Sunday, May 17, 2015

Ray Harryhausen Goes to Heaven

Selenite-blogging, essay 5 of 5 blog entries
on First Men in the Moon (1964)

Ray Harryhausen Goes to Heaven

Joseph Cavor (Lionel Jeffries) approaches the lunar staircase
in First Men in the Moon (1964).

“I had always intended the meeting with the Grand Lunar to be a spectacular scene and decided that a huge, almost never-ending staircase would give the scene a grandeur that would only be rivaled by A Matter of Life and Death (1946) in the history of film.”
Ray Harryhausen
An Animated Life

The celestial staircase in A Matter
of Life and Death
(1946).
As the praise from Harryhausen would indicate, the production design of A Matter of Life and Death—particularly the celestial staircase—is sublime.  In A Matter of Life and Death, the moving staircase is the connecting link between the worlds of life and death.  It is a vast escalator in constant stately motion, lined by the statues of famous men.  In the film’s design, where the afterlife is black-and-white and the earthly scenes are in Technicolor, the stairs are black-and-white when ascending and color when descending.  Thus, this Jacob’s Ladder exists on the cusp of life and death.

Harryhausen’s challenge to himself was to create a lunar staircase for First Men in the Moon to rival the grand design that legendary producers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger brought to A Matter of Life and Death.  The result is formidable—Harryhausen’s lunar staircase is not as ethereal as the Life and Death staircase but entirely appropriate for an alien monarchy.  Lined by impressive lunar crystals, the moons staircase proceeds upward in a series of four flights, cleverly combining miniatures and tricks of perspective to make the scale look enormous.

Lionel Jeffries as the brilliant Victorian scientist Joseph Cavor ascends the stairs alone, his character so delightfully delineated by the actor that he completely anchors the scene.  From beginning to end, Jeffries’ performance is witty and unpredictable.  His phrasing is deliciously staccato, swinging wildly between loveable insecurity and manic explosions.  And it’s not just a verbal performance but a physical one, too, that allows Jeffries to use the awkwardness of his gangly frame to eccentric advantage.

Cavor (Lionel Jeffries) inside the sphere in First Men in the Moon.

As the movie proceeds, it gradually becomes apparent that Cavor is our real hero.  He’s the heart and soul of the movie.

Above: Lionel Jeffries as
Joseph Cavor in First Men in the
Moon
.  Below: Ray Harryhausen.
So let’s look at him.  His bald head disguises his real age, which is surprisingly young—Jeffries was 38 in 1964, two years younger than Martha Hyer who was playing the heroine.  His smiles and guffaws are contagious, his delight expressed in unsuppressable childlike glee.  He radiates eccentric amiability, quirky and British to the core.

Did it occur to anyone during casting that this prematurely balding actor looks a bit like Ray Harryhausen?  They share the long forehead, the narrow face, and the intense gaze of the consummate professional practicing his craft.  And there’s something childlike about both of them, too, as if they’ve somehow managed to retain the enthusiasm of their youths.  Why, Jeffries is the British doppelganger of the beloved animator!

When Cavor ascends the staircase in First Men in the Moon, he is surrounded by one of the richest of Harryhausen’s dream landscapes, a Neverland of the artist’s imagination fueled by memories of the staircase to heaven in A Matter of Life and Death.  Now squint at the screen, look sideways, out of the corner of your eye, and discreetly replace Cavor with Harryhausen, ascending to sublimity surrounded by an awe-inspiring world of his imagination.

The look on Cavor’s face, dazzled and humbled and awestruck, reminds me of the recurring looks of wonderment in the movies of Steven Spielberg that filmmaker and critic Kevin B. Lee celebrated in his video essay The Spielberg Face.


In the video, the Spielberg Face is described as:

“Eyes open, staring in wordless wonder, in a moment where time stands still, but above all a childlike surrender in the act of watching, both theirs and ours.”
Kevin Lee
The Spielberg Face

When you’re climbing the staircase of unfettered imagination, it is the only appropriate face.  The Spielberg Face is the Cavor Face is the Harryhausen Face.

The moment exceeds every expectation.  Freeze frame on the Harryhausen Face.

Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and
Lionel Jeffries in First Men in the Moon.

OR…

Picture Ray on the grand staircase, ascending higher and higher, until he at last arrives at the celestial courtroom where he will be judged by a jury of his peers, among them Georges Melies, Wladyslaw Starewicz, John P. Fulton, Les Bowie, George Pal, Carlo Rambaldi, Stan Winston, Peter Ellenshaw, and Marcel Delgado.  As he enters, the deafening applause washes across heaven like waves as his friends and fans stand to welcome him.  Ray Bradbury smiles.  And his old friend and mentor Willis O’Brien, animator of King Kong, rushes forward to greet him.

The courtroom travels to earth via the celestial
staircase in A Matter of Life and Death.

Reference Sources
Into the Unknown: The Fantastic Life of Nigel Kneale by Andy Murray
Film Fantasy Scrapbook by Ray Harryhausen
Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life by Ray Harryhausen and Tony Dalton
The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells

... and a special thank you to the hosts of For the Love of Film: The Film Preservation Blogathon: Ferdy on FilmsThis Island Rod, and Wonders in the Dark.

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© 2015 Lee Price




Saturday, May 16, 2015

The Music Behind the Harryhausen Movies

Selenite-blogging, essay 4 of 5 blog entries
on First Men in the Moon (1964)

Part One: A Salute to Laurie Johnson

The great movie composers inevitably seem to get associated with one particular score—the one that would play behind them when they accept a Lifetime Achievement Award or receive an MBE from the Queen.

For Max Steiner, it would be Gone With the Wind (1939).  For Victor Young, The Quiet Man (1952).  For Bernard Herrmann, Psycho (1960).

Composer of the wonderful score of First Men in the Moon (1964), Laurie Johnson is forever tagged as the composer of The Avengers TV theme, the music that must have played behind him when he was awarded the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for his services to music in 2014.  It’s one of the great TV themes.


But there’s much more to Laurie Johnson than just The Avengers, case in point being his very fine score for First Men in the Moon.  As the film moves from Victoriana to the weirdness of life insider the moon’s caverns, the music grows increasingly strange.  In this first clip, the Selenites are introduced with a blast of dissonance which drops into a syncopation at the 26 second mark, effectively suggesting the movement of the Selenites along the cave passageways.  Then a piercing high-pitched Selenite theme abruptly appears, eerily meshing keyboard with strings.  Staccato brass echo the melody.  From this point, whenever the Selenites approach, the theme returns.


Surprisingly, First Men in the Moon only contains one traditional Harryhausen monster scene.  The giant mooncalf provides this one opportunity for a chase and attack.  Naturally, the mooncalf gets his own theme, both ponderous and relentless, echoing the beast’s size and threat.


In one of the film’s most visually opulent scenes, designed by Harryhausen to suggest the magnificent sets of She (1935) and A Matter of Life and Death (1945), the scientist Joseph Cavor mounts a seemingly endless staircase that leads upward toward the throne of the Selenite ruler, the Grand Lunar.  In this clip, Johnson’s staircase theme begins at 1:26, striking an almost religious note that appropriately reflects the look of awe on Cavor’s face.


Now 88 years old, Laurie Johnson is one of the few members of the First Men in the Moon crew still with us.  Over the years, he has scored more than 400 films and television episodes.  Classically trained, he enjoyed adding experimental new sounds (like the synthesized Selenite theme) to traditional orchestral arrangements.  You can hear his adventurousness in First Men in the Moon as he moves from Gustav Holst-style themes for Victorian England to a discreet background of electronica ever-murmuring behind the Selenites.  It’s a magnificent piece of work.


Part Two:  My Three Favorite Scores to Harryhausen Movies

Captain Nemo (Herbert Lom) at the organ in Mysterious Island (1961).

Considering how the Charles Schneer/Ray Harryhausen movies tend to coast on second-tier directors and actors, I’m always amazed that they so often invested in the very finest music composers.  In return, Schneer and Harryhausen received scores that amplified the production values and technical effects, making the evocation of their fantasy worlds both more believable and dramatic.  A great score helps a lot!

For my three favorites scores to Harryhausen movies, it may appear that I’m picking one score apiece from three composers in order to avoid simply picking three Bernard Herrmann scores.  After all, Herrmann’s musical reputation is stellar and ever-growing, and I have four excellent Herrmann scores to choose from (The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, The Three Worlds of Gulliver, Mysterious Island, and Jason and the Argonauts).  Also, I could be criticized for leaving out a fourth major composer—Miklos Rosza—who worked on the Harryhausen movie The Golden Voyage of Sinbad.  But my selections really are my personal three favorites—the other Herrmann-scored movies would be in fourth through sixth place and, as for the Rosza score, I think it’s far from his best.

My favorite of the Bernard Herrmann scores is his wonderfully varied work on Mysterious Island.  It’s got swirling hurricane-evoking action music to launch the adventure, a set of moody quiet themes for the mysterious island, and quirky set pieces for each of the monsters.  This selection—Elena/The Shadow/The Bird—begins with a delicate character piece for the young heroine, followed by some very Vertigo-esque forebodings, then (best of all) simultaneously comic and threatening music to accompany the attack of a giant flightless bird.


The film composer Jerome Moross is justifiably most famous for his classic western score to The Big Country (1958).  But—perhaps because I heard it first—my heart belongs to his music for The Valley of Gwangi, Harryhausen’s grand dino-western.  This clip begins with introductory themes and then hits its stride at the 1:20 mark with one of the finest of all expansive western melodies.  It’s everything I want a western score to be.


And third favorite?  Why that’s First Men in the Moon, of course!  Composer Laurie Johnson, a friend and occasional assistant to Bernard Herrmann, seized the opportunity to do his own variation on a Herrmann-type score and he did the master proud.




Reference Sources
Into the Unknown: The Fantastic Life of Nigel Kneale by Andy Murray
Film Fantasy Scrapbook by Ray Harryhausen
Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life by Ray Harryhausen and Tony Dalton
The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells

... and a special thank you to the hosts of For the Love of Film: The Film Preservation Blogathon: Ferdy on FilmsThis Island Rod, and Wonders in the Dark.

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© 2015 Lee Price


Friday, May 15, 2015

First Men in the Moon: History Repeats

21 Essays is a proud participant in
For the Love of Film: The Film Preservation Blogathon,
May 13-17, 2015
LET'S RAISE SOME MONEY!!!

If you like this blog...  
if you like science fiction...
if you support the cause of film preservation...
then please follow this link to make a donation to the National Film Preservation Foundation to support our effort to restore, score, and stream Cupid in Quarantine (1918), a one-reel silent comedy starring Elinor Field and Cullen Landis.

Through this year’s science-fiction-themed blogathon, we’re trying to raise $10,000 and it's going to take many generous small (and large!) donations to get there.  With great appreciation for your generosity, THANK YOU!

Selenite-blogging, 

essay 3 of 5 blog entries

Part One:  Titanic Similarities

A drawing is discovered in a safe deep below the ocean in Titanic (1997).

A team of scientific explorers discover a surprising artifact.  Who did it belong to?  Could the owner possibly still be alive?  “But (s)he’d be at least 90 years old now!”  However, the owner is alive.  And the owner has a tale to share.  Now listen closely.  “Once upon a time…”

Arnold Bedford examines the
British flag found on the moon
in First Men in the Moon (1964).
In First Men in the Moon (1964), explorers discover a British flag on the moon, along with a note claiming the moon in the name of Queen Victoria.  Old Arnold Bedford is discovered in a nursing home and he relates his tale of adventure and romance.

In Titanic (1997), explorers discover a drawing of a nude woman locked inside a safe inside the submerged wreck of the Titanic.  An elderly woman comes forward claiming that the picture is of her.  She relates her tale of adventure and romance.

Coincidence?  Well, it wouldn’t be the first time that writer-director James Cameron cribbed from established science fiction authors… or from Ray Harryhausen movies, for that matter.  Maybe I should let Cameron confess:

“The creations in my movies are really Ray’s illegitimate grandchildren.  The Terminator owes its roots to the skeleton fight in Jason and the Argonauts, which I saw when I was seven years old.  It blew my mind and I wanted to do that, whatever ‘that’ was.”
James Cameron
Testimonial from the book jacket of
Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life

If Cameron was six for Jason, he would have been seven for First Men in the Moon and my guess is that he was already furiously scribbling notes for future screenplays.

In all fairness, Nigel Kneale’s flashback plot structure for First Men in the Moon IS ingenious and Cameron deserves credit for borrowing from the best.  The plot device works very well in Titanic.  And Cameron’s stripped-down Terminator T-800 Model 101 was a nice twist on Harryhausen’s fighting skeletons, too.

As the famous paraphrase of Isaac Newton states:

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Old Bedford in First Men in the Moon and old Rose in Titanic
examine their documents.

Part Two:  The Unintended Metaphor

Bedford on the attack, swinging his gun, in First Men in the Moon.

I could play off James Cameron with this next observation, too, by suggesting that the plot of Cameron’s Avatar (2009) expands on a central metaphor in First Men in the Moon.  But I really don’t think that’s the case, not even subconsciously.

In fact, I don’t think the particular metaphor that I'd like to discuss was ever intentionally placed into First Men in the Moon.  It was just an unplanned accident of plot.  But once you see it, it’s hard to ignore.

Kate Calender (Martha Hyer) brings
a gun to the moon despite Cavor's
dismissal of the idea: "Madam,
the chances of bagging an elephant
on the moon are remote."  But the
gun is ultimately used by both Kate
and Arnold Beckford (Edward Judd)
as they threaten and shoot at
the moon's native inhabitants.
The movie First Men in the Moon functions as a frighteningly plausible metaphor for the European settlement of the Americas.  Arnold Bedford, well played by Edward Judd, represents the European explorer/soldier.  His ethics are highly suspect, he’s prone to violence, and his primary incentive to explore is the promise of gold.  Cavor, magnificently played by Lionel Jeffries, is the scientist/technician who unwittingly makes the invasion possible.

But there’s only one Bedford against a whole civilization of Selenites.  How can a single Bedford possibly win in this battle for empire?  Unfortunately, the answer is simple on both sides of the metaphor.  Carried from a distant land, disease wipes out the civilization.  The Europeans can now move in with relative ease, planting their flag of conquest.

The disease angle was not in the original H. G. Wells novel, and I seriously doubt that screenwriter Nigel Kneale considered the potential historic parallels when he borrowed the idea from Wells’ The War of the Worlds.  But it unexpectedly hooked into the existing imperialist satire that really was lying dormant in Wells’ novel The First Men in the Moon, accidentally creating a scenario that is eerily resonant.

Wells’ novel is surprisingly complex and nuanced.  As in the movie, the character of Bedford (who provides first-hand narration for most of the book) is presented as the typical adventure hero.  His acknowledged faults of avarice and violent temper are minimized and/or justified.  But then, in a very surprising twist late in the book, Cavor’s communications from the moon are presented intact and they paint a very different picture of Bedford:

“On the moon his (Bedford’s) character seemed to deteriorate.  He became impulsive, rash, and quarrelsome…

“We came to a difficult passage with them (the Selenites), and Bedford mistaking certain gestures of theirs… gave way to a panic violence.  He ran amuck, killed three, and perforce I had to flee with him after the outrage.”

Apparently, Bedford has been an unreliable narrator all along, suggesting that Wells’ novel was never intended as a simple science romance for boys.  We’ve received the heroic adventure story from the viewpoint of the villain.

Cavor's cry of despair as he realizes that Bedford
is indiscriminately killing Selenites in
First Men in the Moon.
The screenplay—sometimes jarringly—retains the nastier elements of Bedford’s personality.  Under the veneer of Victorian charm, we see Cavor’s ever-increasing distress at Bedford’s actions, with Cavor finally screaming in despair that Bedford is ruining everything.  Personally, I think the resulting dissonance between the promise of a light-hearted space romp and Cavor’s heartfelt pain may have been behind the movie’s financial failure.  Ultimately, First Men in the Moon doesn’t deliver on the feel-good vibe that’s promised.

When Wells’ theme of European imperialism collides with the disease subplot, the resulting implications are depressingly familiar.  The Selenites are the Native Americans.  Just sixty years after the first ship arrives, their world is in ruins.  As Bedford says at the close of the movie, “Poor Cavor!  He did have such a terrible cold.”  The flag has been planted and the moon will now belong to the Earth.  The aliens have invaded.

The British flag on the moon in First Men in the Moon.

Reference Sources
Into the Unknown: The Fantastic Life of Nigel Kneale by Andy Murray
Film Fantasy Scrapbook by Ray Harryhausen
Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life by Ray Harryhausen and Tony Dalton
The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells

... and a special thank you to the hosts of For the Love of Film: The Film Preservation Blogathon: Ferdy on FilmsThis Island Rod, and Wonders in the Dark.

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© 2015 Lee Price

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Selenites and Skeletons


21 Essays is a proud participant in
For the Love of Film: The Film Preservation Blogathon,
May 13-17, 2015
LET'S RAISE SOME MONEY!!!

If you like this blog...  
if you like science fiction...
if you support the cause of film preservation...
then please follow this link to make a donation to the National Film Preservation Foundation to support our effort to restore, score, and stream Cupid in Quarantine (1918), a one-reel silent comedy starring Elinor Field and Cullen Landis.

Through this year’s science-fiction-themed blogathon, we’re trying to raise $10,000 and it's going to take many generous small (and large!) donations to get there.  With great appreciation for your generosity, THANK YOU!

Selenite-blogging, 

essay 2 of 5 blog entries

Part One:  Insectoids Everywhere!

“The moon is, indeed, a sort of vast ant-hill…”
The First Men in the Moon
By H. G. Wells

In his 1901 science fiction novel The First Men in the Moon, H. G. Wells repeatedly describes the moon’s Selenite inhabitants as insect-like:
“He (the Selenite) presented himself, therefore, as a compact, bristling creature, having much the quality of a complicated insect…”

For his 1964 movie of First Men in the Moon, visual effects master Ray Harryhausen designed remarkable models of insect-like Selenites to bring to life through his inimitable stop motion animation.  While departing from Wells in some particulars, they retain the weird half-human/half-arthropod weirdness in Wells’ descriptions:
“The neck on which the head was poised was jointed in three places, almost like the short joints in the leg of a crab.”

A Selenite Gallery:  Profile, rear (with termite wings), and full frontal.

Inspecting the insectoid
alien remains from
Quatermass and the Pit.
Both Ray Harryhausen and screenwriter Nigel Kneale were fans of the science fiction novels of H. G. Wells.  The concept of upright insectoids in The First Men in the Moon appears to have particularly appealed to them.  Several years before First Men in the Moon, Kneale placed an eerie insectoid alien invasion at the center of the plot of his TV series classic Quatermass and the Pit, first broadcast in 1958.

Near the end of his career, Harryhausen cribbed from his Selenite design to create a trio of insectoid ghouls, complete with little horns reminiscent of the demon insects of Quatermass and the Pit.  Designed for Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977), the ghouls are skeletal rather than segmented, but the faces possess a familiar creepy insect-like impassivity, like animated mantises.

The insectoid ghouls from Harryhausen's
Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger.

Intelligent alien insects remain a popular subject in science fiction, turning up everywhere from Star Trek to Starship Troopers.  H. G. Wells basically invented the trope, as he also appears to have been the first to play with an alien hive concept, where intelligence is centralized in a highly ordered society.  This probably relates in some way to the socialism that Wells later advocated, but as of 1901, it’s easier to see the lunar society as a satire of political ideas rather than either a utopia or a dystopia.  The scientist Cavor is content to live in the moon’s great ant-hill but the prospect appears to have much less appeal to the other two humans along for the trip.

Cavor (Lionel Jeffries) surrounded by Selenites in First Men in the Moon.

Part Two:  The Resurrected Skeleton

Here’s Martha Hyer as Kate Callender receiving a full body scan from Lunar Homeland Security.

Martha Hyer gets x-rayed in First Men in the Moon.

Martha Hyer.
For this First Men in the Moon scene, Hyer’s body double was a warrior skeleton model left over from Jason and the Argonauts, pulled off the shelf by master animator Ray Harryhausen.  The shot opens with Hyer fully exposed in naked skeleton mode, making demands to her interrogators as they study her bones.  Then she leaves the scanner area and emerges screen left with her skin and clothes neatly in place.

Whoever would have guessed that Martha Hyer had the frame of a Greek warrior?

And… retroactively applying logic… wouldn’t this suggest that we can see Hyer—that ever-dependable chameleon of an actress—among the skeleton defenders of the Golden Fleece?

Why, I’d recognize that skeleton anywhere!

I think that's Hyer's skeletal frame second from left.

Hyer gracefully parries a sword thrust.

She's a little more graceful than the other skeletons, don't you think?
Personally, I'm rooting for Hyer.

This is how Greek tragedy inevitably ends. 

It just goes to show that we’re all the same under the skin.

Enjoy the video!



Reference Sources
Into the Unknown: The Fantastic Life of Nigel Kneale by Andy Murray
Film Fantasy Scrapbook by Ray Harryhausen
Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life by Ray Harryhausen and Tony Dalton
The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells

... and a special thank you to the hosts of For the Love of Film: The Film Preservation Blogathon: Ferdy on FilmsThis Island Rod, and Wonders in the Dark.

WarOfTheWorldsBannerPortrait01A

© 2015 Lee Price


Wednesday, May 13, 2015

First Men in the Moon: Cavor in Quarantine


21 Essays is a proud participant in
For the Love of Film: The Film Preservation Blogathon,
May 13-17, 2015
LET'S RAISE SOME MONEY!!!

If you like this blog...  
if you like science fiction...
if you support the cause of film preservation...
then please follow this link to make a donation to the National Film Preservation Foundation to support our effort to restore, score, and stream Cupid in Quarantine (1918), a one-reel silent comedy starring Elinor Field and Cullen Landis.

Through this year’s science-fiction-themed blogathon, we’re trying to raise $10,000 and it's going to take many generous small (and large!) donations to get there.  With great appreciation for your generosity, THANK YOU!

Selenite-blogging, 

essay 1 of 5 blog entries

Part One: A Person Can Develop a Cold

Cullen Landis on left in
Cupid in Quarantine (1918).
Because Cupid in Quarantine (1918) is a comedy based on turn-of-the-century scientific ideas concerning disease, the For the Love of Film leaders (Ferdy on Films, This Island Rod, and Wonders in the Dark) have adopted a science fiction theme for this blogathon.

And my choice for blogging subject is First Men in the Moon (1964), a delightful science fiction film from 1964 that cleverly incorporates a disease subplot.  In the film, the brilliant scientist Joseph Cavor is plagued by a cold andas any War of the Worlds fan can tell youaliens are very sensitive to Earth viruses.

As the 1953 version of The War of the Worlds explained:

“After all that men could do had failed, the Martians were destroyed and humanity was saved by the littlest things, which God, in His wisdom, had put upon this earth.”

An alien succumbs to Earth viruses in The War of the Worlds (1953).

Absent from the original H. G. Wells science fiction novel, the viral subplot in First Men in the Moon was added by the script’s co-author Nigel Kneale (1922-2006).  Kneale was one of the most intelligent screenwriters to ever contribute to the cinema of the fantastic.  As President John F. Kennedy had vowed that America would land a man on the moon before the end of the decade, Kneale decided that he needed a Wells-ian plot twist to wipe out the moon’s alien civilization before the official astronauts arrived.  He borrowed the virus from The War of the World and released it on the moon.

In addition to the disease angle, I also liked that First Men in the Moon was a period movie, taking place in England in 1899, a mere 19 years before Cupid in Quarantine was filmed in Hollywood. Movies were still in their infancy in 1899—there’s a good chance that the two male protagonists of First Men in the Moon, Arnold Bedford and Joseph Cavor, have never even seen a movie.  But Bedford lives to see the world’s first moon landing and so in his lifetime he would have witnessed the development of movies from early single reelers (like Cupid in Quarantine!) to the age of cinemascope, color, and Dynamation!

The monster kids who work at Pixar
paid homage to Ray Harryhausen in
Monsters, Inc. (2001).
Dynamation was the term coined for the animation work of brilliant special effects technician Ray Harryhausen (1920-2013), who brought dinosaurs and mythical creatures to life in movies like The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts, and One Million Years B.C.  In addition to leading the visual effects team on First Men in the Moon, Harryhausen served as Associate Producer.  Ray Harryhausen is revered by monster kids like me who grew up in the 1960s.  It’s an honor to pay tribute to one of his best movies.

Part Two: The Lost Films of Nigel Kneale

Nigel Kneale's credit on The Quatermass Experiment (1953).

Every lost film is a reminder of the fragility of our film culture.

As with early film, the vast majority of the shows produced in television’s first years have been lost.  Nigel Kneale, co-screenwriter of First Men in the Moon, was an enormously important and influential writer in the new medium of dramatic television in the 1950s.  Unfortunately, much of his work has not survived.  

A giant phantasmagoric alien demon looms over
London in the climax of the film version of
Quatermass and the Pit (1967).
Perhaps most famous for his Quatermass science fiction series (the third of which was the remarkable Quatermass and the Pit), Nigel Kneale joined BBC Television in 1951, becoming one of the station’s first writers.

When the BBC faced a shortage of new material in summer 1953, Kneale offered to write a science fiction serial.  The result, The Quatermass Experiment, galvanized England and racked up extremely impressive ratings.  Neale became pegged as a master of the offbeat and macabre. For the following thirty years, he moved back and forth between TV and the movies, venturing into numerous genres while always remaining true to his own quirky interests and obsessions.

But even nationwide acclaim was not enough to guarantee that his work would be saved for posterity in those early throw-away days of television.  Here are just a few of the many lost works of Nigel Kneale.

Arrow to the Heart (1951):  Kneale’s first dramatic adaptation for the BBC, it was broadcast live and never recorded.

Curtain Down (1953):  Years before launching his successful film direction career, Tony Richardson spent an unhappy apprenticeship directing TV shows for the BBC.  The one person he did like and respect at the studio was Kneale.  They collaborated on this now-lost adaptation of an Anton Chekhov story.  Later Richardson would pull Kneale away from his TV work to write the scripts for Look Back in Anger (1959) and The Entertainer (1960).

The Quatermass Experiment (1953):  The first two episodes of Kneale’s influential TV science fiction hit were recorded, but the network declined to preserve the subsequent four episodes.

Orwell's famous slogan of the future
from Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954).
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954):  Starring a young Peter Cushing, Kneale’s 1954 adaptation of the George Orwell novel divided the critics but riveted the nation.  The live performance was repeated later in the same week, and the second broadcast was recorded and saved.  But, according to contemporary accounts, the first performance was the better of the two and it wasn’t preserved.

The Creature (1955):  Later remade by Hammer Films as The Abominable Snowman (1957), the original TV broadcast of this thoughtful drama of gentle, telepathic Yeti in the Himalayas was presented live and never recorded for posterity.

The Road (1963):  Acclaimed at its broadcast for its innovative mixing of science fiction and the paranormal, The Road appears to be a lost film.

The psychedelic visuals of The Year of the
Sex Olympics
(1968) cry out for color.
The Year of the Sex Olympics (1968):  A black-and-white recording of this science fiction serial exists, but it’s considered to be a pale shadow of the original color version (which—granted—would have mainly played on black-and-white TV sets at the time).

The Chopper (1971):  Kneale played with the idea of inanimate objects becoming possessed by spirits long before Stephen King drove the idea to mass popularity.  In the now-lost The Chopper, a motorcycle harbors the ghost.

THIS IS SO DISCOURAGING!  ENOUGH LOST FILMS!!!

Now grab this opportunity to save a film by contributing to our effort to restore Cupid in Quarantine (1918)!


Reference Sources
Into the Unknown: The Fantastic Life of Nigel Kneale by Andy Murray
Film Fantasy Scrapbook by Ray Harryhausen
Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life by Ray Harryhausen and Tony Dalton

... and a special thank you to the hosts of For the Love of Film: The Film Preservation Blogathon: Ferdy on FilmsThis Island Rod, and Wonders in the Dark.

WarOfTheWorldsBannerPortrait01A

© 2015 Lee Price