Classic SF...opinions....

[Harvey]

Nice selection, though I think that THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR falls to pieces as soon as Faye Dunaway shows up.

I leafed through the book Keep Watching the Skies! today for a research project. It's a terrific resource for SF movies made between 1950 and 1962, though probably too expensive to see outside of a library setting (at least in the edition I was looking at).

 

[Warped9]

^^ I looked up that book and, yes, it is very expensive. Too much for a book or at least far more than I'd be willing to pay.

Hmm... Tonight I think I gonna watch The Bride Of Frankenstein.

 

[Kirkman1987]

^^ I looked up that book and, yes, it is very expensive. Too much for a book or at least far more than I'd be willing to pay.

Hmm... Tonight I think I gonna watch The Bride Of Frankenstein.

I love Bride of Frankenstein, maybe the best universal horror film.

 

[Harvey]

BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN is terrific, perhaps the best in the series. Closer in tone to YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN than FRANKENSTEIN (1931), I think, and it's for the best.

I'm hoping for a BLU-RAY release soon--I saw a restored 35mm print earlier this fall and it looked wonderful.

 

[Warped9]

I'm taking a moment's break and I'm about halfway through the film... I'll wait till I've seen it all before commenting.

 

[Too Much Fun]

Ah, the love for "Bride of Frankenstein" warms my heart. . Finally the forum is praising a movie I adore just as much. This was one of the movies that got me most interested in older movies.

After growing up mostly just watching newer movies, it opened my eyes to how powerful old classics could be and made me want to see more of them. The scene with the hermit in the woods is so, so moving. I hope you like this flick as much as we do. I say it's a real treasure.

 

[Warped9]

Well, I'm of two minds about The Bride Of Frankenstein. Firstly, it's certainly a more elaborate and more polished film than the 1931 original. The acting is certainly better overall.

But...it feels more campy than the original. I don't get the same sense of pathos for the Monster and his situation. It's still there in some measure, but not to the same degree. The original seemed to be done with more of a straight face while the sequel veers from that into almost spoof and a feeling of camp. Ironically I had a chance to watch Young Frankenstein for the very first time a couple of weeks ago and it isn't that much of a departure from the sensibilities of The Bride Of Frankenstein, or more it pushed those sensibilities further and over the top into deliberate camp.

I kind of like it, but here I part company from the apparent majority and have to say I think I like the 1931 original better.

 

[Too Much Fun]

Yeah, there's a bit of weird slapstick in there (especially with the hysterical old lady) and Dr. Praetorious is quite over-the-top (which I suppose could be considered 'campy'), but I think the effectiveness of the serious moments keeps the movie grounded enough to not delve too far into silliness.

 

[Warped9]

^^ I get the sense that a lot of people feel the camp and humour were used deliberately to slip certain ideas past the censors. I suppose that's possible given that the film is made four years after the 1931 original and the original Dracula. In 1931 films were still pretty free from the more formalized censorship that would come with the Hayes crowd within a couple of years. By 1935 the scrutiny would have been in full force. That's all very well, but I feel the camp rather dulls the effectiveness of some of the film's ideas. Of course, I'm also seeing it from the perspective of an age where you wouldn't have to veil certain ideas in spoof and camp to get them on the big screen.

 

[Kirkman1987]

I like the humor of the film. Director James Whale was having a blast on this one, and this is his funniest movie outside of Dark Old House. All this is balanced well by serious scenes, and the humor serves the story, unlike in many universal horror films where the humor consists of awkward comedic relief scenes inserted in the middle of a serious dark movie.

Anyway, if you want more Universal horror after seeing the main monsters, Search for the Bela Lugosi collection. You get two genuine classics (Black Cat and The Raven) along with a few average films. It was only around $10 on amazon when I picked it up last month.

 

[Warped9]

^^ That's it in a nutshell. For me the whole film felt lighter. I didn't get any real sense of seriousness in it. Basically after the opening scene with Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley and Lord Byron I felt it just veered into varying degrees of lighter fare and without any of the atmosphere of the original.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

That's got me in the mood to watch Carry on Screaming!

 

[Warped9]

I've just finished watching 1951's When Worlds Collide. I must say that while I could quibble with some of the space f/x and that the alien landscape is so obviously a matte painting that really looks like a painting I quite liked this film. I didn't get any real sense of something being done over-the-top or as camp. This was one of the '50s A grade science fiction films. Heck 1951 seems to have been a good year for SF because it's the same year that released the classic The Day The Earth Stood Still. It also feels very much in the straightforward sensibility of Destination: Moon released in 1950.

This is a big idea story and it was pitched at the right time. Today if you tried to pitch this idea it might be hard to believe because many audiences today can be quite cynical. I recall the criticism of the more recent Deep Impact and Armageddon. But to enjoy this film you really have to suspend disbelief because the idea that a society that hadn't yet even launched artificial satellites into orbit could launch a manned space ark within a year stretches credibility.

I feel a little odd that as a science fiction fan I'm only just discovering some of these classic gems after all these years. I didn't know what I was missing.

 

[Warped9]

Today I picked up Splice and the new Kino version of Metropolis with the added lost footage.

 

[Warped9]

I've just added another classic film to my "interested" list: Fritz Lang's 1929 Die Frau im Mond (Woman In The Moon).

I became intrigued with this film after reading about it in The Spaceship Handbook by Jack Hagerty and Jon C. Rogers. Apparently it's well regarded and thought of as the 2001 of its day! So now it's piqued my interest and I want to see it.

I just watched the rocketship's rollout and launch on YouTube. Very cool!

Anyone else ever see this film? Opinions?

 

[Harvey]

I haven't seen it, although I have read a little bit about it. Lang claims that it was the origin of the countdown in rocketry (though, with all claims Lang made in his life, it should be taken with quite a grain of salt) and Herman Oberth worked as an advisor on the project.

The restoration version is apparently 200 minutes long, so it's not exactly something you can sit down and watch any old time. But I do plan to see it eventually. Perhaps somebody will follow the release of METROPOLIS and put it on Blu-Ray?

 

[Warped9]

Well the authors of The Spaceship Handbook laud it quite highly because of the close involvement of Hermann Oberth and Wily Ley as technical advisors much like Robert Heinlein was involved with Destination: Moon and Arthur C. Clarke with 2001: A Space Odyssey. And from what little I've seen I can see why they would think so. The scenes of the rollout and launch of the spaceship are eerily similar of what would be seen forty years later in the '60s with NASA's multistage rockets. Indeed the authors cite these three films, made approximately twenty years apart (1929, 1951 and 1968), as being the best depictions of space travel based on what was scientifically known and understood at the respective times.

 

[Harvey]

The Spaceship Handbook looks pretty cool. Do you have the second volume, The Saucer Fleet, which is listed on Amazon?

By the way, I think Kegg has seen WOMAN IN THE MOON. You might ask him about it.

 

[Warped9]

^^ I'm going to be ordering The Saucer Fleet and fortunately it's less expensive than The Spaceship Handbook.

Here's what I thought from another thread.

I just finished going through the bulk of my new copy of The Spaceship Handbook. This really is an awesome book and well worth it if you're into the subject matter. It's not really a book to read cover-to-cover although I almost did just that. It's more for skimming from section-to-section of subjects that interest you.

I like the way it lays the groundwork for how the fictional idea of the spaceship got started and evolved. It should also be noted that it focuses on fictional spaceships that at least gave a passing nod to the realities of spaceflight and what is/was considered technologically possible. For that reason you won't find anything on any of the popular SF vehicles from the '60s onward. Too bad because I suspect the authors and artists could probably do the TOS Enterprise more justice than the recent Haynes book.

Even so I really enjoyed learning in more detail the spaceship's evolution. And reading the section dealing with Heinlein's novel Rocket Ship Galileo I really do wonder if naming the TOS shuttlecraft Galileo could have been a tip-of-the hat to Heinlein's book and fictional spaceship.

If you're a 2001: A Space Odyssey fan then this book has solid material for you with excellent illustrations and details on the film's miniatures...assuming you can call a 54ft. model of the Discovery a miniature!

All around a superb book I highly recommend.

 

[Harvey]

Sounds great. Not in my budget for this Xmas, but maybe sometime next quarter I can come up with an excuse to buy it. Time for a paper on 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, maybe?