can make it amusing to watch in a sort of MST3K mood, but even if enjoyed as a "serious" B-grade sci-fi, it moves along at such a quick pace that viewers never have a chance to get bored.

Cold War Angle
There doesn't seem to be any real Cold War allegories going on. Instead, GS taps into the old Space Is Dangerous theme.

Notes
Gamma Five -- Fans of the Gamma One series will see many similarities, making GS almost the fifth installment in the series. Note the very similar modern cityscape, the Jetson cars, and of course, the big-wheel space station named, handily, "Gamma 3." Also similar are the characters. You have your hunky, gruff, bossy hero type, your rebellious rival and of course, your space babe who happens to be italian. Since Ivan Reiner was producer and writer for GS AND a writer for all four of the Gamma One stories, this similarity is no coincidence.

No Trope Unturned -- One interesting feature of GS is how many tropes it uses. Many of them have been entire movies on their own. The rogue object which will crash into earth has been done several times. When Worlds Collide ('51), The Day the Sky Exploded ('61) and Gorath ('62) to name just a few. Then there is the rogue monster hiding aboard and killing crewmen trope. The Thing ('51), It: Terror From Beyond Space ('58) and many others. Innocuous slime creatures: Space Master X-7 (58), The Blob ('58), H-Men ('59) to name some biggies. Mutiny in Outer Space ('65) featured a wheel-like space station overrun with some alien life (fungus instead of slime). GS is like a sampler platter of sci-fi plots.

Cast of Cliches -- With all the action in the plot of GS, there is no time for character development. As such, the writers have relied on stock characters at every turn. The hero is Mr. Gung-Ho guns ablazin' who is (almost) always right. His commander is gruff but it's all empty bluster, as the hero can do whatever he pleases. The rival can't do much of anything right, and "screwed up" in the past. He atones for his sins by sacrificing himself while saving the hero. The love interest is beautiful and torn between the flawed nice guy and the tough hero, but otherwise she's just a damsel in distress to be rescued or a prize to be fought over. The monsters are mindless killing machines. The misguided doctor wants to save the creature for study, but gets killed by it instead. (How many times has THAT been used?) Lastly, the crew is well stocked with expendable crewmen for the monsters to kill.

Hair of Iron -- Note how Jack's seriously cantilevered hair defies being mussed up, despite running, explosions, multiple tuck-and-roll escapes from creatures, and however many times he puts on and takes off his space helmet. That's tough heroic hair.

Bottom line? GS is proof that sci-fi had not necessarily matured just because Kubrik produced 2001. GS is a campy and at times absurd B sci-fi with a very strong 60s flavor. (note the colors, the styles, the dancing, the music ! The story has huge holes in it, leaving it ripe for riffing. Fans of the Gamma One series might appreciate this film as a sort of "lost episode." Those seeking thoughtful science fiction will likely catch themselves asking, "What were they thinking?"

The War Game

A dark companion to the Doom genre, which almost didn't see the light of day, is Peter Watkins' 1965 film, The War Game (TWG). It is a story about a fictional nuclear attack on Britain, particularly focused on communities and citizens in the Kent area. Instead of being told in a more conventional fiction style, like Fail Safe, or The Last War, etc., Watkins created a pseudo-documentary form. The BBC "reluctantly approved" the script, according to Watkins, and funded the project. He was warned that it might not get finished. When it was done, it was strong on the horrors of nuclear war and critical of government's planning. The BBC brass forbid it to be shown publicly. Much drama ensued. Despite their ban, TWG won an Academy Award for best documentary.

  Quick Plot Synopsis
A narrator opens, telling how Britain's nuclear deterrent policy is that it's V-force bombers would retaliate. Those bombers were dispersed around England to prevent being an easy target. This then exposed most Britons to danger. The flashpoint is told as American deployment of tactical nukes in South Vietnam. As a show of communist solidarity with the Chinese, Russia surrounded West Berlin. Skirmishes grew. The NATO troops in West Berlin were buckling. President Johnson allows use of tactical nukes on the Russians. This triggers a missile attack from Russia on NATO nations -- such as Britain. Evacuation had already begun as tensions mounted, but wasn't going smoothly. People complained that they were told to make shelters in their homes, but materials, such as sandbags, were in very short supply. Some with adequate shelters were belligerent about sharing. While a doctor is making a house call, a soviet missile explodes nearby. The flash blinds some people. The blast sets homes on fire. Firemen battle a warehouse blaze. The narrator recounts factoids about cities experiencing fire storms, like Dresden did. People tumble in the strong wind towards the flames. People collapse for lack of oxygen. British bombers cross the Russian border to drop bombs on people there. Several man-in-the-street clips have people saying they're all for retaliation. The dead are laid out in rows. Even Kent, which was lightly hit, suffered thousands of casualties. Hospitals could not care for all the wounded. Severely wounded were left to die, or shot in the head to end it quickly. Inadequate food supplies meant rationing, but emergency workers (police, fire and civil defense) were fed first. This set off food riots. Police and troops guarding the food are killed. Looters and those thought to kill policemen were executed. A doctor tells how inadequate vitamin C would mean scurvy would be common in a few months. A priest manually turns a record player, playing Silent Night at Christmas. Gaunt parishioners sit motionless. Children asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, replied. "Nothin'" The narrator recounts how nuclear stockpiles have doubled and continue to grow. He predicts that the scenes just watched are likely to happen before 1980. End text says the film was based on information from the bombings of Dresden, Darmstadt, Hamburg, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The End.

  Armageddon Unavoided
Watkins plays out what he thinks a nuclear strike would be like on the populace. Watkins' conviction was that the British were ill-prepared for what would happen if the unthinkable did happen, so he told his story from point of view of the hapless. Where prior films in the genre stopped at the moment of the blast -- leaving the viewer to imagine the awful outcome -- Watkins showed that outcome. Narrators told of melted eyeballs. A nurse talked of a boy with his legs burned off, etc. Make-up portrayed many facial burns and open sores. TWG would have been the 1960s' shocker film, as The Day After was in the 80s. had the BBC not succeeded in stifling it until much later.


Cold War Spotlight
While not as blatantly propagandistic as Rocket Attack U.S.A. was for the pro-nukes side, TWG was more powerfully propagandistic on the disarmament side. It played out a similar scenario to others in the genre, about how a smaller squabble becomes the flashpoint for WWIII.

  Notes
It's Only A Movie -- From reading accounts of people who saw TWG as youths, some people at the BBC may have been right. They came away feeling like they had seen actual footage of a nuclear attack. Television, and the documentary, still had some credibility. If it was presented as news, it must be true. Yet, TWG was a work of fiction: actors in make-up, being filmed by a crew, saying lines memorized from the script. It helped that Watkins used no famous actors. He did a brilliant job creating his "what if". People easily forgot they were watching a movie. The documentary style for fiction was not new in 1965, but rare enough to catch viewers off guard. Note Watkin's use of fast cuts and wiggly-cam, intercut with stiff man-in-the-street "interviews". Sprinkle in a few equally stiff "experts" (always unnamed) and some text onscreen. The fabric of the film is so broken that it appears to not have a story line -- but it does.
  Live and Let Die -- Watkins theorizes that a management shake-up at the BBC mean his script got more approval than it might have otherwise. Perhaps finding themselves between ideological rocks and reality hard places, they let his project come to life, but warned that it could get killed later. Sure enough, once complete, the BBC refused to air it, or allow it to be shown. They blew smoke about it being an "artistic failure" but were happy enough to accept the Academy Award for it, nonetheless.
  Awkward Position -- Nuclear disarmament was a hot and divisive issue in the early 60s. Prime Minister Harold Wilson's Labor Party had supported unilateral nuclear disarmament (before his PM-ship) Around three-quarters of the CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) were Labor Party members. Things were already unsettled when Wilson's government not only didn't push for disarmament, but expanded Britain's nuclear force. (Perhaps, like other "opposition" politicians, it was easy to promise things which, once in office, were proven to be not nearly so easy, or even a bad idea after all). All this inner turmoil did not help Watkins' project. His pro-disarmament propaganda piece (TWG), which was critical of the government, was doubly embarrassing for Wilson's Labor coalition. Small wonder that politicians pressured the BBC to make it go away quietly.
  Propaganda Spin? -- The label of "propaganda" is usually assigned to views one disagrees with. Watkins' ideology is transmitted by the more subtle directorial arts (as opposed to the ham-fisted writing in Rocket Attack USA). He portray's only exposure victims, not survivors who did take shelter. The British bombers were reported as going to bomb people not military targets. In focusing on the victims, Watkins handily avoids the larger, driving issue of international power, of which nukes are just one tool. He often cites what happened in Hamburg and Dresden for the horrors of war, but skips that those were "conventional" wars resulting from international power struggles. Watkins had the luxury that pre-Prime Minister Wilson had. It's easy to take a bold stand, when you don't have to balance the whole cart.
  Python Moment? -- At one point, about half way in, text on the screen says: "An Ecumenical Council meeting at the Vatican says that the faithful should learn to live with,though need not love, the nuclear bomb, provided it is clean, and of a good family." Given the grim seriousness of the topic, this insertion has a bizarre Monte Python quality to it. One wonders what Watkins was thinking with this.

 Bottom line? TWG is a good example of the disarmament voice in the Cold War era. As a film, it is particularly well done. People forget that they're watching actors reciting lines, wearing "burn" makeup, and think they're watching reality. Watkins' skill as a director can be seen in how much TWG does not look directed. The horror he portrays is that taboo topic everyone back then knew: nuclear war would be terrible. The mood of the day preferred it left unsaid, with mutant monsters standing in as metaphors.

The Body Stealers

Tigon Pictures sought to produce a more general-audience film than its usual exploitation and horror fare. The Body Snatchers (TBS) was certainly a milder project, though perhaps too mild. Patterned, in part, along the traditional sci-fi trope of alien abductions and substitutions, that plot line itself is abducted by low-budget James-Bond-esque elements. An uneasy alliance of government, military and scientists try to uncover the mystery of 14 men who disappeared in "Thin Air" (an alternate title). The film features a couple familiar (if not that big) names, such as George Sanders and Maurice Evans, but is mostly filled out with lesser or obscure actors.

  Quick Plot Synopsis
Three men skydive to test out a Jim's new parachute design. While they're floating down, they disappear. Only their chutes come to earth. At an air show, exhibition skydivers also disappear without a trace. Jim (Niel Connery, yes, Sean's brother) and General Armstrong (Sanders) want all parachute jumps cancelled while they investigate. Mr. Hindsmith, a Minister's aide, blusters pompously. Jim and Armstrong are told to investigate quietly to avoid publicity. Jim calls on Bob Megan (Patrick Allen), who has an overactive libido. Cynical Bob doesn't really care, but takes the job for $25,000. Bob finds a parachute pack buckle on the airfield. Later that night, Bob comes across a tall leggy blond on the beach. He quickly puts the moves on Lorna, who kisses back, but runs away and disappears. Later, Jim tells Bob to "lay off the dames." They meet Dr. Julie Slade who is not charmed by Bob. Word comes in that they found one of the missing men, but he dies. Later still, Bob is killing time on the beach. Lorna reappears, apologizes for running off. They kiss some more. It's implied that they go far beyond that. Next morning, Jim comes upon them, taking photos. Lorna runs away again. At the hotel, Julie calls with news. Before she can tell Bob, she's knocked out. Bob rushes to the lab. She's sore, but okay. Dr. Matthews thinks it might all be something extraterrestrial, but Bob scoffs. Julie explains that the fiber of the parachutes and even dead Harry's tissues were changed. Radiation? Maybe something more. The parachutes are gone. Bob fetches his buckle. It tests radioactive too. Jim's photos showed only Bob. Lorna did not photograph. Bob plans to do a skydive himself, in a radiation-proof suit, to investigate. Lorna tries to talk him out of it. He goes on up. Jim chases Lorna into the woods. Sees something. Screams, and is later found dead. Bob parachutes, feels the same pain, sound and disappears for a short while. He reappears, but remembers nothing. Bob goes to talk to Armstrong. Julie goes to find the now-missing Matthews. At Matthew's dark and spooky house, Julie looks down in the creepy basement. She finds Matthews (dead) and under glass. She turns and delivers two really serious screams, then faints. Bob finds Lorna at the beach again. Hug, kiss. Meanwhile, Armstrong finds out that Matthews signed the test papers saying the chute's were fine. Bob follows Lorna to Matthews house, where he finds the fainted Julie. One of the aliens. named Martis, appears, looking like Matthews. Exposits about how their planet, Mygon, is dying of a plague and they needed these kidnapped men to help them. Martis plans to kills Bob and Julie for knowing too much, but lurking Lorna stuns Martis with her ray gun. Bob persuades Lorna to leave the kidnapped men. He'll drum up a squad of volunteers when she comes back in a year. The men start to wake up. Jim walks Lorna to her ship. They hug and kiss some more, then she disappears, as does the ship. No one will believe the whole incident, so Hindsmith says to lose the files and just pretend it never happened. The military men smile and agree. Julie flies off with Bob in his private plane. The End.

  Why is this movie fun?
Another iteration of the venerable body-snatcher trope has a level of fun, even if done poorly. The aerial footage adds some visual fun. Aviation fans get a few more visual treats too.

  Cold War Angle
With the mixture of traditional themes and tropes, it is doubtful that the writers or producer were crafting anything related to the Cold War.

  Notes
Snatchers -- The premise plays on the old body-snatchers trope of Golden Era sci-fi. The aliens in TBS are both simple kidnappers, but also the traditional form-takers. They do all this, not to invade, but because they need humans to help them with their plague problem. Though one wonders what earthling parachutists would have had to offer this Mygonian civilization that builds interplanetary space cruisers and has ray weapons.

  Ol' Fashioned Abduction? -- The original story had perhaps come from late 50s, or early 60s when alien-takeover was still cool). Even the title is obviously close to the 1956 classic. By 1967, when They Came From Beyond Space was produced, the trope was already tired. There are some small hints that the original script may have been intended for an American production that wasn't especially forthcoming. Note that Jim refers to women as "dames" (not a british-ism) and also promises to pay Bob 20,000 dollars (not pounds).

  Too Much Plot? -- The traditional plot of aliens abducting humans and taking on human form, was itself abducted and took on the form of a "free love" spy "thriller." The newer writers were much more interested in Bob's rapid sexual conquests than aliens abducting people. What was the point of Jim discovering that aliens can be photographed? If poor Harry's body was transformed into something "else", what about all those men in the basement waking up? Aren't they something "else" too? What about the plague on planet Mygon? If the Minister wants it all to have "never happened", will there be any volunteers like Bob said? Ministerial denial is tidy, but Lorna is coming back in a year. What then? The writers had far too many ideas to ever get resolved in one low-budget movie.

  Cheap Dames -- A curious feature to TBS is how women are portrayed. Except for Dr. Julie, they're little more than objects for sexual conquest -- even if they're aliens. In that vein, the alien-of-interest is a tall blond with long legs and fond of short short short skirts, though she never appears in the two-piece shown in the poster. Hindsmith's secretaries smilingly accept that their job is to "please" the boss. The poor hotel keeper, Mrs. Thatcher (a past-prime woman fond of deep-cut necklines) blatantly wishes she could "please" like the young girls, but gets no offers. Yes, movies are short, but Bob's character is written such that serious necking, (and more, if time allows) routinely follows "Hi, what's your name?"


Good Alien / Bad Alien -- We only get two aliens: Lorna and Martis. She is "good", while he is "bad." She is enjoying the sensuality of the human form (skinny dipping, sex, etc.). She develops compassion for us lowly humans. Martis is heartless and goes about his kidnapping mission with no remorse. Good triumphs over evil. This duality is also an old trope. The Brain From Planet Arous ('57) being a flagrant example. Teenagers From Outer Space ('59) also featured the alien who gets a soft spot for earthlings because of "love."

  Talk is Cheap -- The producers and director followed the B film solution to having too much story for their budget. Quite often, the characters sit in plain rooms talking about events off camera rather than those events being filmed. Talk is much cheaper than special effects or stunts. Some missing elements suggest that the aerial footage might have eaten most of the meager budget, forcing the cheap talk. Jim sees something behind the tree, screams and dies. Julie sees what we must assume is the alien Martis in his horrible native form. She screams and faints. This would have been the logical spot for the director to show the hideous alien (model, mask, makeup, post-production optical effects…something) even if only briefly. But we see nothing, making her scream pretty pointless. Perhaps there was no budget left for it. The omission leaves an odd hole.

  Prop Watch -- You have to wait until the final few minutes of the movie, but you get to find out that Lorna and Martis are (or must be) Dalek's. Her ship is clearly the saucer-cruiser featured in Dalek's Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. ('66). Tigon must have paid some licensing fee for the use of the model from Amicus Productions. Perhaps they paid by the minute, as the appearance is very brief.

  Plane Crazy -- A visual treat for aviation buffs is the multiple appearances of the De Havilland DH89 "Dragon Rapide" twin-engine biplane. First built in 1934, the DH89s were a mainstay of pre-war local passenger service. It's an unusual plane for American audiences. Also of minor interest is Bob's personal plane, a Beagle Pup. The Beagle company was on hard times and hoped the Pup would be a popular private aviation machine. It wasn't popular enough. Beagle made it for only two years, 68-70) then went into receivership.

 Bottom line? Viewers with a low tolerance for very cheaply done films might want to give TBS a miss. Fans of cheap Bond knock-offs will get to see Bob try to jump anything with two X chromosomes. TBS is definitely a weak member of the alien-takeover genre, but fans of that flavor will find a little bit to like. The airfield settings and occasional skydiving are different, but perhaps not enough for most folks.

Rocket Attack U.S.A.

It would be easy to dismiss Rocket Attack U.S.A. (RA) as one of those worst-movie-ever films, but that would be too hasty. RA is part of the same Doom genre as Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe, and a product of its time. It was produced, directed and probably written by Barry Mahon. One-man-show productions usually suffer for lack of review, and RA is no exception. Mahon may have aspired to be a Roger Corman, an Ed Wood Jr. or perhaps a Larry Buchanan. He wasn't up to even that level, but it wasn't for lack of trying. With RA, he was certainly topical, and actually beat the more famous members to the screen.

Quick Plot Synopsis
A narrator tells how Sputnik changed modern warfare with musing over what valuable data it was collecting for the Russians. The head of American spy operations in West Berlin assigns John Marston, his "best man" to find out if the Russians are gathering data from Sputnik. He will meet a girl in Moscow who will help. John is flown across the boarder in a small plane, then makes his way to Moscow on foot. There, he meets up with Tannah (Tanya?) in the night club she works in. Later, he comes to her apartment. She explains that as mistress to the Minister of Defense. "When the pig is drunk, he talks." She knows the Russians already have all the data they need and are completing their missile. John persuades her to let him stay in her apartment. In the Kremlin, generals and leaders debate whether to attack soon or not. Back in the Pentagon, general Watkins hears that American missile plans are lagging. The rocket scientist bemoans lack of funding. Back in Moscow, Tannah tells John that Joseph (the pig) is taking her to the missile base. While she's away, a British agent named Morris Steel comes by to give John explosives to blow up the Russian missile. In the Kremlin, the hawks prevail and the launch is set for tonight. At the missile base, John meets up with Tannah. Guards arrest Morris. Another guard follows John and Tannah's footprints. He shoots Tannah, but she pulls out a pistol and shoots him too. John sneaks inside the fence and places the bomb. He sneaks out, but is shot by yet other guards. Soldiers take his bomb off the missile. Meanwhile, in New York, people go about their routine lives. A radio announcer pooh-pooh's his wife's worries and goes to work. A brooklyn warehouse worker tells his wife he'll wear a tie on the next date. A financier lands by small seaplane to manage his wealth. Bill Deale, the announcer, tells how America has launched some satellites too and how there is an important meeting at the Kremlin. Meanwhile, back at the Russian missile base, the order to fire comes through. With much beeping, the missile is finally launched. General Watkins laments that America has no anti-missile defenses. Sirens blare, but drill-weary New Yorkers aren't taking it serious. Cue Bikini Atoll test blast footage. Shots of burning rubble represent New York. A burning necktie hangs from T-shirt man's battered truck door. The narrator talks of how selfish interests lead to all this. Text on screen says: "We cannot let this be -- The End." (but it is).

Armageddon Arrives
As in the more famous films, like Fail Safe, RA plays out the Cold War nightmare of a nuclear attack on America. We get to see the first missile fall on New York, with the same sort of literary device of showing us some "average" lives both rich and poor, before they're snuffed out. The story thread of wife Pat reluctantly sending husband Bill to work in NYC (from Hazlet, NJ) is reminiscent of the 1954 television drama, Atomic Attack. The stock footage of B-52s taking off in response to the incoming missile lets the viewer know that Russia was about to feel a similar fate. Burning rubble (of NYC) is then the fate of millions.

Cold War Spotlight
Unlike the others in the Atomic Doom genre, this nuclear attack was not the result of a mechanical glitch (Fail Safe, The Last War) or a single deranged mind (Dr. Strangelove), although in the latter, the "safeguards" which would have prevented a single man from starting the war were a procedural glitch. In RA, it is plain and simple aggression. The Russians want to attack America quickly any first before America catches up in the "missile gap." This was the nightmare lurking beneath most issues of the day. Will X or Y put us at a disadvantage?

Notes
Lobby By Fiction -- Some reviewers of RA chafe at its blatant socio-political agenda, as if such a thing were rare and out-of-bounds. Lobbying via fiction goes way back. In 1871, a Captain Chesney in the British Army was concerned about British military unpreparedness (compared to the Prussian army which just defeated France). So, to make his case for more military spending -- via fiction -- he wrote his famous novella, "The Battle of Dorking." This kicked off a whole genre of invasion fiction, which would be one of the roots of Golden Era sci-fi. Later, Erskine Childers would write his famous "Riddle in the Sands" (1903) as a wake-up call to British naval unpreparedness. There were many others, some with less subtle delivery of their lobbying payload. "If only Britain had not divided her fleet," or "If only Britain had voted for more warships…" It wasn't only rightist military agendas that got fiction-lobbying. Even modern environmentalism gets it's lobbying films in which the lead character laments aloud, "if only we hadn't cut down all the trees…" or "If only we had been more careful with the environment…" (as in the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still.) Same method, different agenda. RA is hardly unique in lobbying. It was just a bit too obvious for some people.

Slow Project -- Barry Mahon produced several low-budget films in the late 50s, very early 60s, before taking the easy route and producing soft porn titles like Bunny Yeager's Nude Camera, and The Adventures of Busty Brown. Before that slide, Mahon was on a more topical and Corman-esque trajectory. Rocket Attack used actors John MacKay (John) and Monica Davis (Tanya) which Mahon would also use in his Rebel Cuban Girls ('59) and The Dead One ('60). Judging from the cars, such as Pat Deale's gorgeous black 1956 Buick Special Estate Wagon, Mahon may have been shooting shortly after Sputnik set off the whole space scare in October 1957. The newest car seen, is a glimpse of a '58 Chevy Biscayne. In some ways, it seems like Mahon started out with one story about an attack on New York, then later inserted the spies in Russia segments. The isolated character groups (who don't interact) suggest Mahon shot this project over an extended period (not Corman's 10 days). Imdb lists the release date as 1961. Perhaps it took Mahon awhile to get RA marketed.

Missing Matte -- One spot in the film which suggests a certain low-budget air comes when the soviet officers go out to admire their missile. There's nothing there -- not even a shadow. He already had the aft-section mockup (what John puts the bomb on). Mahon may have intended to insert a shot of a more complete model or some matte art via post-production for the missile they're supposed to be admiring, but he didn't get to it. Perhaps he thought the scene was good enough as it was, so why waste the money. Indeed, in several shots, the actors somewhat stumble over their words, or have pauses while they recall their next line. For Mahon, pretty-good was good enough -- and more economical!

MST3K -- Mystery Science Theater 3000 lampooned RA in the fifth episode of their second season. It may be the only way for average folk to view RA. It is passable, but Joel and the bots do too much bantering and riffing to hear some of the softer lines. While not one of their best episodes, it is amusing at times. RA is a pretty low-quality film, so ripe for riffing.

Plane Crazy -- A bit of a stock footage treat are shots of the Lockheed EC-121 Warning Star, a forerunner of the more famous Boeing E-3 Sentry AWACS of the later Cold War. Also note the Piper Tri-Pacer, three-wheeled variant on Piper's Pacer model -- which was a big brother to Piper's famous Cub model -- as the little plane that smuggled John into Russia.

Bottom line? RA is a good compare-and-contrast film for great productions like Fail Safe. Watch the two as a New York Gets Nuked double feature. They're like siblings. One struck it rich while the other picked cabbages. If you cannot abide poorly made films, avoid RA. It's only a couple pegs above amateur. If you're looking for more insight into the Cold War mood, RA as a lobbying tool, is a perfect (if very cheap) example.

Blood Beast Terror

Tigon Productions seems to have been striving to play in Hammer Studios' market of monster-horror films, but on a shoestring budget. Blood Beast Terror (BBT) is the British title. It was marketed in America as Vampire-Beast Craves Blood. There is a scant amount of sci-fi to the plot, but for the most part BBT is classic (cliche) a horror-monster-crime hybrid. Peter Cushing stars as Inspector Quennell, who tries to solve a string of grisly murders, eventually centering on a rogue scientist and his creation.

Quick Plot Synopsis
BBT opens with some shots of victorian explorer Mr. Britewell in Africa gathering samples. Cut to England. A cabbie hears a man scream. When he finds the bloody victim, he is attacked by some big winged thing. Inspector Quennell (Cushing) visits a professor Mallinger, giving a lecture on insects. Quennell wants to ask about a student of Mallinger's, a pre-plot victim. No clues. Policemen bring the cabbie-found victim to the doctor for help, but the doctor secretly dispatches him. Mallinger's pretty daughter Clare distracts everyone. The cabbie raves insanely about giant wings. Britewell arrives with boxes of collected chrysalids from Africa for Mallinger, who is up to some breeding experiments with "deaths head" moths. Around the prior crime scene, are found large scales. Mallinger says he has no clue what they are. Clare flirts with Britewell, and after an amateur play presentation, takes him on a walk in the dark. Britewell is attacked by a "giant moth". When Britewell is found dead, Mallinger denies knowing who he is. When police figure out that this was a lie, Mallinger and Clare have already fled. The butler is found dead in a closet, and a locked room has several skeletons in it. Train station porters give Quennell a clue to where Mallinger may have gone. Quennell and his daughter Meg go on a vacation to the same town, pretending to be a banker and his daughter. While staying at the inn, Meg and another guest's son, William hit it off. William is an amateur entomologist. Meanwhile, in the country manor nearby, Clare takes a hungry liking to the gardener, Clem. She flirts with him. They go for a walk. She turns into the giant moth and kills Clem. Mallinger has been growing a man-sized cocoon in the stoney basement, so as to create a male were-moth for Clare's mate. But, it needs human blood. Clare absconds with Meg. After a transfusion and some post-hypnotic suggestion, Meg is released. Clem's body is found in the river with the same wounds as those in London. Quennell and sergeant Allen head for the manor, as does zombie-walking Meg for another dose. Mallinger changes his mind about breeding the male were-moth and burns it. Clare turns were-moth and kills Mallinger. She flees. Meg finds the dead Mallinger, screams and runs. She trips and drops her oil lamp, staring a fire. Quennell and the sergeant arrive in time to save her. Outside, Clare is walking with William and goes all were-moth on him. Quennell and Allen interrupt. Quennell starts a fire, which, of course, Clare-moth cannot resist. She flies close and catches on fire. As she dies, she turns briefly back into her beautiful woman-self, then turns to smoking ash. Quennell and Allen agree that no one will believe them. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
Mostly, Peter Cushing's superior acting save this film. The victorian era setting adds a bit of Sherlock Holmes air which is a nice break from future-dystopia films. In fact, the overall effect is that BBT is hybrid of Sherlock Holmes Meets The Wasp Woman.

Cold War Angle
There is no Cold War in BBT. It is the old Frankenstein myth recast. Misguided scientist tampers with nature, creates a monster, which kills him.

Notes
WereBeast -- At the heart of it, BBT is a blend of the classic werewolf mythos with dashes of Frankenstein. People turning into insects was far from new by 1968. By then, we had all three Fly films and Wasp Woman ('59) with which this film shares some underlying psychology. (predatory women).

Bad Bug? -- The "Death's Head" moth developed some superstitious air about it, but only because of the vaguely skull-like markings on its thorax. But that's about it. It's not carnivorous (like a wolf), nor aggressive and painful (like a wasp). It lives a life like most moths -- not very frightening. From the film, one would think the moths were nastier than killer bees.

Good Girl / Bad Girl -- Another standard element in many B movies is the casting of two women in opposite lights. A really "bad" female character is usually balanced by a "good" one. This could be a faint literary version Yin-Yang more than caution about feminism. Clare is not only the murderous were-moth, but she uses the suggestion of sex to trap her prey. We see her with some serious thigh showing in her play costume. She also flashes some considerable cleavage -- a fact advertised on both American and British posters. Clare is the harlot. To balance out Clare, the plot gives us Meg. She is young and pretty in a plain sort of way. Note that she wears dresses with high necks and has the air of innocence in her mannerisms. She is the good and chaste woman.

Got Plot Holes? -- Much of BBT relies on prior monster-horror films for its existence. Having seen so many of them, audiences could more easily just accept things without them being explained or making much sense. Why was Mallinger creating huge were-moths in the first place? Did he create Clare? Her title of "daughter" appeared to be a cover more than a fact. How had he managed to create a beautiful young woman? Nice trick. What was he going to do with a breeding pair of them? Unlike so many were-monster stories, Clare-moth is able to transform herself whenever she wished. How'd that work? And what happened to her floofy victorian dresses when she was in moth mode? What was the point of the butler with the disfigured face who liked to taunt the pet eagle? And then there's the story shortcut regarding the abduction of Meg. On minute she's riding with Clare in the buggy, the next, she's naked, unconscious and strapped to Mellinger's lab table. I suppose it didn't matter too much.

Foreshadowed Conclusion -- When gardener Clem lights his puny pile of leaves on fire, it makes no sense. Why bother? Except that then Clare has to walk past it so she can say she didn't like fire. This pretty well tips off her doom. Since everyone "knows" that moths are attracted to flames (which they aren't really), BBT gives us a fairly lame demise for the monster. She flies too close, catches on fire and burns. How handy. And, like most good were-monsters, she turns briefly back into a human as she dies, as if to underscore there were-part for a modicum of sympathy.

Bottom line? BBT is a fairly predictable blend of familiar characters and tropes which yield an rather underwhelming monster story. Peter Cushing is good, but he cannot carry the story alone. If you think you'd like to see Sherlock Holmes battle the Werewolf / Wasp Woman, BBT might have some entertainment value. Sci-fi fans who expect a bit more science (i.e. sense), may find BBT slow and annoying.

Fail Safe

Curiously, Columbia Pictures ended up with two Brink-Of-War films in 1964. Fail Save (FS) came out 10 months after Columbia's Dr. Strangelove. They're bookends. FS was well directed and well filmed. It had big name actors, such as Henry Fonda and Walter Matthau. It even had some "free" pre-release publicity. Yet, FS did not do well. Unlike the satire, Dr. Strangelove, FS was a serious drama on the same topic, but following comedy made it harder to be taken seriously. The film deserved better. Watch for a young Dom DeLuise in his first film. A bit part as Sgt. Collins.

Quick Plot Synopsis
General Black wakes from a recurring bad dream, but composes himself, leaves his wife and two boys in New York City and flies to a pentagon briefing. Professor Goetschele (Matthau) is a political scientist and advisor to the Pentagon. He thinks nuclear war can be survived. The real question is which superpower is better prepared to survive and emerge. At an Air Force Base in Omaha, generals give a tour for a congressman. They get a brief moment of tension as a UFO scrambles fighters and puts patrolling bombers on alert. The UFO turns out to be commercial plane off course. A faulty circuit box is replaced, causing a brief blip in the system. This blip sends the attack order to bomber Group 6. They head for Moscow. The Russians have a radio jammer going, so the recall order doesn't get to Group 6. The President (Fonda), the Pentagon and Omaha base confer on what to do. The President orders some fighters to intercept and shoot down the bombers. But, with such a head start, they fail to reach them. Hawks among the advisors, such as Colonel Cascio and Professor Groeteschele urge that America capitalize on the error and launch a massive first strike. Win the Cold War right now. Doves among the advisors speak of the millions killed and moral wrong. The President calls the Russian Premier to discuss options. After some bickering and jockeying, and the Soviet's failure to shoot down all the bombers, the President orders defense secrets given to the Russians to improve their success. This works, but patriotic Colonel Cascio can take no further compromise and takes command of the Omaha SAC base. He is taken into custody. The Russians shoot down all but one bomber. Their last defense is to launch up all their surface to air missiles (heat seekers), in hopes of making a fireball and trap the low flying bomber. To prove his sincerity that it was all an accident, the President tells the Premier that if the bomber gets through and Moscow is bombed, he will order an American bomber to bomb New York City. The trade is horrible, but keeps the general peace. Grady, the pilot of the bomber, figures out the Russian missile tactic and evades it. The blast irradiates them (he says) so they decide to blow up with their bombs over Moscow. The President hear's the ambassador's phone squeal, so orders General Black to drop the bombs on New York. He does, then injects himself with poison. He realizes he is the matador from his dream. Routine life in NYC is shown in mini-video vignettes. They all zoom in and freeze frame for the moment the bombs explode. The End.

Armageddon
All four of the big Nuclear Doom movies came out of the late 1950s. On the Beach ('59) was the first movie. The stories from which Fail Safe and Dr Strangelove would come, were written in 1958. The Last War came out in 1961. At that time, Russia had the bomb, and post-Sputnik ('57), they'd proven they had capable rockets too. Diplomacy was not going well. Things looked especially bleak. The Cuban Missile Crisis was coming together. All four stories imagined the unimaginable -- that global nuclear war would happen, and wipe out all life on earth. In FS, it is only the two major cities, Moscow and New York that are wiped out, but they serve as proxies, representatives for what would happen to the whole world if that terrible compromise had not been reached.

Influence on Sci-fi
As mentioned before, many of the post-armageddon stories that populate sci-fi, usually pick up their stories well after the above-mentioned nuclear armageddon has taken place. These four apocalyptic films serve as understood footnotes for how those future worlds of mutants and cave-dwelling remnants got that way.

Cold War Spotlight
FS is pretty much 100% Cold War as a topic, but a little bit of American boosterims manages to seep through. The American President is the cool, calm leader type. The Russian Premier (all off camera) is more flighty and prone to brag and bluster. American weapons and defense systems are superior to the Russians. The moral of the film is delivered by Fonda near the end, talking to the Russian Premier. "We're to blame, both of us. We let our machines get out of hand. Today we had a taste of the future. Do we learn from it, or go on the way we have What do we say to the dead? We must say that it will not happen again. What we put between us, we can remove." FS preaches reconciliation.

Notes
Battle of the Books -- Before both films, Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe, had been released, there was a rather public legal battle. The writer of the story that would become the basis for Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, sued the writers of the book "Fail Safe." (published in 1962) for plagiarism. While the book had been on the shelves for over a year, it was news of Max Youngstein (former of United Artists) working on a film version of "Fail Safe" that prompted the suit. Peter George's "Red Alert" was published in 1958. He alleged plagiarism. Harvey Wheeler, one of the authors of "Fail Safe" countered that the book was based on his prior story, "Abaraham '58" and that George took no legal action until news of the movie broke. The parties settled out of court, with part of the settlement being that Columbia be granted rights to the Fail Safe. Now Columbia had two Doom movies.

Early Trace -- Harvey Wheeler asserted that he did not plagiarize Peter George's "Red Alert", but wrote a similar story a year earlier. His short story had a similar scenario and was titled "Abraham '58". There is a hint of this in the screenplay. At one point, the President asks Blacky if he remembers his Old Testament. Particularly the story of Abraham. Not much more is said in the movie, but this was a reference to events in Genesis 22, where Abraham follows orders from God to sacrifice his son Isaac on the altar. (God stops him at the last minute.) Wheeler used this imagery for a president's burden in deciding people's fates, hence his title. Perhaps this is a bit of his short story that survived into the script. It's interesting that Wheeler assumed he could include a mere mention of Abraham and that his audience would be familiar enough with the Bible to catch his inference.

Nascent Technophobia -- The distrust (if not fear) of machines had been perking in the background during the 50s. It showed up only a few times. In Gog ('54), robots and computers kill, but it is still by a human (enemy) hand guiding them. In Invisible Boy ('57), a super computer becomes sentient and tries to take over. Amid the Cold War, technophobia got a huge boost as people realized the vast power (nukes) that their machines controlled. In the Marathon of Doom films (see below), mechanical failures are the sparks that blow up the world. Fear of computers would grow as the 60s and 70s wore on. These Doom films highlight that moment when people realized they had voluntarily yielded too much power and responsibility to them. Many a sci-fi tale would spring from this.

Dying Phones Squeal? -- An iconic element in FS was the pronouncement that they would know if the bombs were dropped on Moscow because the phone line would emit a loud squeal as the ambassador's phone melted. It's dramatic, like a symbolic technological metaphor for the screams of the millions of Moscovites. The reality would be less dramatic. A nuclear bomb would be more likely to have broken phone lines (simple, undramatic dead air) than it would have left them intact long enough to melt the phone. The death squeal is undeniably more powerful for storytelling, though.

Star Plane -- Where Dr. Strangelove had some of its story play out in the cramped interior of a B-52, FS's counterpart was the cramped cockpit of a Convair B-58. In real life, the B-58 was called "Hustlers." In the movie, they're called "Vindicators". (Also note how the planes are always shown in negative) In reality, the B-58 was America's ace in the Cold War game. Capable of flying at mach 2 and very high, it was thought that the Hustler would be nearly impossible for the Soviets to stop, far better than the huge, lumbering B-52s. Strategic Air Command imagined the B-58 performing just the role depicted in the film. Actually, advances in Soviet missile technology made high altitude approaches too risky. The B-58 was then planned to fly in low, under radar, but at the lower altitude, it could not fly as fast. The B-58 was also tricky to fly and expensive to maintain. By the mid-60s, the Pentagon sought a better, less expensive alternative. By 1970, the B-58 was retired. The FB-111 was that smaller, cheaper alternative. Ironically, the B-52s that the Hustler was designed to replace, stayed in active service into the 21st century as the only viable carrier of air-launch cruise missiles.

Doom Marathon -- An interesting movie marathon (though not necessarily a "fun" one), would be to start off with The Last War ('61) for a third party's view of Armageddon-Via-Mistakes. Follow that with Fail Safe ('64) for an American view of the same scenario (just expand Moscow/New York to mean the world). Third up should be Dr. Strangelove ('64) for a satirical view of the same. Stop there if you wanted a fun evening with friends. But, if you wanted the complete Atomic Angst experience, wrap it up with On The Beach ('59) for that last forlorn look at mankind's end. Any Generation Y or Millennial who doesn't understand what everyone was so stressed about back in the Cold War days, should have a pretty good idea after this Marathon of Doom.

Bottom line? FS is a solid film, well paced, well acted, and visually strong (aside from the odd negative airplanes). It is well worth watching as a drama-thriller, but especially so as a window into the soul of Cold War fears.