Post on 10-Jan-2023
THE MAGAZINE BEYOND YOUR IMAGINATION
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www.in
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agazine.co
.uk
9 772514 365005
0 5
ISSN 2514-3654
INFINITY ISSUE 5 - £3.99
SAPPHIRE AND STEEL • VWORP, VWORP!
DOCTOR WHO & THE VINTAGE COMIC UNIVERSE
RIP HUNTER - TIME MASTER • THE INVADERS
NEWS, COMPETITIONS & MUCH MORE…
DOUBLE-SIDED
POSTER INSIDE!
ALAN
MOORE
COMICS
TO MOVIES
FROM HELL!
IT’S GORILLA WARFARE!
BEHIND THE SCENES OFPLANET OF THE APES
THE TV SERIES
CAPTAIN
SCARLET
IS 50!JOIN THE
PARTY
INSIDE
PLUS:
THE INCREDIBLE HULK
THE NOT-SO-JOLLY GREEN GIANT!
INFINITY 3
GHOULIS
HPUBLISHING Editor: Allan Bryce
Design & Production: Kevin Coward
Advertisement and Subs Manager:
Yannie Overton-Bryce
yannieoverton@googlemail.com
Online publisher: Ghoulish Publishing
ww.ininitymagazine.co.uk
Advertising enquiries:
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Web Master: jonathan@jonathanbowen.co.uk
Website: ww.ininitymagazine.co.uk
Published by: Ghoulish Publishing Ltd,
29 Cheyham Way, South Cheam, Surrey SM2 7HX.
Printed in the EU by Acorn, W. Yorkshire.
Distribution: Intermedia, Unit 6 The Enterprise
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© Copyright 2017 Ghoulish Publishing Ltd.
05
THE MAGAZINE BEYOND YOUR IMAGINATION
05T H E M A G A Z I N E B E Y O N D Y O U R I M A G I N A T I O N
www.infinitymagazine.co.uk
INFINITY ISSUE 5 - £3.99
SAPPHIRE AND STEEL • VWORP, VWORP!
DOCTOR WHO & THE VINTAGE COMIC UNIVERSE
RIP HUNTER - TIME MASTER • THE INVADERS
NEWS, COMPETITIONS & MUCH MORE…
DOUBLE-SIDED
POSTER INSIDE!
ALAN
MOORE
COMICS
TO MOVIES
FROM HELL!
IT’S GORILLA WARFARE!
BEHIND THE SCENES OFPLANET OF THE APES
THE TV SERIES
CAPTAIN
SCARLET
IS 50!JOIN THE
PARTY
INSIDE
PLUS:
THE INCREDIBLE HULK
THE NOT-SO-JOLLY GREEN GIANT!
8 14
48
42
52 56
60 62
08: ADVENTURES IN TIME
A look back at the TV cult classic Sapphire and Steel,
starring David McCallum and Joanna Lumley.
14: A STUDY IN SCARLET
It has been 50 years since Captain Scarlet first
battled the Mysterons. Something to celebrate!
20: GORILLA WARFARE
Mark Phillips reports on the monkey business behind
the Planet of the Apes TV series…
38: DOCTOR WHO’S VINTAGE COMIC UNIVERSE
Giacomo Lee chats to a very special fanzine about
some of the Doctor’s lesser known adventures…
42: M IS FOR MOORE
That’s Alan Moore, the undisputed bearded
Northampton-based God of the British comics realm
46: A RIP IN TIME
The adventures of Rip Hunter… Time Master, a DC
comics hero from their Golden Age…
48: THEY’RE HERE!
50 years on from its debut, The Invaders still packs a
punch. Remembering a landmark sci-fi show.
52: AN ENTERPRISING ENDEAVOUR
Effects wizard Ken Ralston on organising the visual
excess of Captain Kirk and company...
56: NOT-SO-JOLLY GREEN GIANT
He was Marvel’s first big TV success and we loved him
when he was angry. The Incredible Hulk revisited…
60: THE JAMES BOND OF CRIME
Allan Bryce takes a look at Mario Bava’s swinging 60s
spy-fi classic, Danger: Diabolik…
62: THE NOTORIOUS B.I.G.
The life and cinematic crimes of B-movie maestro
Bert I. Gordon, whose films were bigger than life!
20
38
Cover art by Peter Wallbank (www.petewallbankart.com)
06: INFINITY NEWS ROUND-UP
12: YOUR LETTERS AND EMAILS
19: THE DARK SIDE PROMO
27: TAKE THE HELM
29: REVIEWS
45: SUBSCRIPTIONS
67: NEXT ISSUE PREVIEW
4 INFINITY
WEB: www.infinitymagazine.co.uk EMAIL: allanbryce1@blueyonder.co.uk FACEBOOK: Infinity Magazine ADDRESS: INFINITY Magazine
Ghoulish Publishing Ltd 29 Cheyham Way, South Cheam, Surrey, SM2 7HX
SCI-FI MOVIES AND THE HUMAN TOUCH…
One of the tricky things about doing a
magazine that only comes out every
six weeks is it’s impossible to keep fully
up to date with all the new releases.
For example, Blade Runner 2049 hit UK
cinemas on October 6th, but it wasn’t
screened before we went to press at the end of
September, so though we would love to have brought
you a review we just never had a chance. I’m guessing
it’s going to be good, but it does seem to be hellishly
long, a good forty minutes longer than the original
in fact. Wouldn’t it be odd if this followed the
pattern of the original and was a big flop in
2017 and feted in 2049? I bet the studios
wouldn’t see the funny side though…
Infinity may be a mag about futuristic
movies and TV shows but we do love to
look back more than we do forward. It’s
a cosy nostalgic approach that is yielding
dividends because five issues in and our
sales are going from strength to strength.
Luckily there is not a shortage of great old TV shows
and movies for us to cover, and we have some cracking
ones for you this time out, everything from Planet
of the Apes and The Invaders to The Incredible Hulk
and Sapphire and Steel. The latter was a particular
favourite of mine back in the day, but kids nowadays
would probably have a right old laugh watching the
show because the effects were very tacky - all the
budget went on the salaries of stars Joanna Lumley
and David McCallum.
Getting back to the first Blade Runner, I must
confess that I didn’t like it when I first saw it, and
that was back when it opened in the Leicester Square
Theatre in 1982. My pal Gary and I came out enthusing
about the amazing special effects but we were both
disappointed with the rather dreary storyline. We
wanted to see Harrison Ford in chipper Han Solo
guise, not looking like he was miserable and in need
of strong laxatives all the time. We also wanted to see
him in a proper punch-up with Rutger Hauer. Where’s
the fun if your villain can’t be arsed whether he lives
or dies? Blade Runner was judged the second greatest
sci-fi film ever made in a Time Out poll earlier this
year. Doesn’t surprise me with that lot. 2001: A Space
Odyssey was their number one and I think that’s
overrated and pretentious too. I saw it as a teen and
wasn’t impressed. I quizzed my mum about the ending
and she suggested drugs were involved. The original
Planet of the Apes movie followed it into cinemas and
it was a lot more fun. I saw that one twice. The
Time Out mob also judged Terry Gilliam’s
Brazil one of the top ten sci-fi films of all
time. Yeah, sure, much better than War of
the Worlds (1953), Forbidden Planet (1956)
and The Thing From Another World (either
version). At least they got it right that The
Empire Strikes Back was the top Star Wars
picture, after The Ewok Movie of course.
Yes, Blade Runner and 2001 are great sci-fi
films but for me they are too cold-hearted and lacking
in humanity, though they probably fit right in with
our modern world. But I recently rediscovered on
YouTube one great little sci-fi film you won’t find on
Time Out’s list, namely Charly (1968), an intensely
moving adaptation of the Daniel Keyes novel, Flowers
For Algernon. Cliff Robertson (pictured above),
deservedly won an Oscar for his portrayal of Charly
Gordon, a man with an IQ of 68 who becomes a genius
overnight after taking part in a scientific experiment.
His advancement parallels that of Algernon, a
super-mouse who has been operated on, and when
Charly sees that the mouse is regressing he realises
that his super-intelligence will also be short-lived. A
really poignant and touching film with a great deal of
humanity, sadly an ingredient that many so-called
sci-fi classics seem to lack.
Allan Bryce.
HELP US KEEP UP TO DATE WITH WHAT YOU WANT
We value every single reader and they value us, which is why we are flourishing
at a time when print magazines everywhere are having a tough time. We want to
encourage you all to send in your views on Infinity so we can get a lively letters
section going, and if you have news of sci-fi-related conventions, movies, books
etc, we will be happy to give you some publicity for them. Most importantly,
please tell us what we are doing right and (perish the thought) what we are doing
wrong! You can reach us by via:
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• FILM MEMORABILIA • COLLECTABLE FIGURES
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SUNDAY 26 NOVEMBER 2017 - 12 Noon to 11PM
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29, Cheyham Way, Cheam, Surrey, SM2 7HXNB. A photocopy of the order form will sufice
Once payment is received we will post you a signed, bespoke individually-numbered ticket!
Ticket Purchase Deadline: Friday 17th November
Sunday November 26th12 noon - 11pmGenesis cinema93-95 Mile End Rd London, E1 4UJ
THE FILMS*
OUR VERY SPECIAL GUESTS* DARK SIDE BOOK LAUNCH
THE ATTRACTIONS*
THE DETAILS
SUSPIRIA - IN 4K!In association with CultFilms we are proud to present the stunning new 4K restoration of the 1977 Dario Argento classic, made in collaboration with Italian partners Videa under the aegis of Dario himself!
VALERIE LEON(Carry On Girls, Blood From
The Mummy’s Tomb, Space
1999, Never Say Never Again)
CAROLINE MUNRO(Dracula AD 1972, Golden
Voyage of Sinbad, Captain
Kronos, The Spy Who Loved Me)
MARTINE BESWICK (Doctor Jekyll and Sister
Hyde, Thunderball,
Prehistoric Women, Seizure)
LADY FRANKENSTEIN The irst ever UK cinema screening of the Nucleus Films 2K restoration of 1971’s Lady Frankenstein (1971). It’s the most complete version ever seen of this movie, and Sara Bay will look amazing on the giant screen!
NIGHT OF THE DEMONJacques Tourneur’s 1957 Night of the Demon needs no introduction. It’s one of the greatest horror movies ever made and we will be showing the longer HD version straight from the BFI National Archive.
ASYLUM You have nothing to lose but your mind. An Amicus compendium classic from 1972 on the big screen! We will be premiering the great new 2K restoration from Severin/Second Sight. You’d have to be insane to miss it!
HORROR EXPRESSTickets please for a Dark
Side favourite, and let the train take the strain as you share a tense and terrifying big screen HD journey with Peter Cushing, Christopher, Lee and a prehistoric version of The Thing!
MORE MOVIES TO BE CONFIRMED, AND EVERY FILM WILL BE ACCOMPANIED BY TRAILERS AND SCARY SHORTS!
MO
RE
GU
ES
TS
TO
BE
CO
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IRM
ED
A FULL DAY OF FEAR,
FROLICS & FUN FOR ONLY
£30!
*The Films, Guests and Attractions listed are subject to change
OR
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OR
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The Dark Side, The World’s Best-Selling Print Horror Magazine is now throwing
its irst ever one day ilm festival. It’s Sunday For One Day Only - naturally - and
you are all invited - well, as long as you buy a ticket in advance of course!
Our very irst DarkFest is being held on Sunday November 26th at London’s
fabulous retro Genesis cinema. It’s going to be a fun event. There’s an all-day
bar, decent parking nearby and you will get to meet all the Dark Side team and
a host of celebrities in between enjoying some classic vintage horrors on the
giant screen. We might even lay on some choc-ices and Kia-Oras!
PLUS! We will also be launching the new Dark Side book - Hammer,
The Haunted House of Horror, the deinitive history of Hammer Films!
THE HAUNTED HOUSE OF HOR ROR
Join us at Dark Fest for your chance to
purchase our hot-off-the press, brand new
Dark Side Book - Hammer, The Haunted
House of Horror, the deinitive history of
Hammer Films, written by highly respected
Dark Side contributor Denis Meikle!
HAMMER
6 INFINITY
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6 INFINITY
THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME
The Infinity team bring you the latest news on your favourite TV shows and movie franchises,
including our exciting one-day film festival and brand new book on the history of Hammer!
COME TO THE DARKFEST
Let’s start with some personal news. As publishers of The
Dark Side magazine we are holding our very own DarkFest
on Sunday November 26th and we hope that many Infinity
readers will also consider joining us for a day of fun and
fearful frolics. Aside from screening five great
movies we are delighted to be able to host three of
our favourite Bond movie glamour girls, Sister Hyde herself,
Martine Beswick, the lovely Caroline Munro of Starcrash fame
and Valerie Leon, famous for her Carry On film roles. It’s going
to be a great day out and we’d love to see you there. You can
find details of how to order tickets in our advert on page 5.
Be sure to get in before the ordering cut-off date!
Also check out our brand new 180-page glossy, full colour
book: Hammer: The Haunted House of Horror. Those who
bought our earlier history of Amicus films will know what to
expect - pages and pages of gorgeous rare stills and posters,
plus entertaining and informative text by Denis Meikle, one of the world’s leading
authorites on Hammer. Go to our website at www.thedarksidemagazine.com for a
sneak preview and you can even get your name in it if you order a copy early!
THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO
The first annual Thunderbirds Day
took place on 30th September 2017.
To launch this historic celebration of
the beloved Thunderbirds franchise
and the premiere of new episodes
of Thunderbirds Are Go on CITV, ITV
Studios Global Entertainment (ITVS
GE) and Transport for London (TfL) are
partnering on a Thunderbirds Are Go
takeover of TfL’s iconic Emirates Air Line
cable car in east London. The activity will run until Sunday 29th October offering
families and visitors the chance to travel through the Tracy Island themed cable
car terminal featuring large models of Thunderbird 1 and Thunderbird 2, and
take off in one of the themed cabins amidst the palm trees to the iconic 5-4-3-2-1
countdown. The cable car terminals and all the cabins will be fitted with plenty of
selfie opportunities for all the family to enjoy.
Emirates Air Line family tickets will be available at the discounted price of
£27.50 for two adults and up to three kids.
To complement the activity at the Emirates Air Line, InterContinental London,
The O2 will be hosting a Lady Penelope-themed Afternoon Tea. Visitors will be
able to relax in the stylish and decadent surroundings of the Meridian Lounge
as they sample delicious themed treats fit for International Rescue’s most
stylish field agent including Tracy island coconut pineapple verrine, FAB 1
pink bonbon torte and Lady Penelope macarons. Two specially created Lady
Penelope cocktails will also be on offer providing the perfect finishing touch to
a decadent afternoon. The event will also be attended by the Lady Penelope and
Parker puppets themselves, as seen on TV recently in the ‘Halifax Savers Are Go’
adverts. The Meridian Lounge will display bespoke prints from cult pop art studio
Art & Hue. Guests will receive a welcome card with a special message from her
Ladyship, signed by Rosamund Pike as Lady Penelope, her role in CITV’s reboot
Thunderbirds Are Go.
MARK IS MR. BILLION
It was revealed at the end of 2014 that Mark Wahlberg
was planning to make The Six Billion Dollar Man, an
adjusted-for inflation movie of the classic TV show
The Six Million Dollar Man. He was originally going
to make it with his regular collaborator, director
Peter Berg (Patriots Day, Deepwater Horizon, Lone
Survivor) and the plan was to get the movie in
cinemas on December 22nd 2017. That isn’t going
to happen because the film hasn’t even started shooting yet. It also has a new
director in Damien Szifron. Never heard of him? You’d better run, not walk, and
rent Wild Tales then, a work of sheer cinematic genius that has been the
Argentinian-born filmmaker’s calling card to a big Hollywood career.
According to Hollywood sources the movie will be focused on the 1970s
television series starring Lee Majors as a former astronaut who is
“upgraded” with bionic parts and employed by our government to embark
on convert missions. The show, though, was also inspired by Martin Caidin’s
novel Cyborg, and it has been suggested that the Mark Wahlberg movie
may borrow from the pages of that book, as well. Chances are we won’t
see this one until late 2018, because appropriately enough the production
seems to be running in slow motion…
SIZE DOES MATTER
In our book they really don’t make enough movies about people being shrunk to
minuscule size, and we even love the likes of Attack of the Puppet People (which
you can read about elsewhere in this issue). So we are delighted to see that this
is the theme of a new sci-fi comedy called Downsizing, which is already being
tipped as potential Oscar material.
Directed by regular Oscar nominee Alexander Payne (Sideways, The
Descendants, Nebraska), Downsizing is set in a world where scientists have
discovered a way of shrinking people down to the height of five inches as a
solution to overpopulation. Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig star as a middle-class
couple who decide to undergo the procedure after learning that their savings will
stretch further in this downsized existence, allowing them to live a life of luxury.
Christoph Waltz, Neil Patrick Harris and Laura Dern also star.
The film marks something of a departure for
Payne, being his biggest budget movie to date
and his first entry into the mainstream Hollywood
sci-fi arena. It premiered at the Venice film
festival to a favourable critical response and after
a screening at this year’s London film festival it
opens in UK cinemas in early 2018.
BLADE RUNNER: THE FINAL CUT
“If only you could see what I’ve seen with your
eyes!” Well now you can see Blade Runner in the
best ever picture quality with the release of the
movie on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray. Now it is regarded
as a classic it is easy to forget how troubled a
production it was. Ridley Scott was
fired and the film edited against his wishes, and it flopped on
release in 1982. It found new life on home video and went
from strength to strength, going on to have a profound
influence on modern cinema.
Like Close Encounters, this has had lots of
different releases in various different cuts. The first
release of Ridley Scott’s Director’s Cut came on VHS
and LaserDisc in 1993. It was followed by a DVD
THE DEFINITIVE HISTORY OF HAMMER FILMS – BY DENIS MEIKLE
THE DARK S IDE PROUDLY PRESENTS:
T H E H A U N T E D H O U S E O F H O R R O R
HAMMER
INFINITY 7
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INFINITY 7
release in 1997, and then The Final Cut DVD, Blu-ray and HD DVD release in 2007.
Now, on its 35th anniversary, Blade Runner: The Final Cut has landed on 4K Ultra
HD Blu-ray courtesy of Warner Brothers in a four-disc + Digital HD set.
Designer Kev is a masive fan of the film. He attended a screening of it recently,
and pronounced the sound quality amazing, though he and I saw a 2K version
projected at the BFI’s Stephen Street cinema and he tells me that he couldn’t see
much difference between the two. I guess that’s a whole different debate, but if
you are a Blade Runner fan who is lucky enough to own a 4K telly and a 4K player
then this is a must.
Extras include three audio commentaries with Ridley Scott, Hampton Fancher,
David Peoples, Michael Deeley, Katherine Haber, Syd Mead, Lawrence G Paull,
David Snyder, Douglas Trumbull, Richard Yuricich, and David Dryer. We also get the
SD documentary: Dangerous Days which at 211 minutes is longer than the film!
And in case The Final Cut isn’t enough you can watch all three different versions
of the film: the original 1982 domestic cut, the 1982 International version, and the
subsequent 1992 Director’s Cut. There’s more, but we haven’t the space, just buy
it already.
SOMETHING ABOUT HARRY
We sincerely hope that there’s not a ‘No Smoking’ rule in heaven, but if there is
then they are sure to waive it for the great Harry Dean Stanton, who managed to
survive to the grand old age of 91 despite seemingly puffing away on the old coffin
nails from dawn to dusk. He was gaunt and bedraggled and nobody’s pin-up, but
as film critic Roger Ebert once said: “No movie with Harry Dean Stanton in it can be
altogether bad.
Though never a major star he was certainly up there as one of the greatest
character actors who ever lived, and boy did he have some great roles in his long
career. Sci-fi fans will remember him as Brett, one of the ill-fated crew members in
Alien (1979) and as Brain in John Carpenter’s Escape From New York (1981), as well
as the degenerate Bud in Alex Cox’s Repo Man (1984). Among my own favourites
are his unlucky gangsters Homer in Dillinger (1973), and Jerry in Straight Time
(1978), plus all the great work he did with David Lynch.
Born in West Irvine, Stanton served in the Navy during WWII. After the acting
bug bit he headed to California to study at the Pasadena Playhouse.
He made his small-screen debut in 1954 in an episode of the NBC show Inner
Sanctum. He was credited as Dean Stanton in most of his early roles to avoid
confusion with the actor Harry Stanton, who died in 1978.
On the big screen, Stanton’s earliest, mostly uncredited work was in Westerns
and war pics, making his feature film debut in 1957’s Tomahawk Trail. He also
guested on many TV Westerns, including The Rifleman, Have Gun — Will Travel,
Bonanza, and Gunsmoke.
Genuine movie stardom of a sort came late in life to him. He was 58 years of age
in 1984 when he starred in Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas and in the cult hit Repo Man.
In 1986, Stanton enjoyed one of his biggest mainstream roles as Molly Ringwald’s
unemployed father in Pretty in Pink.
A close friend of Jack Nicholson, Stanton was best man at Nicholson’s 1962
wedding, and they lived together for more than two years after Nicholson’s divorce.
He was also a friend of Marlon Brando’s and appeared opposite both Brando and
Nicholson in The Missouri Breaks (1976).
Stanton also led his own band, first known as Harry Dean Stanton and the Repo
Men and later simply as the Harry Dean Stanton Band, and would play pickup
gigs in L.A. area clubs. He was friends with Bob Dylan, with whom he worked on
Sam Peckinpah’s 1973 film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Hunter S. Thompson was
another close pal and Stanton sang at his funeral.
A confirmed bachelor, he never married, but when asked about it he said he had
“one or two children.”
Let’s leave the last word to David Lynch, who wrote: “The great Harry Dean
Stanton has left us. There went a great one. There’s nobody like Harry Dean.
Everyone loved him. And with good reason. He was a great actor (actually beyond
great) – and a great human being – so great to be around him!!! You are really
going to be missed Harry Dean!!! Loads of love to you wherever you are now!!!”
FAREWELL TO OSCAR GOLDMAN
We also recently lost Richard Anderson, a familiar character actor whose credits
spanned more than 180 film and TV roles over six decades. He will be best
remembered, however, for playing Oscar Goldman, the handler of the bionic duo
of Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers, played by Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner
in The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman. The combined franchise ran
for more than 150 episodes from 1973-78 and spawned several TV movies, two of
which Anderson produced. The Goldman character was so popular that Kenner
introduced an action figure of him - complete with an “exploding briefcase” that
would “detonate” if opened incorrectly.
Anderson’s film credits include the sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet, Stanley
Kubrick’s Paths of Glory, Martin Ritt’s The Long Hot Summer, John Sturges’ Escape
From Fort Bravo and John Frankenheimer’s Seven Days in May. On TV he had roles
in Gunsmoke, Hawaii Five-O, Dynasty, Dan August, Perry Mason, The Fugitive,
Charlie’s Angels, The A-Team, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Bonanza, Ironside, Daniel
Boone and Murder, She Wrote.
Born on August 8, 1926, in Long Branch, NJ, Anderson was raised in New York
City until moving to California at age 10. After serving in the Army during World
War II, he enrolled in the Actors Laboratory in
Los Angeles, which later became the Actors
Studio in New York.
Lee Majors paid tribute to him saying: “I met
Richard in 1967 when he first guest starred
on The Big Valley - we worked together on five
episodes. In 1974, he joined me as my boss,
Oscar Goldman, in The Six Million Dollar Man.
Richard became a dear and loyal friend, and
I have never met a man like him. I called him
‘Old Money.’ His always stylish attire, his class,
calmness and knowledge never faltered in his
91 years. He loved his daughters, tennis and his
work as an actor.
He was still the same sweet, charming man
when I spoke to him a few weeks ago. I will miss
you, my friend.”
8 INFINITY
Strange, enigmatic and disturbing,
Sapphire &
Steel entranced television
audiences in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as
Robert Fairclough reports…
This page:
Though Sapphire
and Steel was
originally planned
as a children’s
show, the signing
of big name
stars Joanna
Lumley and David
McCallum made
it too expensive
for a teatime slot.
The marketing
spinoffs, however,
were obviously
aimed at a
younger audience
TWO ELEMENTS OF CULT TV GOLD
here was definitely something in the air
in the 1970s regarding the paranormal,
possibly as a hangover from the interest
in mysticism that 1960s counter-culture
had helped popularise. In 1971, David Bowie sang
about making way for “the homo superior” in ‘Oh!
You Pretty Things’ and, throughout the decade,
advanced beings with powers such as telepathy
and ESP were a staple of children’s TV drama: Ace
of Wands (1970-72), The Tomorrow People (1973-79)
and Sky (1975) all featured characters who could lay
claim to being the heralded master race.
There was also a concurrent fascination with malign
supernatural forces in the chilling series The Changes
(1975) and Children of the Stones (1977), as well as in
adult TV fiction like Quatermass creator Nigel Kneale’s
unsettling The Stone Tape (1972) and the series it may
have inspired, The Omega Factor (1979).
Sapphire & Steel, arriving in July 1979 courtesy
of ATV - one of the regional TV stations that, at
the time, made up the ITV network - was in many
ways the culmination of British television’s 1970s
fascination with the paranormal. Peter J. Hammond,
who had written for both Thames Television’s Ace of
Wands and the company’s supernatural anthology
series for younger viewers Shadows (1975-78), was
asked by both series’ producer Pamela Lonsdale to
devise another paranormal-leaning series aimed at
a young audience.
“I’ve always been fascinated by famous
mysteries like the Mary Celeste and Bermuda
Triangle, and also by stories of time travel,”
Hammond remarked. “I watched my children
watching an old version of H.G. Wells’ The Time
Machine and they were riveted. So I decided to write
a story about time from a different angle. Instead
of people going from everyday life into time, I had
time breaking into everyday life.”
In effect, time became the enemy: a mysterious
force attacking the present, personified in ghosts
from the past and creatures from the beginning and
end of its span. In Hammond’s new series, originally
titled The Time Menders, these esoteric threats were
combated by the two title characters, a male and
female duo of mysterious agents with powers that,
in the trend for super beings in childrens’ TV of the
time, possessed powers that marked them out as
‘more than human’.
Steel, the man, could take his body temperature
down to zero. He also possessed great strength and
the ability to move objects and immobilise people
through thought control. His partner Sapphire was
able to manipulate time (to a limited extent), project
illusions and (somehow) discern people and objects’
biographical and background details.
Stressing their separation from normal humans,
there was also telepathic communication between
the pair. There was no more back story to them
than that, a striking departure for the TV drama of
the time (apart from the suggestion, in the solemn
opening voiceover, that Sapphire and Steel may
have evolved from the “medium atomic” elements
they were named after.)
Crucially, audiences could relate to them –
and the series – because the investigators were
essentially “good cop” (Sapphire) and “bad cop”
(Steel), Hammond being a prolific and experienced
writer of police dramas: between 1969 and 1978,
he wrote 33 episodes of the BBC’s Z Cars, and also
contributed to New Scotland Yard (1973-74) and
The Sweeney (1976). Despite the promising and
unusual scenario, however, Hammond recalled that
“(Thames) couldn’t see how good it was… Director of
Programmes Jeremy Isaacs said it had no mileage.”
Undaunted, the author submitting the project
to Southern TV, who had a reputation for quality
children’s programming with series such as The
Black Arrow (1972-75, based on Robert Louis
Stevenson’s adventure novel), but the company
apparently wanted to consider more episode
breakdowns before they committed to a series.
When The Time Menders was subsequently
forwarded to ATV, it found an immediate ally in Head
of Drama David Reid; Hammond recalled that Reid
had been unable to sleep after reading the proposal
and, on the strength of the initial script’s unsettling
power, gave the green light for a full series without
hesitation. It was also Reid’s idea that the title be
changed to the more alluring Sapphire & Steel.
AURA OF MYSTERY
Adding to the aura of mystery, no individual story
titles were given on screen, and when the series
began in July 1979, ‘Adventure One’ betrayed
its genesis as a children’s series by having as its
‘audience identifiable’ characters the young Robert
Jardine (Steven O’Shea) and his younger sister Helen
(Tamasin Bridge).
However, during production of this first six-part
serial, Sapphire & Steel’s producer/director Shaun
O’Riordan quickly realised that, as Reid’s sleepless
night suggested, “If (it) had gone out at 5.30 it would
have terrified children.” Hammond’s powerful, adult
mixture of “suspense, mystery and unseen horror”
was consequently promoted to an early evening slot,
running for half an hour (with a commercial break)
from 7.30pm for all 34 episodes, between 1979 and
1982. Each episode ended on a cliffhanger.
Another factor that may have promoted Sapphire
& Steel to a primetime slot was the engagement of
two stars in David McCallum and Joanna Lumley.
Both actors were A-list and not the kind of artists
you expected to see in a low budget children’s
drama. As O’Riordan noted, the “above the line”
cost of one episode of Sapphire & Steel in 1979
was a modest £5,000, and McCallum’s fee added
up to almost the same amount. He and Lumley
were attracted to the series by the originality of
Hammond’s writing, the discerning McCallum
proclaiming the first story “great stuff,” while
Lumley found it “a thrilling idea”.
Their starring roles were brokered by ATV’s
charismatic chairman, Lew Grade, whose had
previously paired The Saint’s suave Roger Moore
Twith Hollywood star Tony Curtis to winning effect in
The Persuaders! (1971-72).
McCallum was a blonde-haired, striking and
sophisticated British-born actor who’d made his
name in America opposite Robert Vaughn in the
groovy TV secret agent caper The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
(1964-68), and the rather more serious World War
II BBC/Universal Studios drama Colditz (1972-74).
The statuesque, regal Lumley, acting since the late
1950s in small and supporting roles, had become
a household name in another spy show, The New
Avengers (1976-77), a revival of the stylish 1960s series
starring Patrick Macnee. Both actors were perfect
casting as their respective characters: Sapphire
dazzling, beautiful and mesmerizing, while Steel was
focused, enigmatic and, occasionally, threatening.
PICTURE THE SCENE
A remote, windswept house, a variety of clocks
ticking in the many rooms. A teenage boy does his
homework at the kitchen table while his parents
play with their small daughter, singing her the
nursery rhyme ‘Ring a Ring o’ Roses’. Slowly, all
the clocks wind down and stop ticking. The voices
of the parents suddenly fall silent, replaced by an
unearthly, vaguely electronic murmur…
Steel, who somehow knows the boy’s name,
arrives with a young woman, Sapphire. He says
they’ve been sent to help, speaking of “lots of
old, old echoes” in the house, while Sapphire
cryptically mentions “a corridor… the corridor is
time. It surrounds all things and it passes through
all things. You can’t see it – only sometimes, when
it’s dangerous… You cannot enter into time, but
sometimes time can enter into the present. Break in.
Burst through. Take things – take people.”
In the small girl’s bedroom, as Sapphire recites
‘Ring a Ring o’ Roses’, ghosts from the past appear
and one wall of the room telescopes alarmingly into
the distance…
In a time before convention-breaking dramas
like Twin Peaks (1990-91, 2017), Lost (2004-2010),
and Legion (2017- ), Sapphire & Steel really was
revolutionary. At the time, the only series that
matched its deliberately ambiguous format was
Patrick McGoohan’s paranoid, open-ended spy
thriller The Prisoner, made over ten years before (for
ATV’s international arm, ITC).
Where that had combined the filmed action
thriller with surreal fantasy, Sapphire & Steel was
minimalist and sinister: recorded on videotape
– as the majority of domestic British TV drama
was between the 1950s and 1980s – it relied on
an ambience of menace and suspense, powered
by dialogue and usually confined to one, isolated
location: Adventure One’s family house, followed by
a railway station, a time machine berthed on top of
a tower block, a rundown boarding house, a country
house and a motorway cafe.
In this respect, it’s not pretentious to suggest that
Sapphire & Steel was the telefantasy equivalent of
the British playwright Harold Pinter’s work.
INFINITY 9
Name of feature
10 INFINITY
Such ground-breaking plays as The Birthday
Party and The Dumb Waiter (both 1957) defined
his ‘Pinteresque’ approach – a term he hated – to
drama: a tense atmosphere in a confined, claustro-
phobic space; an ambiguous approach to time, place
and the characters’ identity; tense, long pauses and
a sense of threat expressed largely through what the
characters say.
Sapphire & Steel incorporated all of these
Pinteresque touches, together with the binding
element crucial to the success of any drama
production – absolutely committed, convincing
performances.
McCallum and Lumley compelled the viewer’s
attention from the start, the latter easily winning
the trust of the Robert and Helen, at the same time
suggesting an alien otherness with her sometimes
blank expressions and blue, pulsating eyes.
McCallum, meanwhile, conveyed focused intensity
in underplayed, quiet phrases like “take (the nursery
rhyme) downstairs – and burn it.” O’Riordan’s belief
in a theatrical production style suited to atmospher-
ically lit, shadowy video won a loyal following from
the start, with the first episode accruing 11.8 million
viewers as the fourth most watched programme,
nationally, of the week 7-13 July 1979.
PRETENTIOUS NONSENSE?
Despite the series becoming immediately popular,
perhaps because of its designation as science
fiction – a genre frowned upon by critics at the time
– reviews in the press were initially unenthusiastic.
“I’m told that Sapphire and Steel, the twice-weekly
sci-fi serial, is becoming a cult programme among
children,” noted Margaret Forwood in The Sun,
going on to say rather more damningly, “The only
explanation I can think of is that the little dears
are watching this pretentious nonsense strictly for
laughs… It has no right to be hogging primetime
once a week. Perhaps a time warp allowed it to
escape from Children’s Hour?”
In The Daily Mail, two different reviewers
grumbled at, respectively, “An unvaried, unrelieved
half an hour of… haunted stuff up and down the
stairs (which) struck me as a conspicuous abuse
of viewer tolerance,” as well as the programme’s
carefully constructed air of mystery: “Who and what
Sapphire and Steel are remains unclear. During the
production McCallum told me he thought he was an
angel. I offer that titbit without any confidence that
it will be in the least helpful.”
Significantly, a more positive opinion could be
found in the broadsheet Daily Telegraph, with the
paper’s Sean Day-Lewis appreciative of the series’
creative ambitions: “It was… quite gripping in its
mysterious way and though Shaun O’Riordan’s
direction ensured performances unexcitable to a
fault, the sinister atmosphere was well made and
maintained.”
Unshackled from the need to cater for children,
Adventure Two is arguably the definitive Sapphire
& Steel story. Set at night in a derelict railway
station and adjoining hotel, the unquestionably
adult subject matter features the resentful ghosts
of a dead soldier, fighter pilot and submariners,
recruited by time as a fighting force. Its eight parts
last for nearly four hours and are remarkable for
demonstrating how a mood of unease and tension
can be maintained by a small cast, with only three
principal actors to the fore – McCallum, Lumley and
Gerald James as the naïve ghost hunter George Tully.
The story also reinforces the agents’ ruthless side,
as Steel brokers a deal where in exchange for letting
the wartime ghosts rest, time takes Tully’s life.
Hammond recalled that the second adventure
was made to a very tight schedule: “The first five
episodes were in production while I was still writing
the last three. In other words, no-one, including
myself, had any idea what the ending was going to
be while the show was being made. A nerve-racking
experience but an exciting one, often bringing the
best out of all those involved.”
There was some compensation for the author at
the end of recording, when he spent an enjoyable
evening “drinking with the railway station ghosts in
the bar.”
With the series now fully into its mature stride,
the TV reviewer in The Scotsman praised Adventure
Two’s “genuine feelings of loss and waste and death.”
The story was interrupted by an ITV strike that
saw the whole network off air between 9 August
and 23 October, but Sapphire and Steel’s second
assignment gained more devotees when it was
repeated from the beginning in November 1979.
With such an enthusiastic response to the
first series, ATV commissioned two new
stories which were transmitted in early
1981. Adventure Three’s attempt to do something new
with Sapphire & Steel’s ‘isolated location’ scenario
wasn’t entirely successful: the only location filming in
the series – on the top of a nondescript city building
– didn’t add much to Hammond’s story of futuristic
vivisection in a time capsule, while an increased
demand for overtly science fiction-style effects
showed up the limitations of the series’ budget.
The third serial did, however, develop the
characters’ back story, with the introduction of
Silver (the equally well cast David Collings), a
Specialist Technician skilled in electronics, who was
also able to create new tools from the raw material
of different objects (another agent, Lead, a strong
man played by Val Pringle, had appeared in the first
story). Lumley and Collings played well off each
other, implying a flirtatious relationship that Steel
was clearly jealous of.
At a concise four episodes, Adventure Four
challenged the duo’s second assignment for the
accolade of the archetypal Sapphire & Steel story.
“Old photographs have always fascinated me,”
Hammond revealed, “and the idea of sepia children
climbing in and out of them was exciting to write.
I also enjoyed creating ‘Mister Shape’, the first
identifiable adversary that Sapphire and Steel had
so far encountered.” The duo’s enemy in this story
was truly unnerving, a black suited, bowler-hatted
man with no face, a close cousin to the similar
characters portrayed in the paintings of the
surrealist artist René Magritte (1898-1967). Mister
Shape, or The Shape, features in Sapphire & Steel’s
single most disturbing scene, when the screams of
a young woman trapped inside a photograph can be
heard as The Shape sets it on fire.
The character was played by ingénue actor Philip
Bird. “The fitting of the mask to cover my face was
fairly frightening,” he remembered. “I just had a little
straw to breathe through, they slapped stuff all over
my face, and I felt very vulnerable and claustropho-
bic. I remember standing in front of a blue screen so
that they could isolate me and slot me into various
photographs (the character I played, The Shape, was
a kind of Zelig who could hide in photographs) and it
was terribly important that I stayed on the mark and
all the movements were exact. My eyes were opened
ROBERT FAIRCLOUGH
With the series ending, the Daily Telegraph’s Peter Knight
was on hand to pay tribute: “The end of the current series
will mark the end of one of the cleverest, most intriguing
little sorties into television sci-i we have seen for some time
INFINITY 11
to the kinds of things actors are asked to do. It’s
not just shouting in the evenings.”
After four stories Hammond was temporarily
at a loss for ideas, so on the six-part Adventure
Five, premiering in August 1981, writing duties
were split between Anthony Read and Don
Houghton, two experienced script writers who
had both worked on the BBC’s evergreen sci-fi
series Doctor Who (1963-89, 2005- ). Presented in
the trappings of a 1920s’ country house murder,
Read and Houghton wrote alternating episodes,
delighting in devising cliffhangers for the other
to write his way out of.
By now, critics had become accustomed
to the series’ individual style. Peter Knight
praised the latest adventure at considerable
length in The Daily Telegraph: “If it were not
done with such style and conviction, with the
statuesque Joanna Lumley and the enigmatic
David McCallum holding everything together,
it would collapse like a pack of cards. Some of
the past series have been a little too clever for
their own good, taking themselves much too
seriously and often sinking without trace in their
own complexity. This time the correct balance
seems to have been struck between the scientific
mumbo-jumbo and the realism of the setting,
even though the clock has been wound back 50
years and has a disturbing habit of hiccupping
backwards and forwards from time to time.”
FINISHING ON A CLIFFHANGER
The following August, it was announced in
the press that Sapphire & Steel was coming
to an end. Making the series was particularly
problematic for McCallum as, during his last
twelve months of working on the production, he
did the 6,000 mile round trip between America,
where he lived, and Birmingham – where the
series was recorded – 20 times. “‘It meant a lot
of jet lag,” McCallum told the press, with some
understatement. “But I was supervising the
building of my home in Long Island, New York. I
wanted to be there as often as I could.”
Joanna Lumley remembered that Adventure
Six was designed to finish on a cliffhanger, while
Collings’ recollection is that although
another series was planned, in the
end the two stars decided that they
didn’t want to continue. When ATV
lost its broadcasting franchise in
1981, it seemed an appropriate time
for the series to end. The last story
was transmitted in August 1982
by Central Television, the new ITV
network which replaced ATV.
Adventure Six has both an ominous air of
finality and tantalising hints at more back story,
as for the first time Sapphire and Steel become
hunted. Together with Silver, they are lured to
a remote motorway cafe cut off from the rest
of time and space. Most of the humans there
from different time periods – a pair of lovers,
an old man and a children’s entertainer, Jolly
Jack (a young and sinister Christopher Fairbank)
– are really “Transient Beings” from the past,
matching the investigators in strength and
power, hunting Sapphire and Steel for unknown
enemies. The story, and the series, ends with the
duo imprisoned in the cafe “forever”, looking out
from the window at a bleak starscape.
With the series ending, the Daily Telegraph’s
Peter Knight was on hand to pay tribute: “The
end of the current series will mark the end of one
of the cleverest, most intriguing little sorties into
television sci-fi we have seen for some time…
Usually (the stories) have had just enough hard
logic behind them to support even the most
preposterous developments… Joanna Lumley
is as stunning as ever while David McCallum
looks suitably worried and determined at each
surprising eventuality.”
During its run, the series’ fans could delight in
typical 1970s TV spin-offs: a novelisation of the
first story, an annual (for 1981) and a well-drawn
comic strip in the “junior TV Times”, Look-In,
as well as a prestigious senior TV Times cover
promoting the first series.
The most bizarre item of merchandise
associated with Hammond’s sinister saga has
to be Lyons Maid’s Sapphire & Steel Ice Lolly,
featuring “Cool blue raspberry ice on a stainless
steel stick”. Amusingly, whoever had written the
copy for the ice cream’s advert clearly knew their
subject matter, as it included the nursery rhyme
‘Ring a Ring o’ Roses’. Even the blurb for Sapphire
and Steel was in character: the former enthused
that the lolly was “Out of this world,” while the
latter typically stated, “I don’t trust it!”
A LASTING IMPRESSION
Despite only being shown once (apart from the
repeat of the second story), Sapphire & Steel
is one of those programmes, like The Prisoner,
Star Trek and Doctor Who, that made a lasting
impression on the young (and not so young)
minds that originally watched it. In 2004 the
company Big Finish, best known for releasing
original Doctor Who audio dramas, secured the
rights to produce full-cast Sapphire & Steel plays,
written by enthusiastic authors inspired by the
TV series. McCallum and Lumley were asked to
reprise their roles but declined, so the central
roles were recast with the veteran actor David
Warner playing Steel and Susannah Harker
ably taking on the mantle of Sapphire.
David Collings returned as Silver, and there
was a new addition to the ranks of the time
agents with Lisa Bowerman playing Ruby,
an element who has an affinity with music.
Unlike the TV series, the audio plays had
individual names, with evocative titles such
as ‘Water Like a Stone’, ‘Cruel Immortality’
and ‘The Mystery of the Missing Hour’. The
new writers pushed the story forwards, with
all the new adventures taking place after the
events of Adventure Six.
After 13 stories, the audios ceased in
2008. Seven years later in 2015 – with
Sapphire & Steel now 25 years old – the
enduring power of the concept was highlighted
when Neil Cross, the creator of the BBC detective
series Luther, announced that he was reviving
the two investigators in a new series that would
feature “ghost stories and monster stories” in
which “time is the villain.” Despite the suggestion
that a prominent UK broadcaster was interested
in financing the revival, and P.J. Hammond’s
involvement, a rebooted Sapphire & Steel has (so
far) failed to appear.
Hammond himself remains proud of the show
and has fond memories of the production team
who worked so hard on his series over three
years. “Because Sapphire & Steel was regarded
as something of an innovation at the time of its
production, all those working on the show became
very involved. I suppose it made a change from all
the social realism dramas that had been around
for so long. Actors and production crew alike
would often come up with ideas.”
“I think we were one of the last shows
where the visual effects were hand-made,”
O’Riordan adds. “If we had had the facility of
digital enhancement or digital effects, I believe
Sapphire & Steel would have lost some of its
penetration… The acting and the strength of
thinking that went into the stories was heavier
than it is now with a computer-generated effect.”
With that in mind, perhaps it’s best that – the
audio plays aside – Sapphire & Steel’s haunting
tales of isolated places where extraordinary,
bizarre events occur remain mesmerising
video-era period pieces.
As rewatching the six Adventures illustrates,
the enigmatic ‘fantasy Pinter’ has a power,
intensity and strangeness unlike anything seen
on television today.
Above:
Lumley and
McCallum as
Sapphire and
Steel. Not that
we want to be
pedantic but the
introduction talks
about elements
and their atomic
weights, but
sapphire is
a gemstone
composed of
the mineral
corundum, an
aluminum oxide,
and steel is an
alloy of iron,
carbon and other
elements. We’ll
get our coat, er, I
mean our anorak!
SAPPHIRE & STEEL
12 INFINITY
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YOUR LETTERS AND EMAILS
Dear Infinity,
Great magazine, a real goldmine
of good stuff. I was prompted to
write to you after reading Kevin
Coward’s excellent article on The
Black Hole in issue 3. I am the
same age as Kevin and I also
went to see The Black Hole in
1979, in the wake of the cultural
earthquake that was Star Wars.
Unlike Kevin, I must admit that
I was a little disappointed in the
film at the time. As Kevin said in
his article, the film dragged a bit
in the middle. The problem for me was that I thought
it dragged at the beginning and the end as well.
However, after reading of Kevin’s obvious enthusiasm
for the film, I decided to go back and take another
look at it. You know what? It wasn’t as bad as I seem
to remember. Let’s face it, any film will fall short in
comparison to Star Wars, right? But if you view The
Black Hole as some sort of bonkers Hammer horror in
space then it’s much more satisfying.
So thank you, Kevin, for prompting me to take
another look and rediscover this classic. By the way,
sorry to hear about your incident with the evaporated
milk, but don’t get me started on how many
thousands of Weetabix I ate in order to collect a few
free cardboard figures.
Yours queasily, Mark Finlayson, Crawley, Sussex
Kev thanks you for your kind comments, Mark. I too
wasn’t a big fan of The Black Hole when I first saw
it, but I still bought the John Barry score and I was
impressed by the film’s ‘haunted house in space’ vibe.
Even then it struck me as odd that the Cygnus craft
was as spacious as Dracula’s castle. It can’t have been
fuel efficient, surely? Unless it ran on evaporated milk.
Dear Allan,
I’ve been meaning to congratulate you on Infinity for
some time, since issue 1 in fact, but what has finally
made me put pen to paper is your article on Fredric
Brown, an author I have long regarded as one of the
greats. It says a good deal about your great taste and
judgement that you have put the spotlight on Fred so
early in Infinity’s run, when there were so many more
famous SF writers you could have covered - more
famous but often inferior!
I’ve been banging on about Fred Brown in the
pages of The Paperback Fanatic for many years now,
beginning with an article in 2011, but your piece
will introduce many new readers to the great man. I
enjoyed your amusing anecdote about trying to order
a Fred Brown book from WH Smith in the far-off BC
days - that’s Before Computers.
I fondly remember that giant catalogue into
which the assistant would peer. It seemed to be full
of promise, a promise not always fulfilled, which is
why the advent of Forbidden Planet with its shelves of
imported US paperbacks brought such joy.
Incidentally, issue 2 of my ‘zine, Worlds of
Strangeness, to be published in Autumn of 2017,
includes a story by Graham Andrews with the droll
title of The Lights In The Sky Aren’t Stars. Just thought
I’d mention that by way of a plug.
Bearing in mind Barrie Wright’s complaint in The
Dark Side that
you only print
letters of praise I
thought I’d better
include a few
mild criticisms,
so here goes.
There were a
couple of errors
in your article. Mr
Jinx, which you
credit to Brown, is
a story by Robert
Arthur. More
glaringly you mis-remembered the
title of Brown’s magnum opus. It’s
Answer, not Question. A question that
arises for me is how an error of this
kind could originate since you quote
the final sentence almost verbatim.
Am I right in detecting the pernicious influence of
Wikipedia or is this just my immense anti-internet
bias coming out?
As you can probably tell from the fact that I’m
writing this letter using pen and paper, I’m something
of a dinosaur, a bit of a technophobe. You could call
me a TrogLuddite. But I do find these basic errors
worrying. They undermine one’s confidence in the
other info.
Of course an alternative explanation for your lapses
could be the three bottles of vodka you consume
daily, as reported in Dark Side 185.
I don’t want to finish on a negative note and so I
will return to the praise. I love Fred Brown so much
ans he made me very covetous of Mrs Murphy’s
Underpants. Isn’t there a warning about that in the
Old Testament.
Nigel Taylor, Rickmansworth, Herts.
There is indeed such a warning, Nigel, it is in there
alongside the warning, ‘verily it is written that nobody
loves a smartarse.’ Having said that, yes, the old grey
matter isn’t what it used to be and just remembering
things off the top of my head doesn’t always work
these days. In my defence, I do have ice in my vodka.
And a slice of lemon. Great to meet another Fred
Brown fan anyway, keep spreading the word and I will
keep an eye out for your zine!
Hi Allan,
I wanted to let you know my thoughts on the first
issue of Infinity. I live in Adelaide, South Australia. I
saw a copy at my local newsagent and had to have
it (and it was reasonably priced), as the front page
intrigued me so. After reading it,
I now know you are affiliated with
The Dark Side (which I also get).
All the issues were very
interesting, although I’m not a
great fan of Dr Who and Star Trek,
I skimmed over these. I really
enjoyed the pulp science-fic-
tion section, and overall a very
nice little magazine. I have
now organised with my local
newsagent to pick up the issues
from them, but I did miss out on
issue 2 which I have today ordered
from your website.
Before I go, just wanted to
put it out there that I still can’t
understand why people insist
on digital instead of good old
magazine format. There truly is
nothing like holding a magazine / book in your hand.
KEEP ON GOING WITH THE PRINT FORMAT!
Anne Nolan, All the way from Australia
As I have said to our readers many times before, Anne,
there will never come a time when we go just digital
with either Dark Side or Infinity. I would rather close
the mags than do that, but we are doing better than
ever with both now, which I think is proof that if you
produce a consistently good product at a reasonable
price then people will buy it. Also, you can’t swat flies
with a rolled up iPad.
Hi Allan,
After 45 summers of living on this earth, this is the
first time I’ve ever written a ‘fan’ correspondence
of any kind. I just felt compelled to write to you
to say how much I’m enjoying reading your new
Infinity magazine. I purchased a couple of Dark Side
magazines (which are very good by the way) and
through that I was introduced to your new Infinity
mag. I have to say, I’m loving it.
As an avid Trek fan I am particularly enjoying
the articles on the original Star Trek series. I always
loved watching the intrepid adventures of Kirk and
crew. I mean, The Next Generation was okay, but I
found Picard well… a bit boring really. He was always
a bit too serious for my liking. Now Kirk on the other
hand, well what a cool dude (not sure it’s right for a
bloke in his forties to say cool dude but bollocks to it,
it just feels right). He just had this knack of cheating
death, working out how to destroy the boss alien and
yet still have time to kiss the bird covered in green
paint - what a guy. So what if he sported a black curly
“I’ll be back to
give you laser
surgery on the
other eye later”
“I told you that eating
all that Weetabix
would bind you up”
Name of feature
INFINITY 13
hair toupee in TJ Hooker? The bloke’s still a hero in
my eyes.
I’ve just read issue 3, there is so much stuff I loved
about it, Space 1999, John Carpenter, The Man from
U.N.C.L.E, the list goes on.
One thing I was thinking of, was maybe including
a piece on the golden age of the video shop, perhaps
focusing on cult sci-fi/video nasties? I think that
nothing will ever beat the feeling of trawling through
a video shop looking for the next cult classic to watch
(although I do like my Netflix subscription haha). As
a kid growing up in the eighties, I vividly remember
going round my mates house and watching The Thing
on his parents’ betamax. And there was always a
cocky kid at school who managed to get his hands on
the latest pirate videos. The picture quality was crap
but no one seemed to care. Terminator, now there is
another good film to cover in your mag.
Nick Mandis, by email
Don’t be ashamed of calling Bill Shatner a cool dude
Nick, I’ve heard him singing ‘Rocket Man’ and ‘Bohemian
Rhapsody’ and there is nobody cooler. It’s singing, Nick,
but not as we know it. We are indeed planning a video
shop feature but that will be in The Dark Side, a cunning
way to make sure you buy both mags!
Dear Infinity,
Congratulations on a great magazine. I love the
mix of articles that you have, including the TV and
films of the 50s and 60s etc, also including shots of
merchandise. It brings back memories of my youth,
especially the Gerry Anderson article as I was into
Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet etc. I still have a photo
of myself wearing a Captain Scarlet outfit. There are
not many magazines that deal with past
sci-fi programmes and films. I have
got Infinity 3 and again a great
issue, especially the Adam
West interview even though
it was done 30 years ago.
Also the Space 1999
article. It was sad that
Martin Landau died a
few days before the
magazine came out. I
met Catherine Schell
who played Maya at
a memorabilia event
in Birmingham in
November 2009. I got
her autograph and had my photo taken with her. There
is an event at the NEC in Birmingham every March
and November. They have some really great guests.
It is now called ComicCon which is mostly Manga and
anime stuff.
Last November, Collectormania was held at the
NEC for the first time and my brother and I attended.
I got John Barrowman’s autograph, he of Torchwood,
Arrow etc. I have met Colin Baker in the past as well
as Katy Manning and one or two other Doctor Who
companions.
Will your issues continue doing episode guides? I
hope so. It would be great if you could do articles on
Irwin Allen and his shows. Of course you have already
done Land of the Giants. It would be great if you could
do articles on Voyage To The Bottom of the Sea, The
Time Tunnel, Lost In Space and of course other Gerry
Anderson shows such as UFO, The Protectors, Captain
Scarlet and Stingray.
I am happy that a magazine like Infinity is finally on
sale. Keep up the good work. I used to get Dreamwatch
magazine (remember that?) and was sad when it
finished, and it is nice to have you take its place.
Paul Craig, Coventry
Plenty of great suggestions there, Paul, and you can
be sure that Gerry Anderson and Irwin Allen shows will
feature heavily in future editions, starting with our
great Captain Scarlet coverage in this very issue. Are
we good to you or what?
Dear Allan,
Loving Infinity. I’m 51 years young but I feel like I
used to waiting for your mag when I was 14 waiting for
my Titan comic. The covers are great. Noticed you put
Martin Landau on your cover and he died. Can
you please put George Osborne and Piers
Morgan on your next cover? Could
you do an article on Alexandra
Bastedo (The Champions) or
at least run a picture of her,
she’s the sexiest female in
sci-fi - after Lady Penelope
of course. Great mag.
Alf Cage (51 1⁄2),
Mossley, Manchester
You’re a bad lad Alf, we
can’t put Piers and George
on the cover of Infinity,
because we are not a horror
mag. However, we put Salem’s Lot on the cover of The
Dark Side and Tobe Hooper died, so watch this space.
The candids of Lady Penelope are in the post and we
are waiting for Alexandra to return our call, but, for
now, you can make do with this cracking image of her!
62 INFINITY
As the man behind
Halloween, The Fog,
Escape From New
York and The Thing,
John Carpenter was
undeniably one of
the major directing
talents of the 70s
and 80s. Chris
Hallam takes a look
back and wonders,
where did it all
go wrong?
THINGS AIN’T
INFINITY 63
ohn Carpenter is a legend. If you were reading
that statement in 1984, you wouldn’t be
questioning it for a moment.
At the time he was only 36 years of age,
but had already done enough to take his
place among the giants of the movie world.
In the past decade alone he had directed
a number of horror and science fi ction
classics: Dark Star, Halloween, The Fog, The
Thing, Starman, not to mention the iconic
thriller Assault on Precinct 13.
You could mention him in the same
breath as Steven Spielberg and Stanley
Kubrick without provoking a fi ght amongst
a nearby crowd of fi lm geeks. For here was a
young man with a solid CV of classics under his
belt, some hits, some near-misses, but as yet no
1941-style disasters. Here, we would agree,
was a man with a bright future.
So, like a waiter once famously said to
George Best, where did it all go wrong?
Because here we are in 2017 and we
can all agree that John Carpenter didn’t
manage to live up to all that early promise.
Now nearly seventy, he was obviously not the
second coming as had been predicted in some
quarters. He wasn’t even the fi rst M. Night
Shyamalan, because he didn’t manage to make
a signifi cant comeback after making too many
mediocre movies.
Carpenter has done good fi lms since the
1980s, but his output has been erratic, to say
the least. The quality of his movies has been up
and down like a fi ddler’s elbow. That said, as with
the most famous J.C (also a carpenter), legions
of fans still await a spectacular comeback from
their hero. Could it happen? Don’t expect any
prophecies from me.
But enough generalities. Let’s begin at the
beginning. And it all began in space…
A (DARK) STAR IS BORN
Four losers in space. The concept was later the
premise for the UK sitcom Red Dwarf but in
1974 it formed the basis for twenty-something
John Carpenter’s $60,000 feature debut, which
coincidentally you can read more detail on
elsewhere in this issue.
Like the Dwarfers, the four-man
crew of Dark Star have been driven
slightly out of their minds by
the loneliness of deep space.
They are twenty years into
an emotionally unrewarding
mission
which has seen them systematically destroying
“unstable” planets unsuitable for colonisation.
The captain having been killed during an
accident in hyperdrive, the remaining crew are at
a low ebb and the ship is in a state of disrepair.
A cult favourite today, Dark Star suffered as
a result of creative tensions between Carpenter
and co-writer Dan O’Bannon (who also plays
Sgt. Pinback in the fi lm and who later wrote
1979’s Alien. A student fi lm made over a long
period of time, it was turned into a rather
uneven full-length feature with cash from movie
entrepreneur Jack H. Harris. However, many
people (not all of them stoned at the time)
enjoyed scenes like the never-ending fi ght
between Pinback and a beach ball-like alien. The
fi lm also showed Carpenter’s talent for getting
great results on a very low budget.
At the time, Dark Star failed commercially.
As John Kenneth Muir writes in his book The
Films of John Carpenter, Dark Star “failed as
a calling card, the average moviegoer had not
really understood or liked Dark Star very much.”
Neither Carpenter or O’Bannon made much
money from it either, they were paid $5,000
apiece for several years of work, and Carpenter
was forced to resort to writing to make his living,
very much a second-best option from
his viewpoint.
He was not unproductive during this time,
however, producing a script which would later
become the Faye Dunaway box offi ce hit The Eyes
of Laura Mars and writing the basis for what would
later become Escape From New York.
In 1979, he directed a TV fi lm based on the life
of the then recently deceased Elvis Presley. When
it comes to Elvis fi lms, there have been more than
one for the money, with Val Kilmer, Jonathan Rhys
Meyers and Michael Shannon among the actors
playing “the King”. But Carpenter would have
cause to remember the star of Elvis: it was his fi rst
collaboration with Kurt Russell, until then best
known for his work with Disney.
By 1979, Carpenter was himself a star. This
was partly a result of his action thriller Assault
on Precinct 13 (1976). Following the release of
Dark Star (1974), Carpenter was approached
by a group of investors who gave him carte
blanche to make whatever kind of picture
he wanted, albeit with a very limited
budget. Although he wanted to make
a Western, he knew he wouldn’t have
the resources to make a period piece.
He wrote Assault on Precinct 13 as a
highly stylised, modern-day western,
essentially remaking Rio Bravo (1959),
which was directed by Carpenter’s hero,
Howard Hawks. Carpenter acknowledged
this debt to Hawks and Rio Bravo by using
the pseudonym of ‘John T. Chance’ for his
fi lm editor’s credit, which was the name of John
Wayne’s character in Rio Bravo.
Assault on Precinct 13 was a bigger hit in
Britain than it was in America, largely because
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A (DARK) STAR I
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Dark Star
CARPENTER’S CRAFT
Above:
Jamie Lee Curtis
braves a right pea
souper in The Fog
Inserts:
A sniper takes
aim in Assault
On Precinct 13
and Michael
Myers realises
Joan Crawford is
not going to be
very happy in
Halloween
IN’T WHAT THEY USED TO BE
thriller
You could mention him in the same
breath as Steven Spielberg and Stanley
Kubrick without provoking a fi ght amongst
a nearby crowd of fi lm geeks. For here was a
young man with a solid CV of classics under his
belt, some hits, some near-misses, but as yet no
1941-style disasters. Here, we would agree,
was a man with a bright future.
George Best, where did it all go wrong?
Because here we are in 2017 and we
can all agree that John Carpenter didn’t
manage to live up to all that early promise.
Now nearly seventy, he was obviously not the
second coming as had been predicted in some
quarters. He wasn’t even the fi rst M. Night
Shyamalan, because he didn’t manage to make
George Best, where did it all go wrong?
Because here we are in 2017 and we
can all agree that John Carpenter didn’t
manage to live up to all that early promise.
Now nearly seventy, he was obviously not the
breath as Steven Spielberg and Stanley
Kubrick without provoking a fi ght amongst
a nearby crowd of fi lm geeks. For here was a
young man with a solid CV of classics under his
belt, some hits, some near-misses, but as yet no
1941
thriller
You could mention him in the same
breath as Steven Spielberg and Stanley
Kubrick without provoking a fi ght amongst
a nearby crowd of fi lm geeks. For here was a
young man with a solid CV of classics under his
Illu
stra
tio
n: R
ick
Me
lto
n -
ww
w.s
tun
nin
gly
sava
ge
.co
m
THE APOLL0 11 MOON
LANDING - THE TRUTH?
AT THE HEIGHT OF THE US/USSR SPACE-RACE, HENRY KISSINGER
SECRETLY FLEW TO LONDON TO MEET WITH STANLEY KUBRICK,
THEN DIRECTING 2001 - A SPACE ODYSSEY
KISSINGER EXPLAINED THAT, NASA DID NOT HAVE THE TIME OR
FINANCIAL RESOURCES TO GET A MAN ON THE MOON BEFORE
THE RUSSIANS, AND THIS WAS NOT AN ACCEPTABLE OPTION
FOR PRESIDENT KENNEDY
KUBRICK ACCEPTED. HOWEVER, BEING A PERFECTIONIST
AND ENSURING 100% ACCURACY IN THE PROJECT, HE…
…INSISTED THAT IT BE SHOT ON LOCATION!
KISSINGER, HAVING SEEN FOR HIMSELF THE INCREDIBLE SETS
FOR THE MOONBASE SEQUENCES, ASKED KUBRICK TO ASSIST
HIM WITH ‘FAKING’ THE APOLLO 11 MOON LANDING
The new series of
Strictly gets off to
a shaky start…
14 INFINITY
A STUDY IN SCARLET
AT
First aired in
1967, Captain
Scarlet and the
Mysterons has
a huge cult
following. Roger Crow
talks to puppeteer
Mary Turner (right),
and Sylvia Anderson’s
daughter Dee about the
most grown-up of all
the SuperMarionation
TV shows…
16 INFINITY
Name of feature
wouldn’t like to meet him
down a dark alley”. It’s a
phrase that suits TV legend
Captain Scarlet to a tee - for
the countless villains he faced. Spectrum’s most
dashing agent, forever cool under pressure, with
Cary Grant’s charm (and a not dissimilar voice,
care of Francis Matthews), was always the guy you
wanted on your side in the 1960s.
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, now
celebrating its 50th Anniversary (having been first
broadcast on 29th September, 1967), opens on
Mars in 2068. A few minutes in, it sees one Earth
team’s fateful destruction of a Martian base. Even
now the thought of manned vehicles exploring the
red planet in 50 years’ time seems feasible, but if
the first explorers do find life, let’s hope they don’t
shoot first and ask questions later.
Most know how that turned out for series
antagonist Captain Black. Yes, a lifetime as a pawn
for vengeful Martians, the Mysterons.
In case you hadn’t gathered by that chilling intro
of an offscreen gunman trying to kill the eponymous
Spectrum agent, Gerry and Sylvia Anderson were
setting their stall out early. Darker and edgier
than previous shows, this was Thunderbirds’ more
anatomically correct big brother.
In previous Anderson series, a solenoid which
operated the mouth in time with recorded dialogue
was located in the large puppet head. By moving
it to the body, the craftspeople could craft smaller
heads and more realistic characters.
MODEL MAESTRO
One of the maestros behind those characters is
Mary Turner, who literally created Scarlet. She
helped control him and other ’actors’ from a gantry
or ’bridge’ overlooking the set.
It was great to be able to have a chat with Mary,
who’d worked on Anderson productions since
1958, honing her skills on Thunderbirds’ Lady
Penelope and Brains. For starters I wondered if Paul
Metcalfe’s more famous alter ego was a favourite
puppet, or if she preferred a lesser character?
“Captain Scarlet was my favourite character
from the series – mainly because I modelled him I
expect, but I was quite fond of Captain Blue as well,”
she explains.
Asked about her happiest memories of working
on the show, she says: “By the time we got to the
Captain Scarlet series with all the main characters
made, and filming having started, I was supervising
and making sure the puppets were on the right
set on time, and ready for action rather than
manipulating the puppets from the ‘bridge’. The
happy moments were when filming was going well,
no strings breaking and all puppets working.”
There were so many incredible scenes, but Mary
says: “I am afraid it is too long ago to remember
and I have not viewed them much since. What I
enjoyed was helping to set up the crowd scenes
as they were quite a challenge. Controls and wires
had to be workable round the ‘bridge’ above and
puppeteers stretched to their limits.”
The Captain Scarlet puppets are more in human
proportion than Thunderbirds. Mary remembers
that: “Because the Scarlet heads were so small, they
were much more difficult to work than our previous
series with the larger heads, and the feel of them
was different because the weight of the solenoid
was moved down into the chest, making the heads
much lighter. The movements had to be more subtle
too, and it was very important that the costumes
did not bind the neck.”
Making a puppet series with state-of-the-art
characters and effects must have been far different
to most shows. Mary remembers a typical working
day for her “would be to arrive well before the
starting time of 8.30 to have everything ready for
when the directors expected to be able to start
setting up their first shot.
“There may be requests for extra puppets, which
I would have to chase up, and I would make sure
everything was being prepared for what was coming
next during the day. Everyone needed a break by
lunch time as it was quite concentrated work. Six
O’clock we finished and then went to the viewing
theatre to see what had been filmed the day before,
hopefully with no retakes needed – no digital
cameras then!”
ROGER CROW
Left: Dee Anderson,
daughter of Sylvia. Now
Captain Scarlet is 50, Dee
thinks it will attract a whole
new generation of fans.
“There is nothing like this
on TV at the moment,” she
says…
As with just about
every other Gerry
Anderson TV show,
Captain Scarlet
inspired some
great collectable
merchandise!
INFINITY 17
I was hooked on every episode as a five
year old, (and still am, 44 years on). In Mary’s
opinion, the show was a bit too dark for kids
under five at the time. “But nowadays they
look at anything and everything,” she explains.
“TV is like wallpaper.”
Back in 1967 things were a lot different
and Mary didn’t realise that she was helping
make TV history. “At that time, TV programmes
came and went and were forgotten – stored
away,” she explains. “New things were coming
on all the time. There were no DVDs. It never
crossed our minds we would see any of the
puppet series again. I have been amazed at the
popularity of them on coming back as there is
so much else around now.”
Finally, I asked her if she was making the
characters on Captain Scarlet now, what one
thing would she change?
Her answer was refreshing. “At the time
when we were asked to make the puppets
for Captain Scarlet, we, the puppeteers, were
upset that they had to be made to human
proportions as we thought it would not be easy
to portray their characters. Looking back, I
think they were right for the stories they had
to portray, so I personally would not want to
change anything.”
A SLOW PROCESS
Gerry Anderson’s idea for Captain Scarlet
didn’t arrive fully formed. After Thunderbirds
was cancelled in the summer of 1966, backer
Lew Grade wanted a new series.
A slow process during pre-production
led from Scarlet’s creation to the rest of the
colour-themed agents. Put all the Spectrum
hues together and you have arch villain
Captain Black.
Inevitably Barry Gray was chosen to score
the series after the success of his work on
Thunderbirds. Using an orchestra on a kids’
show was unheard of, let alone a maestro who
conducted in his vest. But he and his fellow
musicians conjured up the mood with
assured skill.
And when it came to special effects,
nobody did it better than Derek Meddings in
his pre-Bond, Superman and Batman (1989)
days. The fact movie guru Stanley Kubrick had
wanted Gerry’s effects crew for 2001: A Space
Odyssey says it all.
Derek was tasked with designing the SPV,
Cloudbase and the Angel Interceptors. As he
thought other vehicles in the show would be
“less important”, he left them to colleague
Mike Trim, who really “went to town”, designing
props such as the Spectrum patrol car,
Spectrum Maximum Security Vehicle,
Helijet and Spectrum Passenger Jet.
THE TERRIFIC TRIO!
Dinky Toys was the brand name for die-cast miniature
vehicles produced by Meccano Ltd. They were made in
England from 1934 to 1979, at a factory in Binns Road
in Liverpool and were among the most popular diecast
vehicles ever made. Now they are extremely collectable
and we are grateful to PR legend Richard Leon for
letting us showcase some of his enviable Captain
Scarlet Dinky Toy collection. He wouldn’t let us come
round his house and play with them though!
18 INFINITY
that made Scarlet stand out from the crowd.
While the Spectrum ground agents were
predominantly male, in the air was a formidable
female force. The Angels added sex appeal in their
Interceptor fighter planes, and obviously Sylvia
Anderson was key in ensuring the show didn’t get
too macho in an era when feisty TV heroines were
few and far between.
I imagine if there was one thing better than
watching Captain Scarlet on TV as a kid, it must
have been growing up with a mum who was one of
the most glamorous creative forces on the series -
Sylvia Anderson.
I had a chat with her daughter Dee Anderson
about the show, her memories and thoughts on
Spectrum’s longevity.
SYLVIA’S DAUGHTER SAID…
Captain Scarlet was the first series I fell in love with,
and I began by asking Dee why she thinks it is still
so popular 50 years on?
“It’s because it appeals to everyone,” she explains.
“It certainly inspired a few female pilots to take up
flying, either in the military or passenger jets.”
Her own early memories of the show come from
the initial development stage “where Gerry and
Sylvia would sit on the sofa at our home bouncing
ideas around. I did help the wonderful Mary Turner
in the puppet workshop a few times, sanding heads,
of all things!”
Her own favourite episode is Seek and Destroy,
“with Scarlet, Blue and Destiny under attack at the
roadside following the destruction of their SPV by
the Mysterons. Of course it all works out in the end.”
Dee’s mum had such a powerful influence on
Captain Scarlet. I wondered if there was an episode
for her which stood out as pure Sylvia Anderson,
whether through the look or the attitude.
“Sylvia’s influences show in all the episodes,”
she replies, “but maybe Model Spy, (featuring) the
fashion show with the Angels as models.”
The Angels were pretty empowering for a
generation of girls, and Dee says: “As my mother
Sylvia created them all, I was definitely inspired by
her. I was always encouraged to take on challenges,
and take risks as a female, and not to let that stand
in the way of my achieving anything at all. Similar
to the Angels.”
Now Captain Scarlet is 50, Dee thinks it will
attract a whole new generation of fans. “There is
nothing like this on TV at the moment. I’m sure if a
channel were to pick up the show that they would
have a big hit on their hands, just like in the previous
showing on BBC2 in the nineties.”
According to Dee, the show still stands up so well
technically “because all the various departments
involved always wanted to do better than the
preceding shows. It was like a giant jigsaw puzzle:
without one of the pieces it would not work.
“It’s because of the care from the effects
department, sound effects, puppet workshops and
of course Barry Gray, that the show is timeless and
certainly will stand up against today’s television.”
Finally, Sylvia Anderson referred to Derek
Meddings as “a genius” and his work on Scarlet
underlines the fact. What are her thoughts on his
work with Spectrum and company?
“Derek and the rest of his amazing crew would
try anything,” she says. “No effect shot was
impossible for them. With the more lifelike puppets
from Scarlet onwards “the effects had to match
a more “real” feel to the show. I think we can say
Derek and his team succeeded in this task. SIG.”
AN ALIEN CONCEPT
These days, with DVD box sets available to any
collector, it’s easy enough to binge watch entire
series in a day.
However, in the 1960s, the thought of repeats was
an alien concept to Gerry. He thought once a series
had been shown it would be “locked in a vault”,
never suspecting it would have the longevity it
achieved in the decades that followed.
And when the format was revamped for a series
in the noughties, I’d hoped a new generation would
warm to Spectrum’s adventures.
I had a phone chat with Gerry a few years before
he died (he passed away in December 2012, Ed).
He was unhappy with the way the revamped CG
Captain Scarlet had been aired. He’d expected it to
be a prime time event instead of being sandwiched
around Holly Willoughby’s early days on Saturday
morning TV.
Given Peter Jackson’s passion for all things
Gerry Anderson, let’s hope he’ll work his magic on
a revamped version of Scarlet for a 21st-century
audience one day. Or rather a Century 21 audience.
Happy 50th Captain Scarlet. It seems you
genuinely are indestructible.
*With thanks to Mary Turner, Dee Anderson,
ITV Studios Global Entertainment (for all Captain
Scarlet stills), and Richard Leon PR for help with
this article.
Here’s a fantastic prize that will appeal to all Captain Scarlet fans. Thanks to the
generosity of ITV Studios Global Entertainment we have these FAB goodies to
give away to one lucky reader, and in addition we will be sending copies of Captain
Scarlet: The Complete Collection to two runners up.
All we want to know is who voiced Captain Scarlet? You can send us your answer
via post to 29 Cheyham Way, South Cheam, Surrey SM2 7HX or via e-mail to
editor@the darksidemagazine.com.
The comp closes 12th November
so don’t delay!
1. The Vault, by Chris Bentley: The definitive story of the television classic.
2. Captain Scarlet: The Complete Collection: All 32 episodes and extras.
3. 9” Collectors’ Figurines: Hand-painted figurines of your favourite
characters, including Captain Black, Captain Ochre and Symphony Angel.
4. Captain Scarlet Board Game: A rerelease of the 1967 original.
5. 50th Anniversary Audio Box Set: Audio shows and a great documentary.
WIN A FULL SPECTRUM OF CAPTAIN SCARLET GOODIES!
INFINITY 19
TH
E
WO
RLD
’S
BEST S
ELLIN
G
PR
INT H
OR
RO
R
MA
GA
ZIN
E! O
FFICIA
L!!!
Issue 187 £3.99
REMEMBERING GEORGE ROMERO
JUDITH O’DEA INTERVIEWED
KONGA VS GORGOMONSTER FIGHT OF THE CENTURY!
WITCH
REPORTFALL UNDER THE
SPELL OF MARIO BAVA -
THE GODFATHER OF
ITALIAN HORROR
MISTRESS OF THE DARK
SCREAM QUEEN EMMA TALKS
DEATH ON THE SET
CURSED MOVIES
DAWN OF THE DARKFEST
WILL YOU BE THERE?
PLUS:
HP LOVECRAFT, SUFFER LITTLE
CHILDREN, HAMMER HORROR BOOK,
REVIEWS, NEWS AND MUCH MORE!
THE MAGAZINE OF THE MACABRE AND FANTASTIC! FROM THE PUBLISHERS OF
Issue 187 on sale NowFull details and subscriptions can be found online at
thedarksidemagazine.com and on our Facebook page Dark Side Magazine
Calum Waddell Sybil Danning
The DarkSide 76 The DarkSide
MISTR ESS OF THE
DAR KBill Mac chats to award-winning
ilmmaker, actress and model Emma Dark, star and director
of Seize he Night and Salient Minus Ten…
talented, yet modest and very approachable
person, Emma Dark irst came to notice in
2010 as a glamorous model with an Goth look.
Then in 2012 she joined the Indie/synth band
X-kiN as their female vocalist and featured in
several of their videos.
In 2013 she appeared in the Kim Wilde
horror-themed music video, Every Time I See
You, as a sultry vampire and this whetted
Emma’s appetite for making movies of her
own. And so it was that she teamed up with genre fan Merlyn
Roberts to make and star in a horror short, Island Of The Blind
Dead, an homage to classic 70’s horrors. This led to Seize The
Night, her inest work so far.
In this acclaimed horror short, which she wrote, starred
in, directed and produced, we saw Emma as Eva, a vampire
assassin forced to work for a top secret agency. After
escaping, she is hunted down and has to ight various
vampires and werewolves. The ilm won numerous awards
and deserves to be a feature/series. You can still ind it online
and I urge you to check it out.
Emma followed this up by appearing in the funny horror
short Frankula, alongside Hammer stars Caroline Munro and
Judy Matheson and Please Sir’s David Barry (better known to
fans of the show as Frankie Abbott).
Multi-talented Emma also writes regular articles for Digital
Filmmaker magazine where her Ask The Filmmaker column
is a popular helpline for budding ilmmakers. She is deinitely
going places, so we decided to grab an interview before she
gets too famous to talk to us!
Hi Emma can you tell us about your latest film?
Yes, it’s called Salient Minus Ten and is a 12.5 minute sci-i/
horror starring the amazing Alan Austen (Star Wars, Indiana
Jones) as the protagonist, with a secondary lead role for
myself as the antagonist, plus very strong supporting
performances from actors Chris Hampshire, Beric Read and
Samantha Oci. It’s set in the present, although it has a retro
‘near future’ sci-i vibe.
It’s very much a cerebral ‘last man standing’ style ilm with
a surrealist dreamlike quality. I wanted to make something
very beautiful and was super lucky to have Philip Bloom
onboard as cinematographer. Philip is a household name in
the realm of independent ilmmaking and is highly respected
as a world leader in DSLR cinematography. He actually
worked for George Lucas on the ilm Red Tails (2012). So
that’s two people in my cast and crew that have worked for
George - Philip and Alan. I was also so pleased that US-based
composer Eric Elick was able to come onboard the new
project after doing such a fantastic job of scoring of my
previous short ilm, Seize the Night. His music attracted an
incredible amount of compliments when the ilm was it’s
primary festival run, and I have to say his score for Salient
Minus Ten is nothing less than stunning.
I wanted a retro synth score, which admittedly is something
that’s become more popular these days. Eric surpassed all
of my already high expectations and I really think his score
is going to blow a lot of other stuff well and truly out of the
water. He’s genuinely captured an authentic retro essence.
Davy Simmons was back on VFX after providing some
explosive effects for Seize the Night, again which garnered
a lot of attention, and Mike Peel provided the SFX makeup.
Mike is an SFX pro, having worked on ilms the likes of The
Descent (2005), and Harry Potter and the Order of the
Phoenix (2007).
Finally, I brought Chris Collier on board as sound designer.
I wanted the sound design to have a very prominent place in
the ilm and really sit alongside the visual and score and be
noticed as an artistic element rather than something that just
‘is’. Chris did an absolutely amazing job, his sound design just
really brings everything together and adds so much. Again,
like the rest of the cast and crew, Chris is a true professional
and really easy to get along with. I brought back more Seize
the Night alumni in other crew roles too.
Did all go as planned when making your film?
Does anything ever (laughs)? In terms of keeping to my vision
it certainly did. In terms of the time it took to make it deviated
a reasonable amount. I originally shot some scenes with a
different lead actor, but things were not really working out
and it would have been a mistake to have continued down
that path, for the actor’s sake and for the sake of the ilm.
It’s safe to say that things don’t always work, and I think it’s
better to hold your hands up and learn from your mistakes
rather than trying to push on regardless.
I can only blame myself for miscasting, it happens in
Hollywood, it also happens in the indie world, whether people
care to admit it or not. It doesn’t make anyone feel good, but
rather than ploughing on it’s better to stop and take stock of
everything. Essentially pressing the reset button seemed the
better option, though it was also an incredibly dificult
one as well.
This ultimately added a number of months to the shooting
schedule and diminished the budget. On the positive side of
things I believe I really did, ultimately, ind the most itting
actor for the role in Alan, who replaced the previous
actor. And we would not have had Philip, Mike or Chris
working on the project otherwise.
A
Promo photograph
by Victor Kerzwell
46 The DarkSide The DarkSide 46
n the early 1960s, interest in Gothic horror ilms had
superseded the science iction monster movies of the
previous decade. Yet the genre that had spawned a
multitude of prehistoric creatures (The Beast From
20,000 Fathoms, Godzilla, Behemoth The Sea Monster),
radioactive mutations (Them, The Beginning of the End),
and huge creepy crawlies (Tarantula, The Black Scorpion) was
about to end with more of a bang than a whimper, thanks to a giant
gorilla named Konga, and an enormous dinosaur called Gorgo.
Both ilms were funded by American money and both were
released within a few months of each other in 1961 (Konga
in April and Gorgo in November). Extensive ad campaigns,
and shameless ballyhoo guaranteed strong box ofice receipts
for UK distributors Anglo Amalgamated and British Lion, as well
as Associated British Cinemas (ABC). And, unlike some of their
monstrous 1950s predecessors (The Beast of Hollow Mountain, The
Giant Claw, or The Deadly Mantis), whose ilms are long forgotten,
the legacy of the over-sized ape and the city-stomping dinosaur
lived on, thanks to two long-running comic book series.
In Konga, a small, loveable chimpanzee grows overnight into a
giant gorilla, which is then sent on a murderous spree through the
darkened suburbs of South London by mad scientist Dr. Dekker.
In the ilm’s colourful climax, an overdose of the doctor’s
experimental growth serum
transforms Konga into a
30-metre-high monster.
Gorgo on the other hand is
already a colossal 20 metres
tall when he is captured by two
unscrupulous businessmen and
sold as a zoo exhibit to Dorkin’s
Circus in Battersea Park. The
problem is, Gorgo is just an
infant and halfway through the
movie, his 76 metre-long mother
comes to the rescue, decimating
half of London in the process.
Mama Gorgo’s destruction
of the metropolis was akin to
the devastation caused by the
original King Kong’s rampage
through New York City in 1933.
Whereas, apart from smashing
through the roof of Dekker’s
suburban domicile, and
demolishing the greenhouse in which the sinister botanist is forcing
his attentions on his buxom lady friend, Konga does very little apart
from rolling his eyes at some trigger-happy soldiers in the shadow
of Big Ben.
Konga was the brainchild of American B-movie producer Herman
Cohen, who co-wrote the screenplay with Aben kandel (Horrors
of the Black Museum, Black Zoo). Cohen was a showman, whose
previous ilms included two teenage science iction movies, I Was
a Teenage Werewolf and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957).
Both were low-budget stories of disaffected youths swapping
an embarrassing outbreak of acne for a terrible and monstrous
disigurement. But these daft movies were extremely popular
among groups of leather-jacketed teenagers at the local drive-ins.
CHEESY APE SUIT
So it was on the strength of their combined success, that Cohen
announced a third ilm in the series entitled I Was a Teenage Gorilla.
This was soon changed to Konga, after the producer paid RKO
Radio Pictures, the studio responsible for King Kong, $25,000
to re-use the Eighth Wonder of the World’s moniker in the new
ilm’s publicity campaign. ‘Not since King Kong has the screen
thundered to such mighty excitement!’ was the exciting tagline
above American artist Reynold Brown’s poster design. Depicting
a ferocious-looking giant ape towering over the London skyline
clutching a scantily clad young
woman in his monstrous paw,
Brown’s artwork portrayed a far
more dynamic looking gorilla,
than the cheesy ape suit with its
rictus grin that appeared in the
actual movie.
Yet, contrary to the
advertising tagline, the screen
didn’t thunder to any kind of
Kong-style excitement, because
most of the budget was spent
on an overly chatty subplot
about Dr. Dekker (Michael
Gough) and his infatuation with
big-bosomed blonde-haired
student, Sandra (Claire Gordon).
It’s not until the inal reel that
the ilm attempts to live up the
hype generated in the publicity,
when Dekker’s jealous
assistant, Margaret,
HEAD
TO
HEAD
THE GREATEST MONSTERS OF THE 60s
THIS IS THE BIG ONE!THE MIGHTY BEAST!
In 1961, two monsters unleashed their fury on bewildered cinema audiences. One was a
giant ape called Konga, and the other was an enormous dinosaur called Gorgo.
Richard Holliss takes an affectionate look back at these screen giants…
THE DARK SIDE PROUDLY PRESENTS: A RICHARD HOLLISS PRODUCTION
FOR
ONE MAG
ONLY!
The DarkSide 47
Contrary to the advertising tagline, the screen didn’t thunder to any kind of Kong-style excitement, because most of the budget was spent on an overly chatty subplot about Dr. Dekker (Michael Gough) and his infatuation with big-bosomed blonde-haired student, Sandra (Claire Gordon)
This page:
Claire Gordon
has a tough
choice to
make, should
she go with
tall, dark and
hairy Konga (this image)
or (below)
lecherous
Michael Gough?
A tough call
indeed…
22 The DarkSide The DarkSide 23
Mario BavaHoward Hughes
SUPER MARIO
Howard Hughes
discusses the movie
career of the legendary
Mario Bava, a Jack-of-
all-trades in the Italian
ilm industry, who was a cinematog-
rapher and special
effects designer
as well as writer,
director, and producer
of some of Italy’s most
famous genre movies
irector, cinematographer and special effects
virtuoso Mario Bava was one of Italian cinema’s
great visual stylists and a craftsman of the
highest order. He remains a great favourite
among clued-in Dark Side readers who realise
that his groundbreaking work paved the way
for the likes of Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci
(as well as one very lucrative US horror lick
franchise).
Dubbed “The Maestro of the Macabre” by
those in the know, Bava’s gorgeously grotesque horror ilms were
a cosy, creepy treat back in the days when ilms were largely shot
on studio sets. The Mask of Satan/Black Sunday (1960) is still
one of the most atmospheric horror ilms ever made, and Blood
and Black Lace (1964) sears the eyeballs with its amazing colour
palette - and hotcha cast of sizzling fashion models. It started the
slasher craze, but Mario didn’t boast about that.
Kill, Baby…Kill! (1966), Danger Diabolik (1968) and A Bay of
Blood/Twitch of the Death Nerve (1971), the latter an obvious
inspiration for the Friday the 13th series, have also come to be
revered as cult classics, but Bava never really hit the big time in
his own lifetime. He was a hard-working ilmmaker who went to
his grave little realising that one day he would become legendary
for his triumphs over shoestring budgets and his colourful,
imaginative approach.
DAWN OF ITALIAN CINEMA
Mario Bava was born on 31 July 1914 in the town of San Remo,
on the Italian Riviera’s Mediterranean coast. He was the son of
Eugenio Bava, the father of Italian special effects. Mario trained
to be a painter, but ended up following his father into the ilm
business, working initially at Rome’s ilm academy, the Istituto
Luce, where in the 1930s he found himself creating opening
credits for imported American ilms.
In 1939 Bava became an assistant cameraman to the cinema-
tographer Massimo Terzano, and worked on ilms directed by
the great Roberto Rossellini and Roberto De Robertis. Bava’s
camerawork was an instrumental factor in developing the screen
personas of such stars of the period as Gina Lollobrigida, Steve
Reeves and Aldo Fabrizi.
As the Italian ilm industry got back on its feet following the
devastation of the war years it gained international recognition
for Neorealism, a national ilm movement characterised by
stories set amongst the poor and the working class. But Bava
wasn’t interested in ilming grainy ‘everyday life.’ In an interview
published in 1979, he noted: “To me, shooting a ilm means tricks,
inventions, magic. When I think about Neorealism, I can’t help but
laugh: that wasn’t much of an effort, was it? You just have to walk
along a street and shoot!”
Bava was more interested in creating fantastic imagery and
one area in which he excelled was in his (often uncredited)work
on the popular ‘peplum’ (costume) epics ilmed in Italy in the
1950s and 1960s.
TECHNICIAN, MAGICIAN
As a friendly, reliable Jack-of-all-trades, Bava was often called
in to ‘save’ ilms when there were production problems. Proliic
Italian director Riccardo Freda became something of a mentor to
him, and when they worked together on I Vampiri (1957), which
was Italy’s irst ever sound horror ilm (Mussolini having put the
block on the genre).
Bava was originally hired as the cinematographer, but when
Freda walked out on the project midway through production,
Bava completed the ilm in several days, even creating the
innovative special effects that were needed. Freda did a similar
disappearing act on Caltiki – The Immortal Monster (1959), and
Bava once more took the reins.
By 1960 Bava had earned his irst solo director’s credit, and
chose to make The Mask of Satan/Black Sunday (1960), a period
horror ilm that mixed witchcraft and vampires, giving British
actress Barbara Steele one of her most iconic roles.
Over the next 20 years, from 1960 to his death in 1980, Mario
Bava directed ilms in many genres – from sci-i spectaculars to
DThis image:
Barbara Steele’s evil witch Asa Vajda has the Mask of Satan hammered on to her face before being burned as a witch in Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (1960). The inset shot opposite shows Bava clowning with Boris Karloff on the set of Black Sabbath (1963)
If you enjoyed this issue of Ininity and are
not of a weak or nervous disposition we
recommend you pick up a copy of our sister
magazine, The Dark Side, which is guaranteed to
scare you to death* (*or your life refunded, terms
and conditions apply, zombies not eligible).
Rick Melton’s stunning cover painting of
Barbara Steele as the evil witch in Mario Bava’s
Black Sunday (1960) ushers in one of our most
spellbinding issues to date, with a whole host of
fascinating features from the weird world of the
macabre and fantastic. Bava was one of Italian
cinema’s master visual stylists, and his movie
Planet of the Vampires has long been thought of
as one of the inspirations for Ridley Scott’s Alien. We take a look back at his eventful career and
single out his scariest movies in our deinitive cover feature, which is packed with amazing
stills from the Dark Side archives!
Also in this issue you’ll ind interviews with up and coming British scream queen Emma
Dark and Night of the Living Dead’s Barbra,
actress Judith O’Dea. And if you enjoy a good
punch up then we can offer you a ringside seat
for the titanic tussle between Gorgo and Konga, which did more than Brexit to harm property
values in London. If you are a fan of the video
nasty era then you are deinitely going to want to read John Martin’s article on Suffer Little Children, a movie about possessed kids in New
Malden that fell foul of the BBFC in a big way
just as the Video Recordings Act was coming
into force. The story behind it is certainly much
more fascinating than the movie itself, but at
least its makers didn’t suffer the kind of curse
that has aflicted some of the most famous horror ilms ever made - we look at the strange events that brought tragedy to the making of the
likes of Poltergeist, The Exorcist, The Omen and
Twilight Zone - The Movie. There’s a lot more of
course, but we will leave you to discover that for
yourself - if you dare. That’s Dark Side 187, in
shops right now. Accept no substitute.
20 INFINITY
GORILLA
WARFARE
SMALL SCREEN SIMIAN STARS
If you thought the recent
War for the Planet of the
Apes was rough, check
out the monkey business
behind the Planet of the
Apes TV series, as Mark
Phillips reports…
This image:
Apes always look great on horseback.
Mark Lenard is the hostile gorilla Urko
Opposite: The stars of the 1974 CBS TV series:
Ron Harper, Roddy McDowall and James Naughton
Images supplied by Mark Rogers
INFINITY 21
E
ew people, network executives
or otherwise, felt that Planet
of the Apes needed much publicity before it
premièred on CBS in 1974. As a reporter told its
star, Ron Harper, “You finally have a TV series that
will be a winner – this one can’t miss!”
Despite that prevailing optimism, one gimmick
backfired. A popular TV host agreed to be made up as
a Planet of the Apes chimpanzee, but someone got
the bright idea of bringing in a real chimpanzee to
meet its alter-ego and the fur flew. The small chimp
took one look at the host’s ape makeup and screamed
in horror. The terrified animal ran off the set, threw
several books at reporters, slammed its fist into a wall
and then burst into the studio’s control room, where it
began ripping telephones from the wall and smashing
electrical wires. A local vet, two trainers and several
police officers converged on the agitated primate and
managed to subdue it, placing it in handcuffs and
escorting it from the studio.
Veteran stuntman George Robotham was grateful
the apes on the TV series were portrayed by mere
humans. “The guys playing gorillas were all great
stuntmen and real gentlemen,” recalls Robotham, a
first-class stuntman himself who started his career in
Batman serials of the 1940s. “Real chimpanzees are
unpredictable, they can go wild on you,” he said of
his own experiences. “I could tell you stories that you
probably couldn’t print. For instance, there was one
time where…” No, on second thought – never mind.
Planet of the Apes (the TV series) ran for an embar-
rassingly short time, September to December 1974
(14 episodes). Robotham’s time on the show was even
briefer. “Two bloody hours,” he says, “That’s how long
it took me to realise I couldn’t stand being stuck in
that miserable gorilla makeup. It was the only time
I’ve ever quit a job.” He ripped off his gorilla face and
handed it to his shocked friend, stunt coordinator Paul
Stader. “I said, ‘Paul, I’m done. I don’t need this crap.
See you later. Good luck.’”
The apes needed more than luck. Lavishly budgeted
and strategically placed in what seemed to be a good
time slot, Apes became the subject of media ridicule
as it died a humiliating death. Network executives
struggled to understand how their prized show had
ended so disastrously. It never cracked the top 35,
could not attract sizeable audiences over the age of 14
and finished the 1974-75 season at an average of 67th
place out of 84 shows, becoming the lowest rated CBS
show of the year, aside from Khigh Dhiegh’s dismal
detective show Khan, which had replaced Apes and
ended up doing worse, at 80th place. Fantasy-wise that
year, Kolchak: The Night Stalker (74th) and Six Million
Dollar Man (51st) hadn’t done so well either.
EXPENSIVE RISK
The original 1968 movie was an expensive risk for 20th
Century Fox but it made a fortune and was a critical
success. Charlton Heston played the astronaut who
landed on a post-nuclear war Earth of the future and
found it ruled by apes. James Franciscus took over
as another astronaut in Beneath (1970), where the
world was finally blown up. Friendly chimps Cornelius
(Roddy McDowall) and Zira (Kim Hunter) travelled back
in time in Escape from the Planet of the Apes, landing
on present-day Earth where they are eventually killed
by hostile humans. But their son, Caesar, (Roddy
again) survives to lead a revolt of apes in Conquest.
The movie series ended with Battle (1973), more apes
vs mutants, and very modest box-office receipts.
Producer Arthur P. Jacobs decided the features
had run their course, but he wanted to produce a TV
series. He asked Rod Serling (creator of Twilight Zone
and co-writer of the first movie) to devise an outline
in 1973. Serling created the storyline
of two 20th century astronauts Virdon
and Kovack, accompanied by the
friendly chimp Galen, as they explored
this strange world of the future, finding
new civilisations every week. They
were pursued by gorillas, who wanted
to kill the astronauts before they could
contaminate other humans with their
thoughts of freedom and technology.
Serling specifically noted, “Galen
will have the precise logical mind of
Star Trek’s Mr. Spock.” Jacobs died
suddenly in June 1973 but executive
Fred Silverman continued to press
CBS network President William Paley
to do an Apes series. Paley refused,
still upset over an awful “monkey”
show from 1972, Me and the Chimp, a debacle about
a fugitive NASA chimp who lives with a suburban
family. Paley was against “any more ape shows on
my network.” But when CBS aired the first three Apes
motion pictures to huge ratings, Paley changed his
mind: could a weekly series, based loosely on the first
film, really work?
Anthony Wilson, who had written the pilots for
The Invaders, Land of the Giants and had one of the
best creative minds in Hollywood, re-worked Serling’s
outline, making it less science fiction and more
like The Waltons, the successful 1930s Depression
family saga because Paley wanted a programme that
reflected warm human values.
The expensive ape makeup would be its biggest
challenge (the ingenious prosthetics were originally
devised by John Chambers, who won an Oscar for the
first film). Dan Striepeke and Frank Westmore took
over for the TV show, armed with a big budget and a
team of makeup men. A tragic setback occurred when
famed monster maker Janos Prohaska and his son
Robert, who were looking forward to participating in
the TV series, were killed in a plane crash in March
1974. Top stuntmen such as Tom McDonough, Ron
Stein and Eldon Burke were hired, and they also played
many of the gorillas.
One near-casualty of the TV series was the
spaceship, seen only in the first episode. Built in 1966
for almost 30,000 dollars, the ship was used in the first
three films. Arthur Jacobs kept the spaceship sitting
outside in the 20th Century parking lot for years, with
seemingly no future (Conquest and Battle were space-
ship-less). Many people at the studio grew to hate the
spaceship. One top Fox executive wrote a scathing
memo urging that “this eyesore” be either trashed,
traded or hauled away. But Jacobs kept his investment
and even paid property taxes on the rotting vessel.
Jacobs didn’t live to see the ship re-appear in the
1974 TV series, and it looked spectacular as it lay
smoking in a mountain valley after a violent crash-
landing. “To kids in our audience, I bet that spaceship
looked really amazing,” said Ron Harper, who played
astronaut Virdon. “But it wasn’t much of anything. It
was just a wooden, hollow shell. There was nothing
inside. But what did look great was the way they dug
that deep burning burrow behind the ship, to make it
look as if it had taken half a mile to land.”
CASTING CALL
Casting came next. A columnist asked Charlton
Heston if he had any regrets about not being in the
video show. “None at all,” Heston replied, adding
that he wasn’t interested in playing the same role
very week but he did wish the series luck. James
Franciscus turned down the role of Virdon, so it
went to Ron Harper, best known for his 1967-68 war
series Garrison’s Gorillas. Virdon was determined to
get back his own time of 1980, so that he could be
reunited with his wife and son. James Naughton,
as the other astronaut Pete Burke, played it more
humorously. Naughton turned down the role three
times, finally accepting it because of the money. Years
later he would say, “The only wonderful thing about
doing Planet of the Apes was that it led to a lifelong
friendship with Roddy McDowall.”
CBS was surprised when Roddy McDowall’s agent
told them the actor would be interested in starring
as Galen, the friendly chimpanzee. A deal was made,
rumoured to pay him 25,000 dollars per segment, with
a 100,000 insurance policy taken out on his face, in case
of damage done by 50 hours per week of wearing the
makeup. Mark Lenard, best known as Mr. Spock’s father,
had narrowly lost getting the role of Captain Gregg in
the Ghost and Mrs. Muir series in 1968, and was often
overlooked as the villain on TVs Here Come the Brides,
so he jumped at Apes “because I knew it would be a
big hit.” But when he learned they wanted him to play
chief gorilla Urko, “My feelings were hurt,” he said. “Why
didn’t they consider me to play one of the astronauts?”
After much soul searching, he took the role.
Herbert Hirschman, the show’s executive producer
(and previously a Twilight Zone producer) stated,
“We’re not aiming primarily at kids, we’re appealing
to the entire family. We’re seeking honest stories that
make comments on our times.” He stressed it was not
going to be a fantasy. “We’re not writing exotic tales
of science fiction. These will be real stories that make
valid statement’s on today’s society.” Stan Hough,
the producer, also weighed in. “We understand our
series will lack the sweep and pageantry of the motion
pictures, so our thrust will be good stories.”
Harper was embarrassed to say he had not seen any
of the films until CBS screened the first movie for him,
which impressed him. “I’m cautiously optimistic our
show will run two years, maybe more,” he said. This
was his fifth TV series and all of his previous shows
had failed. However, media reports in the summer of
1974 said that Apes was going to be a winner. As UPI
predicted, “This fall, Planet of the Apes will wipe out all
of its opposition. What kid in his right mind could pass
up such a show?”
Two other sci-fi pilots, Gene Roddenberry’s Genesis
2, about a scientist (Alex Cord) who awakens in the far
future, and Space: 1999, a British series with Martin
Landau and Barbara Bain, were rejected by CBS in
favor of Apes. President Robert Wood liked both pilots
but said, “We only want one science fiction series on
our network at a time.”
PRODUCTION CHALLENGES
The TV Apes endured many production challenges.
Angry wasps spooked Roddy McDowall’s horse,
Name of feature
22 INFINITY
which reared up and dumped McDowall to the
ground. It took him hours to recover.
Long-time western actor Ron Soble found that
playing a gorilla, “was a miserable experience”
and the long hours of makeup drove him back
to a dreaded habit he once conquered, smoking.
David Sheiner, a guest chimpanzee, tried to avoid
the 110 degree heat by sitting under a tree and
reading a book. Still, he admitted he could not
wait for the experience to be over. Other ape
actors lost up to ten pounds a day, some passing
out and collapsing from the heat and others were
constantly wheezing, scratching and swatting at
hungry flies. Comedian Beatrice Arthur (Maude,
The Golden Girls) brought her two sons to the set
because they were such fans. Another fan was
Alan Alda’s wife, who arrived via a jeep from the
nearby M*A*S*H set to watch filming.
Jacqueline Scott agreed to do two guest
roles, as a mother chimp of a farm family in
“Good Seeds” and as Galen’s fiancée in “The
Surgeon,” where she performed life-saving
surgery on Virdon. Scott, who had appeared in
TV shows such as Twilight Zone, Outer Limits
and The Fugitive, recalls, “They had at least
seven full-time makeup artists on the show and
they were the absolute best but it was all very
expensive.”
Even though it took three to four hours to
apply the makeup, she adapted right away. “Just
before they applied the bottom chin, they fed
you breakfast because once it was attached,
you could not eat. You had to sip nourishment
through a straw. You couldn’t laugh either, that
could crack your face. I never got used to looking
like a chimpanzee. I would glance at myself in
a mirror and it scared the daylights out of me. I
remember my mother hated to see me as an ape
on TV! But the casting director, Marvin Paige,
said that Beverly Garland and I were the two
actresses who dealt best with the makeup. After
a few days, Roddy came up to me and said, ‘I’ve
noticed the makeup doesn’t bother you as much
as it bothers other people,’ and it didn’t.
“Roddy was just marvellous. He and everyone
else who played apes looked out for one another.
We’d check each other’s face for cracks or
smudges and offered morale support.”
McDowall, as the lead ape, had makeup that
was painstakingly applied. “I wish I could tell
you what it was, because I can’t explain it, but
there was something different about Roddy’s
makeup,” Scott says. “It was not the same as
anyone else’s. Ours seemed glued onto our faces
but his had much more flexibility.”
For his own comfort, McDowall had an air-con-
ditioned motor-home and a stipulation he would
work only four days a week, to preserve his face.
It didn’t always work. “After four or five episodes,
his face looked like raw hamburger because of
the rubber appliance,” recall Ron Harper. “He had
to take a week off for his skin to heal.”
One thing McDowall wanted to do but couldn’t
was to curl his lips back in a snarl, exposing his
teeth (like Tarzan’s Cheetah). But his mask didn’t
allow that. McDowall loved the Galen character,
describing him as a bit of a conman with a great
sense of humour. “As Galen, I am suppose to be
both intellectual and sensitive. How do I convey
that? Well, for one, I sound British.”
During the production of Escape from the
Planet of the Apes (1971) in Beverly Hills, a
woman had pushed past security guards and
fiercely grabbed Kim Hunter (Zira). ‘You’re so
cute,’ the woman exclaimed and tried touching
her face, nearly bringing Kim to tears. Roddy,
who justifiably called the intruder “a dumb
woman,” angrily stepped in and stopped the
woman’s harassment of his co-star. “When we
are in makeup, people will do the most annoying
PLANET OF THE APES - THE TV SERIES
Images on this
spread:
Behind-the
scenes shots
from the show
featuring the
main stars, and
Roddy McDowall
being made up as
as Galen
Left: Booth
Colman as Dr
Zaius and Mark
Lenard as Urko
before and after
the application
of their Ape
make-up
All images
supplied by Mark
Rogers
INFINITY 23
things. They can be very intrusive,” McDowall
snapped.
Ironically, while filming the first movie in
1967, McDowall’s makeup often frightened
bystanders, who staggered away in revulsion
and fear. “People were put off when they would
see me,” McDowall claimed. That changed over
the years. While dressed as a chimp, the actor
was prodded, poked, badgered and disrespected
by some people. “There should be a Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Actors,” he said.
When wise-ass reporters began making jokes
about “going ape” or “monkeying around”
McDowall rolled his eyes in frustration. “Truly,
I’ve really grown soooooo tired of hearing those
expressions,” he said.
“People really did treat us like animals,” says
Jacqueline Scott. “I was walking outside the
studio with a fellow ape when a car suddenly
screeched to a halt. People jumped out and
grabbed us. ‘Come here! Don’t run away – we
want a picture with you!’ We had no say in the
matter. They didn’t speak to us kindly or with
respect, they were very demanding, and kept
trying to touch our faces. Oh, it was very rude! It
was not a fun experience but it was fascinating
how these normal people became so impolite
and pushy. Roddy McDowall told me that’s how
he learned to really hate people because they
did the same thing to him all of the time.”
The media reported that many actors were
clamouring to play apes but she doubts that.
“I personally knew many actors who refused to
do the show, they didn’t like the idea of all that
latex and rubber on their faces and vanity was
probably a part of that. But I loved the challenge
of expressing myself as that character.”
Guest stars who endured the makeup well,
and were brought back, included John Hoyt,
Martin E. Brooks and Pat Renella. Even James
Naughton’s younger brother David got a kick
out of playing a chimpanzee for one segment.
McDowall said there could be confusion over who
was under the makeup. Director Don Weis once
drew “Galen” aside to instruct him on how to play
a scene until a muffled voice from within the ape
identified himself as Davey Rodgers, Roddy’s
stand-in.
When accosted by annoying people while
wearing his ape guise, McDowall would suddenly
adopt an American accent and tell visitors he
was actually Roddy’s brother from Chicago, a
charade that often worked. Out on location, Ron
Harper tried to demonstrate to a TV Guide writer
how easy it was to identify the stuntmen playing
gorillas. “Tom, hey Tom!” Ron yelled to a nearby
ape. The gorilla ignored him and briskly walked
away. “Sorry,” a chastened Harper conceded, “so
it wasn’t Tom.”
EATING PROBLEMS
After filming “The Trap” in the city backlot, an
episode where Urko falls into a subway station,
Mark Lenard was horrified to find his mask and
suit infested with hundreds of blood-sucking
fleas. On another occasion, Lenard ordered a hot
plate of spare ribs, only to discover his heavy
ape snout prevented any eating. “All I could do
was sit there, as my plate got cold, and drool.”
He switched to munching carrots and celery but
the Planet of the Apes sound-man found the
crunching sounds unbearably loud, so Lenard
was forced to go back to quietly sipping liquids
through a straw.
“The Good Seeds,” about an ape family who help
the astronauts and Galen, was actually the first
episode filmed, designed specifically to imitate
the family-friendly ambiance of the CBS hit,
The Waltons. “Escape from Tomorrow,” the first
episode telecast (which introduced the astronauts)
While dressed as a chimp,
McDowall was prodded, poked,
badgered and disrespected by
some people. “There should
be a Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Actors,” he said.
When wise-ass reporters
began making jokes about
“going ape” or “monkeying
around” McDowall rolled his
eyes in frustration. “Truly, I’ve
really grown soooooo tired of
hearing those expressions…”
Jon Abbott
24 INFINITY
was actually the third episode filmed. The idea
was to give Ron Harper and James Naughton
more time to develop camaraderie and chemistry
between themselves for the premiere show.
“Jim and I, for whatever reason, were never
as close as we could have been,” says Harper
vaguely. “Maybe it was the old thing of two
leading men trying to work together.”
There was actually a third astronaut, Jones,
who didn’t survive the spaceship landing and
was quickly buried by the gorillas. Everyone
from Ron Harper to A.D. Bill Derwin has racked
their memory in vain, trying to recall who played
that bit part. Whoever he was, he deserves credit
for maintaining an impressive dead-eye stare
as he is seen slumped over in his chair with a
broken neck.
Some of the program’s other guest stars
included Marc Singer, Sondra Locke, Royal Dano,
Roscoe Lee Browne, Geoffrey Deuel, William
Smith and Jackie Earle Haley. Eileen Dietz
played the teenaged chimp in “Good Seeds” who
develops a crush on the injured Galen. She had
just completed the role of the green-faced devil
(doubling Linda Blair) in The Exorcist and a week
after moving to Los Angeles, heard about the
Planet of the Apes TV show. She snuck into the
20th Century-Fox building and located casting
director Marvin Paige. “I told him I had just done
The Exorcist and was used to sitting for hours
in the make-up chair as my
life-mask was made.”
She got the role and Dietz
performed well in the blistering
heat of Malibu Canyon. “The only
uncomfortable thing were our
big ape feet had sneakers hidden
inside them and that made our
feet really sweat. But everyone
was nice to me, especially Roddy.”
But her feelings did get hurt.
“In New York, whenever a show was finished, the
cast and crew would always get together for a
drink and talk about the day’s work. But in Apes,
after we wrapped for the day, everybody just left.
They all disappeared. I remember standing there
alone, going (plaintively), ‘Where did everybody
go?’ It took me awhile to realize that it was
nothing personal. Everyone lived so far away that
they had a long drive to get home. They didn’t
have time to sit around and chat.”
She couldn’t wait to see her show on TV. “I was
really excited and I invited everybody I knew
in California to my house to watch it. But as it
played on my TV, everybody got really bored and
began talking. I remember being very distraught
and saying, ‘Hey, wait a minute, people – stop
talking. Please! My show is on.’”
After doing Apes, Eileen played a cavegirl in
Hanna-Barbera’s series Korg 70,000. “My Mom
said, ‘Eileen, are you ever going to play a part
where you can show your face?’” Eileen is proud
of “The Good Seeds” and has seen it several
times. “It showed the kind of backward racism
the apes had towards the humans. The story
examined their fear and prejudice.” It ends with
the ape family and humans becoming friends.
PERSISTENT MYTH
As the series geared up for its CBS premiere
on September 13, McDowall tried to correct
the persistent myth that he was continuing
his role from the original film. “No, that is not
true - Cornelius is dead,” McDowall said. “Galen
is an entirely new character.” The confusion was
caused by a chimp in the first film named Galen,
played by Wright King, but he had no relation
to the TV character. “We are not borrowing
anything from the motion pictures,” McDowall
This page:
Scenes from
the show plus
some original
promotional
advertising,
and two of the
four spin-off
paperback
novels written by
American sci-fi
author George
Alec Effinger,
published
between 1974
and 1976
INFINITY 25
stressed. “They have run their course.”
Apes was originally supposed to air Tuesdays,
competing against Adam-12 and Happy Days.
But when comedian Redd Foxx walked off
Sanford and Son, CBS knew a Foxx-less Sanford
on Friday nights would be extremely vulnerable,
so Apes was switched opposite Sanford and a
new show, Chico and the Man. Unfortunately,
Foxx returned to Sanford at the last minute,
with a lot of publicity. Still, many people placed
their bets on Planet of the Apes, including many
advertising executives in New York.
An agency man named McHugh said, “Apes
will trample its competition at first but if the
show turns out to be poorly done, ratings will fall
off immediately and CBS will be left with a real
bomb.” Another advertiser agreed that Apes had
a good chance but he resented how CBS kept
saying Planet of the Apes would get a huge 40%
of the audience every week. “No one can say that
for sure,” the agency man warned. Sadly, Apes
would end up averaging a pathetic 24% share.
The early reviews of the premiere episode
were encouraging. Movie historian Steven H.
Scheuer noted, “the wooden astronauts and apes
riding on horseback are silly but it’s a lively show
and Roddy McDowall is delightful as Galen.”
Charles Benbow of The St. Petersburg Times said
Apes was “excellent” television, betrayed only
by one disappointing production short-cut: “The
landing of the spaceship happens off-camera!”
The Los Angeles Times predicted Apes and
Born Free (also destined to die by mid-season)
would be big hits. The Christian Science Monitor
called Apes “fascinating and superb” while Rex
Polier of The Philadelphia Bulletin said, “It is
well-produced, provocative and entertaining.” Jay
Sharbutt of The Associated Press was one of the
few naysayers: “Apes will slip on its own banana
peel by December.” Columnist Ken Murphy was
just plain mean: “The only people who will have
use for this garbage are Star Trek fans.”
But it was the ratings that would kill the
beast. The first episode ranked 37th out of 56
shows. The second episode was 43rd, the third
episode 47th and the fourth episode 53rd. The
competition, Sanford and Chico and the Man,
was always in the top five. The Chicago Tribune
noted, “Apes has been getting creamed by NBC
and it has turned into a sorry flop for CBS.” The
death watch had begun.
Yet the show must go on. Sandra Gimpel, who
was Billy Mumy’s stunt double on Lost in Space
and performed hundreds of stunts in films like
Towering Inferno and Escape from New York,
recalls thinking that doubling as a chimpanzee
for Jane Actman in “The Deception” would be
“no big deal. I just sat there as they applied the
prosthetics for two and a half hours, breathed
through a straw and fell asleep.”
As a blind chimpanzee, she falls off a cliff into
the Pacific Ocean. “I was in the water, screaming
and splashing, and James Naughton’s character
swims out to save me.” By the time work was
over, “I had worn this makeup for over six hours.
We wrapped for the day, I sat down for them
to remove this stuff from my face and… they
couldn’t. The salt water had adhered the makeup
to my face. The reaction by everyone around
me was ‘Oh no!’ I will never forget sitting there,
holding on tightly to the arms of the chair, with
tears rolling down my eyes and they were trying
and trying to get it off my face.” They finally did,
but Gimpel recalls that experience as “horrible,
just horrible.”
LONG, HOT DAYS
A very young Cheryl Downey was halfway
through her Directors Guild of America appren-
ticeship to becoming an Assistant Director
when, as a DGA trainee, she worked on Apes with
second A.D, Ed Ledding “where we had to handle
everything.” She had to be at the Fox ranch (now
called Malibu State Park) at 3:30am to check
on the makeup and hair team. Her day finished
around 9:30pm.
“Almost everything was shot at the Ranch, so
five days a week I had a 45 minute commute,
speeding each way! Those 18-hour days were
brutal, especially in the summer heat. I had to
sleep round the clock Saturdays to try and make
up for my week of four hours of sleep per night.”
It was an experience she has never forgotten.
“The Prince of the cast was Roddy McDowall.
The foam rubber appliance glued to the faces of
the principal actors playing chimps and gorillas
prevented eating anything until their removal.
Only liquids could be consumed. Roddy faced
this daily prospect with good cheer. He was
always prepared, never complained, even though
the skin on his face deteriorated from the glue
and the glue removal.”
She recalls only one landline telephone on
the ranch, “no mobile phones” which added
to the challenges of production coordination.
“We tried to shoot all of Roddy’s scenes as soon
as possible,” she recalls. “The heat and sweat
caused the appliance to sort of melt, requiring
extensive repairs after lunch.”
There was also a lot to move
between filming – horses, goats,
chickens trailers and lots of extras. “The
directors learned to compromise their
‘dream shots’ in order not to fall behind
schedule.” She remained on the series
for its entire six months of production.
“Roddy was my favourite person on
the whole show but I worked later with
James Naughton who was also a real
professional.”
Story-wise, kids looking for fantasy
instead got mundane scenarios
about the astronauts curing malaria,
teaching a human to fly a hang-glider,
being subjected to brainwashing or
participating in a horse race. Outdoor
locales boiled down to either the Fox
Ranch, the Pacific Ocean or the old
ruined city sets. No matter how far
the trio travelled, the same mountains kept
popping up behind them. Virdon’s goal was to
find an advanced civilization with a computer
that could interpret Virdon’s flight disc, and then
build them a spaceship. Had the astronauts
decided on Houston or Florida as a specific
walking destination, to locate old spaceships
stored at NASA centres, it would have given
them a geographical goal rather than aimless
wandering.
As the show continued, critics became
tougher. “If apes in zoos had TVs, this show
would be number one,” said columnist MIchael
Drew, “but humans over the age of 14 will be
very bored.” The Monster Times said, “The series
rests primarily on the capable talents of Roddy
McDowall and a fine supporting cast – and no,
we’re not talking about the third-raters imitating
Charlton Heston and James Franciscus.”
The Calgary Herald suggested viewers read
Pierre Boulle’s original Planet of the Apes novel
instead, bitterly complaining that series could
have been a winner, “if it had more thought and
good writing.” Even NBC got into the fray, with its
vice-president calling Apes, “A Saturday morning
cartoon show that is not working.” However, when
NBC’s friendly lion series Born Free got cancelled,
the NBC men shrugged and said, “Well, I guess
this wasn’t the year for apes or lions.”
A California viewer named Bill pleaded with
CBS to move the show to a different time period,
Wednesdays at 8pm, where it would be up
against Michael Landon’s Little House on the
Prairie and a comedy, That’s My Mama. “Yes, if
Planet of the Apes still remains a poorly rated
show after that, then I would not fault CBS for
taking it off,” he said. But no one was listening,
the network had determined that nothing could
save the show.
This page:
Stuntman Tom
McDonough
takes a break
from filming with
an umbrella as
a sun shade -
many thanks to
Tom himself for
this pic
Above:
More
mechandising
spin-offs
including a 1976
paperback and
3D Viewmaster
images. Bottom
image above
is a single that
designer Kev
bought of a tune
that was used in
a Levi ad back in
the 1990s, and
he has included
it to show how
similar it looks in
design to the Apes
Viewmaster cover.
26 INFINITY
RACIST ACCUSATIONS
Besides ratings, there were other concerns. One angry
viewer wrote to a newspaper to say she didn’t like “the
way this awful show is pushing evolution.” A.D. Bill
Derwin recalled that the series was also being unfairly
accused of being racist. “As the show went on, the
behaviour of the gorillas was toned down and it soon
became The Planet of the Benevolent Apes.”
An associate director of CBS research remained
aghast at how poorly Apes was doing against Sanford
and Chico. “I find it hard to believe NBC is doing so well
on Friday nights against us,” he lamented. Adding to
the confusion was that Apes merchandise was selling
like wildfire, everything from toys, action figures and
puzzles. The department store Woolworth’s reported
that the merchandise was selling so well, “it’s hard to
keep it in stock.”
Another network executive was so disbelieving
of the reportedly bad ratings that he did his own
stealth research by pointing his telescope out of his
high-rise apartment on Friday nights and scanning
all of the TV sets flickering across the New York City
skyline. He discovered the bitter truth: almost every TV
reflected the antics of Sanford and Chico. The Nielsen
ratings were right, these two situation comedies were
conquering the planet of the apes.
The Oakland Tribune’s Robert MacKenzie loved
literary science fiction but with the exception of
praising Land of the Giants, he felt every other show in
the genre - Star Trek, UFO, Invaders, The Starlost and
now Apes - had blundered their potential and produced
bad television. “Planet of the Apes is just men wearing
plastic masks and it’s one dull chase after another,” he
said. He also felt the franchise was being mercilessly
exploited. “These poor apes will be worked by the
studio until there is not another dollar left to be
squeezed from their furry hides.”
TV Guide made the first official pronouncement
that the Apes saga was doomed in their October 26,
1974 issue. “The network and many other people were
positive a new series based on the features would be a
solid success,” the magazine said. “Not so and Planet
of the Apes is as good as gone by January.”
“When we shut down in November, we did not know
if the network was going to renew us and we were
cancelled shortly thereafter,” says Cheryl Downey.
“Although the show was very ambitious, it could not
approach the standards set by the feature film.”
Its surprising demise left a lot of questions. “We
don’t know what went wrong,” said William Shatner’s
father-in-law, Perry Lafferty, an executive at CBS.
“We are shocked that our judgment was so wrong. We
figured Planet of the Apes would eliminate Sanford
and Son in quick order. The first three Planet movies
last year had amazing ratings on CBS. But when we
ran the fourth movie this year (Conquest), it got a very
poor rating.” The Washington Post was annoyed too:
“For months we heard how Planet of the Apes couldn’t
miss, that it would be in the top ten – and now, come
January, its missing!”
Charlie Pike of High Point Enterprise offered
false hope when he wrote, “There’s still a very good
possibility Apes will pop up on another network.”
That didn’t happen, although NBC made a Saturday
morning cartoon series, Return to the Planet of the
Apes, in 1975. A fan asked columnist Dick Kleiner if
astronauts Virdon and Burke would ever get back
home? “No,” Kleiner said. “Never. The show has been
cancelled. The astronauts will never get home. Those
two guys are trapped there forever, with all of those
apes.” Cecil Smith of The Los Angeles Times liked the
series but was surprised when his own children and
their elementary schoolmates begged him to stop the
cancellation. But there was nothing Daddy Cecil could
do. Nevertheless, when the series’ 14 episodes were
later sold to countries such as England, Japan and
Australia, the show proved to be a big hit.
UNIMAGINATIVE WRITING
Many of the show’s actors felt the show could have
been better. “The stories went progressively downhill
and it got boring,” says Harper. “If you analyse the
episodes, we used one basic plot - one of us gets
captured, the other two have to rescue him. Well,
that is not very imaginative writing.” Harper felt that,
among other ideas, it would have been interesting for
the trio to have encountered a rescue expedition from
Earth. Booth Colman, who played Dr. Zaius, agreed.
“The only episode done well was our premiere show,
it had a good script. After that, we fell into the usual
claptrap of unimaginative, inferior stories. Still, with
time, it could have gotten better.”
Mark Lenard said, “It was a big mistake for the
human villagers to talk – I liked it better in the first
movie, where the humans were mute and kept in
cages!” McDowall considered Planet’s loss a tragedy.
“It was a much better series than it was ever given
credit for,” he said years later and felt the apes
merchandise could have carried the show in lieu of
bad ratings but that wouldn’t have compensated for
sponsors’ products of soap and automobiles not being
purchased by Apes’ biggest demographic, kids aged
2-11 years old.
“Maybe if Charlton Heston had starred in the TV
version and Rod Serling had written all the scripts, it
might have survived,” opined The Evening News but
that was unlikely too. Apes fever on television had
simply waned.
In 1980, 20th Century-Fox syndicated 10 of the 14
episodes by combining them into a total of five TV
movies, and gave them such outlandish titles as Life,
Liberty and Pursuit on the Planet of the Apes. Some of
these ersatz movies contained new footage of Roddy
McDowall as an ancient Galen, sitting in a cottage
with a 1970s Commodore PET computer flickering
behind him. Galen provided brief commentary but his
eccentrically coy dialogue was dull, except to reveal
that, “Virdon and Burke did find their computer and
they disappeared back into space….” Galen turned
down their offer to fly back with them.
As late as 1994, McDowall held out hope someone
would ask him to do a TV reunion film. “After all,” he
said, “you could be 90 years old and yet, with the
makeup on, you would still look the same!”
Planet of the Apes is still fondly remembered by
a generation and in retrospect, much of its acting,
humour, and many well-written (and often poignant)
scenes still play well. Gerald Finnerman’s cinematogra-
phy was also excellent.
“I thought it was really stupid for the network to
cancel Planet of the Apes in the first place,” says
Jacqueline Scott, who counts herself as a loyal fan.
“Children just loved the show and even today, it has not
dated. It’s now on DVD and it will go on
forever and ever.”
INFINITY 27
t was the scarecrows that triggered the
first real sense that things didn’t bode
well, a sinister sting to the senses that
something malevolent loomed just over
the ridge. In a short time that feeling of unease
erupted into full blown disorienting fear and one
of the most iconic and nerve-shattering set pieces
in fantasy cinema history - a shocking attack on a
bunch of helpless humans in a field of corn. Some
of the barely-seen attackers were on foot, slicing
the corn with switches, others were on horseback,
stampeding the fleeing people like cattle. The
scene culminated in a stunning shot of one of the
horse-mounted riders in a final mind-blowing reveal:
a ferocious ape in black leather wielding a rifle.
This was my adrenaline-charged introduction
to the original 1968 Planet of the Apes on UK
television. I was aged about six and it was in the mid
1970’s. I’m not sure of the exact year, but it must
have been around 74 because the TV spin-off started
that year and I promptly became an avid, excitable
viewer of the show.
Planet of the Apes, in both its movie franchise
and TV show formats was a phenomenon for
pudding basin haircut sprogs like myself, and it
quickly became an obsession. Me and my mates
wanted the lot: Mego action figures, comics, jigsaw
puzzles, masks etc. Weekly trips to the shops
ensured that parents, nans granddads and monkey’s
uncles were parted from their pennies.
While all this monkey business was going on, to my
great delight I discovered that The Circus Hoffman
Planet of the Apes live touring show was coming to
a town near me. Real-life apes on stage. I had to go,
and used good behaviour as a bargaining chimp, er,
chip. So it was, one chilly Wolverhampton Saturday
evening in November of 1975, that I persuaded my
parents to take me to see it. The journey there was
exhilarating to the point of seizure for an impres-
sionable kid like me, and I was beside myself with
gleeful anticipation, swinging from the trees as we
travelled from West Bromwich to Wolverhampton
Racecourse in our blue Austin Maxi.
Upon arrival at the venue I was lured by the
siren call of the merchandise stand, where Dad
bought me a General Urko pin badge, a slightly
bigger than 8 x 10 colour photo of the same Urko
picture and a plastic ape mask with movable jaw.
I was a very lucky boy indeed and knew it, so I
treasured these.
Besides Urko
they had pics and
badges of Galen,
Zaius and astronauts
Burk and Virdon from
the TV show, but it
was obviously too
expensive to buy them
all. General Urko was
the coolest character
though, every kid in the
playground wanted to be
him, if only for an excuse
to duff up his human
mates. Only the wussier
kids wanted to be Galen,
or maybe the elderly
Dr Zaius.
Taking our places in
the bleacher-style seats,
the show finally kicked off,
and although the passing
of time has distorted the
exact plotline I vividly recall the two astronaut
characters being chased around the circus-like
arena by a squad of soldier apes led by the
mighty General Urko, gorilla leader of the ape
army. Some were astride horses, with a band
of soldiers on foot firing rifles. The humans
were captured, then escaped again, were
chased into the audience and weaved their
way in and out of the rows of
seats before going back into
the arena.
The show was packed
with impressive stunts and
well-choreographed fights
and shoot outs. All the time
the characters drew
whoops, cheers and
delighted squeals
from the kids in
the audience. And
there were gasps
and jeers as the
villainous Urko and
his henchmen baited
the fans, drawing the odd
frightened grizzle from
the more ‘delicate’ kids,
the ones who rooted for
Walter the softie from
the Beano’s Dennis
The Menace. Of course
credibility is key to being
suckered into the fantasy,
and the costumes and ape
masks were very convincing
to my six-year-old eyes.
Looking at photographs from
the touring shows online I’d
say they stand up incredibly
well after all these years, so
no expense appears to have
been spared in the show’s
production design.
When the show reached its rousing climax,
swarms of babbling children got to meet, and get
their photos taken with, their favourite characters.
General Urko was the most popular and the queue
to meet him was too long so I got my pic taken
with Dr Zaius instead. At least my Urko badge was
proudly displayed on my green 70s coat that my
Nan always said I looked a right Bobby Dazzler
in (and I really did folks). It was one of the most
delightful experiences of my childhood and has
remained a cherished memory.
APES ON STAGE
Of course being just a kid I knew nothing of the
origin of the Planet of the Apes shows, but here
we are in the age
of the internet
and so I decided
to check into their
background for this
article. Better late
than never, eh?
The transition
of Apes from film
and TV to live
touring shows was
apparently the
brainchild of Big
Mike Caulfield,
who in 1975,
as head of
INFINITY FANS TELL OF THEIR OWN SCI-FI EXPERIENCES
THE TRAVELLING APE SHOW
‘TAKE
THE HELM’
Simon Pritchard heard through the ape vine that we were doing a Planet of the Apes special so he
sent us this fun piece on his childhood memories of seeing General Urko and company on stage!
I
This image:
Young Simon with
one of his Apes
heroes. He hasn’t
changed a bit since
then (see right)
28 INFINITY
Simon Pritchard
Television Character
Promotions, hit upon
the genius idea of
taking the basic
character and plot
elements from the
Planet of the Apes
TV series which had
aired its one and
only season the year
before. Ironically for
something so beloved
of kids everywhere
and backed by a
wealth of popular
merchandising, the TV
show was cancelled
after only one series
due to low ratings.
Talk about slipping on
a banana peel.
Back at Television
Character Promotions,
Big Mike landed the
rights from Twentieth
Century Fox studios
to create a touring
show that would visit
venues across the
UK between 1975
and 1978. To further
secure the show’s
success another deal
was cut with the UK
arm of Marvel Comics,
who published the
Planet of the Apes
comic book here in
Blighty. The deal was
that Marvel would
endorse a Planet of
the Apes fan club
through the comic.
The Apes comic
proved a success
and was inundated
with fan mail, so
eventually TCP took the strain off Marvel by joining
forces with an official Apes fan club through which it
could promote the live touring shows. This new club
was launched in 1975 and Big Mike and his team of
five TCP employees (which included his wife June)
set about creating a spectacular Planet of the Apes
production utilising the most inventive costumes,
masks and make-ups they could muster on the
budget they had. Mike himself wrote the scripts for
the shows and also cast himself in the role of ape
leader General Urko in a number of the performances.
With Marvel running the ads for the club it was
quite a winner, gathering memberships from all
around the globe. Fans received combo packs of
badges and colour photos featuring characters from
the TV show plus other sundry goodies like stickers
and of course a regular newsletter.
Then the live shows hit the road, travelling the
country like an army of marauding chimps and
invading circuses, festivals, fairs, showgrounds and
racecourses like the one in Wolverhampton where
I saw it in 75. Meanwhile, various offshoot groups
from TCP made appearances at shopping centres,
supermarkets and department stores to promote the
full blown performances, drawing crowds everywhere
they went.
A DIFFERENT DIRECTION
By the end of the summer of 1976 the company
decided to cut back on the live arena shows and
take their apes in a slightly different direction,
creating a Planet of the Apes stage show with newly
written scripts. Pre-recorded dialogue was utilised
for the ape characters so that audiences could hear
lines that were muffled behind the masks. These
characters mimed to the dialogue while the humans
recited theirs live. Two groups of players were formed
so two stage shows could be running in two separate
theatres for the 1976 summer season. One was
booked into Stratford’s Theatre Royal in East London
and the other one into the Windmill Theatre in Great
Yarmouth in Norfolk.
Both runs were sellouts, proving incredibly
popular with general audiences and fan club
members alike. It was hoped that they could be
expanded into a full-on countrywide theatre tour,
but by the end of 76 it became apparent that this
was not to be. By then Mike Caulfield was working on
other projects for the company and the Apes shows
were beginning to wind down. They still appeared at
Tesco supermarkets across the country during 1977,
but probably just to buy bananas.
Meanwhile, Television Character Promotions had
downsized its
office in Piccadilly
to a smaller one
in Ilford and
Marvel Comics
had dropped its
advertising for
the fan club when
their Planet of the
Apes comic was
cancelled.
A few minor
Apes shows were
performed during
1978 and the
same year Mike
Caulfield was
invited to direct
a revived Planet
of the Apes stage
show at the Pier
Pavilion Theatre
in Cleethorpes.
It seems to have
been be a great
success. Caulfield
expressed his
delight with the
show and added
that he hoped to
take it on tour, but
nothing came to
fruition.
That’s where
my research hits
a brick wall as it
appears Television
Character
Promotions
disappeared off
the radar after
August 1978,
taking the UK’s
only official Planet of the Apes Fan Club
with it. What happened to Big Mike, his family and
other team and show members I don’t know, so if
anybody knows any further details I’d be interested
to hear them.
This feature has been a simplified overview
of the live Planet of the Apes shows from
the 1970s. I just wanted to express my
own memories of that special day back in 75
when I saw the touring show in Wolverhampton,
experiencing an exciting spectacle that was an
amazing extension of that wonderful TV show and
the films that spawned it. Judged by modern high
tech standards that same show would probably
come across today as basic, threadbare and I
guess simple. Yet I recall it being full of action and
intensity with decent stunts and special effects.
More important at the end of the day was its sheer
entertainment value, all in the best vaudeville
and pantomime tradition. All it needed was for
someone to say, “Look out, Urko’s behind you!”
and everyone went apeshit. Happy days.
You can see more of Simon’s glorious artwork at:
www.artbeat64.com/
Left:
Simon’s superb
rendition of the
Planet of the Apes
TV show characters
INFINITY 29
SCIENCE FICTION LIBRARY
THE WONDERFUL WORLDS OF RAY
HARRYHAUSEN, VOLUME TWO:
1961-1964. Blu-ray.
Out: November 13th. Powerhouse/
Indicator. Cert: PG.
Powerhouse continue to be the
Ray Harryhausen fan’s best friend
with a second great volume of the
stop-motion effects maestro’s sci-fi/
fantasy favourites.
For a start we have Mysterious Island
(1960) a fast-paced and entertaining
fantasy set at the time of the US Civil
War. Michael Craig is the leader of a
bunch of Union soldiers who escape
from a Confederate jail by hot air
balloon. They descend into the sea
and wash up on the shores of a remote
island where they are menaced by
giant bees, monster crabs, and other
outsize perils. The creatures are the
results of growth experiments carried
out by Captain Nemo (Herbert Lom),
who hopes his mutations will solve
the world food shortage. But the old
erupting volcano routine puts paid
to his plans. The plot has plenty of
holes, but in general this is one of the
better-written Harryhausen ventures,
supported by lively direction and an
impressively atmospheric Bernard
Herrman music score performed by the
London Symphony Orchestra.
Next up is Jason And The Argonauts
(1963), to my mind the very best of the
Ray Harryhausen/Charles H. Schneer
fantasy epics. This wonderful movie
brings you right into the fanciful world
of Greek Mythology, with dragons,
living statues, harpies and Gods. The
film’s only liability is the wooden
performance of hero Todd Armstrong,
who isn’t anywhere near as engaging
a character as Nigel Green’s crusty
Hercules (who goes out of the movie
far too early on). The screenplay is
better constructed than usual, and
Jason’s seagoing quest to find the
Golden Fleece and regain the throne
that was stolen from him at birth has
quite a number of visual highlights.
The Harryhausen effects are uniformly
excellent, particularly the bronze
giant Talos, who gave me nightmares
as a 10-year-old! The sword-fighting
skeletons are also unforgettable, and
the vivid photography of the beautiful
Mediterranean adds immensely to the
film’s all-round entertainment value.
Superb stuff for kids and adults alike.
The great Bernard Herrmann wrote the
inspired score.
The final film in this set is First
Men In The Moon (1964). One of Ray’s
most enjoyable movies, this colourful
adaptation of the famous H.G. Wells
story is nicely scripted by Nigel
(Quatermass) Kneale and has a bright
performance from Lionel Jeffries as the
eccentric Victorian inventor Professor
Cavor, who winds up on the moon when
testing his new anti-gravity paint on
a spherical metal ship. Along for the
ride are playwright Edward Judd and
Judd’s fiancee Martha Hyer. They are
captured by Selenites, funny little
insect creatures who are actually
children in suits. Harryhausen uses
his amazing stop-motion animation
skills elsewhere in the movie to create
a giant caterpillar and the Great Lunar
creature who rules over the Selenites.
Great fun, and the ingenious framing
flashback is the icing on the cake. Nice
Laurie Johnson (The Avengers, The
Professionals) music too.
All three films look stunning, with
4K restorations of Jason and the
Argonauts and First Men in the Moon
and a 2K restoration of Mysterious
Island, all from the original camera
negatives. All movies come with mono
and 5.1 surround sound audio options.
Extras: Ray Harryhausen audio
commentaries, and an additional
Mysterious Island audio commentary
with film historians Randall William
Cook, C. Courtney Joyner and Steven C.
Smith. There’s also an additional Jason
and the Argonauts audio commentary
with filmmaker Peter Jackson and
Randall William Cook. Other features
include Jason and the Argonauts
original skeleton fight storyboards,
Ray Harryhausen on Mysterious Island
and Hal Hickel on Mysterious Island,
Islands of Mystery a vintage featurette,
Randall William Cook Introduces
First Men in the Moon, Tomorrow the
Moon, another vintage featurette,
new and exclusive interviews with
crew members, including camera
assistant Ray Andrew (Mysterious
Island) and production manager Ted
Wallis (First Men in the Moon), Back to
Mysterious Island comic-book, archival
documentaries and interviews, Super
8 versions of Mysterious Island and
Jason and the Argonauts (used to have
these!), isolated scores, original trailers,
teasers, TV spots and promotional
films, John Landis trailer commentary
for First Men in the Moon, limited
edition exclusive 80-page book. This
comes in a Limited Dual Format Edition
Box Set of 6,000 numbered units. AB.
Allan Bryce, Steve Green, David Flint and Mark
Foker cast a critical eye over the latest sci-fi
and fantasy movie and home video releases…
BLU-RAY, DVD
& CINEMA
Review Ratings
= Excellent
= Good
= Average
= Below Average
= Abysmal
30 INFINITY
INFINITY REVIEWS
THE KILLER B MOVIE COLLECTION. DVD
Out Now. Fabulous Films. Cert: 15.
Fabulous Films have been putting out a lot of great
old sci-fi and horror movies of late and just in case
you missed them you can scoop up nine of their most
popular titles in this 9-disc set for around a fiver a film.
Best of the bunch for me is The Blob (1958), starring
a young Steve (then Steven) McQueen in a classic teen
sci-fi horror which really sums up the spirit of 50s
drive-in movies. The setting is a tiny Pennsylvania
town, where a blob of purple goop from outer space
starts consuming the locals, getting bigger and bigger
with each meal. McQueen and the boring female lead,
Anita Corseaut, try to get the grown-ups to believe
their story, but in the end it’s up to the teen population
of the town to settle the Blob’s hash. Some of the
effects are a bit cheap and cheerful, but the film is still
a lot of fun and has a lovely small-town atmosphere
about it. Classic scenes include the Blob taking over a
movie theatre and swallowing a diner. The title song by
Burt Bacharach is pretty groovy!
Also a lot of fun is 1951’s The Man From Planet X.
A fine example of what can be done on a low budget,
this imaginative little sci-fi flick was shot in six days
by cult favourite Edgar G. Ulmer on sets left over from
Joan Of Arc (1948) and cost a mere $50,000 to make. It
features Robert Clarke as a reporter who visits a foggy,
studio-bound Scotland to confront a friendly bug-eyed
alien in a fishbowl helmet. The alien has come to plead
for aid for its freezing planet, but since this is the
paranoid 50s he gets blasted by bazookas. Short and
sweet, with pacy direction and performances, this is
easily one of the director’s best efforts.
The Creature Walks Among Us (1956) is the third
Creature From The Black Lagoon movie and starts out
well with scientists tracking the “Gill Man” (still played
by Ricou Browning in the underwater scenes) down in
his Amazon lair. A frantic battle ensues, during which
the fish-man is badly burned. Returned to the U.S. for
study, he is given an emergency tracheotomy enabling
him to live on land. It also seems to make him grow a
lot bigger - but maybe that’s because the monster on
land is played by bulky Don Megowan in an ill-fitting
suit. Penned up like a dog in the home of scientist Jeff
Morrow, the Creature looks out to sea yearningly, but
he doesn’t get up enough energy to bust out of his
chains until Morrow tries to frame him for murder. A
mediocre script and routine direction make this the
least of the series despite one or two exciting scenes.
The Deadly Mantis (1957) is one of the cheapest
and least satisfying of 50s Universal monster movies,
which sees a giant praying mantis thawed out of the
Arctic ice and flying to America to cause havoc in
Washington DC and New York. It finally meets its end
in the Holland Tunnel. Craig Stevens is the stolid hero
whose rugged charms steal Alix Talton away from
the arms of boffin William Hopper (good name for a
star of a film like this!). Loads of stock footage and
poor effects make this tough going even for the most
dedicated fan.
The Time Travellers (1964) is an imaginative
low-budgeter that has a group of 1960s boffins
accidentally stumbling 107 years into the future through
a time portal. There they find that nuclear war has
almost destroyed the human race, apart from a small
bunch of survivors who live underground and are trying
to construct a spaceship to escape to another planet.
The efforts of the survivors are being hampered by a
race of mutants who want to destroy the last remnants
of normal humanity. What the film lacks in budget it
makes up for in imagination, with some striking scenes
and a highly effective - if downbeat - ending.
We covered Dr. Cyclops (1940) last issue, it’s
a gorgeously Technicolored fantasy thriller with
Albert Dekker in the signature role of his career
as the not-so-good Doctor of the title who shrinks
unwanted visitors to his secret Amazon jungle lab.
Amazing special effects for its day and still tense and
entertaining almost 80 years on!
The Beast With A Million Eyes (1961) is one of
the cheapest monster flicks around, an early Roger
Corman effort set in the desert and telling of a family
menaced by a creature from space who inhabits the
bodies of normally tranquil animals and turns them
vicious. Thus Corman neatly gets round the problem of
having to show his “Beast,” though those suckered by
the lurid poster and title can’t have been pleased.
Also pretty bad is Angry Red Planet (1959), one of
the low-budget science fiction movies produced by
American Sidney Pink in Scandinavia in the late 50s.
This tawdry effort takes place amid sets that look like
they were all painted on glass, and yep, they were. A
group of astronauts blast off for Mars in a cardboard
spacecraft and encounter a giant spider-bat and some
strange-looking monster plants. Then they get in the
ship and come home again. Because Mars is known as
the red planet, Pink shot his movie in a process called
‘Cinemagic,’ which makes everything look negative,
but with a reddish glow. It also gives you a headache.
Finally, when I was a young lad at the mercy of
raging hormones I spent many a late night developing
hairy palms and double vision over the extremely
racy paperback version of Reptilicus (1962) issued
as a movie tie-in back then. When I eventually got
round to seeing the movie after many years I was
very disappointed to discover that all the sexy stuff in
the book was nowhere to be seen in the movie! What
we’re left with is a pretty pathetic low-budget monster
movie, shot in Scandinavia. A group of oil drillers come
up with a mangled tail of some prehistoric beast. The
tail starts to regenerate, and it grows into a fierce
beast that wreaks havoc on Copenhagen. Ridiculous
puppet-type effects doom this one from the start, but
it’s good for laughs on a cliched level.
To be fair, all of the movies look pretty decent
here, none of your old Public Domain dupes like you
get in the States, and so at around fifty quid this is a
worthwhile purchase even though it contains a few
duds alongside the B-movie treasures. I’d also argue
that Dr. Cyclops and The Blob were never B-movies, by
the way. AB.
CYBORG 2087 (1966) Blu-ray.
Out Now. Kino Lorber. Cert: N/A.
2087 must have seemed a long way away when they
made this movie, now it is only just around the corner
- I’ve pre-ordered my 2087 iPhone already. There’s
not much future in watching this crappy sci-fi movie
though because it’s a boring cheapie which wastes the
germ of a decent premise - later used to much better
effect in The Terminator!
Made back-to-back with Dimension Five (also
reviewed here), this anti-Communist effort stars a
tired-looking Michael Rennie (who died four years later
at the age of 61) as Garth, a Cyborg from the oppressed
future (2087 to be exact) who time-travels back to
1965 (in a machine that looks like a giant spark plug)
to confront Eduard Franz, the scientist who invented
Cyborgs in the first place - hoping to prevent him from
going ahead with his work, and in the process saving
the future from becoming a world where free thought
is banned. Anti-Commie? Well it’s no accident that the
scientist’s name is Marx!
Rennie is pursued by two killer cyborgs from the
future who look like a couple of refugees from the
Blue Oyster bar in the Police Academy films. I hasten
to add that I have caught flack from gay allusions in
the past and to avoid offence I am sure these guys are
straighter than the pole that your mum dances on.
Phew, dodged a ‘causing offence’ bullet there.
But back to Cyborg 2087, half-human, half-machine,
all fairly rubbish. The film has a plastic, made-for-telly
look about it, and has special effects that could have
come free in a Corn Flakes packet, but if you enjoy bad
sci-fi movies from the 60s then this could supply you
with some entertaining viewing, particularly as the
Blu-ray looks so good.
Extras: Former Fangoria editor Chris Alexander
provides a decent commentary in which he discusses
the whole Terminator/Harlan Ellison Soldier, Outer
Limits episode inspiration for the tale. Trailers for
other Kino releases: The Satan Bug, The Earth Dies
Screaming, Chosen Survivors, Panic in the Year Zero
and The Quatermass Xperiment. AB.
DIMENSION FIVE (1967) Blu-ray.
Out Now. Kino Lorber. Cert: N/A.
At the same time as Jeffrey Hunter starred in the
Star Trek pilot show, he toplined this silly sci-fi thriller
playing Justin Power, a smooth secret agent working
for Espionage Inc. (a clever title that explains exactly
what they do for a living). Better than Universal
Exports we reckon.
Powers is sent to stop the nuclear bombing of Los
Angeles by a Chinese communist organisation called
The Dragon. This entails him travelling back in time
via a handy dandy Time Belt, which also helps keep
his trousers up. He’s accompanied on his low budget
mission by the sultry France Nuyen (wife of I Spy’s
Robert Culp and a frequent guest on that show), and
his nemesis is a sinister character called Big Buddha -
played by Goldfinger’s Oddjob himself, Harold Sakata,
who has been dubbed here by Paul Frees. He’s also
in a wheelchair throughout, like an evil Man Called
Ironside, though nobody pushes him around.
INFINITY 31
SCIENCE FICTION LIBRARY
Whilst the plot sounds like fun, it’s not. Little use is
made of the Time Belt, Hunter’s character is arrogant
and stupid, and he has zero chemistry with his female
co-star. Director Franklin Adreon started his career
shooting Republic serials but you’d never guess it
from the flat way he stages the action scenes. In
fact he doesn’t seem to have any directorial flair at
all, preferring to leave the camera rolling in a static
location and pop off to the canteen for a cup of tea
while the actors try in vain to make Arthur C. Pierce’s
naff dialogue sound convincing. You’ll probably want
to join him. Two sugars please, and a Garibaldi if
there’s any left.
Extras: Audio commentary by Videodrome (Gideon
Kennedy, Matt Owensby and John Robinson). Opened
in 1998, Videodrome is now Atlanta, Georgia’s only
video rental store, and these guys find a lot to say
about this movie in an entertaining fashion. Trailers
and stills gallery. AB.
THE DOCTORS: THE TOM BAKER YEARS (2017) DVD.
Out now. Koch Media. Cert: E.
Even as someone who regards Jon Pertwee as “my”
Doctor, I wouldn’t deny Tom Baker was the first of the
Tardis’ tenants to inhabit the role totally in the public’s
eyes, combining relative obscurity (The Golden
Voyage of Sinbad fortuitously opened just as the
casting process began) and a personality which could
fill even a blue box considerably larger on the inside
than the inside.
By 1989, Reeltime Pictures founder Keith Barnfather
had built up a professional relationship with Baker by
hiring him for voiceover work on TV commercials, but
was still understandably delighted when the actor
agreed to be interviewed by Nicholas Briggs for one
of Reeltime’s Myth Makers video profiles. Unsure
exactly how much material would emerge from their
encounter in East Hagbourne, the sleepy village
originally used as the setting for 1975’s The Android
Invasion, Barnfather recruited John Levene to provide
dramatic padding by recreating his performance as
the serial’s fake Sgt Benton. As it turned out, Baker was
in fine form and Levene’s participation was limited to a
rather vestigial cameo at the close.
As with the previous Troughton and Pertwee
volumes, this two-disc compilation also includes
interviews with Baker’s on-screen companions: Lis
Sladen (filmed in 2000 at Peckforton Castle, location
of her first appearance as Sarah Jane Smith, The Time
Warrior, with Jeremy Bulloch popping up briefly to
mention how he’d hoped mediaeval archer Hal might
become a regular); actor and novelist Ian Marter,
interviewed weeks before his sudden death in 1994
(this release includes 12 minutes of previously unseen
material); Louise Jameson, filmed at a Victoriana
museum in 1993; Mary Tamm, wandering around
castle ruins in 1990; John “K9” Leeson, combining a
1984 interview by Keith Harrison with Briggs’ 1995
follow-up. Notable by her absence is Lalla Ward, who
seems to have maintained a polite distance from the
Who phenomenon (and ex-husband Baker) until 1993’s
non-canonical charity reunion Dimensions in Time.
Whilst I could do without the superfluous scripted
sequences (the footage of Mary Tamm and Nicholas
Briggs as Alice and the Mad Hatter are especially
irksome), this series provides by far the most in-depth
personal insights into television’s longest-running
science fantasy franchise. SG.
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND 40TH
ANNIVERSARY EDITION (1977) Blu-ray.
Out Now. Sony. Cert: PG.
Can it really be 40 years since Steven Spielberg’s UFO
blockbuster was first released? Apparently so, though
it seems like only yesterday to me. Mind you, I was
abducted by a flying saucer not long after the release
and have spent the last 4 decades in limbo being
probed in unmentionable places. Anyway, watching
this digital 4K restoration had me entranced and
humming the aliens’ theme tune - a five-note John
Williams motif - all over again.
In the unlikely event you didn’t know already, the
film stars Richard Dreyfuss (in a role turned down
by Steve McQueen) as cheerful Wichita, er, I mean
Indiana lineman Roy Neary, who experiences a close
encounter of the first kind when he witnesses UFOs
soaring across the sky.
A close encounter of the second kind then comes
with government agents unearthing physical evidence
of extraterrestrial visitors - in the form of a lost fighter
aircraft from World War II and a stranded military ship
that disappears decades earlier only to reappear in the
middle of the desert.
Meanwhile Roy becomes increasingly obsessed
with subliminal, mental images of a mountain-like
shape and begins to make a mashed potato sculpture
of it. Seeing a television news programme about a
train wreck near Devils Tower in Wyoming he realises
the mental image of a mountain plaguing him is real
and sets off to reach the site where both he and the
government agents will have a close encounter of the
third kind – contact.
When I first saw Close Encounters I thought it was
great, though perhaps slightly overlong, and to be
quite honest I was a bit pissed off the aliens were so
benign. Spielberg apparently rushed to complete it
and when it was a smash hit Columbia gave him $1.5
million to produce what became the “Special Edition”
of the film. Their only insistence was he showed the
inside of the alien mothership so they could have
something to hang a reissue marketing campaign on.
In retrospect Spielberg regretted it. This special edition
added seven minutes of new footage, but also deleted
or shortened various existing scenes by a total of ten
minutes, so that the 1980 Special Edition was three
minutes shorter than the original 1977 release.
The Special Edition features several new character
development scenes, the discovery of the SS Cotopaxi
in the Gobi Desert, and the aforementioned view of the
inside of the mothership.
But that’s not all folks. In 1998, Spielberg recut
Close Encounters again for what would become the
Collector’s Edition, a re-edit of the original 1977
release with some elements of the 1980 Special
Edition, but omitting the mothership interior scenes
which Spielberg felt should have remained a mystery.
He now regards the Collector’s Edition - also dubbed
‘Director’s Cut’ as his definitive version of the film.
Which one is the best? Still the original for me, I’m
afraid. I’m not in favour of all this tinkering. But you
can make your own minds up because all three are on
this new 4K Blu-ray release. If you have an Ultra HD
player you can see it in all of its 4K glory. I saw it on
normal Blu-ray and it still looks stunning.
Extras: All-new interviews with directors Steven
Spielberg, J.J. Abrams and Denis Villeneuve reflecting
on the legacy and impact of this iconic sci-fi classic,
Steven Spielberg’s home videos and outtakes,
Making Of documentary. Steven Spielberg: 30 Years
of Close Encounters featurette, 1977 featurette: Close
Encounters Of The Third Kind – Watch The Skies, deleted
scenes, storyboard comparisons, stills and trailers. AB.
THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN (1957) Blu-ray.
Out November 13th. Arrow. Cert: PG.
Here’s a movie I am absolutely delighted to see getting
an HD upgrade, one of my favourite sci-fi thrillers of
the 1950s, scripted by the great Richard Matheson
from his classic pulp novel.
While on holiday with his wife, Scott Carey (Grant
Williams) is enveloped by a strange cloud. A few days
later he discovers that the cloud was some form of
atomic waste, and it is causing him to shrink in stature.
He gets smaller and smaller, until he is eventually
forced to relocate to a doll’s house to get away from
the family cat!
Later he becomes insect-sized and takes up a
sewing needle to do battle with a spider before the film
reaches its remarkably existential conclusion - one
that leaves us with an interesting view of humanity’s
place in the universe.
The special effects are remarkably convincing, and
the oversized props created for the film were a feature
of the Universal Studios tour for many years, but it’s
Matheson’s intelligent writing that gives this one classic
status. Kudos also to director Jack Arnold, who whips
the tale along at a fair old pace, bringing out the 50s
paranoia inherent in the scenario.
The only false note is struck by the hero’s brief affair
with a circus midget - the use of a full-size actress for
the role was a bad mistake.
32 INFINITY
INFINITY REVIEWS
Extras: Auteur on the Campus: Jack Arnold at
Universal – an extended documentary about the
early career of director Jack Arnold at Universal-In-
ternational studios. He was of course the filmmaker
behind many of the studio’s greatest sci-fi and horror
movies, such as Creature From The Black Lagoon and
Tarantula. There Is No Zero: Writing The Shrinking
Man is an in-depth conversation with author Richard
Christian Matheson about his father and the creation
of the original Incredible Shrinking Man novel. And as
a final nice bonus we get the Super 8 cut-down version
of the film, which I must have seen about a hundred
times back in the day. “The mist… that mist!” AB.
DAMNATION ALLEY (1977) Blu-ray.
Out November 20. Signal One. Cert: 12.
Fox didn’t initially think that Star Wars was going to be
a box office success, but were really enthused about
this movie, thinking it was sure to be a blockbuster.
Boy did they get a wring number. While Star Wars
became a box office phenomenon, Damnation Alley
tanked so badly that it took me a year to catch up
with it as it slunk round the UK fleapit circuit. Shame,
because being a big Jerry Goldsmith fan I was looking
forward to hearing what his score sounded like in
‘Dimension 360.’ As it happened, the tiny cinema I
saw it in hadn’t even upgraded to stereo. Jerry had
previously scored The Illustrated Man for Damnation’s
director Jack Smight.
Based on Roger Zelazny’s novel, Damnation Alley
kicks off in a post-apocalyptic environment where the
only survivors leave an underground military base to
trek across the desert in a pair of tank-like all-terrain
mobile homes. For some odd reason Albany, New
York is the only place not wiped out, and that’s their
destination. Along the way George Peppard, Paul
Winfield, and Jan Michael Vincent encounter mutated
cockroaches, psycho rednecks, weird electrical storms
(the sky is a different colour in every scene) and pick
up sultry Dominique Sanda and juvenile delinquent
Jackie Earle Haley. Oddly enough there is no sex
between Sanda and any of the men, despite the fact
that they haven’t had a nibble in years!
You know a film is in trouble when the vehicles
the heroes travel in are more interesting than the
characters themselves, and the effects here are
pretty awful for a big budget studio production.
Okay, so it is just about watchable on a bad movie
level, but wait until you see that ridiculous ending.
Fair play nevertheless to Signal One for giving this
a nice-looking HD upgrade, though the increased
definition doesn’t help the ludicrous opening scene
where we see Jan Michael Vincent on a motorbike with
an obviously human passenger which he ditches to
decoy some giant scorpions. We then see that it is an
obvious store mannequin he has fed them. Yeah, sure.
Extras: Audio commentary with film expert,
Paul Talbot. Audio commentary with Producer, Paul
Maslansky. Interview with film Expert Chris Poggiali.
Survival Run: a look at the challenges of adapting the
celebrated novel with Co-Screenwriter, Alan Sharp.
Road To Hell: Producer Jerome Zeitman details the
process of making the film and the difficulties it
encountered along the way. Landmaster Tales: a
detailed examination of the now-famous Landmaster
Vehicle from the film. AB.
PHOENIX FORGOTTEN (2017) DVD.
Out Now. Signature. Cert: 15.
I’m no great fan of the “found footage” format; for
every [Rec] or The Last Broadcast, there are a dozen
entries where concocted context is deployed to
excuse ‘shakycam’ amateurism and ill-conceived
narrative inadequacies. Unfortunately, Phoenix
Forgotten falls heavily into the second camp. I’m not
entirely certain what “shocking untold true events”
inspired first-time feature director Justin Barber and
co-writer TS Nowlin (one of the team behind the Maze
Runner screenplays), but it’s established fact that
thousands of people reported seeing unidentified
flying objects during the 1997 ‘Phoenix lights’
incident. The duo use this alleged close encounter
as a springboard, building their initial storyline
around three Phoenix teenagers who decide to shoot
a documentary investigating the phenomenon. (This
section includes one of the film’s rare entertaining
moments, when two elderly astronomers pour scorn
upon the youngsters’ “ufo footage” and urge them to
learn how to focus properly.)
The Scooby Gang’s subsequent disappearance in
the Arizona desert is still a mystery 20 years later,
when a new investigation is launched by Sophie
(Florence Hartigan, from forthcoming animated
horror Malevolent), whose elder brother was one of
the original three. Needless to say, her own trajectory
is equally ill-fated. However, there is a genuine
conundrum at the heart of this tiresome 85-minute
home movie: what on Earth (or elsewhere) persuaded
Ridley Scott to come on board as a producer? For
some, regrettably, Phoenix Best Forgotten will be
further proof that his retirement is long overdue. SG
ORIGIN WARS (2016) DVD / Blu-ray.
Out now. Lionsgate. Cert: 15.
Pitched as the opening chapter in a new science fiction
franchise, Origin Wars should appeal strongly to fans
of Josh Whedon’s short-lived TV series Firefly and its
big-screen spin-off Serenity. This is SF without the
more fanciful Star Wars-style trappings of aliens and
telekinetic monks, a more gritty and character-driven
action drama than most of its genre contemporaries.
Fearful for his daughter’s safety in the wake of
a planet-wide emergency, military officer Kane
(Daniel MacPherson breaks out of the orbiting base
where he’s stationed and crash-lands upon the
surface of his home world. He encounters escaped
convict Sy (Kellan Lutz, Ghosts of Goldfield and the
Twilight series) and offers him sanctuary in a secret
underground bunker in exchange for helping rescue
the missing Indi (Teagan Croft). Director Shane Abbess
and co-writer Brian Cachia have sketched out a rather
grim future, but there’s clearly much more in store
for Indi, whose story arc is far better indicated by the
film’s US title, The Osiris Child. Ms Croft is impressively
confident in her movie debut, and I certainly hope this
release proves successful enough to justify a second
instalment.
Extras: None on this screener. SG
FEED THE LIGHT (2014) Blu-ray.
Out Now. Intervision. Cert: N/A.
Based very loosely on H.P. Lovecraft’s The Colour out of
Space, Feed the Light is an ultra low-budget ($14,000)
movie that makes up for any budgetary restrictions
with a great deal of imagination and style. Shot in
black and white (apart from intrusions of red, mostly in
the form of blood, and sudden flashes of psychedelic
colour), it’s a bizarre, hallucinogenic trip of a film.
Lina Sunden plays Sara, a young mother who is
determined to snatch back the child that she has lost
custody of. Tracking the father to huge warehouse, she
breaks in, only to find herself in a strange, timeless
world where a mysterious woman and her assistants
are keeping a mysterious light source – and where
strange shadow monsters lurk in the dark corners. This
is a world where doors appear and disappear, and no
one can leave – but as Sara makes her way through the
various levels of the warehouse, looking for her missing
daughter and a way to escape back into the real world.
This is a film that is more about atmosphere than
narrative coherence – which is not to say that the
film doesn’t make any sense but simply that it is
more concerned with creating visual nightmares and
creeping the viewer out than in giving us a straightfor-
ward story. In that, it succeeds well, the intentionally
degraded monochrome and sepia visuals and the
simple but effective shadow creatures, together with
a succession of weird and unsettling characters, make
this a dream-like experience that is best enjoyed by
not worrying too much about what it all means, and
instead allowing it to flow over you. There’s an almost
old-fashioned underground cinema appeal about Feed
the Light, and director Henrik Moeller does a fine job
with minimal resources. This is well worth
checking out.
Extras: Making of featurette; interview with Moeller;
trailer. DF.
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Their shared nemesis comes in the guise of Poppy (Julianne Moore) a psychotic
megalomaniac who has a thing about 50s TV programmes. Her secret Vietnam
hideaway is in the form of a 50’s Diner in the middle of the jungle, where she makes
handmade burgers using a man-size mincer…you’re way ahead of me here.
Moore is obviously having fun with this character and camps it up to eleven. But
not as much as her hostage Sir Elton John (played by Sir Elton John) who she forces
to perform private gigs or get be snuffed out like a candle in the wind.
Poppy deals in all kinds of drugs and just wants to be taken seriously as a
businesswoman. So she decides to teach the world a lesson by flooding the market
with her own brand of deadly narcotics, but can the joint agencies Kingsman and
Statesman thwart her evil plans and save the world? Well, anything James Bond
can do…
I loved the first Kingsman. It was fresh and funny, a brash new take on the
spy genre done with flair. At its heart was the Professor Higgins/Eggsy Doolittle
relationship that really worked well.
Unfortunately, (I’m sorry to say) the plot of this one isn’t strong enough to sustain
a running time of two hours twenty minutes. Having big US stars on board was a nice
touch, but Channing Tatum’s character doesn’t have enough screen time and I would
have liked to have seen his character getting more involved. Halle Berry’s Ginger
Beer is also underused. Queerly.
Jeff Bridges, who I always love to watch, mumbles his way through the film, but
the man does have screen presence. And just to get a little bit ‘Points of View,’ “why,
why, why?” was Sir Elton John asked to be part of the plot? If you use a famous face
as a cameo, it’s funny that one time but he keeps popping up as himself ‘effing &
jeffing’ in silly extended cameos which seem increasingly pointless.
The other minor gripe I have is the way that the move brings back a couple of
characters who clearly died in the first movie. Yes it’s nice to have Colin Firth recover
from being shot in the head last time out but this sort of takes away any feeling of
real danger. No matter what happens to the main
protagonists, there’s a chance they will still pop up in
the next in the series, as spry and chipper as ever.
I only have one more grumble, about an
unnecessary icky-scene where Eggsy has to plant
a tracking device, literally inside the lady parts
of Clara, Charlie’s girlfriend (played by Poppy
Delevingne) so she can lead Eggsy and Merlin to a
secret drug factory. Most of the audience made an
‘Eyeeew!’ sound in unison.
Having said all that, there are some great
moments of comedy and a few good action set
pieces to saver. Pedro Pascal is a great addition
to the cast as agent Whiskey, looking like Burt
Reynolds in his Smokey and the Bandit prime.
Matthew Vaughn was looking for a Reynolds type for
the role and he certainly found one.
Taron Egerton is solid, as is Mark Strong as Merlin,
and of course Colin Firth is Colin Firth, always good
value for money. The film was slightly disappointing
for me but I’m sure if the Leicester Square crowd
was anything to go by it will make a huge amount
of money.
Mark Foker.
IN CINEMAS NOW
KINGSMAN AND THE GOLDEN CIRCLE (15)
I have never seen such excitement by movie fans as I witnessed in London
recently. The circus had truly come to town as Kingsman swallowed up
Leicester Square. There was a plethora of stars who turned out for the
premiere, and each one of course thoroughly delighted to be working with
director Matthew Vaughn.
The star names were Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, Mark Strong, Jeff Bridges,
Halle Berry, Julianne Moore, Channing Tatum, Hanna Alström, Keith Allen, Pedro
Pascal, Edward Holcroft, Poppy Delevingne, Sophie Cookson and Sir Elton John - I
kid you not!
It was back in 2014 when a British secret service agent called Harry Hart ‘code
name Galahad’ (Colin Firth) recruited a young rough and unrefined London lad
called Eggsy (Taron Egerton) and trained him up to be a Kingsman, defenders of
the downtrodden and saviours of the World.
The film came from a 2012 Mark Millar graphic novel Kingsman: The Secret
Service, and was turned into a screenplay by Jane Goldman and Matthew
Vaughn, who also directed the movie which became Kingsman: The Secret
Service. The 007 spoof delighted audiences with its action-packed fight
sequences, a razor-sharp wit and an unusual chalk and cheese relationship
between the two main characters.
Fast forward to 2017 and Eggsy has matured into a real gent of an agent
but maintains his London roots. His friend and mentor Harry was murdered by
Samuel L Jackson’s character Valentine at the end of the first outing. But faithful
gadget man Merlin (Mark Strong) is back, still looking out for Eggsy and doing
his best Sean Connery imitation. There is also a new man in charge, Arthur (
Michael Gambon).
Eggsy bumps into an old adversary Charlie
(Edward Holcroft) who went through the Kingsman
training school with him but now has an artificial
hand and works for the bad guys. The early
confrontation between them turns into a thrilling
fight in the back of a black cab and on the roof and
the open door while speeding through the streets of
London. A great opener to the film.
The Kingsman headquarters then get blown up by
the unknown organisation who Charlie now works for,
leaving Eggsy and Merlin to look for help with their
American counterparts, The Statesmen, who reside
in a whisky brewery in the heart of Kentucky.
Their first encounter with The Statesmen brings
Eggsy and Merlin face to face with ‘Good Ole Boy’
Tequila (Channing Tatum) complete with massive
Stetson and shotgun. Tequila introduces them to The
Champ (Jeff Bridges) head of The Statesmen and
the rest of the team, data analyst Ginger Beer (Halle
Berry) and Whisky (Pedro Pascal, Netflix’s Narcos
and Oberyn Martell in Game of Thrones) another
cowboy with laser whip (this is almost getting into
innuendo territory now). Plus, they have a special
surprise in the form of an old Kingsman colleague.
Name of feature
38 INFINITY
VWORP, VWORP! Doctor Who & the Vintage Comic Universe
Giacomo Lee chats to a very
special fanzine about some
of the Doctor’s lesser known
adventures…
INFINITY 39
Doctor Who Fanzine
Opposite:
‘Frobisher the
shapeshifting
companion’,
1984 art by
John Ridgway
Above left:
Vol 3 cover art
by Adrian ‘Ade’
Salmon
Top: Black and
white art by John
Ridgway from
Grant Morrison’s
1987 World
Shapers strip
Also shown:
Vinyl sleeve art by
Tim Keable and
the front cover of
Vworp Vworp! with
work by various
artists
In the latest Doctor Who finale, The Doctor
Falls, we saw our titular Time Lord tied to
a chair, explaining to his captors a theory
he holds that Cybermen are an inevitable
part of intergalactic evolution. Amongst
the planets he named where people eventually
unleashed the Cyber peril upon themselves
were a few of the more familiar names, such as
Earth and Mondas, along with a reference that
would have gone straight over the head of many
viewers sitting at home, glued to their own
chairs : ‘Marinus.’
Any Grant Morrison fans who also watch
the show may have got the reference, though,
Marinus being the location of his Cyberman
tale The World Shapers, a comic strip released
in a 1987 edition of Doctor Who Magazine, back
when Morrison was yet to break it big with his
trademark ‘meta’ take on heroes in capes and
cowls. Marinus on the TV show had been location
to a species called the Voord, as encountered
by the First Doctor; by the time the Sixth Doctor
arrived there in the comics, the Voord had begun
to upgrade themselves into Cyberman form.
Despite having a history as long as the show,
this is one of the very few times the revival of
Doctor Who has given a nod to the comics, thus
making them canon. With so much history and
so many stories told in the Doctor Who universe,
though, the greatest danger isn’t forgetting
what’s in continuity and what isn’t, but how easy
it could be to lose hold of all the great material
and charming idiosyncrasies from the comic
side of the franchise. And that’s where Vworp
Vworp! comes in.
A fanzine that was first unleashed on the
world in 2010, Vworp Vworp! stands out from
other Whovian projects in the printed realm in
that it solely covers the world of Doctor Who
comics, with a special emphasis on material
published before the revival.
Coming in at two hundred pages with over
three covers to choose from, the latest volume
also comes with
a free audio
tale called The
Mechanical
Planet, a
specially
produced
adaptation of
a Dalek comic
written by Dalek
creator himself, Terry
Nation. This willingness to
push out the boat for fans in
both content and bonus ephemera
struck me as a reader, and I didn’t
hesitate to reach out to the zine’s creators,
Colin Brockhurst and Gareth Kavanagh, to
find out more on this humbling project of work.
The main impetus behind Vworp Vworp!
seems to be to ensure such a rich history
behind Doctor Who is never forgotten,
regardless of whether its canon or not. Would
you say that was the main reason behind
starting the zine?
Colin: It was Gareth who had already come up
with the idea of Vworp Vworp!, some time before
I was brought on board. It was originally to have
been a book, which evolved into a magazine.
Soon after, Gareth was looking for a designer
and, having worked with me on promotional
material for the pub in Manchester he was
running at the time, he asked me. I’d had
experience putting together fanzines since the
early 90s, but nothing as sophisticated as Vworp
Vworp! - colour, gloss, free gifts! It was very
exciting. Once I’d got my teeth into the project,
I brought in all the stuff about Doctor Who
Magazine, and it kind of snowballed from there.
To me, the non-canonical material inspired
by Doctor Who over the years is often more
interesting than the series itself, and I celebrate
everything from the annuals to TV Comic to
the movies. Now that the BBC
has a tighter rein on its licenses,
the related merchandise is a lot more
faithful to the TV series and consequently,
in my eyes, often a lot less creative and
colourful compared to the early days.
Your latest volume features interviews with
comic god Alan Moore and the Sixth Doctor,
Colin Baker. Who would you like to feature
in future? Do you have a list of ‘dream’
interviewees?
Colin: Alan Moore was such an incredible coup, I
don’t know if we could ever top him. But we’d still
like to talk to Grant Morrison, because he’s Grant
Morrison and because his Cybermen-on-Marinus
strip, The World Shapers, is now canon. It would
be lovely to chat with the new series’ Doctors,
especially Peter Capaldi - how interesting it
would be to discuss comic strip art with him.
And Neil Gaiman. And Russell T Davies. Actually,
lots of people.
Gareth: I think Colin pretty much has it covered,
although there’s still so much more to cover.
I’d actually add Martin Geraghty to that list
- arguably THE most influential Doctor Who
comic artist in recent years.
Vworp Vworp! is unique in how it
commissions artists to finish sadly
half-finished comic tales from yesteryear, or
Name of feature
40 INFINITY
follow up on forgotten characters specially
created for the classic strips, e.g. Robot
Agent 2K. Are there other examples of
these you’d like to do in future, or any other
comic stories you’d like to re-introduce to a
modern audience, as you’ve done with The
Mechanical Planet?
Colin: There are actually, most of which I think
we’d like to keep under our hats for now. One
day, maybe, we’ll inish Iron Empire, the sequel
to (Fourth Doctor strip) The Iron Legion which
Lance Parkin wrote for us that didn’t get
beyond a script and a couple of pages of
cracking artwork.
Gareth: Iron Empire for deinite, such a
great story.
I love how VV! not only talks about the
comics, but also printed ephemera such as
story cards given away with sweet cigarettes
back in the 60s. Are there any obscure parts
of the Doctor Who franchise you’d like to
tackle next?
Colin: I’d like to leap into the crazy world of
the annuals and get a feel of what it was like to
work for World Distributors from artists like Paul
Crompton. And I think we’ve barely scratched
the surface of Doctor Who Magazine’s comic
strip - all 38 years’ worth of it!
Gareth: There’s deinitely something to explore
in some of the wildly inappropriate merchandise
from over the years and the art behind them!
Even if it was just a whisper or proposal, I think
imagining these ‘what if’ pieces is an area in
which Colin and Vworp really excels.
Colin: Haha, we’ll have to talk about that one!
Gareth and I have yet to agree on what falls
within Vworp Vworp!’s scope. For me it’s the
art and design of Doctor Who, plus Doctor Who
comics and magazines.
Gareth: Keeps it interesting though! Always
plenty to explore, within reason of course. And
then, of course there’s always the increasingly
bonkers free gifts we produce, upping the ante
every time.
What are your favourite eras of the comics?
And are there any eras readers should avoid?
(Controversial!)
Colin: For me, the exuberance of the 60s comic
strips, most of which played fast and loose with
Doctor Who as we know it but remained wildly
entertaining - often, admittedly, for the wrong
reasons. And I think there’s pleasure to be had
in all eras. Some I don’t often revisit but there’s
always enjoyment to be found when I do.
Gareth: For me, it’s unquestionably the post-’79
Tom Baker strips. A portrayal of Doctor Who as
bold, bright and conident which must have had
an inluence on the last 10 seasons of the show.
The backup strips are also wonderful. Dark, grim,
nihilistic little slices of death where the universe
has to get by without the madman and his box.
Moving forward, the Eighth Doctor run is another
game changer for the strip, with Scott Gray and
Martin Geraghty conidently reshaping Doctor
Who at a time when it would have been all too
easy to just look back nostalgically. As for those
that are less successful, the early Sylvester
McCoy stuff is a little dumbed down, sadly,
although it’s still not without merit. Which, to
be fair goes for every era of Doctor Who in every
medium!
Which classic foes do you think have had
interesting portrayals in the comics, showing
them in a different light to the TV show?
Gareth: Without doubt, this is a real strength
of the backup strips. The monsters get their
day in the sun! The Black Legacy Cybermen are
particularly memorable, as is the friendly Kroton
from Soul of a Cyberman. I love the way Steve
and Alan Moore are able to consider a single
aspect of, say, the Cybermen and spin it off into
a satisfying and thought-provoking story.
The same goes for Adrian Salmon and Alan
Barnes’ The Cybermen strip from the 1990s,
which is bold and bonkers. It’s funny how the
Cybermen have become the bellwether for
change and innovation in the strip! Of course,
all of these innovations surely have their roots in
the TV 21 Dalek strip, which is almost a Dalek I,
Claudius. As far as they are concerned, it’s their
story, they are the good guys!
KNOW YOUR ENEMY
1964 was when Doctor Who irst appeared in sequential art form, with all-new adventures for the First Doctor
appearing in the weekly anthology TV Comic. Anyone looking to read about the Doctor’s battles with the Daleks would
have been disappointed though as despite the advent of Dalekmania there was no sign of the tinpot foes within its
pages. This was due to the rights being owned by creator Terry Nation, who would soon allow rival comic TV Century 21
to publish The Dalek Chronicles, a strip where the species were the starring show - but with no sign of the Doctor, due
to his usage rights being owned by the BBC.
An interesting inversion, you’d agree, and soon necessity demanded the Daleks turn from baddies to anti-heroes in
absence of the good Doctor. Many strips saw them ight for survival against the greater of two evils, aliens which never
appeared on the show such as Mechanoids and Monstrons. Intriguingly, other comics would see extra dimensions
added to other classic foes, especially in the backup tales that appeared in Doctor Who Magazine, which would pick
up the comics baton from the end of the ’70s onwards. These stories left out the Doctor to focus on the villains; Alan
Moore’s The Black Legacy for example saw the Cybermen at the mercy of a sentient virus that haunted their dreams,
in a spooky strip that practically humanised the metal men. These comics also saw the creation of popular characters
such as Abslom Daak, the Dalek-hating mercenary who was popular enough to have his mugshot shown during recent
revival episode Time Heist.
Above:
Two 1993 Abslom
Daak sketches by
Lee Sulivan
Right:
A Dalek from a
1965 TV 21 comic
strip, artwork
by Richard
Jennings (and a
big ‘thank you’ to
Christopher Hill
for the scan)
Name of feature
INFINITY 41
Which characters or tales from the comic
would you like to see either on the show or
revisited in the current comics?
Colin: I’d like to see the REAL Emperor of the
Daleks - I find it quite bizarre that such an
iconic design as the Golden Emperor hasn’t
made it onto the screen (I’m not counting
Remembrance). Editor’s note: a Golden Emper-
or-lookalike called the Imperial Emperor featured
in TV arc Remembrance of the Daleks.
Gareth: You’re spot on with the Emperor Dalek,
Colin. It’s a curious miss that one. Alpha and
his Humanised Daleks from Children of the
Revolution would be wonderful. Same goes for
(Cyberman companion) Kroton, especially if they
can make him like Luke Cage as Ade Salmon
always imagined! Oh, and the Voyager arc,
but only as long as they can get Peter Jackson
to reconsider directing. At last, the show can
approach the heights of visual flair the strip has
been delivering for nearly 40 years!
Colin: I think Abslom Daak should be seen over
Jodie Whittaker’s shoulder in a big Daleky battle
scene, but off in the background because I don’t
believe any actor could match the Daak conjured
up in my head by Steve Moore and Steve Dillon.
Finally, what’s been your proudest
achievement to date with the magazine?
Gareth: I’m thrilled we managed to get Alan
Moore to not only talk about Doctor Who but to
engage so thoughtfully and energetically about
his work and the contemporary series. It’s also
a very sad fact that the Grim Reaper has taken
his toll in recent years, so getting the chance to
talk in detail with Steve Moore and Steve Dillon
about their amazing Doctor Who work was all the
more important and really justifies the decision
we made back in 2009 to explore some of these
lesser trodden paths.
Colin: Probably finding something new to
say about the TV Century 21 Dalek strip, and
completing a further instalment in the story.
And giving away an audio play starring David
Graham as the Golden Emperor of the Daleks!
I’m ridiculously proud of our third volume.
And so they should be! Grab your own copy
of Vworp Vworp! Volume 3 at
www.vworpvworp.co.uk, where you can also
read exclusive excerpts. Thank you to Gareth
and Colin for talking to us, and I look forward
to their next volume.
THE MARVELS OF MORRISON AND MOORE
The monthly Doctor Who Magazine is well-known for being home to original comic tales of the Doctor, but
less well-known is that the publication was owned for almost twenty years by the UK branch of Marvel Comics,
beginning with its original inception in 1979 as Doctor Who Weekly. Fitting, then, that this would be the place
where future stars like Alan Moore and Grant Morrison would cut their teeth.
Before writing classics like Watchmen and The Killing Joke, Moore was one of the writers on backup tales in the
magazine, working for the first time with his future collaborator on V for Vendetta, artist David Lloyd. The mag
meanwhile may have been where fellow Brit Grant Morrison picked up his penchant for surreal science-fiction.
Long before Doom Patrol and The Invisibles, Morrison was writing for the Sixth Doctor, the incarnation who
arguably had the trippiest escapades of them all in comics (read the dream-based delirium of Voyager for an apt
introduction). These were the same comics where the Doctor was partnered with a shapeshifter most comfortable
in the body of a penguin, after all. Said shapeshifter, Frobisher, appears in two of Morrison’s tales for the magazine;
his final script would see the Seventh Doctor take on an alien-infected dinosaur, of all things. Neither Morrison nor
Moore have written for Doctor Who since the 1980s, but Morrison did sneak a Dalek into the Batcave for his first
issue of DC’s JLA: Classified!
From top:
The Woman Who Killed The Doctor, art by
Steve Andrew, 1979’s Kroton, The Cyber
Companion, art by Steve Dillon, Frobisher
the Shapeshifting Companion art by
John Ridgway, Vworp Voworp! and Doctor
Who Weekly
Above:
1980 Black Legacy, art by
David Lloyd, and directly
below is the Japanese variant
of the Mechanical Planet
vinyl album, with art by Phil
Stevens and Andrew Orton
Name of feature
42 INFINITY
Alan Moore is the undisputed
bearded Northampton-based
God of the British comics
realm, and he has been
notoriously prickly on the
subject of film adaptations
of his own works, as Chris
Hallam reports…
In 1977, Alan Moore, a twenty-four-year old
employee of the Northampton gas board,
decided to quit his job and pursue a career as
a comic writer. The timing might have seemed
odd to some. Moore was not rich and he was
married with a baby on the way, but for him it was a
“now or never” moment.
“I knew that if I didn’t give up the job and make
some sort of stab at an artistic career before the
baby was born that… I knew I wouldn’t have been up
for it once I had those big imploring eyes staring up
at me,” he said later. “So, I quit.”
The gamble paid off. First, it was just a few
cartoons in heavy metal magazines and the odd
Tharg’s Futureshock for the new science fiction
comic 2000AD. But then the trickle turned into a
flood. Soon came V For Vendetta in Warrior, The
Ballad of Halo Jones and then, amongst many other
things, Watchmen, perhaps the most acclaimed
graphic novel ever. In full flow, Alan Moore was
arguably the biggest name in British comics to
emerge in the Eighties.
Moore was initially keen enough when people
began to talk of filming his works. The first was
Return of the Swamp Thing (1989), based on a DC
strip by Moore, but early plans for a V For Vendetta
TV series and a film of Watchmen faltered. The
timing was not yet right.
By the start of the 21st century, following the
success of Blade and The X-Men, filmmakers began
snapping up every comic or graphic novel they could
get their hands on: Road To Perdition, Ghost World, A
History of Violence and TV’s The Walking Dead were
all consequences of this trend. But the four attempts
at filming Alan Moore’s works in the first decade of
the millennium yielded somewhat mixed results,
and they did not make their creator happy at all.
“The idea that there is something
prestigious about having your work
made into a ilm, that is something which infuriates me because it seems to be something that everybody else in the industry absolutely believes.” Alan Moore.
A RIPPING YARN
The comic: From Hell (1989-1996) produced with
illustrator Eddie Campbell. The film: From Hell (2001).
Directed by the Hughes Brothers and starring Johnny
Depp, Heather Graham, Jason Flemyng, Ian Holm,
Robbie Coltrane, Sir Ian Richardson.
In print: Moore’s take on the notorious Jack the
Ripper case is probably one of his less accessible
stories. At one point, for example, it draws a rather
strange connection between the timing of the 1888
Whitechapel murders and the conception of Adolf
Hitler in Austria-Hungary which occurred at about
the same time. From Hell thus seemed rather an odd
choice for the big screen treatment.
On screen: The Hughes’ Brothers broke with the
original story early on, choosing to make the tale a
whodunnit (something Moore had gone out of his way
to avoid doing) and viewing it from the perspective
of Inspector Abberline (Johnny Depp’s performance
virtually identical to his turn as Ichabod Crane in Tim
Burton’s Sleepy Hollow in 1999), rather than from
that of the Ripper himself, who in the graphic novel is
identified early on as Sir William Gull (Ian Holm).
Moore’s view: As Moore’s biographer Lance Parkin
has written, the author’s approach to the films at this
stage was more one of indifference than outright
hostility. He accepted payment for the film and was
apparently pleased by the casting of actress Heather
Graham as she had a small part in one of his favourite
TV shows, Twin Peaks. But having recognised early
on it was not going to be very similar to the original
story, Moore distanced himself from the film and has
never bothered to watch it.
Verdict: “I’d be quite happy if they made Carry On
Ripping. It’s not my book, it’s their film.” Moore’s
verdict is correct. From Hell is a silly, over-the-top film
full of clichés and bad acting.
INFINITY 43
Alan Moore
A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN
“Mr. Alan Moore, author and former circus exhibit (as
‘The What-Is-It from Borneo’), is chiefly famed for
his chapbooks produced with the younger reader in
mind. He astounded the Penny Dreadful world with
such noted pamphlets as ‘A Child’s Garden of Venereal
Horrors’ (1864), and ‘Cocaine and Rowing: The Sure
Way to Health’ (1872) before inheriting a Cumbrian
jute mill and, in 1904, expiring of Scorn.”
Author description of The League of Extraordinary
Gentlemen (illustrated by Kevin O’Neill, 1999-2007).
The film: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
(2003). Directed by Stephen Norrington and starring
Sean Connery, Shane West, Jason Flemyng, Peta
Wilson and Stuart Townsend.
In print: Not to be confused with the classic 1960
British movie crime caper starring Jack Hawkins, or
the early 21st century Royston Vasey-based dark
BBC comedy series (both just called The League
of Gentlemen), this witty Victorian pastiche was
reportedly optioned before artist Kevin O’Neill had
even finished drawing the first issue. Bringing together
the cream of fantastic Victorian fiction - Captain
Nemo, the Invisible Man, Allan Quatermain and Jekyll
and Hyde amongst others – into a formidable
superhero-style team, it should have been perfect
for the big screen. In theory…
On screen: A commercial success, LXG (as some
promotions referred to it) was an unruly disaster
and remains the worst Moore screen adaptation yet.
Minor changes were made, such as the introduction
of characters Tom Sawyer and Dorian Gray and
there were also issues affecting the copyright of the
Invisible Man’s character - in the end “an” rather than
“the” invisible man appeared.
But these seemed minor quibbles because the film as
a whole was a chaotic mess and a complete travesty
of the original. It was also a notoriously bad shoot,
with Connery (playing King Solomon’s Mines hero
Quatermain) falling out big time with director Stephen
“Blade” Norrington. According to some reports, the two
men actually came to blows on set. Connery, a screen
legend then in his seventies, vowed never to appear in
a film again, and he has kept his word. Norrington has
never directed another feature film since.
Moore’s view: “The League film cost 100 million
because Sean Connery wanted 17 million of that - and
a bigger explosion that the one he’d had in his last
film. It’s in his contract that he has to have a bigger
explosion with every film he’s in. In The Rock he’d
blown up an island, and he was demanding in The
League that he blow up, was it Venice or something like
that? It would have been the moon in his next movie.”
Worse was to come. A lawsuit was brought against
the film alleging it had plagiarised another script
called Cast Of Characters. Moore, who had never
wanted the film anyway was questioned for hours
because of the suggestion that he had only written
the comic as a front to disguise the film’s supposed
unoriginality. The case was settled out of court but in
the meantime the author got very annoyed indeed.
Verdict: Guilty of the crime of ending Sean Connery’s
long film career, The League of Extraordinary
Gentlemen also turned Alan Moore off film versions of
his comics forever. Not that he was ever exactly super
keen in the first place…
REMEMBER, REMEMBER…
The comic: V For Vendetta (1982-1989), art by David
Lloyd (and Tony Weare). The film: V For Vendetta
(2006). Directed by James McTeigue, written by the
Wachowskis and starring Natalie Portman, Hugo
Weaving, Stephen Fry and the late John Hurt
amongst others.
In print: A chilling portrait of a futuristic Britain that
has succumbed to fascism after a limited nuclear war
has destroyed much of the rest of the world. The “hero”
(if hero, he be) is V, a mysterious masked Jacobean
vigilante prone to speaking in strange verse, playing
nasty practical jokes and setting up impressive
and time-consuming domino displays for his own
amusement. But who exactly is he? And can he save
young Evey Hammond from the dark forces which
threaten to engulf her?
On screen: One big problem with filming V For
Vendetta was the story’s obsession with the concept
of November 5th. Virtually everyone outside the UK
is unfamiliar with Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder
Plot and so a short sequence explaining the idea was
added for the benefit of our American cousins. The
nuclear war of the original is replaced by a backstory
involving a devastating epidemic, but generally the
film is surprisingly faithful to the original. This is, after
all, a film in which the hero is a terrorist who blows
up underground trains and it was released only a few
months after the July 2005 London bombings. In short,
some bits don’t work that well - V’s strange rhetoric
doesn’t always work on screen and the Benny Hill-like
sequences in the TV show seem a bit odd. Other
elements such as Stephen Rea’s performance as an
investigating officer and the near-perfect recreation of
the powerful ‘Valerie’ sequence from the comic,
work marvellously.
Moore’s view: Although artist David Lloyd enthu-
siastically endorsed the film, Moore disassociated
himself entirely from it, even going so far as getting
his name removed from the credits. He also expressed
anger (apparently still without having seen it) that the
Wachowskis had used his story to satirise Bush era
America, rather than maintaining the Thatcher-era
anti-fascist perspective of the original.
Verdict: Although not a cinematic triumph by any
means, V For Vendetta was reasonably well received
by audiences and critics. It’s certainly interesting
enough to make you wish Moore would lift up his own
self-imposed mask for a moment and take a sneaky
peek at it.
MANHATTAN TRANSFER
The comic: Watchman is Moore’s masterpiece,
completed with artist Dave Gibbons between 1986 and
1987. It is listed on Time Magazine’s list of ‘’The 100
greatest novels’’. The film of it was directed by Zach
Snyder in 2009 starred Billy Crudup, Patrick Wilson,
Matthew Goode and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
Summary: A brilliant and complex saga which
transformed the world of comics forever, Watchman
incorporates superheroes, pirates, nuclear apocalypse
and an all-powerful blue man who likes sitting around
in space.
The film: After a fan-pleasing, superbly made title
sequence in which we get to see such sights as Dr.
Manhattan meeting President Kennedy (before
The Comedian, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan
assassinates him), this does a largely faithful job of
translating Moore’s vision to the big screen. It’s not
perfect: Matthew Goode’s Ozymandias is a bit too
obviously villainous from the outset and many scenes
seem unnecessarily violent. But some sequences– the
creation of Dr. Manhattan, for example – are, like the
Valerie sequence in V For Vendetta,
Name of feature
44 INFINITY
transferred perfectly from the comic. Dean Morgan
is especially well cast as the ultra-conservative
Comedian, a man who, despite no obvious super
powers, successfully wins the Vietnam War for the US
and prevents the Watergate Scandal from happening.
The three-and-a-half-hour home video extended
version even incorporates animated Tales of the
Black Freighter sequences into the film, pirate stories
which overwhelmed the narrative of the original
comic. Some viewers might be left wondering if
deliberately unleashing a sudden massive unexplained
explosion would be the best way to defuse a Cold War
superpower stand-off. They might also ask if Richard
Nixon really looked like that or if Dr. Manhattan needed
to be so annoying. But these are mostly failings of the
comic, not the film.
Moore’s view: Terry Gilliam had originally planned
to direct Watchmen in the eighties with Arnold
Schwarzenegger tipped to play Dr. Manhattan, Robin
Williams the sinister Rorschach, Jamie Lee Curtis the
Silk Spectre and Richard Gere, Nite Owl. Gilliam was
ultimately unhappy with Sam Hamm’s script, which
saw Ozymandias travelling back in time to prevent Dr.
Manhattan’s creation, thus changing the course of the
Cold War and ultimately saving the world. The project
fell apart. Twenty years later, it was resurrected, by
which time Moore was dead against it.
Verdict: Probably the best film adapted from Moore’s
works. A shame he hasn’t seen it really. He’s not alone,
because although not an outright flop, Watchmen
disappointed at the box office.
FAITH NO MOORE
Watchmen did not mark the end of TV and movie
versions of Alan Moore’s comic stories. We haven’t
even mentioned Constantine (2005) starring Keanu
Reeves and future Oscar winners Rachel Weisz and
Tilda Swinton which was based on a character Moore
had created for DC. The well received film spawned
a short-lived TV series starring Matt Ryan and will
soon appear in animated TV form. There is also talk of
rebooting The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
and a TV series of Watchmen is in
development. And we mustn’t forget
The Killing Joke, an animated film
version of Moore’s celebrated
Batman story produced with
Brian Boland in 1988. This was
released in 2016. Reviews were
bad. Meanwhile, Moore now
continues to refuse official
credits and licensing fees for
any film adaptations of his works
on principle. The sole exception
has been the animated adaptation of his Superman
story, Justice League Unlimited: For the Man Who Has
Everything (2004), because the producers asked his
permission before production and he was pleased at
the reasonable changes done to the story.
Let’s leave the last word to the man himself. “The
main reason why comics can’t work as films is
largely because everybody who is ultimately
in control of the film industry is an accountant.
These people may be able to add up and balance the
books, but in every other area they are stupid and
incompetent and don’t have any talent. And this is
why a film is going to be a work that’s done by dozens
and dozens and dozens, if not hundreds of people.
They’re going to show it to the backers and
then they’re going to say, we want this
in it, and this in it... and where’s
the monster?
“To quote Raymond Chandler.
People said: ‘Raymond, don’t
you feel devastated by how
Hollywood has destroyed your
books?’ And he would take
them into his study, point to the
bookshelf and say, ‘There they
are. Look, they’re fine.’”
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THE MAGAZINE BEYOND YOUR IMAGINATION
05T H E M
A G A Z I N E B E Y O N D Y O U R I MA G I N A T I O N
www.infinitymagazine.co.uk
INFINITY ISSUE 5 - £3.99
SAPPHIRE AND STEEL • VWORP, VWORP!
DOCTOR WHO & THE VINTAGE COMIC UNIVERSE
RIP HUNTER - TIME MASTER • THE INVADERS
NEWS, COMPETITIONS & MUCH MORE…
DOUBLE-SIDED
POSTER INSIDE!
ALAN
MOORE
COMICS
TO MOVIES
FROM HELL!
IT’S GORILLA WARFARE!
BEHIND THE SCENES OFPLANET OF THE APES
THE TV SERIES
CAPTAIN
SCARLET
IS 50!JOIN THE
PARTY
INSIDE
PLUS:
THE INCREDIBLE HULK
THE NOT-SO-JOLLY GREEN GIANT!
COMIC HEROES
It’s time for Allan Bryce to recall the
adventures of Rip Hunter… Time Master, a
DC comics hero from their Golden Age!
46 INFINITY
A RIP IN TIME
“What do we want?”
“Time travel!”
“When do we want it?”
“Relatively speaking, now!”
I’ve always had a fascination for movies,
books and comics about time travel, which
I guess stems from when my mum took me
to see the George Pal film of HG Wells’ The
Time Machine when I was a tender lad of about
11. I loved the movie then and I still love it now,
and the whole concept of time travel as depicted
in that wonderful film really sparked my fertile
young imagination.
I also thought, back then, that I had solved
the way to create a time travel device. I said to
my mum, “If you go really fast from one place
to another, you can do it in ten seconds, so it
stands to reason if you go ten times as fast
you can get there before you left.” Over to you,
Stephen Hawkins, but I think I cracked it, mate.
Anyway, not long after I solved the riddle
of time travel I discovered Rip Hunter… Time
Master, an early and much undervalued DC
Comics hero who had the ability to travel in time
with the aid of his handy-dandy Time Sphere.
The day of revelation came in the summer of
1965 when I was on a monster mag hunt in the
long-gone Baldwins newsagents in West Street,
Dorking (“only two schoolchildren allowed in the
shop at any time and a guaranteed strip search
at the door”) and came across a cover in which
a long-dead wizard had changed hero Rip into a
toothy creature. ‘Beware,’ warned the cover line.
‘This may happen to YOU next.’ Ooh, yes please,
I thought. My mates at school wouldn’t half have
been impressed.
That one issue was all it took for me to get
into Rip’s time-hopping adventures. As I recall,
the wizard from the past, known as Kraklow,
turned Rip into a number of different monsters
in an effort to blackmail him into giving him
some weapons from the future, but Rip wasn’t
having any of it. Good for Rip, I say. He gave
him a right pasting at the end, an old-fashioned
uppercut being good enough to defeat even
the most talented of evil wizards. But Kraklow
managed to hide his magic for the inevitable
return match.
I loved that mag and read it many times, but
was disappointed it was issue 28, which meant I
had missed 27 issues of Rip’s adventures. If only
I had a time sphere I could have gone back in
time and picked them up. I still could, come to
think of it. I live in hope.
A bit about the Time Sphere. It was quite a
nifty little vehicle, though the see-through look
probably precluded the inclusion of an onboard
toilet, which was not a problem because Rip
and his companions could easily travel back in
time to before they needed a poo. There was no
onboard sat-nav, but an Encyclopedia of Time
was useful in steering our hero to events that
needed correcting. Rip was sensible enough to
create two Time Spheres just in case something
went wrong with the first. Because you can’t call
out Green Flag to the Middle Ages.
Now a bit about Rip himself. Created by
writer Jack Miller and artist Ruben Moreira, the
British-born character first appeared in DC’s
Showcase 20 in May 1959. The Showcase series
was basically a way of trying out new characters
to see if the public liked them. The most popular
of the Showcase startups was Barry Allen, aka
The Flash. Rip did okay too and after three more
Showcase appearances he was given his own
series that lasted 29 issues - so the one I bought
first was the penultimate Rip adventure.
The character was also seen in Challengers
of the Unknown, a quartet of science-fiction
adventures created in 1957 by the legendary
Jack Kirby, and Rip later helped out Swamp
Thing and Superman. But in his original
incarnation he was just an ordinary guy who
knocked up his Time Sphere in the garage or
something and then set off on his adventures in
company with his mate Jeff Smith, his girlfriend
Bonnie Baxter, and Bonnie’s thoroughly
annoying kid brother Corky. Any character
named Corky has a right to be a pain in the arse,
but Corky abused the privilege.
CONSTANT ADVERSARY
In his original incarnation, Rip battled dinosaurs
and had a constant adversary in the shape of
John Charles James, who was competing with
him for a research grant. Why Rip needed a grant
was beyond me. A time traveller would surely
just slip a day ahead, get the down-low on the
winning gee-gees and make William Hill suffer.
That was Golden Age Rip, and to be honest
it was the only time I bought his adventures.
He went to ancient Rome, visited Atlantis and
read the riot act to dinosaurs, giant spiders and
aliens. Historical accuracy was apparently not a
big deal to the DC writers.
Having been retired in the 60s, Rip returned
in the 1980s looking not a day older when he
aided Cleopatra in her dealings with Julius
Caesar (well she did have a lovely asp) and met
up with Adolf Hitler (though he never asked him
about that one ball rumour). But comic books of
the 80s didn’t appeal to me in general. I was out
of short trousers by then. Just.
Given Rip’s status as the DC Universe’s most
prominent time traveller, I reckon he should
definitely get a movie of his own soon, or even in
the past (because he has the capability). On telly
he gets a mention in the first season finale of The
Flash show, an episode entitled Fast Enough, and
he popped up in the animated series Batman:
INFINITY 47
The Brave and the Bold (2011). Nowadays he can
be seen in DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, played by
British actor Arthur Darvill (seen above, right) as a
Time Master from the future who has come back to
assemble a team to oppose a powerful immortal.
Rip was written out of the superhero series after the
season two premiere, in a complicated plot involving
time travel and an atomic bomb. It seems that the
actor needed to be back in Blighty to film his role
as Rev. Paul Coates in the third and final series of
Broadchurch. If he had a real time machine he could
have done both parts at the same time.
But Rip is back in the new series of Legends of
Tomorrow, having formed his own Time Bureau
to protect the sanctity of history. And now he has
been transformed into a villain by the Legion of
Doom. To be perfectly honest I haven’t watched this
show, so a toss do I not give.
What really gets me is the modern age has a
habit of taking our old comic book heroes and
sucking all of the fun out of them. Why does
Batman have to be such a miserable bugger these
days? Is it just because Ben Affleck only has that
one particular look? History has been rewritten,
which would piss Rip off mightily, and he is now
a Time Master from the 22nd century, the son of
Booster Gold (don’t ask because I have no idea who
the feck he is) who is on a mission of revenge after
his wife and son were murdered by the villainous
Vandal Savage. Do I care? Nah. Mind you, if Corky
had been killed I’d have been having a few sherbert
dips in celebration.
Anyway, after his wife and son copped it, Rip
went rogue, apparently, which would have been
unthinkable in my day. He never even tried it on
with Bonnie Baxter, and she was the sort of bird I’d
have had a real crush on if I was a cartoon drawing.
The producer of Legends of Tomorrow says:
“We’ve got big plans for Rip for next year.” It seems
he will be heading up The Time Bureau, which may
bring him into conflict with the Legends. So our
boy may yet have his time in the sun. Good for him
then, but it’s not the Rip Hunter I first discovered on
a spinning rack in a long forgotten newsagents of
my childhood. If only it was still walking distance
I’d be back there like a shot. The same goes for a
great mate who is a member of my time travelling
club. We go back years.
48 INFINITY
CLASSIC
TELEVISIONAN ALIEN ANNIVERSARY
THEY’RE HERE!T
he Invaders irst landed on Earth just over 50 years ago. It had only been 20 years since
pilot Kenneth Arnold caused a sensation with his June 1947 claim to have seen ‘lying
saucers’ above the Paciic Northwest of the US. Now, every week on American television,
aliens from a dying world set out to make Earth their new home.
Only one man stood in their way: David Vincent, architect. It was up to him to convince
a disbelieving world not only that the aliens were already here, but that they had taken human
form and had begun to iniltrate society…
The ‘saga sell’ at the top of each episode of The Invaders set the scene perfectly, with an
ominous voice-over narrating images of Vincent’s late night irst encounter with the alien
saucer, followed by an eerie theme tune from Dominic Frontiere (The Outer Limits).
Each episode would see Vincent - played by Roy Thinnes - uncover the alien
presence on Earth, often at a military or research facility or other isolated
community, attempt to raise the alarm, and then face the prospect of tackling
the aliens alone, or with the help of that episode’s guest star, or battling
against human collaborators (in episodes like ‘Vikor’, ‘The Ivy Curtain’, and ‘The
Watchers’). So concerned was he with tackling the aliens, David Vincent did very
little architecting.
STIFF LITTLE FINGERS
The Invaders ran for two seasons across 1967 and 1968, and despite being almost as
formulaic as all other Quinn Martin productions that preceded it (The Fugitive, The
F.B.I.), there’s something eerie about this show that holds the viewer’s attention, even
to this day. The strange alien iniltrators - only recognizable thanks to a defect in
their pinkie ingers (where UK punk band Stiff Little Fingers got their name), and with
a tendency to vanish in a lare of red light when ‘killed’ - could be all around us at
any moment. The background to the aliens was deliberately left unstated, with their
planet or species unnamed, allowing the viewers’ imaginations to do the work.
Leading man Roy Thinnes (who was paid $7,500 per week) had been a frequent
American television guest star (on shows like The Untouchables, The Eleventh Hour,
and The Reporter, and as a two-year series regular on General Hospital), so was a
familiar face, but had never successfully led his own show before. ‘I was very cautious
about doing The Invaders,’ Thinnes said in the 1990s, ‘because I always felt that if science
iction wasn’t done well, it was embarrassing. (We had) good writers. I was never disappointed, and
that’s why the show holds up.’
SOLO QUEST
The Invaders was a replacement for the Quinn Martin-produced The Fugitive, which ended in August
1967 with a two-part inale that saw Dr. Richard Kimble (David Janssen) unravel the mystery of the
one-armed man and the murder of his wife. Larry Cohen (later the director of the 1982 cult classic
Q: The Winged Serpent) created the series, drawing inspiration from ‘alien doppelganger’ movies
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and Enemy From Space (1957, the American release title for
Quatermass 2, the Hammer movie based on the British 1950s’ TV serial). Cohen also referred to several
‘man on the run’ Alfred Hitchcock movies as being inspirations, among them The 39 Steps (1935),
Saboteur (1942), and North by Northwest (1959).
‘ABC invited me to come in and pitch some ideas,’ recalled Cohen in a book-length
interview with Michael Doyle. ‘In those movies, it was always dificult to distinguish
the humans from the aliens, and that was a scary idea.’
Cohen needed a justiication for his hero to move from town to town, never going
to the authorities, so he conceived of loner Vincent and his solo quest to thwart the
alien menace. ‘ABC went for the idea immediately,’ said Cohen. ‘The Invaders was
originally envisioned to be two half-hour shows a week (like the 1960s Adam West
Batman), a serial with dramatic cliffhangers. Instead, they decided on a regular
one hour show and brought in Quinn Martin’s company to produce it.’
Cohen supplied executive producer Quinn Martin with over a dozen possible
storylines for individual episodes of The Invaders, most used in 1967’s 17-episode
irst season, although he didn’t directly script any. Anthony Wilson wrote
‘Beachhead’ - the impressive pilot, that set the scene for the series - and The
Fugitive’s Alan A. Armer produced.
‘The major thing that the show had going for it,’ said Armer, ‘is the fact that
we are all a little bit paranoid. That’s what all real heroes are, if you look at the
great myths and legends. Frequently it is one person ighting society, ighting
the government, ighting (against) an invisible force... We all relate to that,
INFINITY 49
50 years on from its
debut, The Invaders still
packs a punch. Eerie
and ominous, the series
made a star of Roy
Thinnes and paved the
way for the likes of The
X-Files. Brian J. Robb
examines the creation
of a landmark science
fiction show.
RE!This image:
Roy Thinnes as
David Vincent,
tackling the
illegal alien
problem head on!
Opposite:
Roy in scenes
from The
Invaders episodes
‘Beachhead’
(above, with
Diane Baker) and
‘Counterattack’
(below with
Ahna Capri),
plus some tasty
merchandise that
we hope the aliens
got a cut of the
profits for
50 INFINITY
BRIAN J.ROBB
because his job and his goal are so difficult to
achieve. Conceptually, that’s what made the
show strong.’
Before The Invaders could, um, invade, they
needed a ship to arrive on Earth in. Designers
for the show drew upon a famous 1950s UFO
photograph for the iconic design of The Invaders
flying saucers. The notorious 1952 UFO photos
of an archetypal flying saucer by hoaxer George
Adamski provided the primary inspiration, while
a more contemporary 1965 case, when traffic
engineer Rex Heflin photographed a saucer
in Santa Ana, provided additional details. It
was this ship that Vincent would
witness landing
in the atmospheric opening episode. Kids across
America would later build their own Invaders
saucers from Aurora model kits, and eventually
got a closer look inside the ship in the early
second season episode, ‘The Saucer’.
‘Beachhead’ established Vincent and his
ongoing quest. Each episode would unfold across
four ‘acts’ (labelled on screen) and conclude with
an ‘epilogue’ wrapping things up.
Quinn Martin Productions was a television
factory, producing a high quality shot-on-
location product with little variation. Martin
was a control freak who oversaw every aspect
of production, but believed in firmly following
a formula. As a result of this, there was little
episode-to-episode continuity (as was the style
with most 1960s TV shows), although late in the
second season Vincent does attract a group of
‘believers’, led by industrialist Edgar Scoville
(played by Kent Smith), in one
of the series’ best
episodes (unsurpris-
ingly entitled ‘The
Believers’).
More often, though,
the series played
out like a formulaic
anthology show, with
Vincent and the aliens
as the only continuing
factors. Despite a
distinct lack of humour
(a frequent Quinn Martin
trait), The Invaders was a hit,
at least at first. The show was not
as weird as The Twilight Zone or The
Outer Limits, though it occasionally hinted at
elements of both, but neither was it as childish
as Irwin Allen shows like Lost in Space or Land of
the Giants tended to be. Both in production and
on screen, The Invaders was a serious business.
Guest stars across the two seasons included
such television or movie faces and soon-to-be-
stars as Susan Strasberg, Forbidden Planet’s Anne
Francis, Barbara Hershey (The Entity), Jack Lord
(Hawaii Five-0), Peter Graves (Mission: Impossible),
Roddy McDowall (Planet of the Apes), Ed Asner
(Lou Grant), Gene Hackman, Burgess Meredith, The
Day the Earth Stood Still’s Michael Rennie (as an
alien leader, in the episode ‘The Innocent’), and
Star Trek’s William Windom. Quinn Martin paid
over the odds for his episodic guest stars, and so
was able to attract some big names.
PARANOID POLITICS
Although the ‘red scare’ of the 1940s and 1950s
was in the past, its effects lingered on into the
1960s with some of those in Hollywood who’d
been blacklisted as suspected Communists
only beginning to get proper credit for work
completed under fake names (screenwriter
Dalton Trumbo was credited on 1960’s Spartacus
after being blacklisted for almost 15 years). It
was easy to see the paranoia of The Invaders -
the inability to superficially tell the difference
between the infiltrating aliens and humans
- as an analogy to the effects of the cold war
between the US and Russia.
Cohen’s movie inspirations had themselves
been disguised reactions to the McCarthy era,
and in a DVD audio commentary for the episode
‘The Innocent’, Cohen admitted to essentially
Top:
Barbara Luna,
Joseph Campanella,
Allen Emerson and
Carlos Romero in the
‘Storm’ episode
Above:
Roy Thinnes with
Carol Lynley in ‘The
Believers’
Above right: One of
The Invaders goes
‘poof’, and we mean
that in a politically
correct fashion
THE ANDRSON TAPES
replacing Communists with aliens. In
the second season episode ‘The Trial’, an alien
is even referred to as ‘a card-carrying member
from outer space’.
‘The Invaders was definitely a show of its
era,’ noted Cohen. ‘It related to the fraught
times we were living in and the paranoia about
Communist infiltration in America. It was this
atmosphere that made me want to write The
Invaders, (as) a way to explore the political
climate. I thought the subtext was obvious, but
to some people involved with the show it clearly
wasn’t. They didn’t understand any of that!’
The Invaders concluded at the end of the
extended 26-episode second season without a
proper wrap up, unlike Quinn Martin’s previous
show The Fugitive. In a kind of victory, the
final instalment, ‘Inquisition,’ does see Vincent
achieve one of his aims by persuading an
influential figure, an assistant to the Attorney
General, that the alien threat is real. The invaders
themselves are repulsed, temporarily at least,
and the closing narration on the final episode
suggests that when they return Vincent will no
longer be operating against them alone - he now
has powerful allies.
Unfortunately, there would be no third season
that would see the aliens face such an organised
counter-attack. The high ratings of the first
season had all but collapsed during year two,
so a disappointed ABC pulled the plug on The
Invaders after 43 variable episodes. Cohen,
having moved onto pastures new by then,
learned about the cancellation in the Hollywood
trade papers: ‘I was so removed from the show
at that point; I really had nothing to do with
it by the time it was cancelled. As the show
progressed I tried to give them some advice on
where I thought the show was going wrong, (but)
they weren’t interested. I wanted to make my
own movies; television was too difficult
and restricting…’
The open-ended nature of the conclusion
left the way clear for future follow-ups. A series
of nine pulp novels inspired by The Invaders
appeared between 1967 and 1969, with the
authors including acclaimed science fiction
novelist Keith Laumer (who also wrote a trio of
novelizations of classic British telefantasy series
The Avengers). Gold Key Comics (the first to
publish comics based upon Star Trek) also issued
a comic book version of the show.
That was it for The Invaders, apart from
occasional re-runs (BBC2 in the UK repeated the
series periodically from the mid-1980s through
to the early-1990s). The premise was revived
in 1995 for a disappointing two-part
television mini-series starring Scott Bakula
(Quantum Leap, Enterprise) as the new
investigator of the alien threat. At the
star of the second episode Roy Thinnes
appeared in a brief three-minute cameo
as David Vincent, effectively passing the torch
to Bakula’s Nolan Wood. Despite that, the new
mini-series featured little continuity with the
original show.
At its best, the original show had anticipated
the 1990s alien-battling series like The X-Files
and Dark Skies, while this mini-series was simply
a poor imitation. In an homage to the show, The
X-Files featured Thinnes in a pivotal role at the
end of the third season.
Looking back on the series, Larry Cohen
laments his lack of creative control - although
the show’s creator, he had not been involved in
its production. ‘I would have insisted there be
fewer invaders, that’s for sure,’ he says. ‘Every
other person on the show seemed to be an alien!
Roy Thinnes was knocking them off left and
right, (so) there was no real suspense or fear.
The invaders were so vulnerable to Vincent,
it negated the threat. They just went ‘poof’
and they were gone! The infiltration idea was
intended to generate paranoia and suspicion.
That was part of the fun. Ultimately, The Invaders
was executed with a lack of imagination.’
INFINITY 51
This page:
The lovely Monica
Vitti as Modesty
Blaise, seen with
co-stars Dirk
Bogarde and
Terence Stamp.
Above, Patrick
McGoohan as
John Drake, also
known as Danger
Man and Secret
Agent
FAN FAVOURITE EPISODES
The Invaders -the top ten episodes according
to the show’s fans!
1: Storm: David Vincent is contacted by a meterologist to
help investigate the suspicious nature of a hurricane along
the Eastern U.S. coast.
2: The Ivy Curtain: Vincent discovers that a school in New
Mexico is really a front for an alien indoctrination centre
with some otherworldly students.
3: Wall of Crystal: David’s brother, who also thinks he is
crazy, is kidnapped by the aliens who intend to destroy the
oxygen in our planet’s air.
4: The Innocent: An alien (Michael Rennie) captures
Vincent and convinces him he’ll be taken to a paradise as
proof of the invaders’ peaceful treatment. The invaders
conspire to destroy both of them.
5: Valley of the Shadow: After an alien is captured in a
small town, Vincent warns the townspeople, who assume
that their captive is a madman.
6: Dark Outpost: While investigating the invaders’
susceptibility to minor human ailments, David Vincent is
unknowingly taken aboard an alien spacecraft.
7: The Enemy: Despite Vincent’s warnings, a nurse tries to
help an injured alien survivor of a saucer crash.
8: The Watchers: A hysterical hotel manager tells Vincent
that he fears aliens are taking over his hotel.
9: The Saucer: Vincent battles, then destroys an alien
guard and captures one of their spacecraft.
10: The Organization: Vincent joins forces with the mob
when the aliens inadvertently take their illegal shipment
of drugs.
This image:
The classic image
of a flying saucer
was utilised for
the series, and
on the left David
Vincent (Roy
Thinnes) gets to
look inside one
52 INFINITY
Oscar-honoured effects wizard
Ken Ralston takes Infinity’s Calum
Waddell through his time organising the visual excess of
Captain Kirk and company...
This image:
The USS Enterprise
as seen in Star Trek
III: The Search For
Spock (1984) and
below two scenes of
it in action in Star
Trek II: The Wrath of
Khan (1982)
INFINITY 53
THE TREK EFFECT
pecial effects geniuses rarely get more
legendary than Ken Ralston, who can
boast about being a five-time Academy
Award winner, including nods for Return
of the Jedi (1983), Cocoon (1985), Who Framed
Roger Rabbit (1988), Death Becomes Her (1992)
and Forrest Gump (1994). A Hollywood legend in his
field, Ralston also worked concurrently on the first
three Star Wars films and the very best of the Star
Trek cinematic universe. It is the latter achievement
that Infinity explores in this candid interview which
takes in his time working alongside the late Leonard
Nimoy on 1984’s often undervalued space epic The
Search for Spock
You swapped Star Wars, on which you were an
assistant cameraman on the special effects unit
for both the 1977 movie and 1980’s The Empire
Strikes Back, for Star Trek in 1982 when you
signed on as the visual effects supervisor for
The Wrath of Khan. Then you were back with
Lucas for Return of the Jedi before supervising
the visual effects for Star Trek III: The Search
for Spock in 1984 and Star Trek IV: The Voyage
Home in 1986. That makes you quite an anomaly
- a fixture of sci-fi’s two biggest franchises
during their greatest cinematic outings. You
must be incredibly proud?
That is a good question but I am actually unsure
on how to answer it because I honestly do not even
know how it even happened (laughs). I was working
at ILM, and ILM was the place to be for visual effects
- there was no competition to speak of at that time. I
think that probably boils down to how much money
the Star Wars movies were making and how much
talent came out from that film and faced demands
on their time.
What I remember about getting Star Trek II: The
Wrath of Khan was that they wanted to make a
sequel but they were disappointed about how much
the first film made and the whole experience of it.
So the producers came in to ILM and just started
talking to us. It was general,
just a case of ‘What can we do
better and different this time?’
I think the director, Nicholas
Meyer, was also there at that
initial meeting, because we
hit it off and after that I was
hired. It was as simple as that, or at least that is how
simple it used to be (laughs). They shipped us off to
the Enterprise and off we went.
Unlike the first film, Star Trek II: The Wrath of
Khan was a critical success, fans loved it and, to
this day, it is rightly seen as a sci-fi classic. The
visual effects are obviously top notch and you
really helped to reinvent the franchise.
Well, yeah, it was a really rewarding film, and then
when we did The Search for Spock we had a lot more
money, and it showed on the screen.
We had all these different sets, very ambitious
sets too, and a lot of new spaceships had to be
designed and created for the film. That was a really
exciting project to make because there was so much
to be done.
Why do you think 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion
Picture didn’t work so well?
It was trying to be a big epic film, maybe a bit like
2001, and quite pretentious, but the fans wanted
Star Trek though a more cinematic version of it. With
The Wrath of Khan we gave them that.
Talk to me about some of the pressures you
faced on The Wrath of Khan given that this was
‘make or break’ time for the franchise...
It was a challenge and I had a great team of people
working with me on the visual effects, I had a lot
of model guys who would jump through hoops
for everything that I needed and I had a bunch of
people helping me with the lighting as well. I was
doing a lot of testing on a lot of the set-ups so I
needed a good, fast team of helpers.
There really was not a lot of time to mess around
on Star Trek II. I was shooting everything myself, if I
could, and I had a bunch of people helping me to do
that, including at night.
We had a lot of work to do at night, which was
obviously exhausting. Then I would go into the
optical department and check on the shots to see
how they were looking. I would go to the dailies,
look at them with everyone and comment on how
the ships were looking against the blue screen, we
wanted this to look as impressive as it could given it
was model work and this was in the days before CGI.
So getting the light right was vital - you had to make
S
sure the audience was not, for instance, going to
question the Enterprise and how fast it was moving.
Everything needed to look smooth. This was not Star
Trek for television, this was Star Trek in the same era
as Star Wars.
The Wrath of Khan also famously features the
monstrous Ceti eels, which are placed in the
ear of the luckless character of Chekov. It is a
nightmarish moment that few fans have ever
forgotten and it really sets the pace for the
film, indicating it is going to be a very different
experience from the more benign original
Trek movie. Did you get free reign to design
these creatures?
Nicholas took some of my suggestions on board. So,
yes, a lot of the stuff with the Ceti eel, I was left to
shoot that thing. Nicholas was very open to ideas
and happy that everything was looking good. After
that he just backed off and let us do what we wanted.
We did have storyboards of course, it was not as if I
was saying ‘hey, I am going to just make a bunch of
stuff from the top of my head.’ We ran everything by
him that we were planning to do.
Do you remember the Ceti eel scene fondly?
I recall that everyone was very accommodating
and was willing to do whatever it took for the shot.
So I was sticking these eels on Chekov’s face and
no one was complaining that we were going too far
or anything (laughs). The actors were just doing
what needed to be done. Every one of the cast knew
we were working hard to make our special effects
scenes look special so we probably had an audience
for that moment (laughs).
It has been rumoured that the sequence was
more gruesome originally but it was cut down.
Oh no, no, no, what could there possibly still be
to use? I think you have seen every last frame
54 INFINITY
Name of feature
of everything that we shot on The Wrath of
Khan. I mean, what else could we put in that
scene? It went as far as we possibly could.
Was the turnaround on completing The Wrath
of Khan quite demanding?
Yeah, it was a very compressed shoot. The shoot
in LA went very fast and then at ILM we had
to get a lot of work done very quickly, which
required a great deal of creativity. I think it was
all done in under a year. Again, Star Trek: The
Motion Picture had been a disappointment, so
they wanted Star Trek II to work, but that meant
they were still being cautious, it was only with
the third film that we got more budget.
Do you have a favourite of the Star Trek films
you worked on?
CALUM WADDELL
Above:
The Wrath of Khan
may be the Trek film
that is closest in spirit
to the original TV
show, but The Search
For Spock (below) is
also a fan favourite
and Ralston enjoyed
working on the movie
with its director
Leonard Nimoy
INFINITY 55
For me it is The Search for Spock.
I really like The Search for Spock too but the
general consensus is that The Wrath of Khan
is the better of the two.
The whole tone and intention of The Search for
Spock was different from not just the previous
film but everything we knew about Star Trek. I
grew up as a huge Star Trek fan, I really liked the
show, I had a lot of fun watching it and I never
dreamed that I would end up working on it. So
any chance to be involved was great but I always
pick that movie out as the one I had the most
fun on. What I really enjoyed about it was the
creative freedom - for instance, I loved working
on the Bird of Prey ship that you see in that film.
You mean on the visual effects and design?
Yeah, for instance one of my favourite creations
is the Klingon dog that you see in The Search for
Spock. I designed that, and it was great. I loved
creating that beast (laughs).
How was Leonard Nimoy as a director on The
Search for Spock?
I had a great time with Leonard, he was a really
good guy. He was just as nice on The Voyage
Home. A great man to collaborate with.
Did you sense any concern from him that he
was not going to be in this movie until a brief
appearance at the very end?
Some, but it was purely the call of what the
movie was going to be about. He was gone at the
end of The Wrath of Khan so he knew that his
hands were tied.
Can you talk about the design process for the
Star Trek movies?
I tend to sketch everything. Even if my sketches
are somewhat less than I want them to be, it just
puts my brain into a place where I can begin
looking for basic forms (laughs). So when I am
asked to design something I just start to sketch
because I have done it that way for my entire
life. I start to doodle and draw and if something
clicks I will try and explore that in a drawing
up to a certain point but, rather than show the
director a bunch of sketches, I prefer to assemble
a model because it gives them a better idea and
makes the thing a lot easier to sell.
So for the Klingon dog, I sculpted that for Star
Trek III rather than say ‘here is a sketch’, but I
showed them a handful of drawings of the ships
that we were designing for that movie. That is
also how we created the Cite eel in The Wrath of
Khan, I sketched them before I sculpted them.
It really just depends. Sometimes I want to see
something in three dimensions so I can tell
if it will work.
You mentioned that you were a fan of
Star Trek as a young person - was it
surreal to work with Leonard Nimoy as
a director?
It was hilarious just to walk on the set of
The Wrath of Khan and see all of those
guys who I had grown up watching on
television. It was good to get to know them
a little bunch. They were a pretty quirky
bunch and I really liked their company but,
yeah, being such a huge fan it was quite a
weird experience!
The new Star Trek films, of course, are
powered by CGI. How do you feel about the
new technology?
If CGI is in the hands of the right people and
used the right way then it is wonderful. You
see a lot of bad work and a lot of stuff that
relies on it too much.
It is still a problem, although it is getting
better all the time, but any kind of computer
graphic stuff is very difficult to composite,
light, and get it to the point where it looks
real without it becoming a nightmare. Some
people are certainly doing it well but it is very
difficult for most houses to accomplish this.
It is a hard thing to take you to a place where
you build a model, or have a real creature on
the set, you get all that for free.
The only thing you don’t get, and this is the
only issue with anything that is on a set – and
these stories are rampant – you build this
beautiful thing or not so beautiful puppet and
it just breaks.
If it is a large enough thing, the physics of
how you build puppets and things... there is
only so much you can do and you cannot cross
the line where you get into the subtleties and
nuances that you can get into with computer
animation. There is just no way. But each one
has its use and each one has its pros and cons,
practical or CGI. It comes down to the movie
and the design of it.
I am happy to use CGI but it just comes
down to what is best for the film. In the end I
have to say that Star Trek 2 most successfully
captured what the old show was – whether
good or bad (laughs).
Above:
Another view of
the Enterprise
from The Search
for Spock. Visual
effects supervisor
Ken Ralston and
his team were
involved in this
movie from the
planning stages
KEN RALSTON
56 INFINITY
T H E N O T- S O -
GREEN GIAN
‘DON’T MAKE ME ANGRY - YOU WOULDN’T LIKE ME WHEN I
CLASSIC
TELEVISION
INFINITY 57
40 years ago in November of 1977, long
before computer-generated FX,
television audiences were introduced
to a living, breathing Incredible Hulk
and loved him, starting a worldwide interest in Marvel
superheroes that continues to this day.
In an age when Marvel movies dominate the box office
and even the most obscure of their characters seem to
merit their own television shows - Daredevil, Iron Fist,
Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Agents Of Shield (which is
hitting 100 episodes), Legion (an X-Men spin off) and
even the cancelled Agent Carter, it’s hard to imagine a
time when there were no Marvel TV programmes at all.
The Marvel age truly began in 1977, the same year that
George Lucas’ Star Wars changed Hollywood and started
an audience thirst for all things fantasy. The two most
recognisable Marvel characters worldwide to this day are
The Amazing Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk, so it’s
only appropriate that they would be Marvel’s two original
live action adaptations.
What made Marvel Comics stand out is they gave
readers the opposite of the staid superheroes to be found
in DC Comics. Stan Lee and a battery of now-legendary
artists like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko created anti-heroes
who did right thing but still found their motives
questioned by a suspicious public and were hunted by
the police. Spidey was a nerdy teenager who would turn
sarcastic only when his mask was on. Bruce Banner was a
mild mannered scientist who was caught in the blast of
his own gamma bomb and miraculously survived, only
to find that in times of stress he would turn into a
seven-foot green monster full of incredible strength
and limitless rage.
BLAND DO-GOODER
The first TV movie out of the gate, The Amazing
Spider-Man, failed to capture Spider-Man’s flippant
personality, something so beloved by readers of the
comics. TV Spidey was a bland do-gooder who saved the
day because that’s what TV heroes did. He never started
out selfish and learned right from wrong after indirectly
causing the death of his Uncle Ben because there was
no Uncle Ben (unless he was selling rice during the
commercial break, Ed).
His comic book supporting cast didn’t fare much
better, particularly J. Jonah Jameson, his biggest critic,
who knows Spider-Man is really a good guy but beats him
up in editorials because it sells newspapers. On TV, the
irascible Jameson is an avuncular Perry White type who
just wants to meet Spider-Man.
“They put Spider-Man in situations that any TV
detective could handle,” grouses Spidey co-creator Stan
Lee. “I tried to tell them what they were doing was wrong,
but they just wouldn’t listen!”
Marvel’s second TV project, The Incredible Hulk, took a
vastly different approach. Its producer Kenneth Johnson
had just come off a long run on The Six Million Dollar
Man TV series and he had created the incredibly popular
spin-off character, The Bionic Woman, so he was a bit
tired of science fiction.
“Universal Studios had just bought the rights to
several Marvel Comics Superheroes, including Captain
America, The Human Torch, Ms. Marvel and the Hulk,”
Johnson remembers. “(Then head of Universal television)
Frank Price asked me which one I wanted to do and I
thought to myself, ‘Gee, Frank, none of them!’”
While trying to think of a polite way to pass on the
characters, “I was reading Les Miserables, a gift from my
wife Susie. I had Jean Valjean and The Fugitive TV series
in my head in the shower, as I was thinking of how I was
going to turn Frank down on the Marvel superheroes,
when I suddenly thought, ‘Maybe there’s a way to take
this ludicrous thing called The Incredible Hulk and turn
it into something with Victor Hugo and Robert Louis
Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll And Mister Hyde.’
“I read The Incredible Hulk comic and it has an
interesting concept at the core of it. I wanted to do that
as real as possible, wanted to take this man, who turns
into this large green creature, and translate it into the real
world. I wanted it as realistic as it could possibly be. My
Hulk would NEVER meet The Toad Men From Outer Space!”
HIDDEN STRENGTH
Johnson’s 1977 pilot was sombre and interesting.
Dr. David Banner is mourning the death of his wife Laura,
lost in a car accident that he failed to free her from.
BANNER BANTER
O - J O L L Y
GIANTThe Incredible
Hulk turns
40 this year,
well, his TV
incarnation
does, anyway.
Pat Jankiewicz
takes a look
back at the
small screen
origins of one of
Marvel’s most
memorable
characters…
N I’M ANGRY!’
58 INFINITY
on the tyre iron, an exasperated Banner suddenly
begins a monstrous transformation. His pupils
dilate, his skin takes on a greenish tinge as his
mass increases, ripping through his shirt, and
his feet explode from his shoes. He growls and
roars in guttural rage, as he demolishes his own
car and hurls it into a ravine and races off into
the night.
The next morning, the creature comes across
a little girl, who flees in terror in a canoe. She
starts drowning, so he knocks a tree over to
rescue her. Misunderstanding what’s happening,
her father shoots him in the shoulder. Bellowing
in rage, he smashes the man’s rifle and hurls
him into the water. Catching his reflection in the
water, the creature changes back into Banner.
Making his way back to The Culver Institute
(Culver is Kenneth Johnson’s middle name) he
tells Elaina everything and enlists her help for
a cure.
Being a scientist, Banner looks on his Hulking
alter ego as a disease like cancer, referring to it
clinically as his “condition”. The brilliant conceit
of the series is that its reluctant hero is trying to
bring it to an end by curing himself. “I want to be
Dr. Banner NOT Dr. Jekyll,” he pleads.
Reports of the creature have caught the
attention of seedy tabloid reporter Jack McGee
(Jack Colvin), who suspects the science centre
has something to do with the creature sighting.
McGee confronts Banner and Elaina with a
plaster cast of The creature’s footprint. McGee
says the footprint comes from a “Big Hulk, about
seven feet tall. Greenish tinge to the skin. Pretty
mean looking.”
“Jack McGee is the Inspector Javert character
from Les Miserables,” Kenneth Johnson explains.
“ I didn’t want to make McGee a cop like
Inspector Javert, because The Fugitive did that
with Inspector Gerard, so I made him a yellow
journalist from a tabloid rag. I didn’t want to do
The Incredible Hulk at all originally, but now I
was actually getting excited about it. McGee is
the one who names him ‘The Incredible Hulk’
in the pilot! If you read my original script, you
would notice that the word ‘Hulk’ never appears
outside of the title - only in Jack’s mouth. In our
scripts for the show, we always called The Hulk
‘the creature.’”
Attempts to cure Banner of his monstrous
condition lead to the accidental death of Elaina
Marks, which is blamed on the Hulk. Banner
lets the world believe he is also dead as McGee
pursues the Hulk for crimes he did not commit,
and Banner hits the road looking for a cure.
The pilot was impressive, a thoughtful, serious
look at the character that took his situation
seriously. Although Hulk co-creator Stan Lee
wasn’t thrilled with Johnson changing Bruce
Banner’s first name to David, he appreciated the
approach: “It wasn’t our Hulk, but it was a good
Hulk,” Lee declared.
AN ESTABLISHED STAR
The biggest change over previous comic book
adaptations like Superman and Batman is
that it wasn’t hokey or a parody, and all of it
was centred by a brilliant lead performance
from Bill Bixby. When Bixby agreed to do
the series, he was taking quite a chance. All
previous TV superheroes, George Reeves’
Superman, Adam West’s Batman and Lynda
Carter’s Wonder Woman were unknowns. Bixby
was an established star, and he was taking a
chance because he believed in the concept and
Johnson’s strong pilot script.
“I am terribly proud of that first movie, the
origin of The Hulk,” Bill Bixby prophetically told
Marvel’s Hulk Magazine in 1978. “I believe that
in the long run, the original movie itself will
become a classic - a television classic. I really
do believe that. The sensitivity of the Hulk is as
important as his strength. In fact, a great deal of
his strength may be the fact that he is sensitive
as well as strong.”
Johnson feels part of the show’s appeal is
that Bixby’s Banner “has problems; Banner’s
problem before anger, was obsession. With the
death of his wife in the pilot, I wanted to draw
the audience into his obsession. He could not
save his wife, so that fed his obsession to find
out why he couldn’t and why other people could
under similar circumstances. It’s very poignant,
sweet and human. I was trying to humanise The
Hulk and get him away from his comic-book
sensibilities and into the real world.”
FINDING THE PERFECT HULK
As important as casting Banner was, the success
of the show was even more dependent on casting
The Incredible Hulk himself. Could they find
Now Banner is at the Culver Institute, studying
“The hidden strength that all humans have” and
interviewing people who were able to save their
loved ones in similar situations. This concerns his
fellow Doctor, Elaina Marks, who feels his interest
borders on obsession. Banner believes gamma
radiation is the key to triggering that strength.
Alone one night, Banner gives himself what
he believes is an injection of 300,000 units of
gamma radiation. Instead, it’s over two million
units, sure to be fatal dose. He also notices his
strength hasn’t increased. His theory is a bust.
Driving home in the rain, Banner gets a flat
tyre. Trying to change it in a storm on a lonely
country road proves frustrating. Cutting his hand
“ Lou, a 6’4” muscleman, really had the ‘Hulk look.’ Lou
had never acted before, but did a really great job. Lou is
deaf, but he worked really hard. He never gave us any
trouble or bullshit getting the acting and makeup on. ”
Above:
How many Hulks
can you handle?
Lou Ferrigno
clowns on set with
two of his stunt
doubles
Top:
Bill Bixby about
to transform into
Lou Ferrigno
someone the audience would accept as a giant
green manifestation of Bill Bixby? “Finding the
perfect Hulk was also a challenge,” sighs Johnson.
“I actually cast Richard Kiel (Jaws in the James
Bond movies) as The Hulk for the pilot and we
shot a week with him. There’s a shot of him
looking down before he pushes the tree over to
save the little girl and that is the only shot of Dick
Kiel as The Hulk that remains in the pilot.”
While Richard Kiel is tall, he doesn’t resemble the
muscular Marvel Hulk. “I wanted an actor for the
part of The Hulk,” says Johnson. “We looked at
the dailies, and his Hulk wasn’t really giving us
the visual that we needed for the character. The
network and studio both wanted us to re-cast
Hulk and go with a muscleman.”
The late Richard Kiel was not enamoured with
the role. “I was The Hulk in part of the pilot that
we shot. I had a really difficult time with the
contact lenses that you had to wear as the Hulk.
When the first night of shooting was over, they
handed me a towel and a jar of paint remover
and said, ‘You’re on your own, baby.’ What you
really need after playing The Hulk is a little
Japanese woman with a scrub brush. The green
body makeup covered everything - legs, feet,
arms and face!”
Johnson “had already met with Arnold
Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno when I was
looking for The Hulk. Arnold’s 5’10”, but the
creature is much bigger. Lou, a 6’4” muscleman,
really had the ‘Hulk look.’ Lou had never acted
before, but did a really great job. Lou is deaf,
but he worked really hard. He never gave us
any trouble or bullshit, getting the acting and
makeup on.”
His disability was something the show had
to overcome, “particularly in the beginning,”
Johnson says. “During one action scene, Lou was
tiptoeing gingerly at a snail’s pace. I’m shouting
at him, ‘LOU, GO FASTER! FASTER, LOUIE!,’ and
it suddenly dawns on me, ‘He’s deaf!’ I realised
I didn’t need a megaphone when I worked with
him, but a magnifying glass, so he could read
my lips!”
Lou Ferrigno remembers his first time as
The Incredible Hulk. “The entire crew was
staring at me, because I had the contact
lenses, wig, green paint and everything on. I
was excited to get the part because I had been a
huge Hulk fan, I loved him, Spider-Man and The
Fantastic Four. When I was a kid, I used comics
to help me overcome things in my life. The key to
The Hulk is his sensitivity not his inner rage. Bill
and Kenny were nervous; they had to re-shoot
half the pilot and they really didn’t know if it was
gonna work or not.”
The Hulk’s green skin was provided by Kryolin
Makeup #512, which the company later dubbed
“Incredible Hulk Green.” For the ongoing series,
Banner would show up, working as a janitor,
gardener, handyman or chauffeur, staying
with a local family, become involved with their
problems and try to help them resolve them.
When the bad guys attacked him, he would Hulk
out twice an episode. “That’s basically all we
could afford,” the producer jokes.
On the show, Banner helped families dealing
with alcoholism, stress, rage, even child abuse.
Metaphorically, he was dealing with people who
had a Hulk of their own - a problem that was
impacting them from enjoying their own life.
Johnson had ground rules for the show. The
Hulk was less powerful than in the comics, his
strength was now more in line with a TV budget.
He felt The Hulk talked stupidly in the comics, so
on the show, he could only growl in inarticulate
rage. Those guttural sounds were provided by
Ted Cassidy, ‘Lurch’ on The Addams Family, who
also did the show’s opening narration. When
he passed away in the show’s second season,
character actor Charles Napier, the luckless cop
Dr Lecter murders and strings up in Silence Of
The Lambs did the honours through the run of
the series to the later TV movies.
The Hulk actually got to speak in a later
episode (sort of), when Banner, caught in mid
transformation in the Johnson written/directed
two parter “Prometheus”, speaks in a guttural,
rage filled voice, provided by Bill Bixby.
The Hulk could not hit anybody. (“It would be
totally unfair, with the size of his fists - which
made sense, David Banner was a doctor, not
a brawler so, in theory, The Hulk wouldn’t be
either. The Hulk was not bulletproof as he was
in the comics and occasionally bloodied by
bullets and meat cleavers. Hulk would grab and
throw opponents, who would land on a couch
or cardboard boxes (which were what stuntmen
used before airbags became popular).
Poor Hulk was also kept from his usual comic
book opponents, like aliens, robots and other
gamma-spawned creatures, although this rule
was relaxed by the fourth season two-parter
“The First”, where Banner battled an older Hulk
(played by a pre-Swamp Thing Dick Durock).
While most superhero shows like Batman,
Wonder Woman, Spider-Man and The Greatest
American Hero stalled out at three seasons or
less, The Incredible Hulk went an astounding five
seasons, the last one abbreviated by a Writers’
Guild strike.
TV MOVIE TRILOGY
The adventures of Dr. Banner proved so popular,
he was revived for three TV movies 10 years
after the series. Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno
hadn’t aged that noticeably when reprising their
greatest roles. In The Incredible Hulk Returns,
Banner teams up with a loosely adapted version
of Thor to battle gangsters (including Charles
Napier). There is a short but fun Hulk/Thor fight.
The second one, The Trial Of The Incredible
Hulk, pitted the Hulk and Daredevil against
a really crappy version of the Kingpin. In a
historical footnote, it featured the very first
cameo by Stan Lee, as jury foreman at the Hulk’s
trial. The finale, directed by Bixby himself, Death
Of The Incredible Hulk, killed off David Banner
and The Hulk. There were plans for a movie
reviving them, but they were never followed
up on. Rumour has it that Bixby’s battle with
pancreatic cancer may have started at this time,
when he decided to leave the Hulk for dead.
Bixby did reprise the character for a She-Hulk
TV movie, but the studio and network pulled the
plug on it early on.
Of course, The Incredible Hulk TV show’s
biggest contribution to pop culture may be the
phrase “Don’t Make Me Angry. You wouldn’t
like me when I’m angry”, made famous in the
show’s opening credits. The pilot introduces the
line where Banner cautions McGee to back off.
Banner snaps, “Mr. McGee, don’t make me angry.
You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”
“I do love that line,” says Kenneth Johnson.
“For take one, Bill Bixby played it angry, ‘DON’T
MAKE ME ANGRY - YOU WOULDN’T LIKE ME
WHEN I’M ANGRY!’ I said ‘Cut, cut, cut,’ then
went up to Bix and whispered. ‘Bill… it’s a joke.’
He said, ‘Oh, okay, got it!’ and he came
back and did it. Take Two is the one that is in
the pilot and is seen in the main title. Of course,
we the audience already know why you wouldn’t
like him when he’s angry - we saw what he did
to the car.”
INFINITY 59
Above:
Mean, green and
on your screen.
We loved him
when he was
angry and The
Incredible Hulk
became one of the
most popular and
longest-running
superhero shows
on TV!
MARIO’S MADCAP MASTERPIECE
Allan Bryce takes a
look at Mario Bava’s
swinging 60s spy-fi
classic, Danger:
Diabolik…
60 INFINITY
If you pick up the current issue of our sister magazine The
Dark Side you’ll be able to read all about the fascinating life
and career of Mario Bava, a Jack-of-all-trades of the Italian
film industry who worked in just about every genre going,
back in the day. Though Mario is most remembered for really
atmospheric, beautifully photographed horror movies like
Black Sunday, Black Sabbath and Blood and Black Lace, he also
worked on everything from Viking epics such as Erik The Conqueror
(out now on Blu-ray from Arrow) to spaghetti westerns like Roy Colt
and Winchester Jack and daft spy-fi movies like Dr. Goldfoot and
the Girl Bombs.
Also pretty daft, but a whole lot of breezy fun was Danger: Diabolik,
released in 1968 and based on the hugely successful Italian comic
strip character, ‘Diabolik’, a master criminal who fought evil with
evil, even resorting to murder if necessary. Diabolik was a jet-setting
superman sort of like the James Bond of crime, though he made his
own gadgets rather than relying on ‘Q’ branch.
AFTER BARBARELLA
A psychedelic pop art extravaganza with colours that sear your
eyeballs, Danger: Diabolik was a follow-up of sorts to the same year’s
Barbarella. Roger Vadim’s sexy sci-fi opus featuring Jane Fonda as
one of the sexiest space babes of the 41st century. Italian movie
mogul Dino De Laurentiis was behind both ventures, and the day that
Barbarella finished shooting, Danger: Diabolik took over many of its
elaborate sets for what was envisioned to be a whole series of comic
strip adventures.
But while filming on Barbarella had proceeded smoothly, Danger:
Diabolik was a troubled production from the start. French heartthrob
Jean Sorel (Belle de Jour) was originally cast as Diabolik, and
American actor George Raft had been given one of the bad guy roles
but became ill and was replaced by Gilbert Roland.
The film’s first director was British-born Seth Holt (The Nanny), a
man who reputedly loved a snifter or two to start the day. When Dino
saw early footage of the film he may have needed a stiff drink himself.
In fact he was so horrified that he stopped production immediately.
Dino wasn’t happy with Roland, nor with Elsa Martinelli who had
been cast in the role of Diabolik’s sexy accomplice, Eva. But mostly
he wasn’t happy with Seth Holt’s take on the movie and so he gave
Seth his marching orders, which is when Bava came on board.
By now the film’s original $3 million budget had been cut in
half, but it was still the most money that Bava had ever been
given to work with. Using his camera trickery skills, he actually
managed to bring the movie in for under half a million dollars,
which delighted Dino no end, but Bava later passed up on the
chance to film a sequel because he said the experience of
working for Dino was not a happy one.
Jean Sorel didn’t last long as Diabolik under the new
regime, and he left after a few days of filming, to be replaced
by handsome American actor John Phillip Law. Meanwhile,
Repulsion’s Catherine Deneuve had been given Elsa Martinelli’s
role as Eva, but she wasn’t happy with doing a nude scene that
called her to make love with Diabolik in a huge pile of lolly. No
distasteful ‘coming into money’ jokes, please. Unhappy with her
attitude, Bava insisted on hiring a new actress for the role, and
he chose a gorgeous one in the shape of Marisa Mell.
Born in Austria as Marlie Theresa Moitzi, Mell had appeared
in Ken Russell’s French Dressing (1964) and the 1965 thriller
Masquerade before earning her 60s spy-fi credentials as a
Bond-style babe named Charity in Secret Agent Superdragon
(1966). Yes, she did give it away there, as it happens.
It seems hard to believe but this incredibly beautiful
actress had suffered severe head and facial injuries in a
1963 car accident in France, which led to her undergoing a
series of plastic surgery procedures. Close-ups in Danger: Diabolik
THE JA
INFINITY 61
reveal a slight scar on her upper lip, but those plastic
surgeons obviously did a fantastic job.
Unlike Catherine Deneuve, Marisa had no problem
with onscreen nudity and in fact she posed for
Playboy in 1976. Sadly her career dwindled though,
and by the time she died of cancer at the ridiculously
young age of 53 she was virtually penniless.
Danger: Diabolik was to become Marisa’s signature
role, and she brings a breathtaking beauty to the role
of bad girl Eva Kant (don’t even go there). No wonder
her lucky boyfriend will do anything for her. Mind
you, John Phillip Law is not a bad looking lad himself,
and his Diabolik has charm to spare. He’s a Robin Hood type who
drives around in a black Jaguar and has a nice line in fetish gear to
please both ladies and gentlemen of a certain persuasion. He may
be a rogue but the people of Italy just love this guy because one of
his ‘crimes’ has been to destroy the country’s tax records!
Like any good super-criminal, Diabolik has a pretty snazzy
underground lair where he chills out with sexy blonde Marisa in
between capers. This place is packed with electronic gadgets, and
one might wonder (if this was the real world) how he managed to
get it built in complete secrecy. The local council surely would have
had some complaints. They are building a new bungalow round the
corner from us and we’ve never heard the end of it.
Those fetish outfits ain’t cheap so Diabolik specialises in crime on
a grand scale, which includes the theft of a valuable emerald necklace
belonging to a British minister’s wife, and he has his eyes on nicking a
20-ton gold ingot, which unfortunately happens to be radioactive.
Where there are robbers there must be cops and hot on his trail is
Chief Inspector Michel Piccoli, aided and abetted by comical finance
minister Terry-Thomas. Since Diabolik is basically a nice villain
we also get a nasty one in the shape of Thunderball’s Adolfo Celi,
another master criminal who is being blackmailed to turn Diabolik
over to the cops. In Thunderball Adolfo’s secret lair had a floor that
fell away to dump his victims in a shark tank, here he has a floor
that opens up to dump people out of his plane. At one point Celi and
Law fall out of the plane together, threatening each other all the
way down.
BRIGHT AND BREEZY
As you can tell, realism is not an issue in this bright
and breezy comic book yarn, which Bava films in
garish psychedelic hues that match the elaborate
sets - many of which are actually not sets at all, but
elaborate Bava miniatures painted on glass!
All of this is set to a background of groovy 60s
cocktail lounge music by the maestro himself, Ennio
Morricone. A crazy mix of jazz, funk and orchestral
drive, the score is packed solid with mad melodies,
none more so than the sultry title track, ‘Deep Down,’
warbled by Italian songstress Christy, who has a bit of
a Shirley Bassey vibe going on (she also did the amazing ‘Run, Man
Run’ on Morricone’s The Big Gundown soundtrack). As a pastiche of
a Bond song it works beautifully.
Sadly it was Morricone’s only collaboration with Bava and
remained unavailable to soundtrack collectors for years because
only a single was ever released and the master tapes were alleged
to have been destroyed in a fire. Luckily modern day technology has
made this masterpiece available to all and you can now download it
from Amazon as the soundtrack to your own criminal exploits.
Danger: Diabolik was not a big commercial or critical success
when first released in Italy on January 24th, 1968. Trade paper
Variety criticised its “bizarre sets, poor process work, static writing
and limp direction,” though the UK’s Monthly Film Bulletin were
more on target with their comments that: “Bava’s superb visual
sense stands him in good stead in this comic-strip adventure which
looks like a brilliant pastiche of the best of everything in anything
from James Bond to Matt Helm.”
I think that pretty much nails the appeal of this delirious spy
spoof, a film that could only have been made at the tail end of the
swinging 60s, when the wheels were coming off the Bond spoof
bandwagon, Danger: Diabolik may make Austin Powers look like
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, but it is nevertheless enormous silly
fun and an endless treat for the eyes and ears. No wonder that,
deep down, it has become a huge cult success and favourite guilty
pleasure for many.
HE JAMES BOND OF CRIME
62 INFINITY
The N
“ The A-bomb
may have helped
America to win the
war, but it unleashed
a wave of paranoia at
home about its effects.
Hollywood reacted by
producing a string of giant
bug movies through the
1950s, where various animals
or insects were inlated to gigantic proportions by
‘atomic radiation’”
INFINITY 63
ert I.
Gordon’s
career as a
maverick filmmaker was launched by the
birthday gift of a cine camera from his aunt when
he turned 13. It was a present that would change his life.
Bert Ira Gordon was born in 1922 in Kenosha, the same
small Wisconsin town where a more accomplished filmmaker
named Orson Welles had been born just seven years earlier in
1915. Gordon would later sign up Orson to star in his 1972 film
Necromancy. Young Bert quickly used his gift to begin crafting
16mm home movies and making ‘special effect’ ghost movies
where the effect was little more than simple double exposures.
A movie fan from an early age, Gordon took in countless
matinees at local vaudeville and burlesque houses. However,
all this activity was laying the foundations for his future career
as the giant of monster movies.
The advent of the Second World War changed the direction
of the young would-be filmmaker’s life, and he dropped out
of college to sign up for the Army Air Corp. Coming out of the
Army, Gordon was certain of only one thing: ‘I decided that
filmmaking was what I wanted to do.’
Now married, he and his wife Flora set to work in the
new medium of television, making commercials for local
companies to air in the ad breaks. Gordon also got extra
experience of working with film when he was assigned the job
of editing bought-in British movies down to the 60-minute
mark to fit a pre-determined broadcast slot. These jobs kept
the budding auteur happy for a while, but by the mid-1950s,
Gordon was determined to make his own movies.
ATOMIC AGE TERRORS
The A-bomb may have helped America to win the war, but
it unleashed a wave of paranoia at home about its effects.
Hollywood reacted by producing a string of giant bug movies
through the 1950s, where various animals or insects were
inflated to gigantic proportions by ‘atomic radiation’. One of the
earliest was The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953, with classic
Ray Harryhausen stop-motion effects), in which a dinosaur is
woken from hibernation by atomic bomb tests and storms New
York - a year before Godzilla would do the same to Tokyo.
Gordon was
attempting to
get a job in Hollywood
at that time. ‘I had no
contacts, I was ringing doorbells
everywhere trying to get a job,’ he said in
2003. ‘Agents don’t want to talk to you. Nobody
wants to talk to you out in Hollywood. Unless you’ve got
some money, they’ll talk to you then…’ Aware of the monster
movie boom and recalling King Kong (1933, re-released in
1952), the would-be movie kingpin determined to get himself a
piece of the giant creature feature action.
The big screen was awash with ever-bigger creatures in
the mid-1950s, all of them mutated by radioactive fallout:
giant ants in Them! (1954), a huge reptile in Japanese sequel
Godzilla Raids Again (1955), and giant spiders in Tarantula
(1955). ‘I had been in Hollywood about a year,’ recalled Mr.
B.I.G. ‘I had been a production supervisor on the Racket Squad
TV show. I was approached by a man who had a little bit of
money and who was aware of my various skills. King Dinosaur
was the result.’
That man with the money was budget conscious producer Al
Zimbalist (Robot Monster, Cat-Women of the Moon) who had a
deal with Lippert Pictures and knew the cheapjack studio was
looking to cash in on the giant monster craze. If Gordon could pull
off the kind of cinematic tricks he promised, Zimbalist reckoned
they were both in with the chance of making some money: he
wrote the story and roped in Gordon to handle the camera.
King Dinosaur (1955) was notoriously shot in just one
weekend at a cost of just $18,000, and used a
photographically-enlarged iguana
to represent a giant
rampaging
MASSIVE 50s ATOMIC MUTATIONS
Above:
Bert with his
Cyclops mask,
worth keeping
an eye out for
on eBay along
with his amazing
autobiography
(right)
B-movie maestro Bert I. Gordon believed in one thing wholeheart-
edly: everything on a movie screen should be bigger than life. Brian
J. Robb examines the work of the auteur responsible for some of the most fondly remembered
American giant monster movies of the 1950s…
e Notorious B.I.G.
64 INFINITY
dinosaur. The patience and artistic skill of Ray
Harryhausen wasn’t for these guys.
When a new planet, imaginatively dubbed
‘Nova’, appears in the solar system, a band of
intrepid astronauts set out to explore it, only to
encounter the ‘king dinosaur’ of the title - which
they promptly destroy with the handy atom
bomb they’ve brought along. Gordon was able to
stretch this premise to 63 minutes, just barely
reaching what might charitably be considered
feature length. ‘It was a very, very cheap film,’ he
admitted, ‘prehistoric in a number of ways!’
King Dinosaur was hardly Bert I. Gordon’s
equivalent to his fellow Kinoshan Orson Welles’
1941 first feature, Citizen Kane. That didn’t
matter to Gordon, though - he’d achieved what
he’d set out to do, make a movie, even if much
of it was voiceover narration and stock footage.
Now he had a foothold in the industry he wasn’t
about to let go. He’d also discovered a formula
and had the technique required to pull it off:
giant creatures combined with matte shots, rear
projection and special effects photography. It
was to be a furrow he would plough for most of
his creative life.
Bert Gordon’s next movie was a whole three
minutes longer, but this one featured a couple
of ‘star’ (well, B-movie) names in Lon Chaney
Jr. (The Wolf Man) and Gloria Talbot (All That
Heaven Allows). While Talbot’s career was in
the ascendancy, Chaney’s was on a long, slow
slide as a result of his alcoholism. The Cyclops
(1957) featured former lifeguard Duncan Parkin
as the one-eyed giant of the title, discovered
by an expedition to Mexico (actually filmed on
the cheap in LA’s Bronson Canyon). While The
Cyclops featured more giant animals, it focused
on the 25-foot mutated title character, the
missing fiancé of Talbot’s character.
Gordon set about distinguishing himself from
all the other giant creature movies by featuring
giant humans - they were certainly easier
to control than iguanas or the grasshoppers
he’d use in his third movie, Beginning of
the End (1957). The stoic Peter Graves (TV’s
Mission: Impossible), the gorgeous Peggie
Castle (Invasion U.S.A.), and Morris Ankrum
(typecast as ever as an Army General) were the
respectable cast up against photographically
enlarged insects that crawl through a cardboard
model cityscape and up (and sometimes right
off) picture postcard images of tall buildings.
Nonetheless, it’s one of Gordon’s best movies.
COLOSSAL SUCCESS
Gordon’s success (each of his movies had
fabulous posters, far better than the actual films
they promoted) brought him to the attention of
American International Pictures (AIP), Samuel
Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson’s ultra-low
budget studio. Roger Corman had been AIP’s
go-to guy for low budget thrills for a couple of
years, so they recognized something similar in
Gordon’s larger-than-life movies. They agreed
to distribute his next pair of pictures: 1957’s The
Amazing Colossal Man and 1958’s War of the
Colossal Beast.
The year that director Jack Arnold released
The Incredible Shrinking Man, ever the
contrarian Bert Gordon went in the opposite
direction - his monstrous man would be both
‘amazing’ and ‘colossal’.
Again, a nuclear explosion was to blame for
the plight of Army colonel Glenn Manning (Glenn
Langan) who is caught up in a mistimed Nevada
plutonium bomb test - in a well-realised and
quite gruesome sequence. Healing unusually
rapidly from life-threatening burns, Manning
grows to over 16 feet in height (thanks to
absorbed radiation), much to the distress of his
fiancée Carol (Cathy Downs).
Unusually, for such a low budget effort that
relies on spectacle, The Amazing Colossal
Man does make some effort to deal with the
psychological realities of the unlikely physical
transformation that has taken place, both in
Mark Hanna’s script and Langan’s anguished
performance. Of course, B-movie tradition is
quickly re-established as the ever-growing
Manning begins to lose his mind and goes on
the rampage in nearby Las Vegas. A perfunctory
Gordon set about distinguishing himself from all
the other giant creature movies by featuring giant
humans - they were certainly easier to control
than iguanas or the grasshoppers he’d use in his
third movie, Beginning of the End (1957).
Brian J.Robb
INFINITY 65
ending sees the army attack their former
colonel, seemingly killing him as his body
tumbles from the Boulder Dam.
Playing in a double bill with Cat Girl, an
unofficial made-in-Britain remake of Cat People
(1942), the film was something of a hit, spawning
an instant sequel in the following year’s War of
the Colossal Beast, in which Manning’s sister
Joyce (Sally Fraser) comes to believe her giant
brother survived his fall.
Duncan Parkin returned from The Cyclops
(and appeared in similar disfigured facial
make-up), replacing Langan. Most notable about
this replay (aside from heavy reuse of material
from the first movie) was the use of colour at the
climax as Manning electrocutes himself on live
power lines by the Griffith Observatory in LA.
The sequel lacked the psychological depth of the
original, and even the special effects (nothing
too special to begin with) were below par.
FROM TALL TO SMALL
The next few years were busy for the Notorious
B.I.G. He finally properly aped The Incredible
Shrinking Man with 1958’s Attack of the Puppet
People and attempted to out-arachnid Tarantula
(1955) with the lower budget thrills of Earth vs.
the Spider (1958, AKA The Spider). John Hoyt
starred in Puppet People (which also featured
Bert’s actress daughter Susan) as a lonely
eccentric doll maker who figures out a way of
miniaturizing people, only to use it to kidnap
his assistant and secretary (who are leaving him
to get married) as well as several other unlucky
individuals, all because he wants some company.
The film was released by AIP on a double bill with
Gordon’s own War of the Colossal Beast.
In Earth vs. the Spider, Space Patrol television
star Ed Kemmer lead an undistinguished cast as
high schoolers battle a giant spider unearthed in
that favourite low budget LA location, Bronson
Canyon. Bert Gordon was a master of self-pub-
licity, ensuring that each of his films worked
as promotion for another, even if they weren’t
appearing on the same double bill. In Earth
vs. the Spider, one character works in a movie
theatre plastered with posters for The Amazing
Colossal Man, while the marque indicates the
venue is currently screening Attack of the Puppet
People. In turn, two characters in Puppet People
are shown watching The Amazing Colossal Man
during a visit to the drive-in. The later Village of
the Giants (1956) features War of the Colossal
Beast on a magazine cover. Not for nothing did
Famous Monsters of Filmland (the mag appeared
in Earth vs. the Spider) editor Forrest J. Ackerman
nickname Bert I. Gordon ‘Mr B.I.G.’.
IMITATING HITCHCOCK
Earth vs. the Spider was the final effects-driven
movie from Gordon in the 1950s, largely because
the entire ‘giant bug’ craze had run its course.
Inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 shocker
Psycho and William Castle’s move into similar
psychological gimmicky thrillers, Gordon
attempted to follow suit with 1960’s Tormented
and 1966’s Picture Mommy Dead. Unfortunately,
here he was very much producing an imitation of
an imitation. Richard Carlson featured alongside
Susan Gordon in Tormented as a man haunted
(literally) by the ghost of his ex. Even stranger,
Picture Mommy Dead featured fellow Kenoshan
Don Ameche as a man whose wife dies in a fire and
whose daughter (Susan Gordon again) is caught up
in the search for her mother’s missing jewels.
In between those two ‘masterpieces’, Gordon
made two kids fantasy adventures - 1960’s The
Boy and the Pirate and 1962’s The Magic Sword -
and another of his ‘giant’ movies in 1965’s Village
of the Giants. No good beatniks and teenage
delinquents (including Tommy Kirk, Toni Basil,
Ron Howard, and Beau Bridges, all too old for
their roles) grow to giant size (surprise!) after
ingesting a new compound and terrorize a fearful
town. Village of the Giants was based loosely on
H.G. Wells’ 1904 novel Food of the Gods, and was
the first of a trio of attempts by Gordon to adapt
Wells’ work. He returned to the same source for
1976’s The Food of the Gods (featuring a series
of unconvincing giant animals), which Gordon
somehow managed to get Ida Lupino, Ralph
Meeker, and Pamela Franklin to appear in. Suffice
it to say, the Golden Turkey Award taken by the
film for ‘Worst Rodent Movie of All Time’ was
well earned (amazingly, it even beat 1972’s giant
rabbit movie, Night of the Lepus!).
Wells was again the source for 1977’s Empire
of the Ants, in which Joan Collins battled some
This spread:
All creatures great and small - a selection of images from
some of Bert’s most famous (and notorious) features.
He has the distinction, dubious though it may be, of
having the most movies shown on Mystery Science
Theater 3000 (1988), but you have to admit he came
up with some great poster images…
66 INFINITY
photographically-enlarged ants (who’d eaten
radioactive waste—as if it were still the 1950s)
in special effects that suggested Gordon had
not progressed further than 1957’s Beginning of
the End - remember, this was the year that Star
Wars hit cinemas! The 1970s simply confirmed
that Bert I.
Gordon was
effectively
stranded in
the atomic
‘big bug’
world of the
1950s when
he’d done his
best work.
Aside from
a couple of
sex comedies
and trashy
horror flicks,
there was
little from
here forward
of worth from
the Notorious
B.I.G.
He did pull off something of a coup, however,
with 1972’s Necromancy (AKA The Witching)
by signing up fellow Kenoshan Orson Welles to
star as the sinister Mr. Cato who has the power
to revive the dead. It was no Citizen Kane, but it
did allow the two Kenoshans to reconnect.
Although he made two more little seen
movies (1981’s Burned at the Stake and 1990’s
Satan’s Princess) Bert I. Gordon seemed to
disappear from view. He’s made something of
a public comeback in recent years, writing an
autobiography (‘The Amazing Colossal Worlds
of Mr. B.I.G.’), made personal appearances at
various conventions (including annual turns as
the Monster Bash event) where he introduces
screenings of this 1950s greats, and even
directed a new movie (at the age of 91) in 2014’s
Secrets of a Psychopath.
Truly a giant among 1950s monster
moviemakers, Bert I. Gordon, the Notorious
B.I.G., can lay unique claim to being the director
whose films have been featured the most on
Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Eight of his
titles (including The Amazing Colossal Man,
Beginning of the End, and Earth vs. the Spider
- probably his three best movies) have been
affectionately spoofed, while MST3K spin-off
RiffTrax tackled Attack of the Puppet People
for good measure. He may have been no Orson
Welles, but the films of the popular showman
that was the Notorious B.I.G. were probably
a lot more fun - imagine the possibilities in
a rebooted Bert I. Gordon shared universe!
Hollywood, are you listening?
z
For issue Number 6 of Infinity is was a bit of a no-brainer
to celebrate one of the greatest cult TV shows of all time,
namely Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner. An allegorical
mixture of spy action and sci-fi, it was to be McGoohan’s
most personal project, and though it only ran to one series, what
a series it was!
We’ll also be rolling back the years to look at some of our
favourite animated childhood shows such as Hanna-Barbera’s
Super TV Heroes and the original Spider-Man, where he did
whatever a spider can, except eat flies. And if you are old enough
to remember Saturday matinees at your local cinema then you
are going to very much enjoy our fabulous feature on the sci-fi
movies made by the Children’s Film Foundation, which included
1956’s amazing Supersonic Saucer, a movie which predated E.T.
with a friendly alien that enjoys a bike ride! The effects weren’t
quite so realistic though.
Next, Ray Harryhausen fans are in for a treat with our look
back at the making of The Valley of Gwangi, and if you are into
Doctor Who we are sure you will love our suspense-packed look
at the show’s greatest ever cliffhangers. On the literary front we
will be remembering the works of two of the genre’s greatest
non-living authors, Brian W. Aldiss and Ian Banks, and we bring
you that promised feature on the history of 200AD. Yes I know I
said it would be in this issue, but I am the law around here, not
Judge Dredd. There’s a lot more of course, including a cracking
feature on unsold TV pilots and a journey through the Time
Tunnel. Just be sure that you tell your newsagent to reserve you
a copy of Infinity Number Six. And for those of you
saying, it is not just a number it is a free mag, I’m
afraid you are wrong. Mind you, £3.99 is still a
bargain. Be seeing you.
IT’S NUMBER-CRUNCHING TIME IN THE NEXT OUT-OF-THIS WORLD ISSUE OF
ISSUE 6 - LANDING 23.11.17
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www.infinitymagazine.co.uk