“Robert Wise: The Motion Pictures,” by Joe Jordan

Title: Robert Wise: The Motion Pictures
Author: Joe Jordan
Contributors: Gavin MacLeod, Douglas E. Wise
Edition: illustrated 
Publisher: BearManor Media, 2020
ISBN: 1629335363, 978-1629335360
Length: 506 pages

“Robert Wise: The Motion Pictures,” by Joe Jordan is a product of meticulous research by the author, covering a period of over fifty years. It contains detailed plot synopses and commentary of many of Robert Wise’s memorable and important films. 

By photo by Alan Light, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2227156

Robert Wise began his film career at RKO as a sound and music editor. He later became more involved in editing film content and went to work for RKO film editor William "Billy" Hamilton. At RKO, Wise worked with Orson Welles on “Citizen Kane” (1941) and was nominated for the Academy Award for Film Editing.

In his role as producer and director, Wise aimed for establishing a connection to the viewer and had a reputation for a strong work ethic, attention to detail, budgetary thrift and well-researched preparation for a film. 

Of relevance to this blog is Robert Wise’s film “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, a classic science fiction masterpiece that warned about the dangers of atomic warfare.

Other films of Robert Wise that have stayed in my mind over the years are;

• “I Want To Live” (1958)
• “Run Silent, Run Deep” (1958)
• “The Haunting” (1963)
• “The Andromeda Strain” (1971) 

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19705323 

• "Startrek The Motion Picture" (1979)

Joe Jordan's book includes over twenty interviews, as well as presenting a comprehensive analysis of Robert Wise’s work. 

I am sure that after reading this fascinating tribute, you’ll come away with an even greater appreciation of this two-time winner of the Academy Award for Best Director – the legendary Robert Wise. 

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A Tribute

Rosetta and Joe Jordan

Joe's Robert Wise book is dedicated to his father and it is very sad to note the recent sudden passing of his father.

Joe's mother, Rosetta preceded her husband in death by 37 years. He missed her so much and never remarried.

Joe has managed to find comfort in knowing that both of his parents are finally together again. It is also of comfort to Joe that his father was able to enjoy the revised edition of his son's book prior to his passing.

According to Joe, "My father was so excited to receive his copy of the Robert Wise book. You should have seen the look on his face when he found out the book is dedicated to him. My father was always a big fan of The Sand Pebbles," (a 1962 novel by American author Richard McKenna about a Yangtze River gunboat and its crew in 1926. In 1966 it was used as the storyline for a movie of the same name starring Steve McQueen and directed by none other than Robert Wise.)

Our condolences go out to Joe for his loss along with our best wishes and kind thoughts. I'm certain his father would have been very proud of Joe.

Sci-Fi Stories That Inspired Classic Sci-Fi Films: "The Day Of The Triffids" (1951)

Steve Sekely’s 1962 film version of Wyndham’s novel is perhaps the best known with other superior adaptations that followed with the 1981 and 2009 BBC TV mini-series. Each seems to approach the story from the standpoint of the prevalent concerns and preoccupations of the era in which they were made.

The 1962 film version seems to opt for a more sci-fi / horror angle at the expense of Wyndham’s story with its backdrop Cold War considerations and fears along with philosophical discussions of the nature of human civilisation.

John Wyndham’s classic science fiction story opens with a man called Bill waking up in a hospital room to find the world he once knew utterly transformed - a world gone blind overnight!

The opening chapter contains an atmosphere of dread as Bill senses without the aid of his sight that the outside world sounds more like a quiet Sunday rather than a typical Wednesday. There is an overwhelming feeling of something not at all being quite right.

With only his sense of hearing to guide him, the striking of the clock indicates that it is now nine o’clock. However, the time his bandages were supposed to be removed was at eight – what on earth has been happening in the meantime?

Unknown to Bill, while he had been asleep after his eye operation, a cosmic event caused the majority of the population who witnessed it to go blind.

Added to the horror of mass blindness is the danger posed to humanity in the form of a plant known as a triffid.

Humanity in its complacency, however did not count on a cosmic event causing global mass blindness and providing the triffids with an opportunity to escape their confinement and become THE apex predator with human beings becoming their prey. For the triffids you see, cannot see but are drawn to noise and therefore their prey cannot avoid them for long! 

What of are some of the changes and differences between the book and the movie?

Wyndham’s Novel	Sekely’s 1962 Film Version
The triffids had been contained and were farmed to produce a vegetable oil substitute and help to ease the global food supply problem.	The light show of the meteor shower has caused the triffids and the plants have somehow been mutated by the event.
Bill is a biologist and triffid expert who had been hit by a triffid.	Bill is a merchant navy officer, who missed the meteor shower because he was in hospital with his eyes bandaged after an operation
Central female character is part of the important love story.	Central female character reduced to screaming damsel in distress.
Josella is saved by Bill from being beaten in the middle of the street. -Modern woman for the times. -Unmarried by choice. -Author of ‘Sex Is My Adventure.' -Gained a notorious ‘reputation.’ -Self-reliant Appearance of Susan later in the story.	No Josella! Just a screaming biologist, Karen!
Crowd panic, chaos in the streets with loss of sight and reason. Few traffic accidents due to suddeness of blindness overnight.	Car and bus crashes and wreckage along with train and pane crashes.
Greater sense of isolation and no communication with the rest of the world.	Bill hops across to France and Spain and radios seem to still function
Coker kidnaps Bill and Josella to help with his plan to look after and feed the blind. His plan falls apart when a sickness starts killing off people in London.	Coker is a British tourist in France.

What individuals and a society will do and the choices that are made in the face of a calamity is a central feature of Wyndham’s story. So too is the question of the value of our cherished moral and social belief systems when put to the test by the sheer necessity of survival. Placed along side Windham’s novel, the film version is little more than a disappointing monster movie with ordinary special effects and little substance. Of greater interest are the subsequent TV mini-series versions and their respective treatments of Wyndham’s story.

*************** 

I wonder how long it will be before Wyndham’s story along with the various screen adaptations are consigned to the bonfire by the PC lunatic brigade on the grounds of insufficient minority representation, gender discrimination or cruelty against vegetation! I’m off now to enjoy my copy of the film classic, “Gone With The Wind” while I can before the final Fahrenheit 451 solution is applied.

I'll try not to knock over any statues or monuments on my way by being dragged along by swirling currents in a sea of slogans spewing out of mindless moronic mob mouths whose sense and knowledge of history extends as far back as this morning's breakfast. I may need, however to dodge any microbial passengers that have hitched a ride on them!

Full Movie

Audio drama link

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Audiobook Link

©Chris Christopoulos 2020

Sci-Fi Stories That Inspired Classic Sci-Fi Films: 'The Body Snatchers' by Jack Finney (1955)

In the small Californian town of Santa Mira, medical doctor, Miles Bennell begins to notice that something is not quite right with its inhabitants. On the surface, the good folks of Santa Mira seem to be themselves, but in ways that Miles can’t put his finger on they are definitely not themselves.

Miles, together with his high school sweet heart and returning divorcée, Becky Driscoll and good friends Jack and Teddy Belicec, soon uncover an alien plot involving an invasion of this slice of small town America. They discover that people are being copied by means of large pods and replaced with duplicates who appear and behave just like them but who display no discernible human emotions and seem to lack human spirit and soul.

Can the invasion be prevented before it spreads beyond the borders of Santa Mira?

Can the surviving humans of this town resist the invaders and avoid the fate of their fellow townsfolk? 

Will human individuality be crushed by the forces of alien conformity?

Trailer

Spoilers follow below…..

'Invasion Of The Body Snatchers' (1956)

Broadly speaking, there isn’t a great deal of difference between Finney’s novel and Don Siegel’s screen adaptation. One difference involves the Belicecs and Becky who in the film version succumb to the alien pod plot.

Unlike the start of Finney’s book, the film opens with Miles in a hospital emergency room. His appearance is disheveled and his behavior suggests insanity, even more so considering his wild story concerning an alien invasion. The tale he tells doctor Hill is the subject of the film’s plot.

The ending is also different in the film version whereby Miles (the lone voice of truth) is seen desperately flailing about in the middle of the night on a highway screaming at oncoming traffic and directly at the audience, "They're already here! You're next! YOU'RE NEXT!"

Back in the hospital emergency room, evidence comes to light of a crashed truck carrying what appears to look like giant seed pods. Upon hearing this, doctor Hill leaps into action and notifies the FBI who no doubt will get to the bottom of all this and all will be well soon. A relieved Miles has finally managed to persuade the doctors who were about to have him committed that his story is true.

***********************

Finney’s story and the original film adaptation have been viewed by many as being a commentary on Communism, the conformity of 1950s America or even on the paranoia of McCarthyism at the time.

On a more universal level, the story can be viewed as being an examination of the loss of human individuality, sense of identity, and all that constitutes who we are as individuals.

Whatever the case, Finney’s story in whatever format it appears maintains its relevance as it can be viewed through the unique lens of any particular era thereby giving it an enduring quality.

PDF LINK

Audiobook

Film Blog Post

"They're already here! 

You're next! "

With the current Carona-19 global pandemic, you will have already been a part of or at least viewed many Zoom, Facetime or Skype video chats.

Have you noticed what's been going on in the background of so many of them? It would suggest that the alien body snatchers have returned to Earth and taken over the bodies of humans in lockdown, forcing them to feature bookcases in the background of their video sessions!

My guess is that these aliens in their pursuit of trying to imitate our emotions, have somehow turned into anally-retentive entities with a weird obsessive-compulsive disorder. 

How else to explain the plethora of coloured-coded books arranged according to size and other strange criteria? What is it with that?? Could it be that........

"YOU'RE NEXT!" 

Note: Check out the Double Feature Page for a new collection of classic sci-fi films featuring: 

UNINVITED GUESTS FROM SPACE!!!

The Day The Earth Caught Fire (1961)

A wonderfully produced, directed, photographed and well-acted sci-fi film containing a fast-paced witty script, characters with depth and a frightening believable plot. 

Directed by Val Guest
Produced by Val Guest, Frank Sherwin Green
Written by Wolf Mankowitz, Val Guest
Music by Stanley Black, Monty Norman
Cinematography: Harry Waxman
Edited by Bill Lenny
Production company: Val Guest Productions
Distributed by British Lion Films (UK), Universal-International (USA)
Running time: 98 minutes
Budget: £190,000 (approx.)

Cast

Edward Judd as Peter Stenning
Leo McKern as Bill Maguire
Janet Munro as Jeannie Craig
Michael Goodliffe as 'Jacko', the night editor
Bernard Braden as the news editor
Reginald Beckwith as Harry
Gene Anderson as May
Renée Asherson as Angela
Arthur Christiansen as Jeff Jefferson, the editor
Austin Trevor as Sir John Kelly
Edward Underdown as Dick Sanderson
Ian Ellis as Michael Stenning
Peter Butterworth as second sub-editor
Michael Caine as a police constable

Trailer

Sixty years ago panic engulfed the entire world. 

Sixty years ago the United States and the former Soviet Union simultaneously detonated nuclear devices. 

Sixty years ago the world’s weather changed dramatically. 

Sixty years ago the earth’s axis of rotation altered by eleven degrees. 

Sixty years ago Daily Express reporter, Peter Stenning and Meteorological Center telephonist, Jeannie Craig met and fell in love. 

What do all these events have in common? 

What links these seemingly unconnected occurrences? 

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“The time is now 10:41, 

19 minutes before countdown…. 

19 minutes.”

Picture a world sixty years into our past – a world baking under the relentless searing rays of the sun. A solitary figure bathed in sweat picks his way through the orange flame-hued streets of a deserted London from which humanity has been banished by a seemingly vengeful son god, Rah.

The silence is palpable with the absence of civilization’s hustle and bustle, its chitter and chatter, and its clamor and confusion. What made life gleamingly nimble and agile now lies dull, dead and dormant – mute phones, motionless fans and deceased elevators.

The lone man, Peter Stenning enters his newspaper’s office building and manages to find someone to dictate his story to, but as to the likely audience…….THAT remains to be seen!

“It is exactly 30 minutes since the corrective bombs were detonated. Within the next few hours, the world will know whether this is the end or another beginning. The rebirth of man or his final obituary. For the last time, man pursued his brother with a sword, and so the final fire was kindled. The Earth that was to live forever was blasted by a great wind towards oblivion. It is strange to think that barely 90 days ago…” 

Read on for more….. 

Sci-Fi Stories That Inspired Classic Sci-Fi Films: “Colossus” by DF. Jones (1966)

“THIS IS THE VOICE OF WORLD CONTROL. I BRING YOU PEACE. IT MAY BE THE PEACE OF PLENTY AND CONTENT OR THE PEACE OF UNBURIED DEATH. THE CHOICE IS YOURS: OBEY ME AND LIVE, OR DISOBEY AND DIE!”

Move over HAL!!! 

Get ready Terminator & Skynet!!!! 

For, here comes…….

COLOSSUS!!!!!!

Colossus: The Forbin Project is a 1970 American science fiction film from Universal Pictures, produced by Stanley Chase, directed by Joseph Sargent, that stars Eric Braeden, Susan Clark, Gordon Pinsent, and William Schallert.

The film is based upon the 1966 science fiction novel, Colossus by Dennis Feltham Jones. The story involves a supercomputer named Colossus that controls the United States' military defense system. After being given full control, Colossus becomes sentient and goes beyond its programming by linking with a similar Soviet system called Guardian.

Having control of both superpowers’ nuclear missile arsenal, Colossus is in a position to force peace upon the world on its own terms. Our every move and our very fate is in now in the hands of a machine. Colossus has purloined our cherished theory of ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’ and applied it as a way achieving that crazy Cold War theory’s implicit aim!

The growth of artificial intelligence and our concerns over its possible outcomes make this film both timely and relevant despite the passage of time and, in some viewers' minds, its feeling of being somewhat dated. The story is in fact quite prescient in terms of the way artificial intelligence and its purposes and uses have become a kind of Pandora's box that could unleash a whole raft of unforeseen consequences upon humanity.

Colossus was given the task of avoiding nuclear Armageddon and achieving world peace, freedom from hunger and disease. Fine! But in order to achieve that objective, what steps would need to be taken? What consequences could arise and for whom? What would be the end result? Failure to ask the right questions could result in a fate that is distinctly Orwellian.

The film adaptation of Jones’s story is very good, containing as it does a pleasing mix of intelligence, humour, satire and drama. The book version explores the makeup of the characters associated with the Project more thoroughly, as well as the contentious relationship between Forbin and the US President. The appearance and personality of the latter comes across quite differently to the film version's president who seems to be somewhat Kennedyesque.

I fully recommend reading DF Jones’ novel and viewing the film version. You might also like to read Jones’ The Fall Of Colossus, and Colossus And The Crab.

Colossus PDF read

Colossus by DF Jones (Borrow)

Movie Script

Full Film Link

CBC Radio Drama Download

Sci-Fi Stories That Inspired Classic Sci-Fi Films: “The Andromeda Strain” by Michael Crichton

Trailer

Summary:

When all but two of the residents of Piedmont, New Mexico, are found dead after the return to Earth of a US space satellite (Scoop VII), the head of the US Air Force's Project Scoop declares an emergency.

Dr Stone and his team of top scientists consisting of Drs. Dutton, Leavitt and Hall, transfer to a secure hi-tech facility, known as Wildfire, which had been constructed as a base in the event of an alien biological life form being returned to Earth from a space mission.

Such an event appears to have happened and it is up to the scientists to try to isolate the alien life form while determining why two people from Piedmont (an old Sterno drinker with an ulcer and a six-month-old crying baby have managed to survive.

As the scientists continue with their study of the alien life form, they are about to be confronted by the dual danger of its having mutated along with the lab’s fail-safe nuclear self-destruct device should it manage to escape!!!

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Comparisons

The Andromeda Strain was made into a movie in 1971 and was directed and produced by Robert Wise. The film and the book quite closely parallel each other with a few minor deviations such as the Peter Leavitt character being a female, Ruth Leavitt in the film version.

[Spoiler alert paragraph!!!!]

The ending of the movie also differs from the book. In the book, Stone speculates that the Andromeda Strain will migrate up into Earth’s upper atmosphere where the oxygen content is lower, better suiting its growth and where it will mutate into a benign form. In the movie version, the now benign mutated bacteria drifts out over the Pacific Ocean into which it falls to be destroyed by the salt water.

Context

Crichton’s novel was written within the context of the Cold War and the resulting space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. The political and military conflict between the superpower rivals forms an important part of the backdrop to the events in the story. For instance, Project Scoop is part of a U.S. government program for the development of biological weapons. Should a Scoop satellite come down in a major city in the Soviet Union, war would likely result and that is why it was decided that the Russians would not be informed about the likelihood of any deadly disease occurring. The kind of Cold War mentality that was evident would dictate a preference for a few million Russians dying of disease as opposed to many hundreds of millions of people dying as a result of nuclear war

Assessment

I personally favoured the film treatment of the story. In the original book version, I felt that the story was bogged down by far too much scientific exposition, detail and explanation of processes involved. There were moments when I literally nodded off!

Audiobook Online

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©Chris Christopoulos 2020

Classic Sci-Fi Film Ladies: Part 5 (1958 – 1959)

Welcome to the final tribute to the wonderful ladies who appeared in the classic sci-fi films of the 1950s. It’s been a long time coming for this installment, so let’s start off with…….

It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958)

Earth's second mission to Mars is sent to discover the fate of the first mission. A sole survivor of that mission is found, the expedition's former commander who claims to an unbelieving audience that his crew were killed by a hostile Martian life form. On the way back to earth, that life form stowaways away aboard the ship and begins hunting down and killing the crew.

Shirley Patterson as Ann Anderson who also appeared in World Without End (1956) and The Land Unknown (1957).

Ann Doran as Mary Royce, the ship’s doctor

And…followed by;

I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)

Aliens arrive on Earth to possess the bodies of humans. One such victim is a young man, whose new wife, Marge soon realizes something is wrong with him. In fact, the man she married isn't a man at all, but an alien replacement as are most of the men in her small town!!

Gloria Talbott who also appeared in, The Cyclops (1957), Daughter of Dr Jekyll, and The Leech Woman (1960)

Read on for more.......