The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is a 1953 science fiction film directed by Eugène Lourié and stars Paul Christian, Paula Raymond and Cecil Kellaway with visual effects by Ray Harryhausen. The film is about an atomic bomb test in the Arctic Circle that unfreezes a hibernating fictional dinosaur, a Rhedosaurus, that begins to wreak havoc in New York City. It was one of the first monster movies that helped inspire the following generation of creature features, coining it with the atomic age.

Trivia:

Vera Miles and Paul Picerni appear in the trailer for this film, but not in the film itself.

While visiting his friend Ray Harryhausen on the set, Ray Bradbury was given a copy of the script (which was going under the working title “Monster From the Sea”) and was asked if he could possibly do some rewriting on it. After reading the script, Bradbury remarked about a scene in the story (which featured the monster destroying a lighthouse) that seemed very similar to a short story that he had published in “The Saturday Evening Post” several years earlier called “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms”. Bradbury’s story was about a dinosaur that destroys a lighthouse. The next day Bradbury received a telegram offering to buy the film rights to the story. After the sale, the films title was changed to “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms”. Years later when Bradbury had his story reprinted he changed the title to “The Fog Horn”.

The dinosaur skeleton in the museum sequence is artificial. It was obtained from storage at RKO where it had been constructed for Bringing Up Baby (1938).

The “Coney Island Amusement Park” in the film is actually The Long Beach Amusement Park in Long Beach, California. The production was able to film at the park from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m.

The film is based on a short story by Ray Bradbury.

This film (which was inspired by the successful 1952 re-release of KING KONG) was the first film to feature a giant creature awakened or mutated by a Nuclear Bomb.

Deleted Scene: The 2003 DVD release reveals one shot of the Rhedasaurus that was omitted from the final film. That shot can be found in the trailer for “The Black Scorpion” (in special features) about 1/2 through the preview. (Spoiler: The Beast is walking, breast high, toward screen right. The background shows 2 buildings; one of them with fire escapes. Superimposed title card states, “You’ve thrilled to the terror of The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.”

When the radio announcer is reading the news about the monster’s rampage through New York, various shots of the city are shown, mostly with panicked citizens in the street. When the announcer mentions the situation at Times Square, the accompanying footage shows the Palace Theater, whose marquee reads “Judy Garland – Live and in Person.”

Warner Brothers bought the film from producers Hal E. Chester and ‘Jack Deitz’ for $450,000.

Before the film was sold to Warner Brothers, it contained an original music score composed by Michel Michelet. Execs at Warners felt Michelet’s score wasn’t powerful enough so they replaced it with an original score by David Buttolph.

Some film aficionados might recognize Alvin Greenman, the first character to speak after the narrator, and the first to notice the beast on on the radar. Six years earlier he played Alfred, the Macys Janitor in Miracle on 34th Street (1947). TV aficionados though might recognize the second character to speak. Playing the part of Charlie is actor James Best, best remembered for his role as Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane from “The Dukes of Hazzard” (1979).

This was said to have been one of the inspirations for Tomoyuki Tanaka to go ahead and film Gojira (1954).

When the streets are being cleared once the beast comes ashore in NYC, films appearing on various theater marquees are “Detective Story”, “Come Fill The Cup” and “Across The Wide Missouri”.

During the octopus/shark sequence, some of the footage was obviously shot in an aquarium, because some of the octopus’ suckers are gripping the glass.

This Island, Earth is a 1955 American science fiction film directed by Joseph M. Newman. It is based on the novel of the same name by Raymond F. Jones. The film stars Jeff Morrow as the alien Exeter, Faith Domergue as Dr. Ruth Adams, and Rex Reason as Dr. Cal Meacham. The film was one of the first major science fiction films to be made in Technicolor. In 1996, This Island Earth was also edited down and lampooned in the film Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie.

When initially released, the film was praised by most critics, many citing the special effects, well-written script and eye-popping color (prints by Technicolor) as being its major assets.

Many critics cite the special effects as the strongest element in This Island Earth, which were ground breaking for their time and are considered by many film buffs to be comparable to modern special effects.

The film was one of the last films to use the three-strip Technicolor filming process. Even during production, the film’s special effects were shot on the more conventional Eastman color process, which most studios had already adopted.

Escape from the Planet of the Apes is a 1971 science fiction film starring Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, and Bradford Dillman. It is the second sequel to the Planet of the Apes movie of 1968, the first sequel being Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970). Its plot centers around many social issues of the day including race, social status, scientific experimentation on animals, nuclear war and government intrusion as well as women’s rights.

In this film, actor Roddy McDowall returns to recreate the character of Cornelius which he created but did not portray in its entirety in the previous film. A new character of Dr. Milo is introduced played by actor Sal Mineo, who hoped his career would gain from the new project much as McDowall’s career had from participating in the first film. Charlton Heston, star of the first film and supporting actor in the second, appears in this third installment only in two brief flashback sequences.

Trivia:

The film’s villain, Dr. Hasslein, had been briefly mentioned at the beginnings of Planet of the Apes (1968) and Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970).
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Sal Mineo found the make-up uncomfortable, so the script was re-written to kill his character off earlier than planned. This was Mineo’s final theatrical film.
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The third of five Planet of the Apes movies starring Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter.
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Roddy McDowall and Natalie Trundy are the only cast members to appear in 4 of the 5 original “Planet of the Apes” movies. Roddy McDowall appeared all except the first sequel, Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970). Natalie Trundy did not appear in the original Planet of the Apes (1968) movie, but appeared in all 4 sequels.

Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone is a 1983 pulp, action-comedy, science fiction film. The movie stars Peter Strauss, Molly Ringwald, Ernie Hudson, Andrea Marcovicci, and Michael Ironside. The film’s executive producer was Ivan Reitman, (producer of such films as National Lampoon’s Animal House and Ghostbusters), and it was directed by Lamont Johnson. The film had an adventurous music score composed by Elmer Bernstein.

When the movie came out in theaters, parts of it were shown in 3-D and the film became part of the 3-D movie revival craze of the early 1980s.

The movie is about a bounty hunter who goes on a mission to rescue three women stranded on a brutal planet and meets a vagrant teenage girl along the way.

Trivia:

The “tape machines” were on loan from Brainstorm (1983), which was being filmed on an adjacent set.

While it was common for 3-D movies to also be released simultaneously in flat versions, the two versions of this movie were shown at different ratios. 3-D prints were projected at 2.35:1, while flat prints were only 1.85:1. Thus, the flat widescreen DVD version from Columbia TriStar is correctly presented at 1.85:1 and not 2.35:1, as erroneously listed on the DVD case.

The Thing from Another World (often referred to as The Thing before its 1982 remake), is a 1951 science fiction film that tells the story of an Air Force crew and scientists at a remote Arctic research outpost who fight a malevolent plant-based alien being. It stars Kenneth Tobey, Margaret Sheridan, Robert Cornthwaite and Douglas Spencer. James Arness appeared as The Thing, difficult to recognize in costume and makeup. No players are named during the opening credits; the only cast credit is at the movie’s end.

In 2001, the film was deemed “culturally significant” by the United States Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry

Trivia:

• It is generally believed that Howard Hawks took over direction during production, and it has always been acknowledged by director Christian Nyby that Hawks was the guiding hand. However, in an interview James Arness said that while Hawks spent a lot of time on the set, it was Nyby who actually directed the picture, not Hawks.
• Partly filmed in Glacier National Park and at a Los Angeles ice storage plant.
• This film was based on the short story “Who Goes There?” by Don A. Stuart. The credits on this film list the author by his real name, the science fiction editor/writer John W. Campbell Jr.
• Midget actor Billy Curtis played the smaller version of “The Thing” during the creature’s final scene.
• James Arness complained that his “Thing” costume made him look like a giant carrot.

Thing from Another World with James Arness

• Howard Hawks asked the US Air Force for assistance in making the film. He was refused because the top brass felt that such cooperation would compromise the U.S. government’s official stance that UFOs didn’t exist.
• It is believed that Ben Hecht and William Faulkner, both good friends of producer Howard Hawks, contributed to the script. However, long-standing rumors that Orson Welles contributed to the dialog are believed to be untrue.
• Two months prior to principal photography, James Arness was brought in during the design and development of the makeup.
• Close-ups of “The Thing” were removed. It was felt that the make-up could not hold up to close scrutiny. However, the lack of close-ups gave the creature a more mysterious quality.
• James Arness reportedly regarded his role as so embarrassing that he didn’t attend the premiere.
• It took makeup artist Lee Greenway five months and 18 sculptures of the creature before he came up with a design that satisfied producer Howard Hawks.
• When producer Howard Hawks attempted to get insurance for the creature, five insurance companies turned him down because “The Thing” was to be frozen in a block of ice, hacked by axes, attacked by dogs, lit on fire, and electrocuted.
• The famous scene when the crew formed a ring around the flying saucer frozen in the ice, was actually filmed at the RKO Ranch in the San Fernando Valley in 100-degree weather.
• This was the first of only two films made by Howard Hawks’ own production company, Winchester Pictures Corporation. Winchester was Hawks’ middle name.
• The scene in which The Thing is doused with kerosene and set ablaze is believed to be the first full body burn accomplished by a stunt man.
• Veteran stunt man Tom Steele replaced James Arness in the fire scene. Steele wore an asbestos suit with a special fiberglass helmet with an oxygen supply underneath. He use a 100% oxygen supply which was highly combustible. It was pure luck he didn’t burn his lungs whilst breathing in the mixture.
• According to make up artist Lee Greenway, he took James Arness in his car to the home of producer Howard Hawks to show off the make up for the Thing. After months of frustration, Hawkes told Greenway to put a Frankenstein (1931) type of head piece on Arness.
• Scotty mentions being at the execution of Ruth Snyder and Judd Gray. This is a real case. The couple were tried for and convicted of the murder of Snyder’s husband in 1927 and were executed in New York by the electric chair.

Read more about “The Thing” Prequel Here!  coming soon!!

Forbidden Planet is a 1956 science fiction film in CinemaScope and Metrocolor directed by Fred M. Wilcox and starring Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis and Leslie Nielsen. The characters and setting were inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and the plots have many similarities.

The film features a number of Oscar-nominated special effects, groundbreaking use of an all-electronic music score, and the first screen appearance of both Robby the Robot and the C-57D flying saucer starship.

Trivia:

• First mainstream film to have the music performed entirely by electronic instruments.
• Louis Barron and Bebe Barron worked on the electronic soundtrack music “tonalities” for only three months, the length of time given them by Dore Schary, head of MGM. He authorized the studio to send them a complete workprint at Christmas 1955. They received the complete 35mm Eastmancolor workprint at New Year’s 1956, a week later, still with many visual effects sequences missing and timed in with blank leader by editor Ferris Webster. From January 1, 1956 to April 1, 1956, they worked on the soundtrack score in their Greenwich Village studio in New York City while the film was in post-production in Culver City. The score was completed and delivered to MGM on April 1, 1956, and the film was released for a studio sneak preview soon afterward. The musician’s union, however, objected to the soundtrack, and blocked the Barrons from being credited as “composers”, hence the term “electronic tonalities”.
• Apart from the electronic tonalities composed by Louis Barron and Bebe Barron, the music score known to many as “Forbidden Planet Fanfare – Parts 1 & 2″ on the original 1956 theatrical trailer was composed by André Previn, and pieced together seamlessly by an MGM music editor. The music was originally written by Previn for the MGM films Scene of the Crime (1949) and Bad Day at Black Rock (1955).
• David Rose, composer of light orchestral music such as “Holiday For Strings”, was originally hired to write the score. He was relieved of his contract by producer Dore Schary in December 1955 when Schary discovered avant-garde electronic music creators Louis and Bebe Barron in a nightclub in Greenwich Village, New York, and hired them on the spot. The only confirmed piece of music which still remains from Rose’s discarded original score is his Main Title Theme, which he released as a single on MGM Records in 1956.
• Loosely based on “The Tempest” by William Shakespeare.
• The model of the “flying saucer” style Earth space cruiser was retained by the MGM prop department and subsequently used in a number of productions on the MGM lot, including the “To Serve Man” of the “The Twilight Zone” (1959). Robby the Robot, his ground transporter, and crew uniforms would be used on that show as well.
• MGM insisted on changes to Cyril Hume’s script by adding comic relief scenes with the ship’s cook (played in the final film by Earl Holliman). Among these scenes was one in which Robby the Robot responds to the cook’s complaint about the lack of female companionship by bringing him a female chimp. The scene was reportedly not filmed.
• In preparing this film for production, MGM borrowed a print of This Island Earth (1955) from Universal-International.
• Film debut of Robby the Robot.
• This movie was filmed on the same sound-stage on which the movie The Wizard of Oz (1939) had been filmed seventeen years earlier; the set of Altaira’s garden is a reuse of the Munchkin Village set from The Wizard of Oz.
• The reaction from the preview audience to this film was so positive that it was released as it was, with no further changes to the movie. The result is that there are several rapid takes toward the story’s end.
• Robert Kinoshita, who is credited as building Robby the Robot, was also Art Director for the TV series “Lost in Space” (1965). Many of the Lost in Space Robot’s features are similar to Robby’s: glass “head” with animated elements; rotating antenna “ears” (although LiS Robot’s ears rarely moved after the pilot episode); flashing light “mouth”; chest panel with more animated elements. For that matter, much of the layout of Forbidden Planet’s spaceship is mirrored by LiS’s Jupiter 2: saucer shape; integral landing gear/entry stairs; lower external dome with animated lights; central, plexi-domed navigation station; vertical hibernacula arranged along perimeter. In addition, Robby and the LiS Robot had a couple of “family reunions” in two LiS episodes: “Lost in Space: War of the Robots (#1.20)” (1966) and “Lost in Space: Condemned of Space (#3.1)” (1967).
• The trailer for this film was narrated by Marvin Miller, who also provided the voice for ‘Robby The Robot’.
• The planet on which Edward and Altaira Morbius live is Altair IV, which according to “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” (1993) is also a Federation planet. Director Fred M. Wilcox consulted with scientists before making the decision that the planet’s sky would be green.
• The special effects artists used split-screen traveling mattes to make images appear and disappear, such as the piece of fruit Morbius lobs at the “household disintegrator beam” and the tiger that Commander Adams vaporizes. See the “Goofs” section for problems caused by this process.
• The scene in which the image of Altaira appears in the Krell’s “plastic educator” device was achieved with several special effects, including superimposed film footage of the charge from an electrical generator, hand-drawn animation, and a traveling matte cut from film footage of Anne Francis.
• The “electronic tonalities” created by Louis Barron and Bebe Barron were reused several years later in another science fiction film From the Earth to the Moon (1958) that was produced by RKO.
• Robby the Robot currently resides in the private collection of director William Malone
• To increase the sense of depth, the opening image of the spaceship approaching the camera is actually composed of two shots: the first of a small model, the second of a larger model travelling on the same track. The ship passes into and out of a shadow to conceal the cut.
• When the film was first released theatre goers were given special paper glasses with red lenses. The glasses were to be used during certain scenes involving the invisible monster (“Monster from the ID”). You were alerted that it was time to put on your special glasses by flashes on the screen. When you put on the special glasses the invisible monster was revealed.
• The movie’s poster was as #5 of “The 25 Best Movie Posters Ever” by Premiere.
• The film was originally conceived and approved by MGM’s Dore Schary, himself no fan of science fiction, as a B-picture. The studio’s art department, still headed by veteran Cedric Gibbons pulled out all stops. The budget ballooned to $1.9 million and barely managed to break even amid a dismal year for the studio. The relative failure of the film was cited as a reason for Schary’s ouster soon after.
• MGM had had a full animation department at one time but by 1956 it was largely dismantled. Critical animation effects (landing beam, weapons, Robby overloading, the Id Monster) were provided by Joshua Meador on loan to MGM from Disney. Meador’s recognizable style can be readily discerned from that of the other three effects animators working on Alice in Wonderland (1951) and in other Disney releases.
• The Spaceship C57D, models and full-size prop was actually used in seven episodes of “The Twilight Zone” (1959). The list is as follows by season, “Third from the Sun”, “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street”, “The Invaders”, “To Serve Man”, “Hocus-Pocus and Frisby”, “Death Ship” and “On Thursday We Leave for Home”. Robby’s vehicle does appear in one episode. In “The Rip Van Winkle Caper”, at the end when the final surviving gold thief is dying, a futuristic car stops and he begs for water. This is Robby’s vehicle. The crew’s outfits were used in a number of episodes, not to mention also in The Time Machine (1960) along with some props. The flickering force-field fence-posts appeared in Atlantis, the Lost Continent (1961) and were last seen being placed at the bottom of the ocean in Around the World Under the Sea (1966/I).
• “Star Trek” (1966) creator Gene Roddenberry has been quoted as saying that this film was a major inspiration for the series. Perhaps not coincidentally, Warren Stevens, who plays “Doc” here, would later be a guest star in the 1968 episode “By Any Other Name”, where the true shape of the alien Kelvans, like the Krell in this movie, was implied to be extremely non-humanoid but never shown.
• The time aboard the C57D is stated as being 17:01 hours when the ship enters orbit around Altair IV. Gene Roddenberry, a fan of this movie, would later use 1701 as the naval construction contract number of the Starship Enterprise.
• Studio chief Dore Schary and producer Nicholas Nayfack were unsure about releasing the film with a solely electronic score by Louis Barron and Bebe Barron. A rough cut of the film was previewed with the electronic score. The audience reaction to the film overall was so favorable that Dore Schary ordered the rough cut to be released with the electronic score and no further editing.
• This is the first science film to succeed without having a “name” character in the cast such as Flash Gordon.
• Bellerophon is a hero from Greek mythology. His greatest feat was the destruction of the Chimera, a monster who breathed fire.
• The opening narration states “In the final decade of the twenty-first century, Man set foot on the moon.” That actually happened in 1969, 13 years after the movie was released, but 121 years earlier than the prediction.

The Andromeda Strain is a 1971 American science-fiction film, based on the novel published in 1969 by Michael Crichton about a team of scientists who investigate a deadly organism of extraterrestrial origin that causes rapid, fatal blood clotting. Directed by Robert Wise, the film starred Arthur Hill, James Olson, Kate Reid, and David Wayne. The film follows the book closely. The special effects were designed by Douglas Trumbull.

Trivia:

• The germ from space cost $250,000 to create in special effects.
• The Wildfire scientific lab sets cost more than $300,000 to build, and were described at the time as “one of the most elaborately detailed interiors ever built.”
• The Central Core set required the digging of a 70 ft deep by 30 ft wide hole in a soundstage.
• In the novel, the character of Leavitt is a man, but is a woman (played by Kate Reid) in the film.
• Michael Crichton wrote the rough draft for the novel from which this film is adapted while he was still a medical student. He was inspired after a conversation with one of his teachers about the concept of crystal-based life-forms.
• Leavitt in a protest against inserting something to clean out the GI tract makes the statement about “risked drowning in that foul bath”. The book, but not the movie, had the Wildfire Team submerge completely in an antibiotic solution. The scene may have been cut, but Leavitt still makes reference to it in the movie.
• Dr Stone says, “The SDS has arrived, no doubt.” when his wife says someone is at the door to see him. The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a college protest group active in the late 1960s to whom Dr Stone alludes.
• The monkey was “killed” by being placed in a large set filled with carbon dioxide. When the monkey’s cage, containing oxygen was opened, it was rendered unconscious by the CO2. An Assistant director was off camera and brought a breathing apparatus to the monkey who recovered immediately.
• At the plane crash site, the actor that was supposed to call out, “Major Mancheck,” fell out of his trailer and broke his leg. He was replaced on the spot with actor Robert ‘Bob’ Olen, who did the lines but was never credited for it.
• The computer error “601″ occurred because of a system overload while trying simulate Andromeda’s growth and mutation. The error number is a reference to the computer overload error of “1202″ (exactly double) which occurred on the LEM during the first lunar descent.
• In Sept. 1972, Universal was exhibiting this on a double bill with Airport (1970) with the tag line “Together On One Great Family Program”.
• Michael Crichton was invited to take a tour of Universal Studios during the production of this film. His guide was none other than Steven Spielberg, who go on to adapt his most successful novel, Jurassic Park (1993).

THX 1138 is a 1971 science fiction film directed by George Lucas, from a screenplay by Lucas and Walter Murch. It depicts a dystopian future in which a high level of control is exerted upon the populace through omnipresent, faceless, android police officers and mandatory, regulated use of special drugs to suppress emotion, including sexual desire.

It was the first feature-length film directed by Lucas, developed from his student film Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, which he made in 1967 while attending the University of Southern California.  The film was produced in a joint venture between Warner Brothers and Francis Ford Coppola’s then-new production company, American Zoetrope. A novelization by Ben Bova was published in 1971.

Trivia:

• George Lucas claims that the scene where technicians mess with THX’s nervous system, sending him into comical spasms, was drawn from his antipathy towards the doctors who treated him after his near-fatal car crash as a youth.
• The underground chase near the end was shot in a not-yet-completed segment of the BART subway system in San Francisco.
• The music playing during the end credits is the first movement from Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244.
• Shortly after THX steals a police car, and shortly before his fellow escapee crashes the one he tries to steal, you can hear someone on the radio say, “I think I ran over a wookie back there on the expressway.”
• A scene in which THX falls into a garbage compactor and fends off a mutated rodent was cut because the monster did not look realistic. This situation was later reused in Star Wars (1977).
• The opening credits scroll down instead of up.
• George Lucas has worked the title of this film, or parts of it, in some of his other films. In American Graffiti (1973), the license plate of one car is “THX 138″. In Star Wars (1977), a reference is made to “prison cell 1138″. The cinema sound certification his company developed is called “THX”.
• This film was made as a result of George Lucas’ student film short project at USC, Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB (1967). Having won significant praise and attention for what was, at the time, an unconventional short, Lucas was given the opportunity to direct a feature-length version starring Robert Duvall, produced by his mentor Francis Ford Coppola under his newly formed production company American Zoetrope. Zoetrope was a financial failure, as was “THX-1138″, but the attention was enough to win Lucas the opportunity to make American Graffiti (1973), the success of which paved the way for the opportunity to make Star Wars (1977).
• Director George Lucas insisted on casting the stage actor James Wheaton over Orson Welles to play the voice of “OMM” in the film.
• In the computer room near the end of the film, the lights on one computer can be seen flashing the word “TILT”.
• This was the first film for Francis Ford Coppola’s American Zoetrope.
• Officials at Warner Bros. did not like the finished film. They cut the film and reduced the marketing budget.
• George Lucas apparently named the film after his San Francisco telephone number, 849 1138 – the letters THX correspond to letters found on the buttons 8, 4 and 9.
• To provide the large number of extras required, George Lucas contacted the Synanon drug rehabilitation facility. He found many recovering drug users who were required to be shaved bald for the drug program anyway.
• To provide the voices of the unseen overseers and announcers, George Lucas contacted San Francisco-based theater group The Committee. He gave them brief character outlines, and allowed the actors to improvise all the “overheard” dialogue in the movie.
• Co-writer Walter Murch has said in interviews that George Lucas never explained the origins of the character names THX and LUH to him, but he believes that they are deliberate homonyms for sex and love – the two factors that set them apart from society.
• Publicity photos and some foreign posters and video covers feature a shot from a scene not included in the final film: The police robots approaching the dead body of the OHM priest (who SEN killed earlier) and checking for a pulse.
• For the final sequence in which THX is climbing up to the surface, it is a simple perspective trick. It is not a ladder, but re-bar embedded in concrete. The actors are actually crawling along a horizontal surface. By tilting the camera to appropriate angles, it appears that the characters are climbing upward.
• The cat-and-mouse chase scene between THX and the robot cops was apparently shot in a telephone exchange; the endless rows of electronic equipment are actually telephone switches.
• Average Shot Length (ASL) = 6 seconds
• George Lucas’s original plan was to shoot the film in Japan, but Francis Ford Coppola did not give Lucas enough money in the film’s budget to take the entire production to Japan. The film was shot in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
• Some of SEN’s dialogue is taken from speeches by Richard Nixon.
• David Ogden Stiers’s film debut.
• The image of OMM in the confessional booths is a cropped image of Hans Memling’s painting, ‘Christ Giving His Blessing’, dated 1481.
• The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) features a car chase where the license plate is given as THX 375. The cinematographer on this film was Douglas Slocombe who would go on to work with Steven Spielberg, a long time friend of George Lucas.

Silent Running is a 1972 environmentally-themed science fiction film, directed by Douglas Trumbull, who had previously worked as a special effects supervisor on such science fiction films as 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Andromeda Strain.

Silent Running depicts a future in which all plant life on Earth has been made extinct, except for a few specimens preserved in a fleet of space-borne freight ships converted to carry greenhouse domes. When orders come from Earth to jettison and destroy the domes, the botanist aboard the greenhouse-ship ‘Valley Forge’ (Bruce Dern) rebels, and eventually opts instead to send the last dome into deep space to save the remaining plants and animals. The film costars Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin and Jesse Vint.

Trivia:

• Douglas Trumbull says that he learned how to be a director while working on this film, as he had no training or experience in the job.
• To keep costs down, Trumbull hired college students for modelmaking and other such special effects work. One of them, John Dykstra, went on to a distinguished special effects career of his own.
• The three drone robots Huey, Dewey, and Louie (named after Donald Duck’s nephews) were operated by four multiple-amputee actors: Mark Persons, Steve Brown, Cheryl Sparks, and Larry Whisenhunt.
• The decommissioned Essex-class aircraft carrier “Valley Forge,” a veteran of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, served as the interior of the space freighter “Valley Forge.” The flight control area and hangar deck of the carrier were modified and painted to represent the space freighter in the film. The carrier was scrapped after filming was complete.
• The model of the “Valley Forge” space freighter was 26 feet in length and was constructed of steel, wood, plastic, and over 650 army tank model kits. This model no longer exists, as it was disassembled and destroyed several years after filming. At least one original “dome” from the model has survived in good condition, and was offered on an Internet auction site in 2003 – it sold for $11,000, and currently rests in a science fiction museum in Seattle, Washington, USA.
• The “Odyssey” carts the crew members drive in the film were custom-built on a chassis designed by the director’s father.
• Several shots of the Valley Forge and its sister ships were later re-used in the television series “Battlestar Galactica,” as agricultural ships in the refugee fleet.
• Filmed in February and March of 1971 on a 32-day-schedule.
• The “Saturn sequence” was originally intended to be featured in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), but the technology needed for the visual effects team to do such a sequence was not ready for use.
• Although only three “space freighters” are visible (“Valley Forge”, “Berkshire”, and “Sequoia”), several other freighters are mentioned in radio communications. They are “Yellowstone”, “Acadia”, “Blue Ridge”, “Glacier” and “Mojave” (each freighter is asked to report the final jettisons of their domes). Each freighter’s name refers to an American National Park or Preserve.
• The dome jettisoning sequences were based on Trumbull’s viewing of actual footage of Apollo Saturn V rocket stage separations. The miniatures of the dome couplings were 10 inches in diameter, and were filled with mica and compressed air to get the separation effect Trumbull wanted.
• After the success of Easy Rider (1969), Universal Studios hit upon the idea to let young filmmakers make “semi-independent” films for low budgets in hopes of generating similar profits. The idea was to make five movies for low budgets (one million dollars or less), not interfere in the filmmaking process, and give the directors final cut. The movies were: this movie, The Hired Hand (1971), The Last Movie (1971), Taking Off (1971) and American Graffiti (1973)
• In the skinny-dipping scene, the water Bruce Dern is swimming in was actually ice cold. The production saved money by not providing a water heater.
• Released as a double feature with The Andromeda Strain (1971).
• Each of the four characters wears a unique “signal flag” patch on his jumpsuit. Not only do the signal flags stand for the initial letter of their respective last names, but they all have other meanings in the naval code, which are somewhat significant to the characters. For example, Lowell’s flag “L” means “You should stop your vessel immediately”. “B” means “I am carrying dangerous goods or explosives”.
• In an interview with Starlog magazine in the late 1970s, Douglas Trumbull revealed that the plot of the movie in the original version of the script was quite a bit different from what was actually filmed. In this version, the Space Freighters were on permanent duty carrying biological domes. When they’re finally told to blow the domes and return to earth, it is because the freighters are going to be scrapped. The Freeman Lowell character in this version was an older, more curmudgeonly man who simply doesn’t want to return to earth and forced into retirement, so he steals the Valley Forge, “Shoots the rapids” through Saturn’s Rings to make it look like his ship is destroyed, and heads off into deep space. As in the filmed version, he reprograms the robots for some companionship, and the subplot involving the plants dying due to a lack of light were involved, but his main interest in the plants was simply as a means of extending his limited food supplies on the ship. In the second half of the film, he receives a signal which he realizes is from an alien ship passing through the solar system, and decides to approach it – humanity’s first contact with aliens – around the same time, his superiors on earth have realized what he did, and are trying to re-capture the ship. The last act of the movie was to have been a race against time, with Lowell trying to contact the aliens, and the recovery force trying to re-take the ship. Finally, in desperation, Lowell detaches one of the domes with one of the robots aboard only seconds before he’s killed by the forces that have boarded the Valley Forge. The dome drifts off into deep space, where it’s spotted by the as-yet-unseen aliens, who board it and find the robot. The robot, unsure what to do, pulls out a snapshot of itself, the other two robots, and Freeman Lowell taken earlier in the film, a “Family Portrait” after a fashion, and shows it to the aliens, who look at it and the robot confusedly, and there the film ends.
• Some of the actual corporate logos visible throughout the movie include (but are not limited to) Dow Chemical, Coca-Cola, AMF, American Airlines, Rockwell International, and Ditch Witch. Most of the logos can be seen on the storage modules in the main cargo deck. The Ditch Witch can be seen digging the hole to bury Keenan.
• This film is considered by many scholars to be the first environmentalist film.
• External scenes of the ships were also used in the promo for the TV show “The Starlost” (1973) along with the early instrumental music.

Journey to the Seventh Planet was a 1962 science fiction film. It was shot in Denmark with a budget of only US$75,000. The seventh planet is, of course, Uranus, and a crew is being dispatched there by the United Nations on a mission of space exploration. The film’s ideas of astronauts exploring outer space only to confront their inner mindscapes and memories precede the similar-themed Solaris by a full decade (Although the novel Solaris precedes this film by a year). It is also reminiscent of Ray Bradbury’s 1948 short story Mars is Heaven! that appeared in the 1950 book The Martian Chronicles.

Trivia:

• When officials at American International viewed the completed film, they decided that some of the Danish-produced special effects were so poor that they needed to be replaced. Two members of the independent special effects company Project Unlimited, Jim Danforth and Wah Chang, shot new footage to replace some of the Danish special effects. Some of the deleted footage was also replaced with tinted black-and-white monster footage from Earth vs. the Spider (1958).
• Among the replacement footage used in the American International version was a brief special effects shot from The Angry Red Planet (1959).
• The major contribution made to the American International version by Jim Danforth and Wah Chang was the giant cyclopean rodent monster. The monster’s roar was actually Rodan’s roar taken from Sora no daikaijû Radon (1956) (US title: “Rodan”).
• Actor Ove Sprogøe claimed that he never participated in the movie, claiming he was sick the week it took to shoot the movie.