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Sci-Fi Saturday: The Invisible Ray

Week 15: The Invisible Ray

Week 15:

Film(s): The Invisible Ray (Dir. Lambert Hillyer, 1936, USA)

Viewing Format: DVD

Date Watched: 2021-09-03

Rationale for Inclusion:

As may be evident by the way I gush over James Whale's films, I am a huge fan of classical era Hollywood horror films. Imagine my delight when I learned that icons of 1930s horror Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi appeared together in not one, but seven films, plus a joint cameo appearance. Seeking out these films is what eventually led me to The Invisible Ray (Dir. Lambert Hillyer, 1936, USA).

The Invisible Ray was the third time Karloff and Lugosi were paired together, not counting their cameo in Gift of Gab (Dir. Karl Freund, 1934, USA). Something I appreciate if you watch the films in chronological order is the horror stars alternating who's the baddie and who's the victimized colleague. Karloff tormented Lugosi in The Black Cat (Dir. Edgar G. Ulmer, 1934, USA), Lugosi tortures Karloff in The Raven (Dir. Lew Landers, 1935, USA), and in The Invisible Ray Karloff's antisocial Dr. Janos Rukh finds himself at odds with or dependent upon Lugosi's Dr. Felix Benet. 

As can be surmised from both characters having the title of "doctor," The Invisible Ray like Frankenstein (Dir. James Whale, 1931, USA), Island of Lost Souls (Dir. Erle C. Kenton, 1932, USA), and the other mad scientist films thus far surveyed straddles the line between science fiction and horror. Since better examples of the archetype exist, I would have skipped over The Invisible Ray were it not for the film's plot revolving around a new kind of radiation from the element Radium X. An atomic sci-fi film almost two decades before they became the genre norm absolutely needed to be included in this survey.

Reactions:

Rewatching The Invisible Ray last year as part of a mini chronological survey of 1930s horror, I summed up the movie on microblogging sites as, "Boris Karloff's antisocial scientist pursues Radium X research to the point of self-destruction, but makes the mess he made of his reputation and relationships everyone else's problem." In retrospect, I could just as easily have described the plot with the "instead of going to therapy" meme.

As an early example of atomic sci-fi it presents the extremes that society associated with radiation and radium at the time: Radium X could be a cure-all that benefits society, or deadly poison. Janos Rukh, who previously studied astronomy in an isolated castle with only his mother (Violet Kemble Cooper) and young wife (Frances Drake), the daughter of his former associate, for company, ends up so irradiated whilst investigating the African meteor site source of Radium X that any living creature he touches instantly dies of radiation. His colleague Felix Benet helps Rukh develop a serum to keep the accumulated radiation from cooking him to death, but regular doses must be taken to prevent Rukh from killing himself or others.

In theory, having delayed death, Rukh should be able to continue his life and research without issue. Except all his time away from his wife Diana has alienated her onus based affections, which Rukh takes as a betrayal. Similarly, Benet building upon Rukh's research to develop Radium X into a blindness cure also strikes the irradiated scientist as a betrayal, despite Benet being sure to credit Rukh's work that led to the process. At this point Rukh fakes his own death and starts using his radiation powers to murder off everyone associated with the Radium X African expedition.

While near the end it is implied radiation sickness led to Rukh becoming a serial killer, at the climax his mother shows up to remind him that he was always not of the temperament to live outside of isolation. At which point he agrees with his mother and lets himself cook to death. The Invisible Ray serves up not only an example of an early atomic monster, but that being a mama's boy is tied with being a murderer. (For more on the latter see the filmography of Alfred Hitchcock.)

I typically try to avoid plot synopses in these posts, but the way radiation is shown to have a dual nature in The Invisible Ray makes it stand out compared to other mad scientist and atomic sci-fi. Typically whatever invention a mad scientist is working on comes from good intentions, only to prove disastrous for anyone who comes in contact with it. Radium X being both a cure and danger simultaneously is novel by comparison, and a less reactionary take than atomic sci-fi films made post-atom bomb. 

Apart from the novelty of its attitude towards atomic energy, The Invisible Ray is overall forgettable and not very good as a film. Better atomic sci-fi films would follow, and better pairings of Karloff and Lugosi had been made before it and would be made after it (in the latter case specifically Son of Frankenstein (Dir. Rowland V. Lee, 1939, USA) and The Body Snatcher (Dir. Robert Wise, 1945, USA)).

Although, I would be remiss if I did not point out that another novelty in The Invisible Ray is Lugosi got to play a handsome, competent, sane scientist for a change. His filmography usually involves him being obscured by monster makeup or playing an outright villain. As much as I love seeing Lugosi play a monster, I am sorry he rarely got to play more normal, romantic parts like Felix Benet.

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Sci-Fi Saturday: Once in a New Moon

Week 14:

Film(s): Once in a New Moon (Dir. Anthony Kimmins, 1935, UK)

Viewing Format: Streaming - Amazon Prime rental

Date Watched: 2021-08-27

Rationale for Inclusion:

For all the influence British authors had in shaping the science fiction literary genre, it's taken 14 weeks of posts to get to a film from the United Kingdom. As with most of the new-to-me films watched thus far, I discovered the existence of Once in a New Moon (Dir. Anthony Kimmins, 1935, UK) via the Wikipedia list of 1930s sci-fi films.

Filmed in black and white and clocking in at an economical 63 minutes, Once in a New Moon was a "quota quickie," or what in the United States would be called a B-movie: a low cost, low quality film that would ideally make more money than it took to produce. In other words, the classification of cinematic works more widely associated with film noir and 1950s sci-fi cinema.

Reactions:

It never occurred to my partner or me that we were watching a "quota quickie" in terms of production quality or effects whilst watching Once in a New Moon. The contrast between its quality versus higher budget sci-fi films of the 1930s is not as apparent as the films of the 1950s.

Narratively, Once in a New Moon is more fantasy than science fiction due to only the loosest of cosmic explanations being put forth to explain why the English village of Shrimpton-on-the-Sea would temporarily break away from the Earth and become a self-contained planetoid. At least Harold Drake (Eliot Makeham) is enough of a man of science to attempt a scientific investigation of the phenomena impacting the village, even if many affluent citizens dismiss his theories, insisting that the surrounding countryside has simply been flooded.

The film, however, is more concerned with being a satire of British class and social structure than a sci-fi or fantasy film, which is fine. As someone who grew up on Twilight Zone reruns, I am a sucker for genre tales as social commentary. The satiric bent took my partner and me by surprise, but it also provided an interesting change of pace from the sci-fi films we had watched thus far, which were more concerned with having a general moral than direct commentary on a specific aspect of humanity.

Although, I doubt that Owen Rutter, the author of the original novel on which it was based, or writer-director Anthony Kimmins expected the satire in Once in a New Moon to age as well as it has. Shrimpton-on-the-Sea eventually reconnects with the Earth, albeit after a civil war nearly breaks out amongst its residents, and normality is restored, with little to no immediate evidence that Drake's theories about the phenomena were correct. One of the last lines of the film is Lady Bravington (Mary Hinton) reiterating to Drake that the phenomena that impacted the town was, "just a flood." The audience knows that the supercilious woman is wrong, and it underscores the refusal to accept facts that are inconvenient to her and her class that had been witnessed throughout the film. The moment is a perfect note to end the satire on.

Watching Lady Bravington needing to get the last word in with her incorrect position stung in 2021 though. Yes, by then most shelter-in-place restrictions around the COVID-19 pandemic had been lifted thanks to the first version of the vaccine being available to the general public, but anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers and people who insisted that the deadly and debilitating virus was "just a cold" remained an ever present reality, as additional variants of the disease continued to be a threat to public health. Lady Bravington turned out to be the archetype of every conservative, science denying, self-assured white lady of recent memory.

Maybe I should not be too shocked by this commentary, as both the author and screenwriter had lived through the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918, and anti-maskers existed then too. Still, it adds to the reality of the satire in Once in a New Moon and makes the film one of my favorite discoveries of this survey.

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No Sci-fi Saturday this week. I am in New Orleans for my best friend's wedding. Check back next week. (And hopefully these gaps won't continue.)

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Sci-Fi Saturday: Gold

Week 13:

Film(s): Gold (Dir. Karl Hartl, 1934, Germany)

Viewing Format: Blu-Ray: Kino Lorber

Date Watched: 2021-08-20

Rationale for Inclusion:

Most popular histories of German cinema gush over its silent era and Fritz Lang's early talkies, boils the Nazi era down to propaganda films, and then rapidly moves on to West Germany's New Cinema of the 1960s and 1970s. When touring the Berlin Film Museum in 2006, they had an exhibit acknowledging cinema made under the Nazi regime, but it was plain, matter of fact, and not at all celebratory of any figure or works. The standing international agreement to not give Nazis more credit for anything positive created under their supervision between 1933 and 1945 is one that this lifelong Indiana Jones fan, from a country that has historically been less willing to acknowledge its own history of genocide and white supremacy, cannot argue with.

However, when something is made deliberately withheld or rendered taboo, it risks developing a fetishistic or contrarian following. Curated, contextualized access is preferable to dispel mystique and render a work mundane. However, a work's problematic nature cannot be exercised completely, nor can the stain of its lineage be fully forgotten once known. This mental calculus of having interest in or love for a work despite it or its creator's controversial nature is something each person must work out for themselves.

All that to say, if you're grossed out by the inclusion of a film created under the Nazi regime, that's a completely fair perspective. However, surreptitious curiosity is also valid, and a normal human emotion.

And curiosity is definitely what motivated my inclusion of Gold (Dir. Karl Hartl, 1934, Germany). Partly it was wondering what a Nazi supervised science fiction film was like, period, especially relative to the Weimar Era films previously viewed. Partly it was a more basic curiosity: the prospect of hearing the voice of Brigette Helm, of Metropolis (Dir. Fritz Lang, 1927, Germany) fame. And to be perfectly honest, the simplistic wonder of hearing the voice of a performer whose art focuses on pantomime was the bigger draw.

Reactions:

Brigette Helm has a voice that is consistent with her appearance: elegant and German. The anticlimax of learning that fact is on par with realizing Harold Lloyd has a soft spoken, Midwest accent that matches his aesthetic, as opposed to the surprise of Charles Chaplin's English accent or Buster Keaton's deep baritone voice.

That question out of the way, what about the film itself? Nothing especially anti-semitic or fascist in visuals or content makes its production origin glaringly obvious. Given that like F.P.1 [AKA F.P. 1 Doesn't Answer] (F.P.1 antwortet nicht, Dir. Karl Hartl, 1932, Germany) an additional French language version was produced with export in mind, and the Nazis had just come to power and purchased UFA in 1933, and would not begin explicit international aggressions until 1938, it follows that they would not want to compromise cinematic commerce in 1934. 

Instead, Gold is about the relationship between scientific progress and capitalist greed. A German scientist (Friedrich Kayßler) is about to succeed in the dreams of the alchemists and create a machine that can transform lead into gold, when sabotage destroys the machine and its creator with it. His engineer Werner Holk (Hans Alber) swears vengeance for his friend, and takes a job with industrialist John Wills (Michael Bohnen), who arranged the sabotage in order to corner the market on the technology. Holk proceeds to take down the usurper from the inside and the film ends with lots of satisfying explosions.  

Amid the straightforward wrong scientist seeks revenge narrative are some incredible set pieces. Giant electrodes and machines with tunnel trains connecting the underground laboratory to the mainland. The sets and props were so impressive that footage of them was later reused in The Magnetic Monster (Dir. Curt Siodmak, 1953, USA). However, UFA did not make additional science fiction films during the Nazi era, so the sets and props were not reused in other movies by the studio.

Gold is interesting and ultimately competent but unremarkable, compared to the genre films that came before it. 

And if you are interested in learning more about German cinema during the Nazi era, I recommend the documentaries Hitler's Hollywood (Dir. Rüdiger Suchsland, 2017, Germany) (which features Gold briefly) and Forbidden Films (Verbotene Filme, Dir. Felix Moeller, 2014, Germany).

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Sci-Fi Saturday Will be Back Next Week

I am off on vacation and didn't have a chance to prep a post in advance. Check back here next week though.

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Sci-Fi Saturday: The Invisible Man

Week 12:

Film(s): The Invisible Man (Dir. James Whale, 1933, USA)

Viewing Format: DVD

Date Watched: August 13, 2021

Rationale for Inclusion:

After a diversion into aeronautic sci-fi and a post-apocalyptic narrative, our survey returns for one last example of a Pre-Code horror hybrid: The Invisible Man (Dir. James Whale, 1933, USA).

As with Island of Lost Souls (Dir. Erle C. Kenton, 1932, USA), The Invisible Man is based on an H.G. Wells novel. Unlike when Paramount Pictures bought the rights to adapt The Island of Dr. Moreau, however, Wells demanded script approval as part of the deal with Universal Studios for them to adapt The Invisible Man. Wells had hated the adaptation of The Island of Dr. Moreau, finding its emphasis on horror and lack of imagination miserable, and was not going to let a similar fate befall another one of his novels.

Although the rights were secured by Universal not long after the success of Dracula in 1931, it would take two years for the studio to assemble a satisfactory crew, script and cast. James Whale signed onto the project in 1931, but after the huge success of Frankenstein (1931, USA) left the project, not wanting to be associated as a horror director. However, after his return to romance with The Impatient Maiden (1932, USA) failed at the boxoffice, Whale returned to horror, first with The Old Dark House (1932, USA), which reunited him with Boris Karloff, and then signing back on to The Invisible Man. During Whale's absence from the project many screenwriters and drafts of screenplays, some of which used elements from another novel that Universal bought the rights to, The Murderer Invisible by Philip Wylie, had come and gone and failed to meet with Wells' approval.

In June of 1933, a script that finally met with Wells' approval was produced by R. C. Sherriff, who had written the play Journey's End, which sent Whale's star on the rise. This screenplay originated the idea that the experimental monocane serum that Dr. Jack Griffin (Claude Rains) produces not only makes him invisible, but slowly destroys his sanity. Similar to the lab setup and lightning power in Whale's Frankenstein, insanity as a byproduct of the invisibility would inform later adaptations of the Wells novel, including the early 2000s television series, which also featured a clip from the 1933 film in its opening credits sequence.

Reactions:

As resistant as Whale initially was to making horror films after Frankenstein, he proved with each subsequent one that he made how good he was at it. With the help of a group of repertory creatives both on and off screen, Whale put a pathos and humor into his horror films in a way that no other director working in the genre in the 1930s did. It's why over 90 years later Frankenstein, The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man, and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935, USA) are some of the best horror films of their era and amongst the most influential of all time.

Yet, the horror genre aspects in The Invisible Man are not as prominent as its science fiction categorization. Griffin is a mad scientist, that is an otherwise average person, whose hubris and curiosity makes a monster out of him. My partner noted that he considers The Invisible Man to definitely be a monster movie, but more of a suspense or mystery film than a horror film. Any movie that features a serial killer is at least partially horror in my reckoning, but the way the narrative of The Invisible Man unfolds, it is closer to a suspense film like M (Dir. Fritz Lang, 1931, Germany) than an unquestioned horror film with a fantasy monster like Dracula (Dir. Tod Browning, 1931), despite all three having narratives that boil down to "what is the mystery surrounding this man" then "this man is a monster and must be destroyed for the greater good."

The mystery and monstrosity around Griffin is rendered possible through the performance of Claude Rains and some inventive special effects. As with Whale's casting of Karloff in Frankenstein, his role as the title character in The Invisible Man was a star-making role for theater actor Rains. Having to rely on his voice and physicality, but not his face, gave Rains some trouble during production, but he ultimately created a character that oscillates between aloofly mysterious and a madcap lunatic. 

A combination of post-production optical work, clever blocking, and use of wires rendered Griffin invisible. The special effects used would remain the standard way of conveying an invisible entity prior to computer generated imagery and post-production work becoming dominant in the industry. As silly as it may feel knowing that Griffin unwraps his head revealing nothing beneath is achieved by something as simple as Rains wearing his shirt and jacket above his head as he removes the bandages it remains visually iconic.

My only issue with the practical special effects comes at the film's climax when Griffin exits the cabin where he is hiding out and he leaves shoe prints in the snow, despite it being previously established that to be fully invisible (as he is in the scene) he must be totally naked. What baffles me if the use of shoe prints instead of footprints was a question of deliberate censorship or thoughtless oversight. I usually don't get nitpicky about these types of goofs in movies, but it stands out sharply in an otherwise carefully engineered film.

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Sci-Fi Saturday: Deluge

Week 11:

Film(s): Deluge (Dir. Felix E. Feist, 1933, USA)

Viewing Format: Blu-Ray: Kino Lorber

Date Watched: August 6, 2021

Rationale for Inclusion:

Not all disaster movies fall under the genre of science fiction or speculative fiction. What causes the disaster and/or its results are what determines the classification.

Deluge (Dir. Felix E. Feist, 1933, USA) came to my attention either from browsing the Wikipedia list of 1930s sci-fi films or Kino Lorber's website. The film was regarded as lost for decades, but promised apocalyptic natural disasters and the survivors needing to rebuild society. We had yet to encounter the post-apocalyptic subgenre on our survey and figured it would be interesting to compare to later examples. Plus, neither my partner nor I had known Deluge existed, much less seen it, prior to this survey.

Reactions:

As one would hope with a disaster movie, Deluge has respectable special effects for its era. Stop motion, models and superimpositions render the epic storm, eclipse, earthquakes and tsunamis that absolutely wreck the world. No explanation is provided for the extreme weather and geographical upsets, in part because it comes on so quickly no one can gather sufficient data to form a hypothesis, and in part because it does not matter to the overall narrative. The natural disasters are just set up for a post-apocalyptic survival narrative.

Despite its spectacular opening, Deluge goes downhill as a film rapidly. The cinematography and acting are just okay. The concerns of survival in the new wrecked landscape become the main focus, and in the process the film ends up treating some gross attitudes about gender as matters of nature not socialization. Some amount of sexism is bound to be present in most films, even if it's implicit systematic context that doesn't even register to the target audience, but Deluge had examples that deeply bothered me and my partner.

Typical of post-apocalyptic narratives, a gang of roving rapist men assemble and become a threat to other survivors, including the newly formed town the protagonists end up in. Do the townspeople band together, kill the rapists, and then post their corpses with expository signs around the borders of their new community as a warning to others? No, because the film does not treat these men as outliers and societal threats beyond reform, but the expected result of men not being constrained by law or social pressure.

The newly formed community takes for granted that they cannot stop men from devolving to rapists, so instead of direct action against the rapists, the men who have assumed leadership roles decide that every woman must be married to a man. I do not know if the logic is that rapists supposedly do not rape women that belong to a man, or that wives cannot be raped by anyone, or that the husbands will defend against the rapists as necessary. However, their logic boils down to the only way to protect women from feral men is to have them become subjugated by civilized men; it's not to eliminate the threat or hold people who break community expectations accountable for their actions, but affirm the same position held by the rapists that women are commodities and resources, and treat them as they would storehouses of grain.

As repugnant as I find Deluge being explicit in its belief that Patriarchal values are unquestionable, universal laws, it is hard to truly find fault with the survivors clinging to what bits of the world they knew that remain. For all protagonist Martin Webster (Sidney Blackmer) has to say about rebuilding society better than it was, he and the other civilized men hope to rebuild society along the same lines as prior to the apocalypse. It's why Patriarchy and monogamy are clung to so tightly by the main characters. Yes, Martin and his wife Helen (Lois Wilson) could build a polycule with the new romantic interests they met when they thought the other was dead, but no one involved can see the viability or appeal in it. Frankly, if anyone suggested it they would view that person as morally on par with the roving rapists. Humans, after all, are creatures of habit despite existence being nothing but change.

As someone who finds Patriarchy limiting and damaging, and generally is not a fan of disaster movies, Deluge is not a film that I enjoyed. It's an interesting case study, but it failed to spark positive impressions or a desire to watch it again.

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Sci-Fi Saturday: F.P.1

Week 10:

Film(s): F.P.1 [AKA F.P. 1 Doesn't Answer] (F.P.1 antwortet nicht, Dir. Karl Hartl, 1932, Germany)

Viewing Format: English language version, DVD

Date Watched: July 16, 2021

Rationale for Inclusion:

Like Just Imagine (Dir. David Butler, 1930, USA), and a lot of films to follow on this survey, I discovered F.P.1 [AKA F.P. 1 Doesn't Answer] (F.P.1 antwortet nicht, Dir. Karl Hartl, 1932, Germany) by browsing a Wikipedia list of science fiction films. Aside from it being an example of a sci-fi film with aviators as protagonists, and featuring an experimental aquatic base, what drew my attention was that it was made as a multiple-language version (MLV) film.

Prior to dubbing and subtitling becoming the standard ways of distributing films to foreign language markets, studios would concurrently produce multiple versions of a film, using the same sets, props, etc, but have the spoken language be different in each one. Sometimes they would keep the same actors and/or director across versions, like with The Blue Angel (Der blaue Engel, Dir. Josef von Sternberg, 1930, Germany). Other times it was a completely different set of actors and directors, like Dracula (Dir. Todd Browning, 1931, USA) and Drácula (Dir. George Melford, 1931, USA). With F.P.1, director Karl Hartl shot all three versions, each with a different cast, in German, French and English. 

Which version did we watch? In early 2021 the only version I could track down was a Grapevine Video DVD release that included the German and English versions, but no subtitles. Had we paused our exercise, or been okay with going out of chronological order for a few weeks, we could have obtained Kino's August 2021 Blu-Ray release, which also features the German and English version, but includes English subtitles with the German version. Since we did not wait for that to become available, we went with the English version in the Grapevine Video transfer.

Reactions:

After doing multiple movies in a row where science fiction was intertwined with horror, it was nice to have a change of genre. With its aircraft carrier of the future at the center of the narrative, we got a military story and the first example in our survey of aviators as protagonists, or the "aeronautic sci-fi" subgenre as I like to identify the grouping. 

F.P.1 also represents what my partner refers to as "gas era" sci-fi. This era covers works where some kind of special gas serves as a superweapon or bleeding edge technology. Given the use of mustard gas in the first World War, it's not surprising that aerosolized chemicals became a trope in science fiction prior to the Atomic Age, when nuclear technology became the new default for advanced tech. Anyone who has ever watched the 1966s Batman television series knows that aerosol weapons never completely vanished from the genre post-Atomic Age, they just appeared less often.

As for the film itself, it was okay. I liked what I saw enough to pick up the Kino Blu-Ray release. I was hoping to do a re-watch and comparison of the German and English language versions for this post, but could not find the time to do so. I will do a follow up post in the future comparing those versions. I wish I could compare the French version too, especially since it stars Charles Boyer, but it seems inaccessible on contemporary video formats at present.

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Sci-Fi Saturday: Island of Lost Souls

Week 9:

Film(s): Island of Lost Souls (Dir. Erle C. Kenton, 1932, USA)

Viewing Format: Blu-Ray: Criterion Edition

Date Watched: July 9, 2021

Rationale for Inclusion:

Since antiquity humans have been telling stories about humans becoming animals, animals becoming humans, and human-animal hybrids. As humans moved from superstition and religion into scientific methodology for understanding the world around them, it follows that this obsession would inspire science fiction narratives.

In 1896, author H.G. Wells combined contemporary discourses around Darwinian evolution, Galtonian eugenics, and the anti-vivisection movement with a shipwreck narrative and published The Island of Dr. Moreau. All subsequent science fiction narratives that have involved the creation of animal-human hybrids through surgery or other technological means derive at least some of their inspiration from this book.

The novel was adapted into a silent film twice (once in France, once in Germany) before a sound adaptation was produced in Hollywood by Paramount Studios, Island of Lost Souls (Dir. Erle C. Kenton, 1932, USA). As with Frankenstein (Dir. James Whale, 1931, USA) and Doctor X (Dir. Michael Curtiz, 1932, USA), this film is part of the cycle of Pre-Code horror films produced in the wake of the popularity of Dracula (Dir. Todd Browning, 1931, USA). It also marks the first time a work of H.G. Wells is featured on the survey, which at 9 weeks into this series seems late given that he's one of the authors competing for the title of "Father of Science Fiction."

Aside from its place in the overall scientific genre, Island of Lost Souls would have been worth including for no other reason than its dialogue inspiring Devo's 1978 album Q: Are We Not Men? We are Devo!. The Criterion collection disc release even includes an interview with band members Gerald Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh talking about how the film inspired them.

Reactions:

Whilst Doctor X was a horror film with science fiction aesthetics, Island of Lost Souls is more science fiction film with horror aesthetics. The beast-men makeup makes Moreau's creations indeed disquieting and monstrous. The uncredited work of Charles Gemora and Wally Westmore lacks the artistry of Jack Pierce, but is nevertheless quality for the era. Dr. Moreau's laboratory in the House of Pain is minimalist compared to the apparatuses seen in the laboratories of Doctors Xavier and Frankenstein, but he is operating further from concentrated civilizations on a South Seas island, and apparently doesn't require as showy equipment.

As an adaptation of The Island of Dr. Moreau it's fairly accurate in terms of core plot and themes. The accuracy diverges due to including a love interest for the protagonist, Edward Parker (Richard Arlen), in his worried, yet resilient fiancee Ruth Thomas (Leila Hyams) and the retooling of the novel's Half-Finished Puma-Woman into Lota, The Panther Woman (Kathleen Burke). As with adaptations of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Hollywood filmmakers felt compelled to include a sexy, dark woman and a pure, wholesome fiancee counterpoint in what had previously been a homosocial narrative of male psychology and interpersonal dynamics. Apparently, the male filmmakers found it necessary to insert a Madonna-whore complex where there was none, or more likely wanted a "whore" and felt obligated to include a "Madonna" for the sake of propriety, and/or to not alienate the female audience as they perceived it and the censors.

However, the male filmmakers were not just interested in adding sex in Island of Lost Souls, but amping up the original novel's violence. Scenes of abuse, torture and surgery without anesthesia directed at the beast-men were all carryovers from the source material, but the grisly fate of Dr. Moreau (Charles Laughton) was unique to this adaptation. In The Island of Dr. Moreau the Half-Finished Puma-Woman and Moreau battle to the death. In Island of Lost Souls the beast-men rebel and get revenge on Moreau, dissecting him with his own surgical tools in the House of Pain.

To my partner and my 2020s eyes the dispatch of Moreau by his creations was shocking and horrific. We noted it was gruesome even by Pre-Code standards. Apparently to its contemporary audiences it went too far, and this scene, as well as others seen as too explicit, resulted in censored versions circulating or the film being outright banned in various countries. Other Pre-Code films, such as Frankenstein and King Kong (Dir. Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933, USA), suffered similar fates, and like them Island of Lost Souls would not be in circulation in their original theatrical cuts until restorations were performed decades later.

Island of Lost Souls offers more than shock value and a Pre-Code case study, however. Karl Struss' moody cinematography and the emphasis on the characters as much as the narrative situation makes for an engaging film. Bela Lugosi's Sayer of the Law, with make-up like a budget Wolfman, may play more as camp these days, but he is absolutely committed to his character. Similarly, Laughton's impish Moreau steals every scene that he is in. For fans of monster or mad scientist movies it's a necessary watch.

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Sci-Fi Saturday: Doctor X

Week 8:

Film(s): Doctor X (Dir. Michael Curtiz, 1932)

Viewing Format: DVD

Date Watched: July 2, 2021

Rationale for Inclusion:

As mentioned last week, the critical and box office success of Frankenstein (Dir. James Whale, 1931, USA) resulted in a rush to make additional horror and/or mad scientist films. This trend would slow after 1934, in part because the beginning of enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code sought to limit gruesome and violent content in American movies. The following weeks will include a handful of noteworthy examples of Pre-Code horror sci-fi. The first is Doctor X (Dir. Michael Curtiz, 1932, USA).

The main reason I included Doctor X in this survey, other than being a fan of the film, is that it was shot in two-color Technicolor. The color system, often incorrectly called "two-strip Technicolor", was the third iteration of the Technicolor motion picture color process. The color images produced originated on black and white film where each frame was captured first through a red filter, then a green one. Separate red and green color matrices would be created, dyed cyan-green and orange-red respectively, and in combination during the dye imbibition printing process created semi-realistic color images. 

It's only "semi-realistic" because blues and purples are not reproduced, thus not replicating all colors perceivable to the human eye. This lack would soon be corrected by adding a third color matrix in the fourth iteration of the process: three-strip Technicolor, the famous "glorious Technicolor" of mid-century Hollywood and British cinema.

Part of the joy of going through science fiction cinema chronologically is watching technology advance over time. So far we've gone from silent to sound, and with Doctor X we introduce the first film of the survey shot with a subtractive color process.

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Despite the overly elaborate lie-detector and laboratory set pieces in play, Doctor X is more of a horror film than a science fiction one. The main group of characters is a group of scientists and their leader Doctor Xavier (Lionel Atwill) uses a scientific contraption to suss out which of his colleagues is the allegedly cannibalistic serial killer on the loose, but the plot is more concerned with the crimes of the allegedly cannibalistic serial killer on the loose. The film also includes a beautiful woman being menaced by the reporter investigating Doctor Xavier's connection to the crimes, Lee Taylor (Lee Tracy), and the actual killer, in the form of a dark haired Fay Wray, as Doctor Xavier's daughter Joanne. Even before her legacy defining performance in King Kong (Dir. Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933, USA), Wray was an established scream queen.

As the film goes on it is revealed that the serial killer was not taking away parts of his victims to eat, as originally thought, but as research samples for creating synthetic flesh. This synthetic flesh can also apparently create muscles, tendons, bones, capillaries and all the other complex structures of the human body because, in addition to using his invention to disguise his face, the killer fashions a fully functional synthetic arm from the magical puddy. It's a shame that this technology is limited to a plot point instead of a core part of the narrative because it is conceptually fascinating. I suppose that's what Clayface plotlines in Batman media are for though.

Interestingly from a production and trivia standpoint is the fact that the horror effects make-up for the synthetic flesh was created by Max Factor. The company was known for its innovations in cosmetics with the specific demands of cinematic production in mind, but its focus was on creating beauty, not monsters. Granted, even Universal Studios' maestro of monsters Jack Pierce had a workload of applying mostly conventional beauty make-up. Specialists in special effects make-up, like Rick Baker, would not exist until after the disillusionment of the studio system.

The Technicolor shows off its ability to display color, but does not descend into what I call "Technicolor abuse," which I define as the use of color for spectacle more than contributing to the overall diegesis of the film. (For examples of Technicolor Abuse see The Adventures of Robin Hood (Dir. Michael Curtiz, 1938, USA) and Babes in Toyland (Dir. Jack Donohue, 1961, USA)) Given the overall emphasis on green in the film's color palette, the red heart beating in the jar in Dr. Wells' (Preston Foster) lab adds to the intended shock value of the moment. Cinematographer Ray Rennahan makes the most of two-color Technicolor's limited range to create beautifully composed, vivid scenes.Doctor X may be more horror than sci-fi, but it's still an entertaining genre flick. It was successful enough at the box office to result in Warner Brothers Studios making a follow up film again starring Atwill and Wray, with direction by Curtiz and Technicolor cinematography by Rennahan, The Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933). Like Doctor X it shows off two-color Technicolor at its best, but unlike its predecessor it's pure horror.

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Sci-Fi Saturday: Frankenstein

Week 7:

Film(s): Frankenstein (Dir. James Whale, 1931, USA)

Viewing Format: DVD

Date Watched: June 25, 2021

Rationale for Inclusion:

Science fiction is like a reality of sexual reproduction: while the father may not be readily known, the mother is always evident. Before any of the men competing for the title "Father of Science Fiction '' were born, Mary Shelley had lived, died, and in between wrote one of the most influential works of Western literature: Frankenstein; Or, the Modern Prometheus. Born a Gothic horror novel, it is now recognized as the first true science fiction story.

Like other popular novels of its era, Frankenstein was adapted first as plays and later as a one reel motion picture by the Edison company in 1910. However, the work's lasting legacy in popular culture and the public imagination would not become firmly established until 1931 when Boris Karloff shambled on screen in James Whale's Frankenstein.

Wanting to further cash in on the public's interest in adaptations of literary horror, Universal Studios green-lit Frankenstein after the record breaking success of Dracula (Dir. Todd Browning, 1931, USA). Originally slated to be a Bela Lugosi vehicle directed by the established Robert Florey, the project ended up under the direction of up and comer James Whale, who cast Karloff, a bit-player with 81 film credits to his name, as the Monster.

The film was a commercial and critical success in 1931. It spawned imitators, more literary horror adaptations, sequels, spoofs, and a host of pop culture references. In fact, when you hear the word "Frankenstein" you likely pictured Karloff as the Monster: green skinned, square headed and sporting neck bolts.

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For all its cultural influence, Frankenstein is not a faithful adaptation of Shelley's original novel. The script was adapted from a stage play adaptation of the novel by Peggy Webling, and along the way the novel's setting was updated to the present day and most key elements were greatly changed or discarded. Yet, the most profound difference between Whale's film and the novel is that the Monster is an inarticulate golem with a "criminal" brain, instead of an intelligent, articulate creature of horrible visage.

Given the influence of silent horror cinema on Universal's cycle of 1930s horror films, it follows that the criminal brain plot element was likely inspired by the foundational body horror film The Hands of Orlac (Dir. Robert Wiene, 1924, Austria), in which a concert pianist believes the hand transplant he received also included inheriting the donor's criminal tendencies. I am uncertain if the bad brain justifying why the creature was considered flawed and/or was prone to rampage originated in the Webling play, or in drafts of the screenplay when Florey was in charge of Frankenstein. At any rate, it was under Whale that the sympathy and innocence of the Creature in the novel was semi-restored.

In fact, for all the concern expressed by Henry Frankenstein's (Colin Clive) former teacher Dr. Waldman (Edward Van Sloan) about the criminal brain, as the story progresses it becomes clear to the audience that his brain is not the reason for violent acts committed by the Monster. Two of the three murders that the Monster commits over the course of the film are in self defense. The third, the infamous drowning of the little girl, is a terrible accident. Despite taking a different path to get there, Frankenstein still arrives at a core aspect of Shelley's original novel: the Creature is not inherently monstrous, but becomes so in response to the abuse and mistreatment he receives because of his grotesque appearance.

The concept of evil brains and a person's badness carrying over to transplanted pieces of their body persists in horror sci-fi. As previously noted, Frankenstein did not originate this trope, but it aided in popularizing it.

One thing Whale's film did originate is the common process by which the Monster comes to life. In Shelley's novel, the exact method of how Victor Frankenstein animates his creation is kept intentionally vague (so that the experiment cannot be repeated), though it is implied via a notable episode in his childhood that lightning, or rather electricity, plays a role. 

Harnessing electricity via spectacular laboratory equipment had previously been introduced in cinema via the set-up for giving the Maschinenmensch the likeness of Maria in Metropolis (Dir. Fritz Lang, 1927, Germany). Likely inspired by that sequence as well as Kenneth Strickfaden's work on the recently released Just Imagine (Dir. David Butler, 1930, USA), Whale hired Strickfaden to design Dr. Frankenstein's lab. Building off of what he had created for Just Imagine, Strickfaden created additional machinery, including a colossal Tesla coil, to give the impression of advanced, experimental technology at work. Even for people who have not seen Whale's Frankenstein, machinery with dials and meters and a sparking Tesla coil have come to define the stereotypical aesthetic of a mad scientist's lab, along with the crash of thunder, flash of lightning and screams of "it's alive!"

Yet, the Monster is frequently inaccurately referred to as "Frankenstein" for a reason: he more than his creator is the main attraction. Of all the essential contributors to Frankenstein I would be remiss if I closed out this post without discussing the marriage of Jack Pierce's effects make-up with Karloff's performance. It took four hours of Pierce building up cotton, collodion and gum, then applying a green greasepaint that would render Karloff's skin tone pale on the black and white film stock, to get the actor into character. Despite the primitive yet bespoke process, the final result did not inhibit Karloff's ability to deliver a performance that ranges from stoic to delighted to panicked, and allowed for nuanced as well as broad facial expressions. Pierce and Karloff's combined work remains a benchmark of artistic collaboration.

It seems hyperbolic to call Frankenstein a perfect film, but movies like it, where a blend of outstanding collaborators and serendipity produce something enduring and iconic, are rare. Whale's Frankenstein also represents, at least on this survey, the first time an adaptation innovated beyond its source material to become influential and noteworthy in its own right. I am not sure we will encounter another film where that is true until we get around to Blade Runner (Dir. Ridley Scott, 1982, USA).

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Sci-Fi Saturday: Just Imagine

Week 6:

Film(s): Just Imagine (Dir. David Butler, 1930, USA)

Viewing Format: YouTube

Date Watched: June 19, 2021

Rationale for Inclusion:

In looking into science fiction films of the 1930s, the first one I ran across that was new to me was also the first of its genre to receive an Academy Award nomination, Just Imagine (Dir. David Butler, 1930, USA). Not surprisingly if you're up on your Oscar history, this nomination came in an aesthetic category: Art Direction. Subsequently, designers Stephen Goosson and Ralph Hammeras lost to Max Rée for the Western Cimarron (Dir. Wesley Ruggles, 1931, USA). 

Other than being a piece of Academy Award trivia, including Just Imagine in our survey made sense because it was intermixed with genres we had not seen combined with sci-fi yet: comedy and the musical. The former was rarely seen combined with science fiction in the silent era, and the latter required the innovation of synchronized sound motion pictures.

Just Imagine is the first talking picture we watched, but it was not the first sound science fiction film produced. That distinction seems to belong to the 1929 adaptation of Jules Verne's The Mysterious Island (Dir. Lucien Hubbard, USA), which was produced as a silent film with a sound sequence and synchronized music track later added. I do not recall why we opted to skip this film in our survey: whether it was an issue of outright missing its existence and availability on DVD or through Archive.org, or intentionally skipping it because we had recently watched 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Dir. Stuart Patton, 1916, USA), which included narrative elements adapted from that novel.

At any rate, for its cross-genre whimsy and Oscar nomination, I decided Just Imagine needed to be included on our survey despite viewing access being inconvenient. Despite its historic status, no mainstream media or art house distribution service has made the film available on physical media or streaming. Various DVD-R versions circulate, and it can be found in unofficial versions on YouTube (as we watched it) or Archive.org.

Reactions:

The lack of mainstream release for Just Imagine makes sense for two reasons: due to copyright issues and only being of relative niche interest, late 1920s and early 1930s films aren't as widely available on contemporary home formats in general, and the film overall is not very good.

The main weaknesses of Just Imagine come down to its plot being a weak, rote triangulated romance, mediocre songs, and emphasis on Elmer "El" Brendel's comedy. Unlike his vaudevillian and cinematic contemporaries the Marx Brothers, Brendel's Swedish immigrant archetype has not retained his appeal or cultural relevance with later generations. However, his character's fish out of water immigrant schtick works well within the character's Rip Van Winkle inspired subplot.

The Academy wasn't wrong in nominating Just Imagine for its art direction though. The futuristic art deco city of 1980 is beautiful looking, and clearly indebted to the aesthetics of Metropolis (Dir. Fritz Lang, 1927, Germany), including video phones and personal airplanes instead of automobiles traveling between skyscrapers. The laboratory equipment that brings the fifty years dead Single O (Brendel) back to life was apparently too expensive a build for just one use because it was reused to more iconic effect the following year in Frankenstein (Dir. James Whale, 1931, USA). 

Single O's man from present day in the future storyline would be repeated in later sci-fi works, like the serial Buck Rogers (Dir. Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind, 1939, USA), movie Judge Dredd (Dir. Danny Cannon, 1995, USA), and television series Futurama (1999-2003, USA). Other genre tropes that come into play throughout the film include food in pill form, people receiving number designations, marriages being bureaucratically arranged, reproduction without the sex or body horror, and a trip to a Mars populated by Martians. None of these aspects originate with Just Imagine, just cement its genre status.

For sci-fi fans, the set pieces and tropes in play make Just Imagine worth watching at least once, if only to appreciate later, better iterations of its elements. For classic film and pre-code cinema fans, it's an interesting cultural artifact for no other reason but its cast featuring Brendel, Maureen O'Sullivan, and Joyzelle, she of the infamous "naked moon dance" in The Sign of the Cross (Dir. Cecil B. DeMille, 1932, USA).

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Sci-Fi Saturday: Woman in the Moon

Week 5:

Film(s): Woman in the Moon (Frau im Mond, Dir. Fritz Lang, 1929, Germany)

Viewing Format: Streaming - Kanopy via San Francisco Public Library

Date Watched: June 6, 2021

Rationale for Inclusion:

Including Woman in the Moon (Frau im Mond, Dir. Fritz Lang, 1929, Germany) on this survey came down to two reasons: curiosity about Fritz Lang's sci-fi follow up to Metropolis (1927, Germany) and the film's reputation as an early cinematic work of "hard" or "serious" science fiction.

For those not familiar with the term, for something to qualify as "hard" science fiction, the technology and world building needs to be based on available scientific facts, and theoretically, realistically possible. Its counterpart, "soft" science fiction comes up with fantastic notions, technology and worlds without much attention given to how these things could be produced in the real world. Neither approach is necessarily a superior way to craft a good work of science fiction. Whether you draw blueprints, or "just make it up," both paths have inspired, or predicted, later technology.

Lang's Metropolis is undoubtedly soft science fiction; its set pieces being more artistic than scientific. Witnessing him take a more factual approach to science fiction, with a foundational figure in the field of rocketry and aeronautics, Hermann Oberth, acting as consultant was an intriguing premise. 

Reactions:

Despite knowing that Woman in the Moon was a work of science fiction created with input from a German rocket scientist, my partner and I were still not fully prepared for the way space travel in the film used realistic multi-stage rockets, and depicted methods for how the rocket's passengers would deal with takeoff and landing G-forces and zero gravity in between. Logically, we knew our Space Race history and should not have been surprised: the United States imported Nazi Rocket scientists to help build its space program for a reason (i.e. the V-2 rocket). Yet seeing what became common operational features on a fictional spaceship in 1929, 17 years before the first US V-2 tests, was a paradigm shift.

For this reason, the detail that most sticks in my mind about this film is that the spaceship had leather handles all over its walls, to help passengers navigate around the ship in zero gravity.

However, as much as Woman in the Moon correctly prefigured many details of crewed space travel, it still got some things wrong. When the crew of the Friede reaches the far side of the moon, they discover that it has a breathable atmosphere, as theorized by astronomer Peter Andreas Hansen, and subsequently explore the surface without environmental suits or even oxygen tanks.

As much as I appreciate the film citing its sources, they picked a source that would save on budget and elevate the theories of a German scientist. Perhaps it was a legitimate belief in Hansen's work, not convenience or patriotism, that led to this choice, but the facts remain that an astronomer from the Republic of Ragusa (present day Croatia), Roger Joseph Boscovich, had correctly theorized 85 years prior that the moon lacked a breathable atmosphere. 

Yet, I do not think the use of Hansen's theories over Boscovich's detracts from the hard scientific elements of the narrative that turned out to be correct. I think Lang, or screenwriter and author of the novel on which the film was based Thea von Harbou, just wanted serious sci-fi elements and its protagonists to have the ability to kiss on the moon without spacesuits getting in the way. Even the best intentions of hard sci-fi can be derailed by mainstream romance conventions.

In revisiting this film for this blog post, it's admittedly hard to recall the plot without details from films we later watched from the 1950s interceding. The core facets of Woman in the Moon--an experimental rocket ship, a love triangle, stowaways, loss of a necessary component that imperils the crew's ability to return home--would be remixed and reused in similar films about experimental space flights to Earth's moon or Mars, such as Rocketship X-M (Dir. Kurt Neumann, 1950, USA) and Conquest of Space (Dir. Byron Haskin, 1955, USA). Yet this confusion only reinforces the status of Woman in the Moon as essential sci-fi cinema viewing: it told a semi-realistic tale of experimental crewed spaceflight decades before it became a bona fide sci-fi film sub-genre.

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Sci-Fi Saturday: Metropolis (1927)

Week 4:

Film(s): Metropolis (Dir. Fritz Lang, 1927, Germany)

Viewing Format: Blu-Ray: Kino Lorber The Complete Metropolis edition

Date Watched: June 5, 2021

Rationale for Inclusion:

Part of the reason for doing this chronological sci-fi film survey was an excuse for my partner and I to rewatch some of our favorite films, including Metropolis (Dir. Fritz Lang, 1927, Germany). My partner considers Metropolis to be his favorite silent film, period. I have a hard time making the same statement, but that has more to do with me rarely having a single favorite one of anything than my admiration and affection for this film.

Beyond our love for Metropolis, the film is a quintessential influence over the genre and human culture. The former is most obvious in how much C-3PO in Star Wars (Dir. George Lucas, 1977, USA)  resembles the Maschinenmensch. The latter is most obvious by the fact that in 2001 it became the first motion picture ever added to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)'s Memory of the World Register.

Its influence is ever the more impressive given that the most complete version of Metropolis was unavailable for most of its existence. When it premiered on January 10, 1927 at the UFA-Palast am Zoo in Berlin, Germany, the print was 4,189 meters (13,743.44 feet), giving it an approximate runtime of 153 minutes. Due to a combination of negative reviews and contracts with foreign distributors, shorter and shorter edits began circulating. By 1936, the official release prints of Metropolis were down to a 91 minute runtime, leaving audiences with slightly over half of the content of the original version.

Even in its butchered versions, the images rendered through Karl Freund's cinematography and Eugen Schüfftan's special effects captivated later generations. The first restoration was attempted in 1972 by Staatliches Filmarchiv der DDR in East Germany. Others followed, including Giorgio Moroder's 1984 pop music video version.

In 2001, the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation released the most comprehensive restoration attempted to that date, returning the film to a 124 minute runtime, rerecording its original score, and filling in missing footage with expository intertitles. Experts widely believed that this version would be the most complete edit of the film possible based on existent materials. And then in 2008, the existence of a scratched to hell 16mm print, derived from the original edit, in the archives of the Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires, Argentina was announced. 

In 2010, a restoration incorporating footage unique to the Argentinian print was released. This 148 minute version was the one we watched for this film survey.

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I am glad that neither my partner nor I watched Metropolis until the 2001 restoration was available on DVD. When we first saw that transfer in the summer of 2005, we were initially gobsmacked by how clean and early print generation it looked. We had seen silent films before, but not of that visual quality. 

Had we seen one of the shorter edits, or the remix that is the Moroder version, our relationship with the film would be different. The visuals and stunning special effects employed in the sequence where the Maschinenmensch is made to look like Maria (Brigitte Helm), the spiritual leader of the workers, amaze and captivate across all edits, but having the full narrative and subplot restored makes a huge difference.

As does the music that accompanies the film. No offense intended to Georgio Moroder or the Alloy Orchestra, both of whom created scores that capture the mix of machines and emotion that define Metropolis, but the original score composed by Gottfried Huppertz has a grandeur and sparkle to it that the others lack. I could be pedantic and claim the Huppertz score is superior because that was what director Fritz Lang wanted to accompany his film, but my preference for it is simply that it was love at first listen for me.

Fandom aside (if such a thing is possible), the influence of Metropolis on sci-fi cinema will become apparent long before we get around to Star Wars. The concerns about the stratification of society, workers vs corporations and negative influences of technology on humanity were all themes that were present in science fiction across media before Metropolis--as seen in Aelita: Queen of Mars--and would continue to be long after, not necessarily because of the film. Its aesthetics will be harkened back to frequently throughout this series.

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Sci-Fi Saturday: Aelita: Queen of Mars

Week 3:

Film(s): Aelita: Queen of Mars (Аэли́та, Dir. Yakov Protazanov, 1924, USSR)

Viewing Format: DVD

Date Watched: May 29, 2021

Rationale for Inclusion:

In retrospect, I did not research silent science fiction films as thoroughly as I should have going into this survey. A handful of additional titles should have been included, most notably A Trip to Mars (Himmelskibet, Dir. Holger-Madsen, 1918, Denmark). When we were coming up with the watch list, A Trip to the Moon (Le voyage dans la lune, Dir. Georges Méliès, 1902, France) and Metropolis (Dir. Fritz Lang, 1927, Germany) were the only silent films that immediately came to mind. The inclusion of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Dir. Stuart Patton, 1916, USA) came out of the chance discovery of the film's existence and availability, while Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Dir. John S. Robertson, 1920, USA) came from wanting to make sure that foundational text was represented.

Aelita: Queen of Mars (Аэли́та, Dir. Yakov Protazanov, 1924, USSR) was a film I waffled on including. I had last seen the film as an undergrad whilst taking a science fiction genre class back in 2006; I had even written a paper on it. I remembered that it was interesting, but overall not a great film. However, as I pondered it and dug into its history, I ran across a note that its costumes and production designs likely influenced later sci-fi films, like Metropolis and the Flash Gordon serials. 

With watching Metropolis being a given, I tracked down a copy of the Flicker Alley DVD release. (Although, like many existent silent films, since the film is in the public domain, you can view the whole film on archive.org) Besides, given the way the Cold War and Space Race would later influence the evolution of science fiction, Soviet and Russian cinema is essential viewing.

Reactions:

Watching Aelita again reinforced a lot of past opinions about it. Most of the narrative is more concerned with the stratification of society and manipulation of the workers, which for a film produced in the Soviet Union is not at all surprising. However, these aspects are politically and culturally interesting given that when Aelita was made the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) had only existed for two years, and Communist Russia was still figuring itself out.

The conflict between the desires of the individual and betterment of society plays into the discovery late in the film that the Mars scenes and rocketship development were all the daydreams of Los (Nikolai Tseretelli), an engineer. This revelation proceeds in a way akin to how Cecil B. DeMille made religious epics: the audience is given a sensational, decadent, sinful spectacle that is capped off with enforcement and promotion of proper social norms. The mysterious radio broadcasts that inspired Los turning out to be a commercial, and Los rejecting his daydreams of space travel that grew from it, shows how seductive and detrimental to society Capitalism can be, and how good comrades should reject it.

The Constructivist sets and costumes on Mars are definitely the highlight of the film. The abstract, angular and contrasting aesthetics are indeed alien looking relative to the shabby hodgepodge of attire and locales in the Communist Russia scenes, which is slightly ironic given how Constructivism would go on to define state propaganda as well as avant-garde art. I was so taken with the costuming in particular that one of these days I hope to make an amigurumi Aelita doll.

Speaking of the title character herself, Aelita (Yuliya Solntseva) is a stock seductive aristocrat willing to do whatever it takes to get herself more power and influence. Part of why Los kills his daydreams of Mars, and the beautiful Aelita, is how quickly she becomes a tyrant when she gains the throne of Mars, revealing that she had only exploited the revolting workers of Mars to serve as a coup. While this warning should have alerted Communist Russia to be skeptical of the intentions of all potential leaders, it only succeeded as an example of why the aristocracy is not to be trusted, based on how the history of the USSR played out.

It may only be a so-so film overall, but Aelita is an essential sci-fi film. If you're a fan of the genre, or silent cinema, it is worth seeing at least once.

[pandoramsbox]

Sci-Fi Saturday: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Week 2:

Film(s): Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Dir. John S. Robertson, 1920, USA)

Viewing Format: Streaming - Kanopy via San Francisco Public Library

Date Watched: May 22, 2021

Rationale for Inclusion:

Robert Louis Stephenson's 1886 novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a foundational text of both the science fiction and horror genres. The duality of the self, binary of good and evil, and conflict of the civilized versus bestial in humankind are all themes that when invoked throughout science fiction often harken back to this story. 

Dr. Henry Jekyll is also one of the prototypical mad scientists: his need to engage in bleeding edge scientific endeavors releases a destructive force on the world. He also represents the added cautionary tale of becoming his own test subject and subsequently destroying himself due to his discovery.

The novella was so popular that the year after its publication it was adapted into the first of many stage plays. The first film adaptations were produced in 1908. 

Trying to decide which of the film adaptations to watch was governed by a combination of access and cinematic quality. Most of the silent adaptations are no longer existent. I rejected the 1931 adaptation, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Dir. Rouben Mamoulian, USA), despite its brilliant combination of cinematic techniques and performances, because the abuse Frederic March's Mr. Hyde dishes out to Miriam Hopkins's Ivy Pierson is unpleasant to sit through. I had watched that film for the first time in 2020 and did not feel up to revisiting it so soon, or subjecting my partner to it.

Thus, I selected the 1920 version as an early representative cinematic adaptation of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde due to its availability, and because with John Barrymore in the lead role it was sure to be interesting. Plus, neither my partner nor I had seen it.

Reactions:

Unlike 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, at least one of us (me) had read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Based on my memories of the 1931 version and the book, this 1920 adaptation seemed more faithful to the book. Granted, adaptations of the book for stage and screen tend to include love interests--both a nice, respectable fiancée and a dancer in a dive bar--in order to add to the moral bifurcation of Jekyll and Hyde. This choice not only drew from heteronormative societal expectations, but another Victorian literary work about the bifurcation of the self and morality which debuted four years after The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wild.

Nevertheless, the 1920 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is representative of its original source material and the cultural sensation that it caused.

As a cinematic work of science fiction, it features the kind of chemistry set-up--tubes and beakers and heated flasks--that would become standard for any mad scientist's laboratory. Given that earlier film adaptations of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein exist, this set piece did not debut in the 1920 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but it is the first time the trope manifests in this film survey.

Another genre staple of science fiction (as well as fantasy and horror) cinema that made its debut in our survey via Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as well: special effects make-up. While much of Jekyll's transformations to and from Hyde were conveyed through legendary actor John Barrymore's performance and standard hair and make-up styling, prosthetic fingers were part of the costuming for Hyde. Future adaptations would go heavier on the prosthetic and effects make-up, but they also featured actors that did not have the same stage training and skill set as Barrymore.

Overall the 1920 adaptation represents the book and its influential themes well. Barrymore's performance is a definite draw for classic cinema fans, and it is overall a solid silent film production. If you do not have access to Kanopy via your local library, this public domain film can be accessed through other streaming services, including Archive.org, or by Kino Lorber produced physical copies.

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Sci-Fi Saturday: Méliès and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Week 1:

Film(s): A Trip to the Moon (Le voyage dans la lune, Dir. Georges Méliès, 1902, France)

The Impossible Voyage (Le Voyage à travers l'impossible, Dir. Georges Méliès, 1904, France)

The Inventor Crazybrains and His Wonderful Airship (Le dirigeable fantastique, Dir. Georges Méliès, 1906, France)

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Dir. Stuart Patton, 1916, USA)

Viewing Format: Méliès films via Criterion Channel; 20,00 Leagues via Kino Lorber Blu-Ray.

Date Watched: May 15, 2021

Rationale for Inclusion:

Internationally iconic, and widely associated with both silent cinema and science fiction, for its shot of a rocket piercing the eye of the moon, it went without saying that this chronological watch through of science fiction cinema would begin with A Trip to the Moon (Le voyage dans la lune, Dir. Georges Méliès, 1902, France).

But why watch just ONE Méliès film, especially when they range from a few minutes to 20 minutes in length? The Criterion Channel had Lobster Films' transfers of stencil colored prints available for viewing, so I also selected two other films that could be classified as science fiction, or at least "scientific romances": The Impossible Voyage (Le Voyage à travers l'impossible, Dir. Georges Méliès, 1904, France) and The Inventor Crazybrains and His Wonderful Airship (Le dirigeable fantastique, Dir. Georges Méliès, 1906, France).

In the case of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Dir. Stuart Patton, 1916, USA), I either did not know the film existed, or had forgotten it existed, until I ran across a listing for it during a home video sale on Kino Lorber's website. I impulse bought a copy, curious to see what an adaptation of Jules Verne's submarine story made the year after D.W. Griffith's masterpiece of racism and cinematic technique The Birth of a Nation (1915, USA) would look like. I later learned that this version of 20,000 Leagues was the first motion picture to include underwater sequences, and was part of why the Universal Film Manufacturing Company transitioned into becoming the Universal Pictures Corporation. My reaction to the latter was, "What is it with Universal Studios being saved by movies about sea creatures?" (See also: "Jaws" (Dir. Steven Spielberg, 1975, USA).)

Reactions:

The Méliès Films

Foundational genre staples are all represented in these films:

Aliens

Space travel

Aquatic exploration

Mad scientists

The Impossible Voyage is a pseudo sequel to A Trip to the Moon, both in terms of content and Méliès building on the special effects and filmmaking techniques used in the latter. However, The Inventor Crazybrains and His Wonderful Airship probably should not have been included in our viewing as its content consists of a celestial hallucination, not an actual sci-fi narrative. It also was a let down compared to the other films.

The transfers of the films with their applied color processes were gorgeous. It adds to the mood, wonder, and iconic quality of Méliès' work.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

The overarching feeling after watching this film was that my partner and I really need to actually read Jules Verne's novels. Had we more familiarity with his works, we would have been able to identify 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea as an adaptation of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea as well as its sequel The Mysterious Island. Heck, we would have known that Twenty Thousand Leagues had a sequel! And in knowing about The Mysterious Island, which includes Captain Nemo's tragic backstory as being a dethroned Indian prince, it would have been less surprising to see Nemo depicted as East Asian.

Given how culturally acceptable racism was in 1916, I was shocked to see a mainstream American film where the tragic hero inventor was Asian and not a one dimensional stereotype or played by Sessue Hayakawa. Granted anything progressive about the character is undermined by the fact that actor Allen Holubar is a white man in brown face.

An entire essay or thesis could be (and probably has been) devoted to the history of how Captain Nemo's ethnicity has been depicted in various adaptations over the years. I would love to research or read that, honestly.

Anyway, narratively and stylistically 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea felt more modern than my partner and I expected for a film from 1916, and we were left wondering how much of it was from the source novels.

The underwater scenes were impressive and inventive given that the footage had to be captured via a complex set-up involving an observation pod. The footage was a spectacle in and of itself.

Overall a good film, and it paired well with the Méliès' films.