Film Sack: "The Man From Planet X", or "I'd Run a Mile for a Cuppa"

This is appearing a bit late in the week because life got in the way. Stupid "going places and doing things"! It's been a week since I sat down with the spouse and took in the wonder of The Man From Planet X (1951), but the experience lingers fresh in my mind like a pine cone on the noggin launched by an angry squirrel. As usual, the Film Sack treatment made up for any trauma experienced by viewing the film du jour. Just what the movie doctor ordered.

This movie tries so hard to be Serious Science Fiction but fails on almost every level. I'm fairly easy to entertain, but this cinematic relic is dangerously close to dull. From the overly formal and pretentious language of the principal characters, to the loving pans across the artificially moody "Scottish" landscape, to the slow-motion tussles of the listless alien with various ineffectual humans... I found myself checking my watch for the first time since The Thin Red Line.


Best to begin at the beginning, I suppose, and we don't have to wait long for the WTH? moments. Before even the first shot of the actual film, we're treated to a credit sequence created entirely from one inexplicable font, which I'll call Hobo Plank Sans, or maybe Paper Chain Rivets Extra Bold. Not just the main title, but the entire credit sequence uses this inappropriately whimsical type style. Somebody was dang proud of that font.

On to the first establishing shot, which is clearly a lovely stretch of the California coastline near Monterey. They immediately cut to an adorable model shot of the Scottish Moors: the comparison between the two shots does not reflect well on the model. Fog machines are used abundantly in this movie, but it doesn't really make things better. It just looks like a bad model/set with lots of fog. Also, I believe this is supposed to take place on an island. To my knowledge there are no "moors" on any small islands in the UK. You can have a rugged island setting or you can have creepy moors, not both, but the filmmakers were making use of leftover sets from Joan of Arc so there you go.

We then cut to an interior shot and an ominous voice over from "John", our male lead. The tone of this monologue is reminiscent of the opening words of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, and indeed the rest of the film is basically a flashback, but the rest of the film never really delivers on the promise set up here. Mostly we get a bunch of bad fake science gobbledegook that wouldn't impress the average primary schooler, a lethargic alien, the requisite smarmy male lead, and the requisite screaming ninny female lead.

There's really no excuse for the bad science and lazy characterizations in this. Actual good movies were being made in the early 50s, even good sci-fi like The Day the Earth Stood Still. When I saw William Schallert was in the cast I was kind of excited: Patty Duke's TV dad! This is an early role for him and he plays totally against type as a sneaky bad guy who, you guessed it, wants the alien tech to Rule the World! Yeah, I drop spoilers. You've had since 1951 to see this. Deal.

The usual parade of tropes are all present and correct: Leading man who is supposed to be worldly and wry but comes off as smarmy and patronizing ("Your face has changed, but I remember your legs...wink wink"): check! Frail old scientist with pretty daughter: check! Aforementioned Evil Scientist who screws everything up: check! Rustic but charming local rubes who alternately show the only common sense or get out the torches and pitchforks: check! Rustic locals with bad accents: check! Spaceship that wouldn't be safe at any speed: check! Terrible fake car driving: check! Female lead who screams at every little thing and exists solely as eye-candy and for the leading man to paw and condescend to: check! This female lead really takes the cake, too. Not only is she a screaming ninny, but she's so traumatized by being LOOKED AT by the slow-moving, not really scary alien that she spends a goodly portion of the film off-screen under sedation.

The Film Sack crew didn't care much for the score under this film, but I thought it was fine for the grade of film...with one caveat. The "lightening counting" scene. Every flash of lightening is accompanied by trilling flutes. Ouch. Treading dangerously close to Hannah-Barbara SFX there. We don't need musical punctuation, thanks. I didn't like the Don Ameche-esque mustache on the male lead, either. This is 1951, not 1931, and this guy is not old enough to work a look like that properly. Ronald Coleman called and he wants his look back! Clarke looks great without the 'stache. With it, he just looks like he's trying to be a 1930s leading man. My opinion, but there it is.

There's the requisite amount of 50s-era sexism here, too. It's not worth over-analyzing, but there are some cringe-worthy moments. The "I may not be much of a cook, but I can brew a mean cup of tea!" moment isn't particularly surprising or onerous, but the male lead basically leering at her every minute is beyond patronizing. It's an artifact of the times in a way, but there are plenty of films from the 50s that don't fall in to these traps, too. The actors are doing their jobs, and the director could have asked for more nuanced and less clichéd performances. Especially irritating was the female lead, "Enid", who drove me nuts with a really annoying yodeling/warbling vocal technique for conveying distress, excitement, or happiness. Picture Bobby Brady's voice cracking, with a forced trans-Atlantic accent, when he hit puberty. It gets really old after a few lines.

The movie ends with the "we must withhold this distressing knowledge from humanity for their own good" trope, which is so last century. The US government has been preaching this for years and it's not exactly a secret that they're keeping secrets. In 1951 we were just getting in to the age of the "flying saucer", MJ-12, and Project Blue Book. The epilogue of Man From Planet X is a perfect kick-off to this era.

The truth is out there, but it's kind of slow and can't reach its air valve.

Film Sack: "Angry Red Planet" or "The Adventures of Cpt. Smarmy"

A week ago I wrote about Autopilot, a super podcast from the super Frogpants Studio family of shows. Today's musing is on the 1959 classic (color!) sci-fi film Angry Red Planet, which I would never had heard of if I weren't a fan of FilmSack. Per the web site, "Each week, the FilmSack crew picks a strange movie from the bowels of Netflix streaming and splatters it all over your inner ear. Sometimes it’s a long forgotten horror movie from the 70′. Sometimes it’s a under the radar gem of brilliance from last year. One way or the other, this is not your typical movie show." Atypical goodness=podcast brilliance.

Anyway, I thought I'd do my homework early for once and, since I got up far too early in order to photograph cats in the snow before it melts away, watch this bad boy. It's only 83 minutes, so it's not a huge time commitment. Bonus: if you're of the drinking persuasion, there is much drinking games potential in this one, but more about that later.

The story starts out promisingly enough for a late 50s sci-fi film. Yes, there's lots of stock footage, but the editor really made an effort to blend it in with the new footage in a way that makes sense. They even looped decent sound and FX with the stock stuff. The Air Force officers are all played by actors who are firm adherents to the "look at me...I'm ACTING!" school of acting. There is one gem of on-screen talent in this cheese fest, though, and that is the supporting role of Prof. Paul Weiner, played by J. Edward McKinley. We meet him in the backstory-laden initial briefing, in the control center when the rocket is recalled and landed by remote control, and then in various moments throughout the rest of the story. He plays the character straight and natural, in contrast to the rest of the cast, pretty much stealing that opening scene and setting a serious and believable tone that, alas, doesn't last for long. If they'd sent him to Mars, instead of the four ninnies they did send, it would have been a completely different story.

That this film is a festival of tropes is no surprise, but the first five minutes or so are Citizen Kane compared to the rest of it. The character types are all stock tropey characters. Do we have a rugged, wry, vaguely (or not so much) lecherous expedition leader? Check. Vaguely European older scientist with Prussian facial hair and fatal disability? Check. Smack-talking, rough-hewn yet lovable fireplug of an engineer/security guy? Check. Token hot chick who talks tough and then screams and/or faints at the first sign of threat? Check. Superior aliens warning Earthlings that they are "not ready to leave Earth because they're too violent and stupid"? Check. Random technobabble cherry-picked from medical dictionaries and Popular Science? Check. Recycling now commonplace tech to represent Space Equipment? Check. Strange rocket design that makes no logical sense other than to make it easy to frame shots? Check. Who puts the access hatch in the engine area?! The FilmSackers think the sets look like they were assembled by kids, and they really do, at least to our 21st-century eyes, look pretty juvenile. They do get some points for using chairs that actually look like shipboard gear, unlike the hilarious deck chairs from 12 to the Moon (see the MST3k version). However, I might have to subtract those points because they are ejector seats, and when my spouse saw them he immediately said, "Where are they supposed to eject to?" Oh, well; at least they tried.

My favorite bit of set dressing is a panel over Sam's workstation labeled "Oxygen Consumption". It sports two lights, the green one marked "Normal" and the red one marked "Excessive". No guages of any kind, just sternly-labeled idiot lights. I had a vision of Mission Control calling them up on their magical instant communication radio saying, "Hey, you guys pipe down up there. Your O2 consumption is EXCESSIVE!" Obviously two-dimensional  drawings and paintings stand in for landscapes, buildings, and even the ship, and of course we can't leave out the classic "reverse the rocket launching footage to simulate a rocket landing".

Speaking of special effects, almost all the FX in this thing are appalling, with one exception: the amazing giant spider bat thing, an elaborate puppet designed by marionettist Bob Baker. It's so much better than everything else that it looks like it wandered in from another movie. The giant amoeba thing that chases them out of the lake takes us back to goofyville with it's top-mounted eye that rotates  like a tank turret on speed.

Biggest annoyance: Captain Smarmypants leching all over Dr. Redhead every minute. Seriously. He makes Cpt. Kirk seem subtle by comparison. There is more than one shot of her, say, descending a ladder backward with Cpt. Smarmy checking out her hinder, or gazing out the porthole (a popular spot on this ship) looming over her from behind.

Bonus annoyance: he insists on calling her "Irish" instead of by her actual name, "Iris". It's a joke! Get it? Har har. It just made me want to slap him. Hard. She even calls him on it at some point and he manages to turn it into yet another sleazy line, "When I call you by your name, you'll know it." Also: zip up your shirt! Nobody wants to see your scrawny, bony chesticular area. This character can basically be summed up by "Ew".

On the plus side, this movie is a goldmine for drinking games. Take a drink a) every time you see stock footage (you'll be drunk about five minutes in), b) every time Cpt. Smarmy sweeps his crew with his Colt 1911 pistol (all the astronauts carry them, along with their space machetes**) in some of the worst weapon handling I've ever seen on screen, c) every time Cpt. Smarmy committs an act of sexual harrassment (you'll be hospitalized before the end credits).

Do catch this on Netflix streaming while you can. It's a gem of an example of the tail end of the golden age of 1950s sci-fi and a time-capsule of the social climate before feminism really started taking a stand against the truly egregious sexism in popular culture.* Plus: giant bat spiders!

* It's MY run-on sentence and I stand by it. 
** 02-10-2014  Changed "sabers" to "machetes" upon further reflection and a word from the spouse.

Autopilot, from "Space: 1999" to "UFO"

Frogpants studios has some really outstanding podcasts, including Sword and Laser and Film Sack. I also really love Autopilot, which runs a bit shorter than the aforementioned shows, but is still a nice juicy nugget of audio goodness. It's basically Scott Johnson (Film Sack, Current Geek, etc.) and Tom Merrit (Sword & Laser, Current Geek, etc.) discussing one vintage TV pilot per episode. There's a lot of sci-fi in the mix, but that's understandable considering the interests of the hosts, but they've also done shows like Dragnet and Magnum P.I.. They just finished airing season two, and I've been going crazy listening my way through the episodes which runs the gamut from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the un-aired pilot that you've probably never seen) to Jason of Star Command to Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

After listening to their take on Space: 1999 (1975-77), I was motivated to watch that pilot, and luckily it's on YouTube. As they noted, it holds up pretty well. It's a British take on serious sci-fi and apparently one of the most expensive TV shows ever produced there. In an era of Star Trek re-runs, and not much else, it filled a need in the very sparse landscape of post Star Trek television. It's very talky, and feels a bit like a modern police procedural, but the sets and props are very well-designed and, for the time, pretty convincingly "futuristic" without being goofy. I also like the way that women are just "there" as crew and the story presents this as business as usual. This is not to say that there is no fraternization on this moon base. In later episodes they explore various relationships, but when it comes to work, it's all business.

This is sadly not the case in this show's predecessor, UFO. I'd never watched it as a kid but only seen a few snippets while channel surfing on the occasional weekend. It's telling that I didn't stop to watch a whole episode, because I was hungry for good sci-fi as a pre-teen in the 70s when sci-fi fans in the USA made do with The Six-Million Dollar Man, The Incredible Hulk, and Wonder Woman (and the aforementioned Trek re-runs). I was curious, though, to give it a look after watching the Space: 1999 pilot, and sure enough it's all on YouTube.

It's not good. This is truly a textbook case of a seriously dated piece of TV history. If you're a fan of the ultra-mod aspects of the 1960s, this show is a cornucopia of style elements including furniture, gadgets, clothes, hairstyles, theatrical makeup, and super-hip cars. Princess phones are featured prominently: so mod! Mini-skirts and jumpsuits abound, hair is teased, cigarettes are smoked, sideburns are lavish, and extruded plastic chairs dot the landscape. There's more bright orange than the hunting clothes section at Cabella's, and that's just the interior decorating. All this in itself is not really bad, but it does date the show albeit in a charming way.

What I didn't find charming were things like the jarring groovy pop music score and the overtly sexual attitudes of many of the characters. Maybe it's just an Austin Powers backlash, but the music, even in tense moments, is so groove-a-licious that it really undermines the atmosphere for me. As far as the sexual tone in many of the scenes; I realize this was the "free-love" era and all that, but some of the men in at least this first episode are downright lecherous toward female co-workers. Several scenes introduce female characters with an obvious "toes to hair" look-over by some male, and there is so much sexual innuendo in many of the casual conversations I kept waiting for "Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink." In a few scenes the sleazy guy isn't even needed because the camera's POV does just as well. At one point we're offered shot of a lone woman walking away from the camera...which starts tight on her mini-skirted derriere and slowly pulls back. Later another shapely lady appears in a skin-tight, beige jumpsuit and elicits a typical clichéd innuendo from a male co-worker.


Just when you think it can't get any more sleazy, we're whisked off to the moon base where all the women have purple hair and wear tight, silver jumpsuits. At some point one of the women goes off duty and retires to some kind of communal relaxation area. At first I gave points for the very forward concept of a co-educational outpost with men and women working together in a seemingly professional way. I took the points away seconds later when the off-duty woman, whilst speaking to a male crew-member, started doing a Barbarella-style striptease, peeling off her sleeves and leggings accompanied by some downright porn-style music. I can see that the show creators were trying to be very hip and modern, but that's not really the kind of "hard" I'm looking for in my hard sci-fi, if you know what I mean.

Still, it is a fine example of the media climate of the time, and definitely a window on the not-to-distant past. TV sci-fi was still struggling for mainstream credibility, and Star Trek had blazed the trail for more serious sci-fi. Why the UK was so utterly incapable of following suit until much later I have no idea. UFO even has a lead character who keeps pronouncing the acronym "U.F.O" as a word that sounds like "oofoe". He's the only one who does it, and why the director didn't call him on it is beyond me, because the other actors manage to say it correctly. The BBC seemed to have figured things out by 1975 with Space: 1999, but three years later they were back to the usual ticky-tacky BBC TV production design with Blake's 7. It's not terrible, and it's definitely serious sci-fi, but it's a definite step backward.

It took awhile, but at least these days the UK can actually manage serious sci-fi and fantasy TV, and has some really fine programming including the ubiquitous re-boot of Doctor Who. No more tinfoil striptease, please.

Podcast files: irksome omissions

I've become a bit of a podcast junkie, especially since the electrical troubles started in my car and the radio/CD player no longer works. I just download podcasts on to my phone and listen to them as I drive. This helps me keep awake during my zero-dark-thirty commute to Port Townsend three days a week. If I'm really tired, it helps keep me awake on the way home, too.

Soon I hope to delve into the realm of podcasting myself, mostly as director/engineer for my historian husband who really needs to have one. That said, I listen to 'casts with an ear for what works and what doesn't; what seems smooth and professional, and what is grating and amateurish. I like short intros with minimal music. I like folks who get to the point and dig into it. I don't like constant background music in a 'cast longer than 30 seconds or so. I loathe team podcasters who talk over each other. I am utterly bored by teams who drone on about in jokes and digressions of digressions. I like people who keep up a steady pace without seeming rushed. I cringe at speakers who punctuate every single sentence with "um", "er", and "uh" over and over and over. Stop that.

I really appreciate folks who add album art to their files. It's one of those "metadata" things that really isn't that hard to add, and it makes for a nice "at a glance" visual branding thing on a smart phone or Mp3 player. I really REALLY appreciate folks who have taken the time to actually give their sound files titles, track numbers, and other markers. Again: this is not rocket science. It's really annoying to have to do this oneself so when one is perusing files on one's Mp3 player one sees things like "The Bobcast_Episode_12_flirting with quirts" instead of "TB20dkhfdkl19dl.mp3" or just "Bobcast". Note: don't go looking for a Bobcast, because I just made it up.

I will go so far as to make my own album art for a 'cast that I like enough to download several episodes of. I like to be organized.

I've become a podcast junkie lately. I especially enjoy "Writing Excuses", "Sword and Laser", and "The Secrets". The "Chillpak Hollywood Hour" is also an occasional favorite. There are a handful of podcasts that I linked to from other sites, or that were otherwise recommended to me, but the style of those 'casts just didn't work for me so I never went back. Here's my advice to anybody thinking about doing a podcast.

1. If there are two or more people in the podcast, please try to keep it from getting jokey and do NOT talk over each other.  I find that "drive-time radio jokey duo" style of 'casting the equivalent of nails on a blackboard. Also be careful of wandering off-topic, especially if this means inside jokes and nattering about personal stuff. Nobody cares but you guys, so save it for Off Air socializing.

2. Music: Snappy intro jingles are nice, but when it's all said and done I don't really care about any music you may or may not have as an intro or outro, I just care about what you have to say. A good, clean recording goes a long way toward keeping me engaged.

3. More musical mayhem:  The jarring "are you paying attention?!" monkey-banging-on-a-drum riff. A news station local to me (KIRO 97.3) does this with their twice-an-hour traffic/weather reports, and it's really, really annoying, especially because of the heavy percussion. When I'm listening to late-night radio, the last thing I want is a sudden burst of obnoxious jazzy crap with a drum machine track that won't shut up.

4. Even more music whinging: The Ear Worm. Please don't feel compelled to run some noodley tune behind the whole podcast. Don't get me wrong. I love music. I've been known to play piano and harp. I run Pandora while I work on the computer, but that is music of my choosing, and there's a time and  place for everything. When I'm listening to a podcast in my car, or over the racket in my kitchen, a music track under soft-spoken vocals is at best just distracting, at worst really annoying. That seemingly innocuous guitar jingle you've carefully edited into a loop to run behind your monologuing is auditory Chinese water torture (looking at you, Michael Stackpole...but your podcasts are still so worth my time that I'll keep listening, dang it).

I love being read to, and podcasts are a nice change from the audio books that I devour constantly. For me some are just plain entertainment, others a poor person's grad school. Keep 'em coming, just don't force me to listen to repetitive jingles while you deliver your words of wisdom. What you have to say is far more interesting to me.