Outer Limits: the Filmgoers' Guide to the Great Science-Fiction Films

silent classic Metropolis to today. It reviews the galaxy of stars and directors who have created some of the most popular films of all time, including George Lucas’s ‘Star Wars’ films, Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Minority Report, James Cameron’s ‘Terminator’ films and Ridley Scott’s milestones Alien and Blade Runner. It also discusses everything from A-listers 2001: A Space Odyssey and Planet of the Apes, to Japanese monster movies, 1950s B-movies, creature features and cult favourites, depicting time travel, distant planets or alien invasions. Films featured include The War of the Worlds, Galaxy Quest, Mad Max 2, Back to the Future, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Star Trek, Apollo 13, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Matrix, and many, many more.

Illustrated with original posters, Outer Limits is an informative, entertaining tour of the sci-fi universe.

244mm

Independence Day, Tarantula, Godzilla, The Thing, Forbidden Planet, Barbarella,

H U G H E S

OUTER LIMITS

Outer Limits explores science-fiction cinema through 26 great films, from the

H O W A R D

H U G H E S

HOWARD HUGHES’S NEW FILMGOERS’ GUIDE TO SCIENCE-FICTION FILMS DELVES DEEP INTO THE LANDMARK MOVIES OF THIS EVERPOPULAR GENRE, FROM METROPOLIS TO AVATAR AND BEYOND, AND COVERS OVER 250 MORE

H O W A R D

THE INDISPENSABLE GUIDE TO SCI-FI CINEM A

Howard Hughes is the author of the Filmgoers’ Guide series, When Eagles Tombstone, as well as Cinema Italiano: The Complete Guide from Classics to Cult and Aim for the Heart: The Films of Clint Eastwood (all from I.B.Tauris). He is the author of Mario Bava: Destination Terror and contributor to The James Bond Archives.

w w w. i b t a u r i s .c o m ISBN 978-1-78076-166-4

THE FILMGOERS’ GUIDE TO THE GREAT SCIENCE-FICTION FILMS

Dared, Crime Wave, Once Upon a Time in the Italian West and Stagecoach to

9 781780 761664

OUTER LIMITS THE FILMGOER S’ GUIDE TO T H E G R E AT S C I E N C E- F I C T I O N F I L M S

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HOWARD HUGHES

OUTER LIMITS t h e f i l m g o e r s ’ g u i d e to

t h e g r e at s c i e n c e - f i c t i o n f i l m s

Published in 2014 by I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 www.ibtauris.com Distributed in the United States and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 Copyright Š 2014 Howard Hughes The right of Howard Hughes to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Every attempt has been made to gain permission for the use of the images in this book. Any omissions will be rectified in future editions.

ISBN:

978 1 78076 166 4 (PB) 978 1 78076 165 7 (HB) 978 0 85773 475 4 (eBook)

A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available Typeset by Tetragon, London Printed and bound in Great Britain by T.J. International, Padstow, Cornwall

Contents N ow

and

T hen : A n I ntroduction

to

S cience -F iction C inema

A cknowledgements

ix xxiv

1

‘D eath to the M achines ’ Metropolis (1927)

1

2

‘R egarded T his E arth with E nvious E yes ’ The War of the Worlds (1953)

9

3

‘G odzilla I s J ust Gojira (1954)

4

‘I N ever S aw A nything Tarantula (1955)

5

‘Y ou ’ re N ext !’

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

45

6

‘W e A re , after A ll , N ot G od ’ Forbidden Planet (1956)

55

7

‘H e H as A ll the T ime in the W orld ’ The Time Machine (1960)

67

8

‘D amn Y ou A ll to H ell ’ Planet of the Apes (1968)

73

9

‘M y G od , I t ’ s F ull of S tars ’ 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

83

10

‘I L ove A ll the L ove Barbarella (1968)

96

11

‘T he M ysteries R emain ’ The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)

108

12

‘T he F orce W ill B e Star Wars (1977)

119

13

‘W hen Y ou W ish upon a S tar ’ Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

a

L egend ’

in

like I t !’

Y ou ’

with

Y ou , A lways ’

vii

19 34

132

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14

‘I n S pace N o O ne C an H ear Y ou S cream ’ Alien (1979)

144

15

‘N obody G ets O ut Mad Max 2 (1981)

157

16

‘L ike T ears in R ain ’ Blade Runner (1982)

167

17

‘I t ’ s W eird and P issed O ff ’ The Thing (1982)

177

18

‘Y ou H ave N o C oncept of T ime ’ Back to the Future (1985)

188

19

‘H asta L a V ista , B aby ’ Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

197

20

‘H ouston , W e H ave Apollo 13 (1995)

211

21

‘N ow T hat ’ s W hat I C all Independence Day (1996)

22

‘W elcome to the R eal W orld ’ The Matrix (1999)

232

23

‘B y G rabthar ’ s H ammer !’

Galaxy Quest (1999)

245

24

‘W e S ee W hat T hey S ee ’ Minority Report (2002)

259

25

‘L ive L ong and P rosper ’ Star Trek (2009)

271

26

‘I S ee Y ou ’ Avatar (2009)

279

B ibliography I ndex

of

and

S ources

F ilm T itles

of

a

H ere A live ’

P roblem ’ a

C lose E ncounter ’

221

289 291

1 ‘Death to the Machines’ METROPOLIS (1927) Director: Fritz Lang Producer: Erich Pommer Story: Thea von Harbou Screenplay: Thea von Harbou and Fritz Lang Directors of Photography: Karl Freund, Günther Rittau and Walter Ruttmann Music: Gottfried Huppertz (1927; Ufa German premiere) A Universum Film AG (Ufa) Production Released by Parufamet 119 minutes Alfred Abel (Joh Fredersen, master of Metropolis), Gustav Fröhlich (Freder, Joh’s son), Rudolf Klein-Rogge (C.A. Rotwang, inventor), Fritz Rasp (the Thin Man, Joh’s spy), Theodor Loos (Josaphat), Erwin Biswanger (worker No. 11811), Heinrich George (Grot, chief foreman of the Heart Machine), Brigitte Helm (Maria and Machine Man Maria), Hanns Leo Reich (Marinus), Fritz Alberti (creative human who conceives Babel), Georg John (worker who causes explosion of M-Machine)

T

* * *

he first truly great work of science fiction cinema was Metropolis. In 1927 the silent era was almost at an end – the first talkie, The Jazz Singer was released that same year – when Fritz Lang directed his epic. Lang married actress and author Thea von Harbou in 1922. They divorced in 1933 (when she joined the Nazi Party and he fled the country), but during their marriage they collaborated on the script for Metropolis. Von Harbou’s source novel, also called Metropolis, first appeared in the magazine Das Illustrierte Blatt in Frankfurt in 1925, and a book version was published shortly before the film’s release.

The futuristic city of Metropolis is one of chasmic class divides. Below ground, workers toil in their subterranean city, ensuring the well-oiled wheels of Metropolis turn and its 1

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pistons pump. Above ground, the rich and privileged enjoy the luxurious delights of the Eternal Gardens or the bacchanalian ‘entertainment district’ of Yoshiwara. The master of Metropolis is Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel). Freder (Gustav Fröhlich), his son, rejects his father’s class when he encounters Maria (Brigitte Helm), a nanny to the workers’ children.

Fascinated by Maria’s simple, pure beauty, Freder descends into the city’s bowels to seek her out. He becomes a factory labourer, trading identities with worker No. 11811, and is eventually invited to a meeting in the 2,000-year-old catacombs below Metropolis. There he finds Maria preaching to the workers the legend of the Tower of Babel (an allegory of their toil for Joh in Metropolis) and assures them that the hour of their deliverance is at hand via a ‘mediator’. Joh and inventor Rotwang spy on the workers and resolve to destroy the workers’ faith in Maria. They substitute Maria with Rotwang’s latest project – a robotic ‘machine man’. As Joh instructs: ‘I want you to visit those in the depths, in order to destroy the work of the woman in whose image you were created.’ Their robot, the living image of Maria, sows discord among the workers, while the real Maria is locked away. But the inventor plans to destroy both the rich man and his son, as Rotwang has programmed Maria to obey only his will.

Metropolis was shot at Babelsberg Studios. It took 16 months to film, in 1925–26, with a cast of over 37,000, on gargantuan sets. At the equivalent of over $200 million, it is still both the most expensive silent film and the most expensive German film ever lensed. Brigitte Helm was excellently cast as both the serene Maria and her crazy-eyed evil twin, the ‘Machine Man Maria’, who inspires frenzied lust with her near-naked erotic dances for the rich sinners in Yoshiwara and incites the proletariat in the workers’ city to destroy the machines. She says they are ‘living food for the machines in Metropolis’ which lubricate ‘the machine joints with their own blood’. Fritz Rasp played Joh’s shadowy spy, the Thin Man, but most influential was Rudolf Klein-Rogge (from Lang’s Dr Mabuse films) as the madcap inventor, Rotwang, with his wild hair and artificial hand.

His creation, the Machine Man, remains an iconic sci-fi creation. The sequence of the Machine Man coming to life, encircled in throbbing hoops of electronic energy, is among the most resonant in futurist cinema.

Metropolis’s cityscape is a fantastical architectural creation. Some sources date the film’s setting as around ad 2000, though this is not specified in the film. The art direction and set design was by Otto Hunte, Erich Kettelhut and Karl Vollbrecht, with sculptures by Walter Schultze-Mittendorf. The special-effects shots were conceived and staged by Ernst Kunstmann and Eugen Schüfftan (anglicised to Eugene Shuftan in the US). Schüfftan was the progenitor of the Schüfftan process, which comprised an angled composite shot that combined miniatures and background scenery, with actors in the foreground. The process was later overtaken by matte shots. In Metropolis, cars clog the broad streets and biplanes fly between the towering buildings. There are metro-train monorails and highways in the sky. Lang was inspired by his impression of the Manhattan skyline in October 1924, when he visited the US to observe Hollywood filmmaking techniques.

‘D eath

to the

M achines ’

Metropolis is a living, breathing city, with a heart and lungs – the phalanx of workers is its lifeblood. The Machine Halls are vivid powerhouses of steel and steam. Rotwang’s bubbling laboratory and Machine Man’s rebirth as Maria influenced the equivalent scenes in Hollywood’s sci-fi horror Frankenstein (1931). The catacombs are recreated in great detail, with burial chambers, skulls and skeletons, as is the grim statuary of the cathedral. The Eternal Gardens, an earthly Eden, is strewn with exotica – flora and fauna, graceful birds and ornate fountains – amongst which the rich elitists idly flit.

The stylised look of the film displays the influence of German expressionism (as epitomised by The Cabinet of Dr Caligari [1920]), but is also a haunting vision of future science fiction from cinema now long past.

Lang’s workers plot insurrection in the City of the Dead catacombs, while the indolent rich carry on regardless.

The shuffling workers are drones, who advance rank on rank like automatons. They are replaced by the next shift, which piles into the city’s vast elevators, ensuring the machines never sleep. There are also references to classical mythology and the Bible. In the cavernous machine halls, Freder imagines the M-Machine as the hideous, gaping-mouthed god Moloch, with the workers as sacrificial victims, while another scene recreates the construction of the Tower of Babel. The workers cry ‘Death to the machines’, storm the Machine Hall and overload the Heart Machine (in some prints called the Central Dynamo). The Vegas-style lights flicker out, industry comes to a standstill, escalators plummet and smash, and the workers’ city is engulfed in a rushing flood of biblical proporMetropolis: German poster art for Fritz Lang’s silent tions. Maria and Freder save the worksci-fi epic speaks volumes for the film’s stylised, futuristic production design. ers’ children from the flood, eventually

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taking them to the Club of the Sons. The workers seek out the ‘witch’ they think is responsible for their children’s deaths and burn Robot Maria at the stake outside the cathedral, while Rotwang chases Maria through the cathedral, where the daredevil bell-swinging seems inspired by The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Society’s class divides are depicted straightforwardly and the story’s mantra ‘The mediator between head and hands must be the heart’ is visualised in the denouement. A V-shaped phalanx of workers led by burly Grot (Heinrich George) approach the cathedral. The ‘Mediator’ (Freder) unites labour (Grot) with financial capital (Joh). Unlike Sergei Eisenstein’s montages of worker revolution, Lang’s film proffers peaceful resolution.

Metropolis bombed in Germany on its release early in 1927 and brought Ufa close to bankruptcy. It was saved by Alfred Hugenberg, one of Adolf Hitler’s financial backers. Was Lang thinking about the political situation in Weimar Germany and the rise of Fascism when he made Metropolis? Mein Kampf was published shortly before Lang shot his film and the workers are galvanised by Robot Maria, a wild-eyed zealot with big ideas. When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, Hitler and his henchmen invited Lang to be their propaganda filmmaker. Lang, worried about his ancestry (his mother had a Jewish background) headed for the US, via France and Britain, where he continued to make films, only returning to Germany at the end of his career in the late 1950s.

Metropolis exists in many different prints, of varying quality and length, some as short as 75 minutes. The best versions are the 119-minute German print (prepared by the Murnau Foundation in 2002) and a US public domain version, running 118 minutes.

All that survives of Lang’s masterpiece are ‘incomplete original negatives’ and ‘copies of shortened and re-edited release prints’. The 119-minute version recreates the 1927 German film premiere version, via all available materials, ‘based on the version in the Filmmuseum Munich and material preserved in the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv’. The images have been restored and additional intertitles describe what is still missing from the plot – this mainly includes the Thin Man keeping Freder under observation, Josaphat (Joh’s assistant) and the workers. Gottfried Huppertz’s original score was reconstructed and conducted by Berndt Heller, and performed by the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken. The film is structured in three sections: the Prelude (until Maria is imprisoned by Rotwang), the Intermezzo (as Freder hallucinates that the Grim Reaper comes to life and ‘Death descends upon the city’) and the Furiosi (the film’s finale, including the workers’ revolt and the destruction of the city).

The US print anglicises several names (Joh becomes John, Josaphat Joseph) and is missing several sequences, including athletes sprinting in a grand stadium and all reference to Joh’s deceased wife Hel, who died giving birth to Freder. The US print begins with a quote from von Harbou, stating: ‘This film is not of today or of the future. It tells of no place.

It serves no tendency, party or class.’ A 1984 reissue at 87 minutes included colour tints and a score by Giorgio Moroder (featuring songs by such artists as Freddie Mercury, Pat Benatar, Bonnie Tyler and Adam Ant). Footage from Metropolis also appeared in Queen’s

‘D eath

to the

M achines ’

promo for their single ‘Radio Ga Ga’. Following the discovery of an unexpurgated print, the monumental 2010 reconstruction of Metropolis has extended the film, with much footage previously thought lost, to 153 minutes.

Metropolis is the name of the city setting in Superman, and Lang’s film inspired a Japanese anime, also called Metropolis, which was directed by Rintaro in 2001. The people of Metropolis celebrate the opening of the Ziggurat, a Tower of Babel that looms over the futuristic city, which is rumoured to harbour a powerful secret weapon or a military facility. President Boone rules the city, but the Marduk Party led by Duke Red covet power. Duke Red has renegade scientist Dr Laughton create a blonde robot woman, Tima.

Detective Shunsaku Ban arrives from Japan in search of the doctor, who has international warrants standing for his arrest. With help from his nephew Kenichi and friendly robot bodyguard Pero, he scours the city. An attempted coup d’état by revolutionaries led by Atlas is suppressed by the Marduks, and Duke Red overthrows President Boone. Duke Red’s son Rock tries to destroy Tima, but she survives and is revealed to be a powerful computer capable of destroying mankind with biological weapons. Rintaro’s cityscapes and subterranea are a feast for the eyes, and the retro futuristic atmosphere is enhanced by a jazzy score, composed by Toshiyuki Nakura and performed by the Metropolitan Rhythm Kings, including Rintaro himself on bass clarinet. Also featured are jazz songs ‘I Can’t Stop Loving You’ by Ray Charles and ‘There’ll Never Be Good-Bye – The Theme of Metropolis’, sung by Minako ‘Mooki’ Obata.

Back in Hollywood in 1930, David Butler directed the ambitious Just Imagine, which recreated a Metropolis-like cityscape of New York circa 1980 – this footage later showed up in the Buck Rogers (1939) kids’ matinée serial as the Hidden City. Almost a decade after Metropolis, William Cameron Menzies directed the British production Things to Come (1936). It was an adaptation of H.G. Wells’s novel The Shape of Things to Come, which Wells himself adapted for the screen in collaboration with Lajos Bíró. The settings were designed by Vincent Korda (producer Alexander’s brother), the special effects were directed by Ned Mann and photographed by Edward Cohen, and the costumes were attributed to John Armstrong, René Hubert and the Marchioness of Queensbury. The patriotic score by Arthur Bliss became the first ever film soundtrack to be released to the public on disk. The story of ‘Everytown’ begins at Christmas, 1940, after the outbreak of war, as Everytown is enduring aerial bombing (in scenes that pre-date the London Blitz of 1940–1). Via montages of marching troops, naval engagements, tank battles and aerial gas attacks, the war wears on, until the land is laid waste and in 1966 the enemy is defeated. Everytown is in ruins and its population live in rag-clothed deprivation, ravaged by ‘wandering sickness’, which has been dispersed by enemy planes. By 1970 this plague, having killed half the human race, ceases to spread thanks to the strict policy of shooting dead all carriers. Society is governed by a warlord known as the Chief or the Boss (Ralph Richardson), who rules the independent sovereign state. Resigned to brigandage, the populace wage war with the ‘Hill Men’.

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Eventually they are pacified when Wings over the World – a technologically advanced organisation that flies sleek bombers and is part of World Communications (whose HQ is in Basra) – intervene. Everytown is bombed with a ‘gas of peace’. Wings over the World restore order and begin a new civilisation. By 2036, Everytown now resembles a partly subterranean Metropolis, where people wear togas, capes and tunics, and a ‘space gun’ has been developed to shoot explorers moonward. Things to Come is a film that exalts design – in the postwar period the engineers (‘the last trustees of civilisation’) have survived. In the future, we see massive mining operations, buildings constructed by goliath machines, industry and production lines, and the gigantic space gun, a massive-bore cannon that fires astronauts into orbit in a canister. But there is a section of society that doesn’t want such a device to be used, or space explored, and they attempt to destroy the gun. Like Metropolis, print lengths vary considerably (from an original 130 minutes to 113 and 94) and Things to Come was not a success on initial release.

In contrast to the seriousness of Lang and Wells, Radio Ranch (1940) was one of the most unusual and popular sci-fi movies of the period. With his cowpoke friends, singing cowboy Gene Autry runs a Country and Western radio station from his ‘Radio Ranch’.

Scientists led by Professor Beetson (Frank Glendon) covet the radium deposits which they have located on Gene’s land, which sits above the futuristic subterranean lost city of Mu. Radium-rich and 25,000 feet below the surface, the ‘Scientific City of Murania’ is ruled by Queen Tika (Dorothy Christy), while scheming chancellor Lord Argo (Wheeler Oakman) plots revolt against her. Gene is helped by his kiddie sidekicks Frankie Baxter (Frankie Darro) and his sister Betsy (Betsy King Ross, a ‘World’s Champion Trick Rider’) and hindered by Oscar (Lester ‘Smiley’ Burnett) and Pete (William Moore) and their comedy relief. Gene has to keep finding ingenious ways to broadcast his show, otherwise he’ll lose his radio contract. This results in several musical interludes – including performances of ‘Uncle Noah’s Ark’ and ‘Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine’ – which are as deadly as the Muranians’ Disintegrator Ray. Radio Ranch was a 69-minute abridgement of Mascot Pictures’ The Phantom Empire (1935), a 12-chapter serial co-directed by B. Reeves Eason and Otto Brewer. These serials, of which there are many examples, were much more representative of sci-fi during the pre-World War II period than Metropolis or Things to Come. They were aimed at the children’s matinée crowd and offered up easy-to-follow, fast-and-furious action in bite-sized weekly episodes or ‘chapters’, each of which ended with a cliffhanging ‘what happens next?’ finale. Radio Ranch plays up the ‘Western’ story, while the 12-chapter serial highlights the futuristic sights of Murania, a cityscape that resembles Lang’s Metropolis – a world underground, ‘with cities, and people and everything’. ‘Everything’ includes boxy silver robots, marrow-shaped lithium ray guns, a radium gun that melts stone, elevators and TV monitors, wireless telephones, ground-to-air torpedoes, a Cavern of the Doomed, the electrocuting Chamber of Death, and the Radium Reviving Chamber. Some of the futuristic gadgetry is pretty simple. A robot operates the cave entrance (which resembles

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a garage door) in Thunder Valley by cranking a bicycle chain. The Muranian Thunder Riders hurtle along on horseback wearing gas masks, capes and helmets, and in the finale the ‘Disintegrating Atom-Smashing Ray’ melts the city. Radio Ranch was also released as Men with Steel Faces (1940; Couldn’t Possibly Happen) and abridged for syndicated TV in 1988 as The Phantom Empire.

Larry ‘Buster’ Crabbe’s three-serial stint for Universal as Flash Gordon began with Flash Gordon (1936; 13 chapters) and continued with Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars (1938; 15 chapters) and Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940; 12 chapters), which were based on Alex Raymond’s comic strips. Crabbe played the intergalactic hero who battles pointy-bearded despot Emperor Ming the Merciless (Charles Middleton) on Planet Mongo, while saving Dale Arden (Jean Rogers) and Dr Zarkov (Frank Shannon). Richard Alexander played Arborian Prince Barin, Jack ‘Tiny’ Lipson played King Vultan of the Hawkmen and Priscilla Lawson was Ming’s temptress daughter, Princess Aura. Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars reused most of the first serial’s cast, but Carol Hughes replaced Rogers as Arden and Shirley Deane played Aura in the last instalment. The first two Flash serials were also released as abridged feature films, Flash Gordon (1936) and Mars Attacks the World (1938), and later in 1966 to TV as Spaceship to the Unknown and Deadly Ray from Mars, respectively. Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe was edited into two different TV features: Peril from the Planet Mongo and Purple Death from Outer Space.

Following his success as Flash Gordon, Crabbe also played the title role in Buck Rogers (1939; 12 chapters), based on Philip F. Nowlan’s comic strip. After a crash in the polar regions in 1938, Lieutenant Buck Rogers (Crabbe) and his sidekick George ‘Buddy’ Wade (Jackie Moran) wake up 500 years later, to battle gangsters and racketeers led by Killer Kane (Anthony Warde). Buck Rogers was subsequently re-edited as the feature Planet Outlaws (1953) and as the TV movies Destination Saturn (1965) and Buck Rogers (1977). Such was the character’s popularity that in the wake of Star Wars in 1977, Buck Rogers was revived on US TV from 1979–81 as the series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, with Gil Gerard as Buck, Erin Gray as Colonel Wilma Deering, Henry Silva as Kane, and cute gold robot Twiki (played by Felix Silla and voiced by Mel Blanc). In the 1930s and 1940s, filmmakers and theatre proprietors designated sci-fi as children’s fare, fine for Saturday matinée serials such as Republic’s 12-chapter King of the Rocket Men (1949), but not for features and certainly not A-features. Since Metropolis, science fiction had moved – some would say regressed – from the realism of Lang and Wells to the comic-book serial adventures that endured throughout the 1930s to the end of the 1940s.