^^ That's such a great movie. I'm surprised and glad they're re-running Macabre, since I missed it this month. I also want to see Miranda again. Somehow I've managed to never see The Hunger, despite being 22 in '83 and jumping on just about every horror movie that came out. Maybe because Bowie was in it-- I love Bowie's music, but I didn't really want to see him in a movie (I've never seen The Man Who Fell To Earth, either). That's on... another list. I can dig it.
The Batman serial continues on and I've come to realize this might be the bravest Batman ever since he gets his ass kicked every time he engages in fisticuffs and still never backs out. Robin is lucky that no one in Gotham Town, er City can recognize that hair. It did teach me what pitchblende is so it's educational as well!
Some interesting stuff in May: SAT 5/2 8:00 AM: Thunderbirds Are Go ('68): Film version of the Gerry Anderson TV series. 10:00 AM: Batman ('43) Chapter 9. 10:30 AM: Bomba the Jungle Boy ('49): Not exactly genre, but I've listed Tarzan movies before, and this is basically a boy Tarzan. The books this was based on were reportedly pretty darn racist, but I don't know about the movies. MON 5/4 6:00 PM: Two On a Guillotine ('65): Possibly-haunted house thriller with Cesar Romero. SAT 5/9 6:00 AM: Sinbad the Sailor ('47): With Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Maureen O'Hara. 8:15 AM: Thunderbird 6 ('68): I didn't know there was a second Thunderbirds film, but here it is. Apparently this one performed poorly enough that there were no further movies. 10:00 AM: Batman Ch. 10. 10:30 AM: The Lost Volcano ('50): The third Bomba the Jungle Boy movie. SUN 5/10 2:45 AM: It's Alive ('74): Evil-baby horror movie. MON 5/11 6:30 PM: The Mouse on the Moon ('63): Sequel to The Mouse That Roared, involving a tiny European duchy's entry into the space race. Directed by Richard Lester and co-starring Bernard Cribbins (Wilf from Doctor Who). WED 5/13 6:15 PM: Dr. Coppelius ('68): Walter Slezak stars in an adaptation of the ballet about an inventor who passes his life-size dancing doll off as his daughter. 8:00 PM: Zero Hour! ('57): Not a genre movie, but notable as the basis for Airplane! THU 5/14: Finally, a glut of genre films! It's a marathon of British-made sci-fi. 5:45 AM: The Tunnel ('35): Film about the building of a trans-Atlantic tunnel (hurrah!). 7:30 AM: Five Million Years to Earth ('68): The Quatermass classic. 9:15 AM: Village of the Damned ('61) 10:45 AM: The Cosmic Monsters ('58): Giant-insects film originally titled The Strange World of Planet X. I think I've seen it. Noon: The Giant Behemoth ('59): Redundantly titled knockoff of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, with a Willis O'Brien stop-motion dinosaur. 1:30 PM: First Men in the Moon ('64): H.G. Wells adaptation. 3:15 PM: These Are the Damned ('62): AKA The Damned, a well-regarded Hammer film about mutant children. 5:00 PM: X the Unknown ('56): Radioactive ooze in Scotland. I've seen this one too. 6:30 PM: Satellite in the Sky ('56): Space-travel thriller with Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny). Special effects by 2001's Wally Veevers. SAT 5/16: 8:00 AM: Things to Come ('36): H.G. Wells classic. 10:00 AM: Batman Ch. 11. 10:30 AM: The Hidden City ('50): Fourth Bomba film. 1:45 PM: Mighty Joe Young ('49): Harryhausen's big ape. THU 5/28 3:30 AM: Dr. Strangelove ('64) THU 5/28-FRI 5/29: Time travel marathon! 8:00 PM: Berkeley Square ('33): I think this was on the list a month or two ago, a fantasy with Leslie Howard transported back to relive an ancestor's life. 9:45 PM: Time After Time ('79): Nicholas Meyer's film with H.G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell) chasing Jack the Ripper (David Warner) to present-day San Francisco. 11:45 PM: La Jetee ('62): Short film on which 12 Monkeys was based. 12:30 AM: Dr. Who and the Daleks ('65): Peter Cushing adaptation of the first Dalek story, with "Dr. Who" reinterpreted as an eccentric human inventor. I haven't seen this one in ages, though TCM showed the sequel a while back. I love the music in this one. 2:15 AM: The Time Machine ('60): George Pal's adaptation, of course. 4:15 AM: World Without End ('55): Time travel to post-apocalyptic future, with Hugh Marlowe and Rod Taylor. SAT 5/30: 8:30 AM: The Man Who Could Work Miracles ('36): H.G. Wells-based fantasy about a man given godlike powers. 10:00 AM: Batman Ch. 12. 10:30 AM: The Lion Hunters ('51): Fifth Bomba film. Also, every Thursday night/Friday morning this month features a marathon of disaster movies, but those aren't really SF/fantasy, so I'm not listing them here.
As I recall, this wasn't just based on a Wells story, but actually scripted by Wells himself. Don't think I've ever seen it, though.
^Yes, Wells is credited with "scenario and dialogue" according to IMDb, with Lajos Biro as the uncredited screenplay author. Old-time writing credits are often hard to parse, but I assume "scenario" means what we'd today call the story (outline). Not sure how to distinguish dialogue from screenplay, though.
It's an interesting movie. Particularly given the behind-the-scenes story. While Malcolm McDowell and Mary Steenburgen were playing characters who fell in love in the movie, they fell in love in real life (and later married), so we kind of get to watch their genuine courtship happening onscreen. It's rather sweet.
Strange but true: Karl Alexander, who wrote the novel the movie was based on, eventually wrote a sequel, Jacklyn the Ripper, in which the Ripper returns to plague H.G. Wells--as a deadly but seductive woman! There's some bizarre time-travel explanation for how the Ripper becomes a woman . . . .
Nice to see Mouse on the Moon get on the list, it rarely sees the light of day. The third book has its moments too, but wouldn't make that good a movie.
The Giant Behemoth and Satellite In The Sky. Lots of repetitive redundancies repeating themselves this month.
I just watched the two Thunderbirds movies that were on my DVR. It's been a long time since I saw any of the series, so this was almost new to me. Of course, the high point was the model work, which was really cool. The Barry Gray music was neat too. The voice acting, not so much. It wasn't just the marionettes that were wooden. I liked the second movie, Thunderbird 6, better than the first one, Thunderbirds Are Go. The second was more cohesively plotted, had better-defined antagonists, and didn't have a stupid dream sequence in the middle. It was also more fun. Apparently it was less popular with audiences, though. And man, that Cliff Richard song during the dream sequence had deeply disturbing lyrics. They basically amounted to "I think you're cheating on me, so I'm warning you, I have friends who will hurt or kill you if you make me look bad." I don't think I've ever heard such blatantly abusive lyrics in a song.
I remembering reading all Grand Fenwick novels back in my teens. The next one was The Mouse on Wall Street, right?
Yup, the PM is horrified to find that he somehow has a 10-pound budget surplus at the end of the year, and invests it in the worst company he can find to be guaranteed to lose it and end the embarrassment. IIRC it was a coal-and-carriage company that gets bought by a nuclear-power conglomerate, and as things proceed news that Grand Fenwick is investing in companies, unbeknownst to him, leaks and makes them attractive and everything he buys goes up. The whole country becomes fabulously wealthy by accident, and it's mainly a satire on that.
...oooh, didn't know that one existed, I'll have to check it out! Except the cheapest copy on Amazon is $150. [Note: Amazon will give you a $2 gift card if you trade one in, but you can't buy it for less thane a hundred fifty.] ETA: And there's a fifth, called "The Mouse That Saved the West" from 1981! http://www.amazon.com/The-Mouse-That-Saved-West/dp/0688003648