One Step Beyond Intro

>CULT MOVIE REVIEW: Forbidden Planet (1956)

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“At times loud and frenzied, literally encircling the viewer with sight, sound, and fury, and at other times subtle and silently unnerving, Forbidden Planet is, on every conceivable level, a work of commercial art.”

- Jeff Rovin. A Pictorial History of Science Fiction Films. Citadel Press, 1975, page 78.

To assess the dynamic in purely Generation X-friendly terms, Forbidden Planet is to the 1950s what Star Wars is to the 1970s.

Or perhaps what 2001: A Space Odyssey is to the 1960s.

In other words, Forbidden Planet is a visual space odyssey so involving, so expertly presented, so beautifully designed that it endures as a landmark in the history of the cinema. 

Even fifty-five years after its theatrical debut, Forbidden Planet still impresses, and on some level even terrifies, in significant degree due to the eerie “electronic tonalities” of the score devised by Louis and Bebe Barron.

Today, this 1956 film from director Fred M. Wilcox and writers Cyril Hume and Irving Block remains one of the boomer generation’s most important genre touchstones, and has been referenced directly and indirectly in  a wide-range of high-profile sf productions including Serenity (2005) and Gene Roddenberry’s original Star Trek (1966 – 1969).  

The film’s mostly-invisible villain, “The Monster from the Id,” is one that is still well-known by name in the pop culture lexicon.

At the movie’s core, Forbidden Planet concerns an anxious fear not of technology itself, but of the human application of technology.  Or, more directly, human hubris.  The film reveals that for mankind (much like the ancient Krell), the stars can be our destination.  But our species could also lose everything it holds dear by failing to understand the greatest mystery of the universe: the human psyche.

Buttressed by “superior special effects” (Science Fiction Films. Bison Books Corp., 1984, page 39), Forbidden Planet truly  ”thought big” and thus shines yet as one of the most imaginative and compelling movie visions of the future. 

As a kid of the 1970s,  I grew up frequently reading in the protean genre press about how Forbidden Planet was one of the greatest science fiction movies ever made.  Regardless of factors such as generational loyalty or nostalgia, those testimonials are absolutely, positively accurate.  This has been one of my favorite and most beloved films for a long time.

Delightfully, even if divorced from its Atomic Age original context, Forbidden Planet remains provocative.  The film remembers what so many science fiction visions of today fail to acknowledge; the fact that human beings — and human problems — must remain at the heart of any forward-thinking work of art. 

After all, when man reaches the stars he will still be man, and his decisions and wisdom (or lack thereof) will always spark the most invigorating of dramas.  Awe-inspiring special effects are one thing (and Forbidden Planet certainly deploys such effects brilliantly), but a story that connects to us, here and now, on an emotional level trumps such technical achievements every time.

“The secret devil of every soul set loose on the planet all at once…”

In the 23rd century, mankind endeavors to to conquer space, thanks in large-part to the invention of the hyper-drive, which makes interstellar travel possible.

As Forbidden Planet commences, space cruiser C-57D under command of stolid J.J. Adams (Leslie Nielson) approaches Altair IV, a world previously visited some two decades earlier by the Bellerophon. 

On approach to Altair IV, Adams and his ship are warned away from the planet by Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon), who insists that he won’t be responsible for the outcome should Adams ignore his counsel.

Adams sets down anyway on the craggy surface of the planet and soon encounters Robby the Robot, Morbius’s highly-advanced mechanical servant.  Robby takes Adams, “Doc” Ostrow (Warren Stevens) and Lt. Farman (Jack Kelly) back to Morbius’s home, where they meet the man.

The grave, serious Morbius is the last surviving original member of the Bellerophon expedition and reports that “some dark, terrible, incomprehensible force” killed the other humans on his crew.  However, he has been safe and secure in the intervening nineteen years, living alone on the planet with just Robby (his construct; something he “tinkered together“) and his beautiful if naive daughter, Altaira (Anne Francis).

The ship’s crew responds enthusiastically (*ahem*) to the lovely Altaira, even as Adams determines he must contact home base to request further instructions regarding Morbius.

Unfortunately, the cruiser’s long range communication apparatus, the “Klystron Transmitter” is sabotaged at night by an unknown, apparently invisible foe.

In the days ahead, Morbius introduces Adams and Doc to the great archaeological find of Altair IV.  Beneath the scientist’s house, inside a vast subterranean complex, stands an ancient power generator belonging to an alien race called the Krell.  The colossal machine — whose exact purpose remains unknown — is all that remains of the once super-advanced people.

In fact, the Krell were so advanced that they visited Earth before man even walked the Earth, and brought back samples of the planet’s wildlife, including tigers and deer. 

In one impressive alien laboratory, Morbius demonstrates a Krell educational game, a “brain boost” machine that he himself has experimented on, augmenting his own natural intellect in the process.   

Alarmingly, Morbius also reports that the Krell civilization vanished in one night, on the eve of an almost divine achievement: the creation of a device that could render unnecessary all forms of physical instrumentality.

Awed and a little disturbed by Morbius’s alien discoveries, Adams believes Earth  and the “United Planets” must be permitted to share in the wealth.  Morbius objects to the captain’s interference, however.  

As if in response, the terrifying invisible foe returns again and again, night by night, growing ever stronger…and ever more murderous.

“We’re all part monsters in our subconscious.  So we have laws and religion.”

As any college level English student can dutifully attest, Forbidden Planet appears loosely based on William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest (1610). 

That work by the Bard revolves around Prospero, a man who has lived on a remote island with his daughter Miranda for twelve years. 

Prospero is served by a spirit called “Ariel” and uses the auspices of Ariel’s magic to create a  storm (a tempest) at sea.  The storm causes a shipwreck and draws important visitors (Alonso, Ferdinand, etc.) to Prospero’s island for his unique purposes of personal and family renewal. 

Importantly, also residing on Prospero’s island is Caliban (think cannibal): a monster who utilizes magic for much darker purposes. In the end, Prospero renounces magic and Ariel is set free from servitude, while Miranda and King Alonso’s son, Ferdinand, are free to marry.

Shakespeare’s last play, The Tempest is frequently assessed a highly-reflexive work of art because it compares Prospero’s use of magic with the magic of the theater.  Prospero’s renunciation of magic at play’s end is thus said to represent Shakespeare’s own pull-back from the stage; his professional retirement, essentially.  The Tempest is also widely considered a “post-colonial effort,” drawing specific interest because of the way that Prospero treats (and mistreats?) Caliban, Ariel and the other denizens of the faraway island. 

Forbidden Planet certaily shares an abundance of common narrative and thematic points with Shakespeare’s final literary endeavor.  If you substitute Altair IV for the remote island, Morbius for Prospero, and Altaira for Miranda, the comparison begins to take shape.  Captain J.J. Adams — as love interest for Altaira/Miranda — is at least part Ferdinand, and the extraordinary Robby the Robot fits the bill as Ariel, the servant of Morbius/Prospero. 

What seems rather unique about the transference of The Tempest’s scenarios to the futuristic realm of Forbidden Planet is that the makers of this classic sci-fi film have made some very intriguing switches or substitutions.  

Here, technology — alien technology — replaces magic or the occult.  Robby is not a ”fairy” or “spirit” like Ariel, but rather a thinking machine created from super-advanced technology; Krell technology.  Just consider  Clarke’s third law, of 1961.  Advanced technology — machines beyond our understanding — appear as baffling as magic, right?

Furthermore, the film’s “thing of darkness,” to turn a Shakespearean phrase (Act II, Scene II), is positioned as a psychological, interior force, rather than as an exterior personality, Caliban.   It is the scientist/wizard’s “id” in Forbidden Planet that creates problems, not a fellow and less honorable practitioner of the magical arts.  

Indeed, Forbidden Planet purposefully re-contextualizes Shakespeare’s line in The Tempest that “we are such stuff as dreams are made of,” so as to readily incorporate the the Id, which is one third of the human psychic apparatus as delineated by Sigmund Freud. 

Id is instinct.  Id is chaos.  It is aggression and destruction, with no overriding sense of morality, and it operates on passion and desire. Often, our nocturnal dreams  and phantasms are seen as the representative outlet of the Id, and in Forbidden Planet, Morbius — immediately before his heroic demise — explicitly names dreams as devious originator of his unpardonable sins. 

“What man can remember his own dreams?” Morbius asks desperately, suggesting that consciously he is fully separate from the the instinctive human urges which created the Monster from the Id and committed murder.  The truth is that the Monster here is actually a reflection of his basest, most primitive self.  Something that — even in the era of space travel — man cannot fully expunge.

Another substantial difference to consider when comparing The Tempest to Forbidden Planet involves the manner in which Morbius uses Robby.  Though it is clear from Morbius’s demonstrations involving the robot that the scientist holds a kind of spell over him —  able to render Robby immobile with a simple voice command –  Morbius does not utilize Robby to bring visitors to his world. 

On the contrary, Morbius explicitly shuns such visitors while the cruiser is still in orbit.  This act separates him rather dramatically from his literary predecessor, Prospero.  In the denouement of both works, however, the non-human servant (Ariel/Robby) is freed from his master and takes part in the navigation away from the island/planet.  In Forbidden Planet’s final scene, we see Robby at the controls of C-57D, having adjusted rather nicely to his new environs.

There are major differences in tenor as well.  In no significant or meaningful way does Forbidden Planet attempt to draw parallels between the technology of the Krell, for instance and the technological art form of film. 

On the contrary, Forbidden Planet plays its story completely straight, sometimes even underplaying moments so as to more fully erect a sense of complete, overwhelming reality about the film’s universe.  Again, the idea at the root of the film is not a comparison of magic to art, but a comparison, rather, of  future technology to more current events, circa the mid-1950s.

In the Atomic Age, a literal Pandora’s Box was opened thanks to the creation of The Bomb, and many people feared what could happen when mankind “tampers in God’s domain.”    That’s the explicit fear of Forbidden Planet and the lesson to draw from the unfortunate, god-like Krell.  The film is about achieving a technological awareness that our species is not yet emotionally ready, not yet wise enough, to countenance.  No one man can possess such great power, and possibly use it wisely.

In terms of the post-colonial aspects of Shakespeare’s work, again, Forbidden Planet differs significantly.  It is of interest here that both Morbius and Altaira treat Robby as a servant, but this seems no more than an oblique comment on human views of artificial intelligence, hardly applicable to the idea of post-colonial paternalism or racism.

The comparison to The Tempest appears most illuminating in understanding Forbidden Planet’s theme: that of man harnessing a tool (whether magic or technology) responsibly.  The brief reference to the “Bellerophon” (the name of the first ship to visit Altair IV) expertly cements this thematic strand.  In Greek myth, Bellerophon is a demi-God and son of Poseidon who commits the crime of arrogance or hubris.  He attempts to fly Pegasus to Mount Olympus to reach the Gods, until Zeus retaliates (with a gad-fly), and Bellerophon falls back to Earth, forever broken by the experience.

Quite clearly, Morbius (a Bellerophon crew member) is the one who dramatically overreaches in Forbidden Planet, attempting to gain access to divine knowledge which is not his right nor his destiny.  Morbius’s tale and Bellerophon’s myth are both explicitly cautionary tales about human overreach.  In the film, J.J. Adams seems to recognize this in his impromptu requiem for the good doctor, and notes that the name Morbius will one day ”remind us that we are, after all, not God..” 

Even the (unseen) demise of the Bellerophon space ship in Forbidden Planet seems to harken back to the myth.  Morbius describes how, during take off, it was pulled back and “vaporized,” in flight.  Were the colonists going to share the secrets of the Krell with the outside world?  Were they reaching for Mount Olympus when they were downed?

“…a new scale of physical scientific values…”

An undeniable and perennial pleasure of Forbidden Planet is the style and epic scope of visual presentation.  This is a film that occurs entirely on a distant planet, and therefore involves both futuristic human technology and alien technology with absolutely no relation to Earth and our history or design aesthetics.

Consequently, no earthbound locations are featured — redressed or not – in Forbidden Planet, and nor were the film’s makers able to rely on our modern digital technology (CGI).  Instead, a vast sound stage is converted into the expansive landing area of the C-57D, and some of the most impressive matte paintings you’ve ever seen are deployed, along with exceptional miniatures and some opticals, to diagram the world and scope of the Krell technology.

Morbius’s house represents a splendid vision of what homes of the future might look like, from the inclusion of a “household disintegrator beam” disposal unit, to metal shutters, to an architectural scheme that incorporates both natural rock and plant-life right into the home’s hearth. 

Although the C-57D’s familiar “flying saucer” design may seem antiquated to some viewers, the interior of the ship is constructed in full, and in laborious detail: a multi-level affair with a central control station, hide-away bunk beds, and a “deceleration” post for braking (after light-speed).  And the impressive scene in which this craft lands on Altair — and ladders descend and crew disembark — plays as absolutely real, in part because so much of the craft’s exterior has also been constructed to scale. 

Late in the film, Morbius takes Adams and Doc Ostrow on that extended tour of “the Krell Wonders” and this portion of the film is nothing less-than-awe-inspiring because of the visualizations, successfully living up to Morbius’s high-minded description of a “new scale of physical values.”   Morbius’s matter-of-fact lecture during this tour only serves once more to effectively ground the film in a very substantial form of reality.  This is literally a tour, with a sort of teacher relating to us information about energy usage, power systems and more.  It might seem dry and lifeless to some, but the technical dialogue and professorial delivery actually serve a terrific purpose.  This approach enhances the believability of the enterprise.

This tour — which plays as educational and real — is a powerful contrast to the film’s most visceral, memorable scene: the Monster from the Id’s sustained attack upon the landed cruiser by night.  This particularly riveting sequence, with blazing laser weapons, crackling force-fields, and some unique wire-work (utilized to express the visual of spacemen caught in the grasp of the invisible monster) is still awe-inspiring and terrifying.  The famous monster is visible only sporadically — an animated energy beast — and thus terror is rigorously maintained.  The electronic tonalities I mentioned at the outset of the review also help out in maintaining the horror.  This planet and its monstrous denizen not only appear alien, but sound alien as well.  The monster’s unearthly howl is not easily forgotten.

Some of the film’s vistas also nicely eschew technology human ana alien for more natural settings.  There’s an almost poetic shot and matte painting of the grave yard where the Bellerophon dead are buried.  Another shot evocative of the best pulp space art involves Altair at night, with two luminous moons hanging low in the black sky. 

In terms of design creativity then, Forbidden Planet is right off the charts.  Even today, science fiction films visualize holograms, force-fields, lasers and robots in much the same fashion as those concepts are crafted here.  Certainly, robots today are a little more streamlined than the wonderful Robby, but he remains quite impressive (and oddly lovable).  The New York Times’ reviewer’s words about him still hold up too.  He called Robby “a phenomenal mechanical man who can do more things in his small body than a roomful of business machines. He can make dresses, brew bourbon whisky, perform feats of Herculean strength and speak 187 languages, which emerged through a neon-lighted grille. What’s more, he has the cultivated manner of a gentleman’s gentleman. He is the prettiest piece of mechanism on Planet Altaire.”  Easy, then, to detect why this robot has been beloved for several generations now.

In fact, if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then the makers of Forbidden Planet should feel remarkably flattered.  Star Trek adopted the film’s “United Planets” template lock, stock and barrel, the captain/doctor relationship, and the Chief Quinn character (a Scotty-like miracle-worker) as part of its core, while Star Wars’ C-3PO – another robot of many languages —  and Lost in Space’s B9 certainly owe much to Robby in concept and design.  We call this homage, of course. 

In the annals of cult television history, even The Tempest-like tale of a father and daughter living alone on a distant planet together has been oft-repeated, in Star Trek’s “Requiem for Methuselah” and Space:1999′s “The Metamorph” to name but two.  It is also said that Dr. Who’s serial “Planet of Evil” derives from Forbidden Planet in name and concept.  It’s a story of a scientist’s good-intentioned overreach and devolution into a monster on a faraway world.

Forbidden Planet is a product of its time, and that means, among other things, that no racial minorities are featured in the film at all, which today may likely trouble some folks.  Also, Alta is defined in the film largely by her reactions and relationships with the men in her life.   She goes from being an obedient daughter, to being an obedient romantic partner.  She’s not the independent spirit we might expect in today’s cinema. 

But of course, the film was created in 1956, not 2011 and so was a projection of the future that included the America of that era as the foundation of everything.  Despite such concerns, Forbidden Planet remains a terrific and sometimes startling example of what traditional Hollywood can achieve in the genre when equipped with a good budget, a strong and literate script, and the most imaginative effects and production design possible for the day.

Forbidden Planet isn’t a movie that was just “tinkered together” and nor is it “an obsolete” thing.  Contrarily, it’s a sci-fi masterpiece that both inspires and warns us about our trajectory heading out there, into the Great Unknown.  

From Prospero in the 1600s to Dr. Morbius in the 23rd century, the human condition, it seems, remains a fragile, mysterious, and magical thing.

>CULT MOVIE REVIEW: On the Beach (1959)

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“Who would ever have believed that human beings would be stupid enough to blow themselves off the face of the Earth?”

- On the Beach

Stanley Kramer’s On the Beach (1959) is a film about humankind learning to accept, with some measure of grace, the end of everything. 

In this grim adaptation of Nevil Shute’s 1957 novel about nuclear war and aftermath, radioactive dust is systematically ending all human life on Earth.  There are no places to hide, no higher forces to appeal to, and no do-overs.  This is a world without hope, but in the final analysis, one not without some measure of dignity. 

That’s cold comfort, however, given what mankind stands to lose.

And that’s really what On the Beach proves such a wonderful reminder of: all those wondrous things about living on this beautiful green planet. Like being a father and a husband.  Like falling in love.  Choosing to live how you wish to live, and with whom.  Getting drunk, even.  All these human activities shall disappear forever, as the last survivors of humankind succumb to an atmosphere that he himself has poisoned. 

As we see at point-blank range, and frequently in intense, emotional close-ups, the survivors wish for more time.  They wish for a future.  They desire a happy ending.  They just want hope. But the movie’s most effective and impressive point — pushed quietly if deftly — is that all those wishes died when the bombs fell.  The time for good wishes would have been before man set about to annihilate his brothers. 

One difficult-to-accept aspect of this, for the survivors, is that they didn’t launch the war.  They didn’t press the red button.  But they will die — the human race itself, will die — because someone else did.  In a way, On the Beach concerns the ultimate form of tyranny: the recognition of the fact that a few old men, in seats of power around the world, could kill billions in an instant because of a simple difference in ideological beliefs.   Individual liberty is nothing but a convenient illusion so long as nuclear weapons exist, because such weapons can destroy not just those deemed responsible for crimes, but whole populations; innocent and guilty alike.

Produced more than fifty years ago, On the Beach remains incredibly haunting today, almost paralyzing even, in its unblinking intensity.  It’s a serious, artfully-crafted piece of work, and it suggests something very important, as New York Times critic Bosley Crowther observed: “life is a beautiful treasure and man should do all he can to save it from annihilation, while there is still time.” 

Or, as the stirring, tragic final image of the film reminds those of us, explicitly, in the audience: “there is still time, brother.”  Time enough for man to avoid the mistakes we see played out so dramatically in this impressive and deeply sad post-apocalyptic effort. 

We’ve successfully heeded that message for half-a-century since On the Beach, and for all our sakes, I hope we continue to do so.  But On the Beach should be required viewing for every politician who takes an oath of office, the globe around, just to be certain.

There isn’t time. No time to love… nothing to remember… nothing worth remembering.

Set in the year 1964, some time after a worldwide nuclear war, On the Beach tells the tale of the U.S. submarine Sawfish (Scorpion in the novel), as it arrives in Melbourne, Australia. 

Captained by Dwight Lionel Towers (Gregory Peck), the Sawfish and her crew have escaped the radioactive dust in the atmosphere, but are aware that deadly fall-out will strike Australia in a matter of months if not weeks, killing all the people left alive.

A young Australian lieutenant, Peter Holmes (Anthony Perkins) is assigned to the Sawfish as a liaison officer, along with a guilt-ridden scientist, Julian Fletcher (Fred Astaire).  They join Captain Towers as he prepares for a new mission.  Specifically, he is to travel north to determine if “the Jorgensen Effect” is fact or merely (hopeful…) theory. 

The scientific hypothesis proposes that the terminal levels of radiation may be dissipating because of wintry weather patterns…a fact which could provide a sliver hope for the humans still alive in the southern hemisphere and counting down to death. 

Another mystery is also to be solved. A cryptic message in Morse Code is originating in San Diego (Seattle in the book) and the Australian authorities want to solve the mystery.  How could someone have survived in the mainland U.S.A. after the war?

Before the Sawfish sets sail on its mission of last hope, On the Beach focuses a great deal on the personal lives of the dramatis personae.  Peter is a new father, and married to an impressionable young woman, Mary (Donna Anderson).  When Peter learns that he could be away – at sea – when the fall-out hits Australia, he solicits suicide pills for his wife and infant daughter, Jenny, a fact which greatly disturbs Mary.

Meanwhile, Captain Towers, who has lost a wife and two children in the war, begins to feel increasingly attracted to Moira Davidson (Ava Gardner), a single woman and an alcoholic. 

As much as Towers appreciates Moira’s companionship, he can’t let go of the family he lost in America, and always speaks of it in the present and future tense.  At one point, he mistakenly calls Moira “Sharon,” after his wife. Oddly, Moira is not bothered by this slip-of-the-tongue.  To be treated like a “wife,” she suggests, is better than how she has often treated herself, before the war.

In time, Sawfish’s mission proves a double failure.  Julian determines that radiation readings are strong and growing stronger, meaning that the fall-out will still strike Australia in weeks.  And the cryptic message from San Diego is a cruel joke: a window-shade tugging on a fallen coke bottle, over the telegraph equipment. The sad truth is that no one is left alive in the United States.  Still, one desperate officer jumps ship to die in his home-town.

As On the Beach reaches its solemn, inescapable conclusion, all the film’s main characters must determine how they wish to face their imminent demise.  Peter, Mary and Jenny remain a family to the end, before taking the suicide pills.  Though increasingly in love with Moira, Dwight decides to return to America with his ship and crew…so they can die at home.  And old Julian, who has re-fitted a Ferrari and won the Grand Prix, chooses his own way of leaving this Earth as well: carbon monoxide poisoning. 

The final shots of the film provide us glimpses of an eerily empty Melbourne – rendered eternally silent and lonely – by the end of all human life on the planet.

We’re all doomed, you know. The whole, silly, drunken, pathetic lot of us. Doomed by the air we’re about to breathe.

The most obvious quality to admire in On the Beach is its resolute lack of Hollywood happy ending bullshit.  

The audience is told at the beginning of the film that poisonous radiation will kill everyone in Australia in a matter of weeks…and that’s precisely what happens.

There’s no third act miracle here, no sign from the Divine that man is blessed and forgiven for his trespasses.  The movie holds out hope for the characters (in the form of the Morse Code message from America, and the possibility of the Jorgensen Effect) but then methodically squashes those hopes.  

Kramer diagrams this disappointment — this death of hope — largely by showcasing shattered human faces.  There’s one stunning sequence set on the submarine, in which Captain Towers surveys the dead west coast of America by periscope.  He doesn’t say a word after countenancing the emptiness of San Francisco, he just steps down from the periscope, moved beyond words.  Another officer follows.  Then another.  Their expressions speak volumes about what they’ve seen…and how it makes them feel.

In exploring this world without hope, On the Beach asks the viewer to contemplate what it means to live when there is no such thing as a long term future.  It’s a world in which your young children won’t get the chance to grow up.  A world in which you won’t still be alive for the trout season in a few months.  A world in which romantic relationships have no time to mature or develop.  What becomes of human interaction in such a world?  What, finally, becomes important when there is no time left?

On the Beach has been criticized, from time to time, because all the characters in the film evidence such remarkable restraint and dignity in facing the end of Life As We Know It.  But it’s important to remember that this isn’t an out-of-control zombie apocalypse.  Here, the infrastructure of Melbourne is intact and operating.  There are shortages of gas, but no shortages of food, or even alcohol, as the movie points out.  The people here aren’t overtly endangered by an “enemy” in their midst, nor by a break down of all civilization.  They are simply and horribly faced with the specter of imminent death, blowing in the wind, towards them.  In this environment, they can steal food, rob banks, and kill each other, but those activities wouldn’t change a lick the inevitability of their dilemma.  They are going to die now no matter what.  Survival is literally not an option, even if they fight tooth and nail (and break the law) for it. 

Accordingly, the film depicts human beings as nobly grappling with the inevitable.  The characters must each answer the question: what is important to you, today?  If you are to take your last breath in just hours, where do you want to draw that breath, and with whom?  Julian decides to race in the Grand Prix, a fiery race that brings death just a few weeks earlier to some of the less fortunate racers.  Peter and Mary cuddle in bed, before the end, discussing the time they first met “on the beach,” and what they felt as they fell in love.  Dwight decides that he belongs at home, with his men, if he can make it back to U.S. waters.  And on and on it goes, right down the line, as each human being makes a final decision. 

How these men and women decide to die is as important, to quote The Wrath of Khan, as how they decided to live.

As you may surmise, On the Beach is not a happy film.  But it is a worthwhile one, and one beautifully-visualized, thanks to Stanley Kramer’s direction. 

Early scenes in the film visually reflect Towers’ uncertainty about his new social situation and status in Melbourne (a widower? single?), with askew, cockeyed angles, for example.  And Kramer’s insistence on dramatic, extreme close-ups renders the story far more intimate than many cinematic “end of the world” offerings.  This film features characters who, while not necessarily flamboyant or colorful, you won’t ever forget. They aren’t heroes or villains, or larger-than-life in any way.  They are, quite appropriately, surrogates for us.  Just people who, more than anything, would like to live. We see ourselves in their faces, in their tears.

In particular, Gregory Peck delivers an absolutely heart-breaking monologue mid-way through the film, about the death of his family (and also about the death of the future).  He speaks the affecting words in a halting, uncertain, but driving fashion, as if Dwight is forcing himself to get through it.  It rings abundantly true: an admission both of weakness and strength, of a love that can’t just go away, even in the face of death. 

Perkins and Anderson are deeply affecting throughout as well, but especially in their final moments of life, described above.  I can’t imagine the horror that Peter faces here: knowing that he must administer suicide pills to his child and wife, and then — finally — join them.   Talk about a decision you can’t imagine making…

If On the Beach boasts any weaknesses, they are mostly a result of the inability to create convincing post-nuclear vistas.  In the novel, for instance, the Golden Gate Bridge had collapsed, if memory serves.  In the film, the bridge is still standing, and San Francisco — though empty — looks whole. 

In reality, the city should be destroyed, and there should be some sign of corpses in the streets.  In the film, one character states that people separate from other people, from groups, when they go to die.  The observation may be accurate, but in the event of a catastrophic and sudden attack like this, it’s likely that some people wouldn’t make it to sanctuary, or would die in public places, I submit.  On the Beach makes it seem as if all our architecture would remain standing in the event of all-out global war, and it’s simply not very believable.  Effective, yes, in the sense that we can reflect upon how desolate our cities look like without their human builders, but not necessarily believable.

There have been some critics who also complain that On the Beach is over-long and talky, but don’t you heed them.  This is a literate, complicated film about a handful of likable, “average” people facing an end they can’t prevent or stop.  It’s not about bombs dropping, or battles being waged.  It’s about grappling – on a personal level — with the knowledge that your own kind has destroyed the world and that you have very little time left to set your affairs straight.

Is it wishful thinking that mankind — after blowing the planet up — would behave with dignity on his deathbed? 

Perhaps, but to quote Fred Astaire in this film, “I’m not against wishful thinking. Not now.”

>CULT MOVIE REVIEW: The World, The Flesh and The Devil (1959)

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An early entry in the post-apocalyptic genre – and a contemporary of such films as Five (1951) and On The Beach (1959) –  The World, The Flesh and The Devil has just been released for the first time on DVD by the Warner Archive.

Directed by Ranald MacDougall, The World, the Flesh and The Devil commences with the end of the world itself. 

An African-American miner named Ralph Burton (Harry Belafonte), survives the widespread effects of “atomic poison” in the atmosphere because he is trapped in a cave-in beneath the Earth’s surface when the war occurs.  After Ralph discovers a path to the surface, he learns from newspaper headlines that nuclear war has wiped out almost all animal life on the planet.  He is alone. 

The early portions of The World, The Flesh and The Devil remain staggeringly beautiful, not to mention eerie, as the solitary Ralph makes his way to New York City, avoiding bridges and tunnels crowded with abandoned cars.  Once in Manhattan, Ralph calls out for help – for any sign of life – and editor Harold Kress cuts to a visually-dramatic montage of empty city streets near the Empire State Building. 

These scenes, lensed in the early mornings and in extreme long shot are completely convincing and discomforting. 

In particular, there’s this overwhelming feeling of a hustling-and -bustling modern world transformed instantaneously into a relic; one of eternal silence and isolation. 

Dwarfed by the ubiquitous 20th century urban architecture of the Big Apple — and with no other people around – Ralph truly seems vulnerable; a man trapped in a very large cage.  Around him are all the sights of the old world; all the shapes and forms, but nothing else.  It’s like Hell on Earth, after a fashion, being able to see and touch everything that you loved…except for the very people who made life special.

Despite such impressive and affecting end-of-the-world vistas, however, The World, The Flesh and The Devil remains most famous for its controversial narrative, which in very blunt fashion revolves around racism and even, to a surprising degree, monogamy.  As much as Ralph stands beneath the shadows of a vast, dead, technological metropolis, it’s clear he also lives under the shadow of a dead and corrosive world view. One that dictated he was less valuable than white people because of the color of his skin.

In short order, the three human survivors of The World, The Flesh and The Devil must make a choice about what kind of new world they hope to dwell in. 

Specifically, the plot revolves around a black man, Ralph, a white woman named Sarah (Inger Stevens), and a white man named Ben (Mel Ferrer).  And they all keep circling around one inevitable, inescapable conclusion.  If the “old” and traditional ways are to be respected and followed, Sarah can only be with one man; and she can never be with a black man.  Even if she prefers Ralph to Ben.  

In the end, the white man, Ben, is even willing to launch what he callously terms “World War IV” to re-establish the rules of yesteryear; threatening to murder Ralph if he doesn’t flee town and leave Ben to his would-be bride. 

The film ultimately walks back from such a violent precipice in a way that is surprisingly hopeful and also  — let’s not be coy about it — revolutionary. 

The World, The Flesh and The Devil’s  notorious valedictory shot consists of a black man, white woman and white man holding hands together – a threesome — as they walk off into the sunset to the superimposed words “The Beginning.“ 

This visual conclusion is wholly suggestive, as many critics have noted, of a new world order that eschews violence, war and racism and encourages…polygamy. 

That’s something you don’t see everyday in the cinema of the 1950s, post-apocalyptic or not, and The World, The Flesh and The Devil is truly like few post-apocalyptic films you’ve ever seen.  There’s no overt, walking “outside” menace (zombies, mutants, giant scorpions etc.) for the characters to battle against. Rather, they must each confront their own belief systems and relationships.

Do you know what it means to be sick in your heart from loneliness?

The inaugural portions of The World, The Flesh and The Devil deal explicitly with Ralph’s sense of utter loneliness when he believes he is the last man alive on Earth.

Desperate for company, he brings two department store mannequins back to his apartment in the city, and promptly names them Snodgrass and Betsy. 

Both mannequins are white and Ralph quickly develops a kind of love-hate relationship with Snodgrass (the male mannequin) over his (imaginary) treatment of Betsy.  After one especially contentious conversation Ralph has had enough of Snodgrass, and actually throws the mannequin over the ledge in his apartment.  The mannequin crashes to the street below and is destroyed. 

It is neither difficult, nor inappropriate to read the sequence with the mannequins as one that deliberately foreshadows Ralph’s experience with Sarah and Ben.  He literally “kills” Snodgrass in defense of Betsy’s honor, and later almost succumbs to Ben’s war-to-the-death over “possession” of Sarah. 

But in some way, Ralph manages to make a different choice in that real-life, climactic scenario; impelled in part, perhaps, by his reading of an inspirational quote in United Nations Plaza.  Ralph throws down his rifle and refuses to kill  Ben – the real life Snodgrass – lest he repeat the mistakes of the world, and, finally, Sarah brings the two men together.  But the important thing to consider here is that Ralph is able, at least in some way, to release his built-up sense of hatred and oppression on the inanimate Snodgrass, not on the living, breathing Ben.

And that hatred is a result – without mincing words – of the racism of the culture.  Ralph is acutely conscious of matters of race, and keeps bringing race up to Sarah even as they become friends.  After her first, hostile words — “don’t touch me,” the couple nonetheless builds a bond of real friendship, but Ralph always, very carefully monitors his “place” in relationship to her.  On Sarah’s birthday, for instance, Ralph fixes a fancy dinner for her at a chic restaurant…but then notes that the help doesn’t dine with the patrons. You can see that this comment breaks her heart.

Interestingly then, Ralph — a victim of the old social construct — remains trapped in that construct to a much more significant degree than Sarah does.  She is occasionally insensitive about matters of race, at one point noting arrogantly that she is “free, white and 21.” But Sarah also admonishes Ralph to be “bold” when cutting her hair, a line that clearly holds a double meaning for her.  What Sarah is saying is that she wants and desires Ralph to make the first move.

When Ralph reminds Sarah that he is “colored,” Sarah’s encouraging response is “You’re a fine, decent man and that’s all I need to know.”  Although Sarah often appears weak and frail in the early portions of the film, she is actually stronger than Ralph in one critical sense. She is ready to lay down the past (and old traditions) to live happily in the present with the man she loves.  This is something that Ralph, for the longest time can’t seem to do.

Really, Ralph is caught in a terrible bind.  The way he deals with the death of the world at large is trying to re-build it.  We witness him making a radio station operational, and restoring power to various apartment buildings with a portable generator.  Ralph also collects books and paintings in his apartment, so that the beauty of the old world is not lost. 

In other words, Ralph keeps attempting to deny the new world order and restore the old one.  But this is strangely unproductive in a personal sense.  For if Ralph restores the old world – the world he lived in before the bombs fell — than he must also restore the old, racist ways and ultimately lose Sarah to Ben.  Ralph can’t rebuild the old world and make a new world with Sarah.  He has to choose one or the other.

The least developed character in the film is likely Mel Ferrer’s Ben, who arrives in the late second act, just when Sarah and Ralph are finally growing close. 

Ben rather blatantly represents the old world social constructs in that he immediately resorts to violence and killing; the very things that turned our planet to a cemetery.  Unlike Ralph, Ben does not take his anger out on inanimate though symbolic objects of his hatred like the mannequins, but upon Ralph himself.  He takes up a rifle and nearly kills Ralph.

If Ralph represents “the world;” man’s indomitable drive to bring civilization back from the precipice and wilderness, and Sarah — with her longing for Ralph and human intimacy — represents “the flesh,” then certainly, in some fashion, Ben is definitively ”The Devil” of the film’s title.  He sees only what he wants: — Sarah – and his obstacles to taking her, namely Ralph. 

And Ben is willing to wage bloody war when the world has seen enough of war for five billion lifetimes. 

Again, consider the audacity of such a characterization in 1959 America for just a moment.  Ben – a symbol for the prevailing social order — is portrayed not as a great hope, but as sinister; as the Devil culpable for the state-of-the-world itself.    Again, this is an idea that very much escapes most post-apocalyptic films.  In Damnation Alley (1977), for instance, we are asked to root for the very men (Peppard and Jan Michael Vincent) who unquestioningly ”pushed the button” in a nuclear exchange.

Sooner or later, someone will ask me what I want…

As progressive as The World, The Flesh and The Devil remains in terms of dealing with matters of racial equality, it is perhaps even more so in terms of sex roles. 

The action in the film resolves not when the well-armed white man says it should; not even when another man,  Ralph, refuses to kill Ben (having acted out his murderous urges on Snodgrass).  Rather, the action resolves in the film when Sarah, a woman, steps up and asserts her choice.

Her choice is — shockingly — that she will not settle for either/or, for either Ralph or Ben. 

Rather, she will take both of them.  Sarah takes both men’s hands and marches them out of their self-established war zone, into what a title card reveals is “the beginning.”  She positions herself as peace-maker and power player in the triumvirate, a latter-day Lysistrata, forcing those who would fight and kill to bend to her will.  Certainly, it takes her a while to get to this point; of being treated like the property of either man. But eventually Sarah realizes her power over both men, and uses that power to unite all factions.  This is the Biblical creation story re-told, but in this case, Eve has two Adams.

One should not make the mistake of thinking that because The World, The Flesh and The Devil was produced in the late 1950s it avoids matters of sex.  At one point, a frustrated (with Ralph) Sarah begs Ben to make love to her, for instance. 

And Belafonte and Stevens share a potent sexual chemistry throughout the film.  The scene in which Sarah implores Ralph to be “bold” while cutting her hair isn’t just about a hair cut.  It’s about intimacy, about sexuality, about physical contact.  And in such a clear-cut situation — when only a few humans remain on Earth — it plays as completely natural and right.  That’s (one) point of the film: that the old social construct — which forbade love between blacks and whites — was the unnatural order.  It’s just a shame it takes the death of 9/10ths of the Earth’s population for that fact to become obvious, right?

The danger when interpreting a film as intriguing The World, The Flesh and the Devil is that by excavating these unique aspects of theme and narrative, I end up making the film sound like some dull polemic on race relations, politics and women’s rights. 

I want to clear about this: the film’s not like that at all.  It’s a movie about three charismatic and interesting people who survive the end of the world, and then have to find their way to a new order, a new peace, and a new sense of individual happiness. 

What remains so beautiful about the film today is that despite the end-of-the-world scenario, the movie never forsakes the hope that people — and the systems people make — can change for the better.   That hope is the necessary prerequisite, perhaps, for human civilization to continue in the face of disaster, apocalypse or just bad days.  I can’t imagine this film being re-made in the same fashion  today.  Today, we would demand that Ralph kill Ben, and walk off into the sunset with Sarah alone.  No mercy, no forgiveness, simply violence and reward for violence.  The World, The Flesh and the Devil goes out of its way to avoid so simplistic and banal a resolution of the drama.

As The World, The Flesh and the Devil moves into its third and final act, natural life slowly begins to return to New York City.  Flowers once more bloom again as the atomic poison dissipates.  It’s in this environment of re-birth that “the Beginning” commences for Ralph, Sarah and Ben, and for the human race. 

It’s a beautiful and hopeful grace note – the return of nature — to go alongside the latest development in human nature, including an end to racial prejudice. Today, we might dismiss a film like this as recklessly optimistic or idealistic, but The World, The Flesh and the Devil’s  genetic equation is unique and admirable. 

It’s a movie about mankind finally flexing the better angels in his nature, after vigorously exercising his worst.

Klaatu Barada Nikto: The Day(s) The Earth Stood Still

In 1940, as war raged across Europe, author Harry Bates’ (1900-1981) short story “Farewell to the Master” was first published in Astounding Science Fiction Magazine.

“Farewell to the Master” depicted mankind’s first real engagement with other-worldly life. In particular, a spherical or “ovoid” alien vessel materialized in Washington D.C. on September 16th of some future year, arriving in “the blink of an eye.”

Aboard this highly-advanced craft, which showed “not the slightest break or crack” in its “perfect smoothness” were two “time-space travelers.” One was a humanoid named Klaatu, described in prose as a “benign God” and possessing “great wisdom.” Klaatu was accompanied by an imposing, green-hued robot called Gnut.

Unfortunately, these alien representatives were greeted with violence by the human race. A religious fanatic, fearing that Klaatu was “the Devil,” shot him dead. This act is described by Bates as “the shame of the human race,” and the remainder of the story involves photographer Cliff Sutherland’s discovery that Gnut is attempting to resurrect Klaatu. The final twist: the robot Gnut is not Klaatu’s servant, but rather…his master.

Considering this ending, Bates’ tale concerned our human-centric assumptions; our arrogant belief that the human shape of life would — even on other planets — be blessed with a superiority over other forms. But clearly, on Gnut’s world, robotic (or what we term artificial) life had flourished, rising above familiar biological forms like man. So “Farewell to the Master” served, perhaps, as an object lesson that mankind was not the center of the universe.

On another level, the tale might have been interpreted by some — especially on the eve of the most destructive, technological war in all of human history up to that time — as a warning not to permit our modern machinery to overwhelm and dominate us.

If you are interested in knowing more about “Farewell to the Master,” Bates’ original story is available online here, for your perusal (and free too, I might add).

Join us and Live in Peace, or Pursue Your Present Course and Face Obliteration: The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

In 1951, director Robert Wise brought to the silver screen a big-budget (for the time) adaptation of “Farewell to the Master” by Edmund H. North, titled The Day The Earth Stood Still.

Once again, the context behind the film was international warfare. At the time the film was prepared and released, the Korean War was being waged. But there had also been a dramatic shift since 1940 and “Farewell to the Master.” By 1951, the atom bomb was available for use (after deployment at the end of World War II in Japan), and now, it seemed, mankind truly had the means by which to obliterate himself and even his planet

In The Day The Earth Stood Still, the humanoid Klaatu (Michael Rennie) — now the master — and his robot servant, re-named Gort, land in Washington D.C. in a flying saucer. They are met by the U.S. military. Klaatu is again shot and injured, this time by a twitchy American soldier. He recovers, and asks to meet with world leaders. Instead, American authorities hold him in custody, and Gort escapes.

Under the alias “Mr. Carpenter,” Klaatu soon intermingles with the citizens of Earth. He befriends lovely Helen Benson (Patricia Neal) and her son, Bobby Benson (Billy Gray). He talks to a leading Earth scientist (Sam Jaffe), visits Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Monument, and is ultimately sold-out by Helen’s boyfriend, Tom Stephens (Hugh Marlowe). When Klaatu is shot dead by U.S. authorities, the hulking robot Gort resurrects him and permits the visitor to deliver a final, staggering message to the people of Earth. In part, it goes like this:

“The universe grows smaller every day, and the threat of aggression by any group, anywhere, can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all, or no one is secure.

Now, this does not mean giving up any freedom, except the freedom to act irresponsibly. Your ancestors knew this when they made laws to govern themselves and hired policemen to enforce them.

We, of the other planets, have long accepted this principle. We have an organization for the mutual protection of all planets and for the complete elimination of aggression. The test of any such higher authority is, of course, the police force that supports it. For our policemen, we created a race of robots. Their function is to patrol the planets in spaceships like this one and preserve the peace. In matters of aggression, we have given them absolute power over us. This power cannot be revoked. At the first sign of violence, they act automatically against the aggressor. The penalty for provoking their action is too terrible to risk.

The result is, we live in peace, without arms or armies, secure in the knowledge that we are free from aggression and war. Free to pursue more… profitable enterprises. Now, we do not pretend to have achieved perfection, but we do have a system, and it works. I came here to give you these facts. It is no concern of ours how you run your own planet, but if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder.”

In a time of war, when the “Red Scare” (fear of Communism) was in full swing, it was downright shocking for an American studio film to suggest that America and the world, literally, disarm. Though there’s still the possibility of capitalism encoded in Klaatu’s speech (he mentions the pursuit of “profitable enterprises,” specifically), this lecture calls for not just an end to war here on Earth, but an end to gun ownership all together. I can’t imagine that message playing particularly well in the American south. In 1951 or now.

Some people have suggested that Klaatu’s solution to world war in The Day The Earth Stood Still is fascist in nature (since everyone is under the thumb of robot police force…), but in some ways the fictional solution of Wise’s film actually mirrors the eventual Cold War accommodation over nuclear Armageddon. The threat of mutually assured destruction served as a deterrent to their use. We lived under this fear for decades, and neither The Soviet Union nor the United States ever launched missiles against one other. We didn’t have omnipotent robots watching over us, but we knew that the first sign of aggression on our part would merit an equally grievous response on the part of our enemy.

Other scholars have interpreted The Day The Earth Stood Still as as an overt Christ metaphor. A man of peace, Klaatu, descends from the Heavens and is killed by ignorant men representing conventional authority (not Rome, but America). Klaatu is then resurrected, and walks among his fellow man with a message of peace, and yes, cosmic brotherhood. Afterwards, Klaatu returns to the Heavens above, rejoining his kind.

Even Klaatu’s alias on Earth — “Mr. Carpenter” — suggests Jesus of Nazareth’s one-time occupation. And, further inclined to analyze the film’s details, one even might suggest that Tom Stephens is Klaatu’s “Judas,” betraying the alien for the promise of riches (alien jewels, in particular). Authors Kenneth Von Gunden and Stuart H. Stock excavated this Christ metaphor in detail in their text, The Twenty All-Time Greatest Science Fiction Films (General Publishing Company, Lt., Canada, 1982), noting that screenwriter North “admitted” that the parallels “were intentional.”(page 44).

Today, there’s little doubt that The Day The Earth Stood Still powerful message of peace and brotherhood would be greeted by some audiences as a socialist treatise, one that impedes personal liberty, and threatens the Second Amendment. On the other hand, look where our continued violence has brought us in 2010. Six decades after The Day The Earth Stood Still, the world is still at war, and mankind is still divided. No doubt this is why the film is still revered today. Humanity seems on stuck on a dark path unless there is an intervention, divine or alien, in our future.

Your Problem is Not Technology. Your Problem is You: The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008).

If the Robert Wise Day The Earth Stood Still posited a kindly, mankind-loving Jesus-styled alien in the person hood of Michael Rennie’s Klaatu, then the remake directed by Scott Derrickson in 2008 lays down God’s law, Old Testament-style. This movie returns to “Farewell to the Master’s” vision of the alien craft as a featureless, smooth ovoid, but sticks to the Klaatu-Gort relationship of the 1951 film.

Klaatu himself, however, has changed dramatically from his previous incarnation. Here (as played by Keanu Reeves), he is a wrathful God who adopts human form (as God often adopted human form in the Old Testament stories).

After Klaatu/God’s “angel” — a man who has toiled on Earth in human form for seventy years — reports that mankind will never change his destructive ways, Klaatu makes plans to wipe the slate clean; to erase human sin from the surface of the Earth. “If you die, the Earth survives,” he tells one human.

The first thing Klaatu does, however, is preserve all the other animal species of the planet in small spheres explicitly termed “arks” by the screenplay. This development also harks back to the Old Testament, Book of Genesis tale of Noah and the Great Flood. The Earth is to be destroyed because of “man’s wickedness.”

Then, Klaatu lets loose a swarm of all-devouring metal insects to destroy man’s technology and even mankind himself. This severe punishment serves as the technological equivalent of the Book of Exodus’s Plague of Locusts, visited upon Egypt at a time of corruption (and a belief in “false” gods). The destruction caused by these technological bugs in Derrickson’s film echoes the warning from Exodus. “They will cover the face of the ground so that it cannot be seen. They will devour what little you have left after the hail, including every tree that is growing in your fields.”

Finally, when Klaatu experiences a change of heart and decides to save mankind, this God-figure visits the last Plague of the Book of Exodus upon our planet: “The Plague of Darkness.” Specifically, Klaatu’s ship emits an electro-magnetic pulse that destroys all technology on Earth, plunging the species both metaphorically and literally into “night.” In the Old Testament, the darkness lasted but three days. On Earth, our technological”night” is to be the new normal, with no end. Ever.

In Wise’s atom-age film, the Jesus-like Klaatu issued Earth the verbal warning I reproduced above, but he also revealed his “miraculous” powers. For a half-hour, he interrupted all electrical power on Earth before restoring it (hence the title of the film).

By contrast, in the 2008 version, Klaatu adopts no such half-measures. He punishes us for our mistreatment of the planet and each other, thus acting as a wrathful judge, and cold, emotionless lawgiver. No warnings this time.

The message is clear: in 2008 the human race is past ultimatums and warnings from space. The only thing that will change the human race is a wiping of the slate, pushing us to “the precipice” of extinction. This is the course God in the form of Klaatu ultimately chooses for us, and his change of heart (opting not to destroy us), also fits with Old Testament theology. In the Old Testament, God could not predict would agents of free moral choices would do; and here, Klaatu is unexpectedly swayed by the humanity of Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) and her son. He alters his trajectory, but the punishment he selects is hardly mild.

The remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still was not warmly received. In part, this is because it is a remake of a remarkable and landmark film; one that has been lauded as one of the greatest in the history of the medium. Longtime fans of the 1950s version feel nostalgia about it, and will clearly accept no substitutes. Or remakes.

Yet this is a clever, careful and knowing remake in so many ways. It cannily re-contextualizes the original film’s Christ analogy as an Old Testament metaphor, down to its concepts of apocalypse (orchestrated by locusts) and Klaatu’s aloof, cold-hearted demeanor.

And, in keeping with the post-911 world, this Day The Earth Stood Still also plays dramatically for keeps. It acknowledges that we have reached a “tipping point” in terms of our mistreatment of the environment and notes that things “can’t be the same” if the Earth is to survive; that our current lifestyle is unsustainable.

My appreciation of the 2008 remake may not sit well with some — especially with fans of the original film, I suppose — but in all the right ways, this Day The Earth Stood Still speaks to us with the same urgency that Wise’s film spoke to the men and women of the early atomic age. Some viewers complained of the remake that it was too personal, too intimate; that Klaatu should have — in the tradition of the original film — issued a speech and a warning to the world. But in keeping with the Old Testament contextualization of this story, it’s clear that God has no responsibility to okay his actions with us. He moves in mysterious ways, and owes us no explanations. And as I stated before, the time for warnings and brief demonstrations is long past.

In 1940, 1951 and 2008, the story of The Day The Earth Stood Still has carried a didactic purpose. The written words of Bates alerted us to the reality that technological warfare could overwhelm us and make us slaves to the machine. The 1950s movie from the great Robert Wise obsessed about our drift towards self-annihilation. And in 2008, the classic tale was angrily, vehemently re-parsed to comment on our mistreatment of the planet.

In all versions, however there exists hope. The steadfast belief that, as Helen Benson puts it — “we can change” before it is too late.

We should all hope she’s right.

Don’t Tell Them What You Saw: Les Diaboliques (1955) vs. Diabolique (1996)

There are plenty of good reasons why H.G Clouzot’s Les Diaboliques (1955) tops many “best films ever made” lists, even today. Filmed in spare, expressive black-and-white and dominated by fragile characters who might euphemistically be termed “dissolute,” Clouzot’s venture suggested — or at least paved the way — for elements of Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). Both film classics obsess on images of decay and death, and both successfully “trick” the first-time audience about character motivations and the ultimate direction of the narrative.

Les Diaboliques – a title roughly translated as “The Devils” — is set almost entirely at the Delassalle Boarding School, a campus almost in ruins from disrepair and neglect. The headmaster is the sadistic Miguel (Paul Meurisse), a man who grew up in poverty and who, in adulthood, clutches tightly to his wealth…which all arises from his wife, a former nun named Christina (Véra Clouzot). Miguel refers to Christina in not-so-loving fashion as his “little ruin,” a pointed contrast, perhaps, to his big ruin…the school itself. Christina is unhappy that Miguel is so miserly that — though they are rich — they “live like poor people.”

Miguel is also fooling around with a teacher at Delassalle, the sexy femme fatale, Nicole Horner, played by the smoldering Simone Signoret. But this is no ordinary adulterous love affair. For one thing, Christina is aware of the affair, and as the film starts, helps Nicole tend to her black eye…a result of Miguel’s abuse. “The legal wife consoling the mistress?,” another teacher at the school asks with astonishment.

Apparently so.

Together, Christina and Nicole plot to murder the evil Miguel, first by poisoning him, then by drowning him in a bathtub at Nicole’s house in Noirt. The strategy is to transport the corpse (in a large basket) back to the campus, where it can be dumped in secret. But the murder plot goes awry, and Miguel’s corpse goes missing after Nicole and Christina dispose of it in the school’s filthy swimming pool.

This development is troublesome for several reasons, not the least because Christina suffers from a terrible heart condition, and the slightest bit of anxiety — or terror — could kill her. She is allowed “no emotions. No vexations,” according to her doctor. But then, a little boy reports that he saw the headmaster alive…and the terror builds and builds until the unbearably suspenseful denouement.

Les Diaboliques qualifies as a film noir in part because of the overwhelming aura of hopelessness that blankets the movie. Poor, wounded Christina can never escape her husband…even after his demise. Secondly, the film’s subject matter, a little bit police procedural, a lit bit mystery, makes it entirely simpatico with traditional noir values. Most important, perhaps, is the moral quandary the film exquisitely expresses. Christina is a nun who believes that “divorce is a deadly sin,” and yet she knowingly participates in a murder attempt. Christina a keeps a shrine to her namesake, Christ, in her apartment with Miguel, but again…murder? It’s the only way for her to keep the school…and her money. But does the retaining of material wealth justify killing even a really, really bad person? Though she dreams of ridding herself of Miguel, Christina fully understands the cost to her soul. “We are monsters,” she laments, “I don’t like monsters.”

There’s also a powerful sexual undercurrent here. Les Diaboliques is packed with innuendo, particularly during an early scene in which the dominating, abusive Miguel urges the saintly Christina to “swallow” her food, and she almost gags on the mouthful. Not to mention, of course, the hint of a lesbian attraction between the apparent partners in crime, Christina and Nicole.

Perhaps not unexpectedly, Les Diaboliques is also clearly part horror film. In the film’s scariest and most-oft imitated scene, we witness Miguel rise from the dead — in a bath tub — his eyes transformed into white, unseeing orbs. This shocking, macabre moment is echoed in the film’s enigmatic climax, which some critics have complained rather strenuously about. It suggests that another character has also returned from the grave, at least according to the testimony of a naughty little boy.

I have always maintained that the second “resurrection” might be real (as opposed to the first resurrection…) and not just the case of a schoolboy telling tall tales. On the contrary, there could be a haunting at the school. Why? The explicit subject matter of the film has been the cost “after death,” — to the soul itself — of moral turpitude. And with all the Christ imagery in evidence here, the idea of resurrection is thus very much in play. The terrible act that comprises film’s startling finale clearly demands retribution; even beyond-the-grave-style retribution. Christina’s important statement that she has become a monster might even be interpreted literally. So I view the ending as being at least ambiguous, and thus totally consistent with the preceding narrative.

Deftly directed and entirely anxiety-provoking, Les Diaboliques is one of those films in which form reflects content to an admirable degree. The movie is dominated by images of water, of drowning. The film opens with rain splattering in a puddle on hard, broken pavement, our first indication of the “storm” coming. Miguel’s (false) death occurs in a bath-tub. And then, of course, there’s the swimming pool — a much larger bath tub of sorts — and the climactic return to a bath tub in Christina’s apartment. This pervasive water imagery serves, I believe, to remind audiences that it is actually Christina who is drowning here. The whole world is closing around her, in a deluge of deceit and treachery.

“He’ll Never Hurt Us Again:” Or “It’s Men. Testosterone. They Should Put It In Bombs.”

In 1996, director Jeremiah Chechik made an extremely literal remake of Diabolique, excising the criticized hint-of-the-supernatural of the original coda and substituting a contemporary, nineties, “Year of the Woman”-style, feminist context. Here, the narrative more plainly concerned a cycle of domestic violence; of men abusing women; and abusing wives.

Even more so, the film consciously reflected the lurid, tabloid culture of the Clinton Era — the decade that gave our nation celebrities such as Amy Fisher, and the aptly-named Lorena Bobbitt.) The three-ring white-trash circus known as The Jerry Springer Show even makes a cameo appearance in the film (playing on a television in the background.) The message: attempted murder has become the language of the culture.

In the updated film, the story is very much the same as before. A murderous love triangle between headmaster Guy Baran (Chazz Palminteri), ex-nun Mia (Isabella Adjani), and man-eater Nicole Horner (Sharon Stone) ends…badly.

The “swallow” innuendo returns in this remake too, but is much more on-the-nose since Guy actually says “swallow it for once in your life,” to his put-upon spouse.

But otherwise, there are long spells in which Diabolique is actually a line-for-line regurgitation of the 1955 film, only in (much less-effective) color. By contrast, Nicole’s garish wardrobe in this version represents a brilliant, resonant touch: she’s dressed like a white-trash cougar, contextualizing the character as part-and-parcel of the Jerry Springer Culture. Stone is terrific as heir to Signoret, playing a snapping, sarcastic femme fatale who apparently lives by the proverb, “the tongue is like a sharp knife; it kills without drawing blood.” When another character reminds the smoking Nicole that second-hand smoke kills, Stone quips, “Yeah, but not reliably,” and then stalks off. Ouch.

Where the two versions of Diaboliques diverge is in characterization, and in climactic action. The first film featured a rumpled detective investigating the disappearance of Miguel. He was a retired commissioner named Alfred Fichet, and he didn’t really accomplish much in terms of his investigation. In keeping with the film’s hopeless tenor, he arrested the guilty parties only after the the third-act, tragic death.

The remake of Diabolique pulls an early “Starbuck” on us (Dirk Benedict to Katee Sackhoff..) and changes the old man into a woman named Shirley Vogel, played by Kathy Bates. In this case, Shirley is a rather butch, rather crass, rather cynical cancer survivor. Like her predecessor, she also stumbles upon a crime in progress, but because the climactic violence is perpetrated against a male (and a nasty one at that…), Shirley lets it go rather an apprehending the guilty parties. She just shrugs her shoulders and joins the conspiracy: three women “survivors” allied against one monster of a man.

The nineties Diabolique involves a triangle, of course, but this time Nicole is the wild card and, in many ways, the film’s protagonist. In the original film, she sided against poor Christina. In the remake, this is no longer the case. Nicole regrets her treatment of the saintly Mia, and joins her in murdering Guy. Critics, including Roger Ebert, absolutely hated this ending, feeling that it utilized the conventions of the slasher film in a gimmicky, cheap way. While the new Diabolique is clearly not in the same league as the original film, I argue that the re-interpreted ending actually works in context of the 1990s.

Early in the film, Nicole and Mia drown Guy, but it’s a trick; Nicole and Guy are actually in on a plan together (only Mia doesn’t know it.) The swimming-pool scuffle that ends the modern remake is staged, in close visual fashion, as a deliberate repeat of that earlier drowning…only in the pool this time. And here, finally, Nicole actually comes through; actually works with Mia. She actually gets her hands dirty.

In the earlier bathtub drowning, Mia noted to Nicole that she didn’t seem upset by the execution of a cold-blooded, hands-on murder. This was so — as we learn later — because there was no real murder occurring. Nicole was playing at being a murderess, and the victim (Guy) wasn’t really dead.

But if you study the swimming pool battle, it’s clear that this time around, Nicole is absolutely shaken, mortified, by the battle. The confident facade of the femme fatale has finally dropped, and Nicole has embraced, at long last, her sisterhood in abuse and degradation, Mia. She’s finally turned her venom in the appropriate direction: towards Guy.

It’s no coincidence, either, that this Diabolique removes the relevant discussion of Miguel/Guy’s poor upbringing. Exculpatory evidence is not presented, so-to-speak. This “Guy” is a person to be hated and despised, with no ameliorating humanity. And even his name, “Guy,” reminds us of his offending sex. Why, this version even suggests the cad was having an affair with a third woman (whom he paid to have an abortion…), thus justifying Nicole’s switching teams at the last moment. The subtext of this film: Guy — like many an abusive man — had it coming.

While it’s abundantly clear that the nineties Diabolique will never make a list of “100 best films of all time,” it could very well make a list of “100 Best Remakes” of all time, especially given Hollywood’s blazing pace for recycling old material. The re-made Diabolique might rightly land somewhere in the high-twenties or low-thirties of such a tally. It would certainly place well behind Invasion of the Body Snatchers or John Carpenter’s The Thing, and yet light years ahead of Jan De Bont’s The Haunting (1999), or the 2009 Friday the 13th. But at the very least, I can assert that this remake attempts to speak relevantly to American culture in the 1990s, rather than just blindly echoing the moves of a great, timeless film.

It’s also enlightening to consider how each film ends. Clouzot’s 1950s Les Diaboliques ends with legal justice, but moral tragedy. The 1990s Diabolique ends with an illegal murder, but a murder that is morally justified. Take your pick: which ending is “happier?” And what does each ending say about the society (and time period) that fashioned it?

CULT MOVIE REVIEW: 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1954)

Jules Verne’s immortal tale of undersea adventure, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea has been adapted to the medium of film on several occasions, but it is likely the Walt Disney effort of 1954 that remains, for many viewers and film aficionados, the definitive or “classic” screen version of the novel.

Helmed by Richard Fleischer, the veteran director behind Fantastic Voyage (1966), Soylent Green (1973), Amityville 3-D (1983) and Conan The Destroyer (1984), 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea stars James Mason as Captain Nemo, Kirk Douglas as harpooner Ned Land, Paul Lukas as Professor Aronnax and Peter Lorre as Conseil.

Oh, and did I mention Esmerelda, Captain Nemo’s pet seal?

I make note of the seal (a character not present in the Jules Verne story) simply because the cinematic version of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea takes some rather significant liberties with the cherished source material. That doesn’t make it a bad film (or even a mediocre one), but it does make the movie a decidedly…different experience.

First and foremost, Fleischer’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea reflects the Atomic Age of the 1950s and the beginnings of the Cold War epoch. In particular, Nemo’s magnificent underwater machine, the Nautilis is powered by atomic energy in the movie rather than the electricity of the book. Now, the movie doesn’t specifically single out “atomic energy” by name, but Nemo reveals to Aronnax the sub’s propulsion unit and and claims that it harnesses “the dynamic power of the universe,” which by my reckoning is a euphemism for atomic power. Especially since Nemo profoundly notes that such power could either “revolutionize the world” or “destroy it.”

Additionally, one of the film’s final (and most resonant) images is that of the archetypal Cold War nightmare scenario: a mushroom cloud blossoming on the horizon. Nemo single-handedly destroys his high-tech island base, Vulcania (another element not exactly taken from Verne’s book…) to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. The result is the mushroom cloud; the tell-tale and ominous indicator of nuclear weapons detonation.

Indeed, much of Verne’s novel has been deliberately re-purposed with an eye towards the “contemporary” (meaning the 1950s context of the film), and specifically the use and mis-use of atomic power. Nemo reveals to Professor Aronnax, for instance, that his wife and child were tortured and then slaughtered when he refused to share the secret of the atom with his captors in the gulag at Rura Penthe (“the white man’s grave yard.”) Although the death of Nemo’s family is clearly inferred in the Verne novel (near the end), the film provides this much-more explicit exposition about the tragedy.

These alterations make the movie’s Captain Nemo appear somewhat less misanthropic than his literary counterpart. For instance, in the book, Nemo attempted suicide-by-Nautilus and drove the submarine down into a raging whirlpool, a “maelstrom.” He was downcast and sullen over having committed the “murder” of a ship’s crew during battle, and desired to end his hopeless, conflicted life. Nemo’s last exhortation was a word of surrender: “Enough!”

By contrast, Nemo’s demise in the Fleischer film is much more heroic in both magnitude and intention. In order to keep the Pandora’s Box of Atomic Energy firmly shut for the time being, Nemo nobly destroys all of his advanced technology (on Vulcania) and then even scuttles the beloved Nautilus. This final act is not truly suicide anymore, since Nemo has been fatally shot and would have died shortly anyway. Still, Nemo’s death in the film brings forth a humanitarian goal: protecting the species from “tampering in God’s domain” before it is wise enough to understand that territory.

The film version of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea then culminates with a decidedly uplifting voice-over from the late Captain Nemo, one that suggests (as his conveyance, the Nautilus, sinks below choppy waves…) that the character harbored some inherent optimism about the future. “There is hope for the future. And when the world is ready for a new and better life, all this will someday come to pass. In God’s good time,” he declares beatifically, elevated to the level of saint, if not savior.

This distinctly out-of-character statement transforms Verne’s dedicated man of science and unrepentant misanthrope into a something quite different:, a pollyanna, a humanist! Again, I’m not stating that the film adaptation is of poor quality, only that it is by no means a particularly faithful adaptation of Verne’s original literary vision.

In addition to the “comedy” scenes involving Esmerelda — Nemo’s sea pup mascot — the Fleischer film relies at points on some unnecessarily broad humor. Kirk Douglas’s first appearance as Ned — with a floozie dangling on each arm — is a perfect example. In this scene, Ned is comically knocked atop the head by a crutch-wielding charlatan, and then he falls splat in a mud-puddle….after going cross-eyed. Bluntly stated, it’s not an auspicious beginning to a remarkable and well-loved film.

Again by contrast, in the book, Ned was a forty-year old of considerable experience, intelligence and seriousness, and not an all-singing, all-dancing, treasure-greedy buffoon…which is precisely how he comes across in the movie. And don’t get me started on his obligatory musical number, “A Whale of a Tale.” I accept that films made at this time in Hollywood history had to feature song interludes to net a wide demographic and entertain the whole family, but once more the movie puts up a set-piece of such jocularity that it feels out-of-step with the serious Verne story.

I’ve discussed rather fully how Fleischer’s adaptation veers away from the trajectory of Verne’s novel, but I haven’t discussed yet the plethora of ways in which this classic, much-loved film succeeds on its own merits. First and foremost, the visual aspects of Fleischer’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea remain ambitious…glorious, even. Everything — from the superb miniature (model) work, to the fantastic set design, to the harrowing action-sequence involving an attack on the Nautilus by a giant squid — still works. The film’s visual effects remain compelling, ingenious and yes, even fresh. There are some moments at Vulcania and beneath the sea wherein the special effects don’t appear to have aged even a day. Which is a pretty amazing feat since this movie was released fifty-five years ago. It’s one thing to write convincingly of a hunting expedition at the bottom of the sea; it’s quite another to see those images play out before your very eyes, rendered entirely plausible…and wondrous.

Furthermore, while one can (and should) make extensive note of the myriad ways the movie changes some conceits in Verne’s book, one might also remember that some clever updating of a nearly century-old book was likely necessary. An electricity-powered submarine just wouldn’t seem like a very interesting vehicle of fantasy to audiences in the 1950s, would it? The deliberate infusion of Atomic Age moral questions into 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea grants the film a didactic quality, and more importantly, a relevant one.

Admirably, the Fleischer film also fully preserves the Arronax/Nemo philosophical debates of the original text. We learn in the film — just as in the book — of Nemo’s ingenuity and invention when it comes to diet (“the sea supplies all my wants”), harnessing resources (we actually get to see his men farming at the bottom of the sea…), and inventing new technology (the amazing Nautilus itself). We view his commitment to vengeance, and are afforded some dramatic close-ups of an anguished Nemo at the wheel of the Nautilus, on the attack against those who have so egregiously wronged him. The film also preserves Arronax’s first-person narrator role in the form of a voice-over, whether recounting the sinking of the Abraham Lincoln (a vessel not named in the film…) or his first experience with the “twilight world” under the sea.

In my earlier post, my book review of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, I commented on the Nemo Manifesto; his mission statement of sorts…the captain’s dedicated declaration of independence from nationalism, civilization and “unjust” wars. That manifesto too survives the translation to Fleischer’s film. Mason delivers a calculated, seething, and most importantly, pragmatic monologue about the ways that Man’s “evil drowns on the ocean floor,” and that — only beneath the waves – does there exist true independence; true freedom. I found this speech to be one of the film’s finest, most transcendent moments.

In fairness, the Captain’s darker side isn’t totally ignored, either. I appreciate that the movie provides a sense of balance; making more than mere passing notations about the classic anti-hero’s darker side. “The power of hate…it can fill the heart as surely as love can,” the movie notes of Nemo, and that observation is right on the money. Aronnax likewise ultimately calls Nemo a “murderer” and a “hypocrite,” while Ned terms him a “monster.” These declarations seem very accurate to the spirit of the book, and I can’t really complain that the movie seeks to provide Nemo a more explicit redemption than that found in the text; so that 20th century audiences return to the light of day with a sense of moral uplift.

It’s often quite difficult to judge objectively a movie that you grew up with and which you still love so emotionally. Nostalgia inevitably creeps in and colors perception. In terms of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, I can say with some sense of certainty that the film remains a technological marvel; that Mason’s Nemo endures as an inscrutable, larger-than-life icon, and that the film overall is fast-paced, and both exciting and scary in good measure. I’m quite aware that books can’t be movies; and movies can’t be books: that the two media have as many differences as they do similarities.

Yet, here’s the crucial difference in intent: Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea concerned a misanthrope who had given up on man entirely; an anti-hero who had cast off the auspices of “modern” civilization for an exile under the sea, taking only man’s best “art” with him (music, paintings, books). Nemo was finished with the world above the waves and no longer cared what we did with our domain above the waves.

In the movie, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Captain Nemo is a great inventor with a tragic past who simply believes man is not ready for his new science, a man who actually protects and preserves the corrupt human race by destroying his miracle technology before it can do harm.

That’s a pretty big difference isn’t it? Maybe not 20,000 leagues worth; but certainly enough to drive a submarine through…

CULT MOVIE REVIEW: 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1954)

Jules Verne’s immortal tale of undersea adventure, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea has been adapted to the medium of film on several occasions, but it is likely the Walt Disney effort of 1954 that remains, for many viewers and film aficionados, the definitive or “classic” screen version of the novel.

Helmed by Richard Fleischer, the veteran director behind Fantastic Voyage (1966), Soylent Green (1973), Amityville 3-D (1983) and Conan The Destroyer (1984), 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea stars James Mason as Captain Nemo, Kirk Douglas as harpooner Ned Land, Paul Lukas as Professor Aronnax and Peter Lorre as Conseil.

Oh, and did I mention Esmerelda, Captain Nemo’s pet seal?

I make note of the seal (a character not present in the Jules Verne story) simply because the cinematic version of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea takes some rather significant liberties with the cherished source material. That doesn’t make it a bad film (or even a mediocre one), but it does make the movie a decidedly…different experience.

First and foremost, Fleischer’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea reflects the Atomic Age of the 1950s and the beginnings of the Cold War epoch. In particular, Nemo’s magnificent underwater machine, the Nautilis is powered by atomic energy in the movie rather than the electricity of the book. Now, the movie doesn’t specifically single out “atomic energy” by name, but Nemo reveals to Aronnax the sub’s propulsion unit and and claims that it harnesses “the dynamic power of the universe,” which by my reckoning is a euphemism for atomic power. Especially since Nemo profoundly notes that such power could either “revolutionize the world” or “destroy it.”

Additionally, one of the film’s final (and most resonant) images is that of the archetypal Cold War nightmare scenario: a mushroom cloud blossoming on the horizon. Nemo single-handedly destroys his high-tech island base, Vulcania (another element not exactly taken from Verne’s book…) to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. The result is the mushroom cloud; the tell-tale and ominous indicator of nuclear weapons detonation.

Indeed, much of Verne’s novel has been deliberately re-purposed with an eye towards the “contemporary” (meaning the 1950s context of the film), and specifically the use and mis-use of atomic power. Nemo reveals to Professor Aronnax, for instance, that his wife and child were tortured and then slaughtered when he refused to share the secret of the atom with his captors in the gulag at Rura Penthe (“the white man’s grave yard.”) Although the death of Nemo’s family is clearly inferred in the Verne novel (near the end), the film provides this much-more explicit exposition about the tragedy.

These alterations make the movie’s Captain Nemo appear somewhat less misanthropic than his literary counterpart. For instance, in the book, Nemo attempted suicide-by-Nautilus and drove the submarine down into a raging whirlpool, a “maelstrom.” He was downcast and sullen over having committed the “murder” of a ship’s crew during battle, and desired to end his hopeless, conflicted life. Nemo’s last exhortation was a word of surrender: “Enough!”

By contrast, Nemo’s demise in the Fleischer film is much more heroic in both magnitude and intention. In order to keep the Pandora’s Box of Atomic Energy firmly shut for the time being, Nemo nobly destroys all of his advanced technology (on Vulcania) and then even scuttles the beloved Nautilus. This final act is not truly suicide anymore, since Nemo has been fatally shot and would have died shortly anyway. Still, Nemo’s death in the film brings forth a humanitarian goal: protecting the species from “tampering in God’s domain” before it is wise enough to understand that territory.

The film version of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea then culminates with a decidedly uplifting voice-over from the late Captain Nemo, one that suggests (as his conveyance, the Nautilus, sinks below choppy waves…) that the character harbored some inherent optimism about the future. “There is hope for the future. And when the world is ready for a new and better life, all this will someday come to pass. In God’s good time,” he declares beatifically, elevated to the level of saint, if not savior.

This distinctly out-of-character statement transforms Verne’s dedicated man of science and unrepentant misanthrope into a something quite different:, a pollyanna, a humanist! Again, I’m not stating that the film adaptation is of poor quality, only that it is by no means a particularly faithful adaptation of Verne’s original literary vision.

In addition to the “comedy” scenes involving Esmerelda — Nemo’s sea pup mascot — the Fleischer film relies at points on some unnecessarily broad humor. Kirk Douglas’s first appearance as Ned — with a floozie dangling on each arm — is a perfect example. In this scene, Ned is comically knocked atop the head by a crutch-wielding charlatan, and then he falls splat in a mud-puddle….after going cross-eyed. Bluntly stated, it’s not an auspicious beginning to a remarkable and well-loved film.

Again by contrast, in the book, Ned was a forty-year old of considerable experience, intelligence and seriousness, and not an all-singing, all-dancing, treasure-greedy buffoon…which is precisely how he comes across in the movie. And don’t get me started on his obligatory musical number, “A Whale of a Tale.” I accept that films made at this time in Hollywood history had to feature song interludes to net a wide demographic and entertain the whole family, but once more the movie puts up a set-piece of such jocularity that it feels out-of-step with the serious Verne story.

I’ve discussed rather fully how Fleischer’s adaptation veers away from the trajectory of Verne’s novel, but I haven’t discussed yet the plethora of ways in which this classic, much-loved film succeeds on its own merits. First and foremost, the visual aspects of Fleischer’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea remain ambitious…glorious, even. Everything — from the superb miniature (model) work, to the fantastic set design, to the harrowing action-sequence involving an attack on the Nautilus by a giant squid — still works. The film’s visual effects remain compelling, ingenious and yes, even fresh. There are some moments at Vulcania and beneath the sea wherein the special effects don’t appear to have aged even a day. Which is a pretty amazing feat since this movie was released fifty-five years ago. It’s one thing to write convincingly of a hunting expedition at the bottom of the sea; it’s quite another to see those images play out before your very eyes, rendered entirely plausible…and wondrous.

Furthermore, while one can (and should) make extensive note of the myriad ways the movie changes some conceits in Verne’s book, one might also remember that some clever updating of a nearly century-old book was likely necessary. An electricity-powered submarine just wouldn’t seem like a very interesting vehicle of fantasy to audiences in the 1950s, would it? The deliberate infusion of Atomic Age moral questions into 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea grants the film a didactic quality, and more importantly, a relevant one.

Admirably, the Fleischer film also fully preserves the Arronax/Nemo philosophical debates of the original text. We learn in the film — just as in the book — of Nemo’s ingenuity and invention when it comes to diet (“the sea supplies all my wants”), harnessing resources (we actually get to see his men farming at the bottom of the sea…), and inventing new technology (the amazing Nautilus itself). We view his commitment to vengeance, and are afforded some dramatic close-ups of an anguished Nemo at the wheel of the Nautilus, on the attack against those who have so egregiously wronged him. The film also preserves Arronax’s first-person narrator role in the form of a voice-over, whether recounting the sinking of the Abraham Lincoln (a vessel not named in the film…) or his first experience with the “twilight world” under the sea.

In my earlier post, my book review of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, I commented on the Nemo Manifesto; his mission statement of sorts…the captain’s dedicated declaration of independence from nationalism, civilization and “unjust” wars. That manifesto too survives the translation to Fleischer’s film. Mason delivers a calculated, seething, and most importantly, pragmatic monologue about the ways that Man’s “evil drowns on the ocean floor,” and that — only beneath the waves – does there exist true independence; true freedom. I found this speech to be one of the film’s finest, most transcendent moments.

In fairness, the Captain’s darker side isn’t totally ignored, either. I appreciate that the movie provides a sense of balance; making more than mere passing notations about the classic anti-hero’s darker side. “The power of hate…it can fill the heart as surely as love can,” the movie notes of Nemo, and that observation is right on the money. Aronnax likewise ultimately calls Nemo a “murderer” and a “hypocrite,” while Ned terms him a “monster.” These declarations seem very accurate to the spirit of the book, and I can’t really complain that the movie seeks to provide Nemo a more explicit redemption than that found in the text; so that 20th century audiences return to the light of day with a sense of moral uplift.

It’s often quite difficult to judge objectively a movie that you grew up with and which you still love so emotionally. Nostalgia inevitably creeps in and colors perception. In terms of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, I can say with some sense of certainty that the film remains a technological marvel; that Mason’s Nemo endures as an inscrutable, larger-than-life icon, and that the film overall is fast-paced, and both exciting and scary in good measure. I’m quite aware that books can’t be movies; and movies can’t be books: that the two media have as many differences as they do similarities.

Yet, here’s the crucial difference in intent: Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea concerned a misanthrope who had given up on man entirely; an anti-hero who had cast off the auspices of “modern” civilization for an exile under the sea, taking only man’s best “art” with him (music, paintings, books). Nemo was finished with the world above the waves and no longer cared what we did with our domain above the waves.

In the movie, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Captain Nemo is a great inventor with a tragic past who simply believes man is not ready for his new science, a man who actually protects and preserves the corrupt human race by destroying his miracle technology before it can do harm.

That’s a pretty big difference isn’t it? Maybe not 20,000 leagues worth; but certainly enough to drive a submarine through…

Theme Song of the Week # 46: The Lone Ranger (1949-1957)

Theme Song of the Week # 46: The Lone Ranger (1949-1957)