obit, I'm getting the colorized BEST YEARS right after the colorized KANE. I can hardly wait to see what color the litt
-
escalera-2 — 17 years ago(April 23, 2008 12:51 PM)
Thanks for that. It is lots o' fun to read your posts and obit (is that from The Outer Limits I wonder?) and that's what movies should be about some fun.
I'll launch myself to the "Missile to the Moon" listing and see what going on there.
Now, "Dirty Old Egg Suckin' Dog" was if it is the same song (could there be more than one?!) covered by none other than the Man in Black himself J Johnny Cash as preserved on "Live at Folsom Prison".
Ok now, maybe W. Lee Wilder churned out some movies that are bad or worthless (to some) or laughable and yes, plenty of yoks to go around and Brother Billy gets the slaps on the back and the star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but I think the former was a much more daring filmmaker. He'd go out withthat 25 cent budget and some far out story idea, and produced it by the seat of the pants. I like this guy. He had moxie. If he had had more time and money
No point in playing "What if?" but I think he had some ideas brewing and I admire the guy very much for running with them. I liked "The Snow Creature", too.
Yes, indeed, 50 Sci-Fi Classics including "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" and "Eegah!"
Yes, the gun used in "Teenagers from Outer Space", which was pretty neat I recognized as a cap pistol made by Hubley. They can be found on e-Bay from time to time and go for big bucks. Pretty clever use of a dime store item.
And, finally, I also liked "The Man from Planet X". Weird, weird stuff.
I hated when he was getting blasted, the Man himself hopping around terrified.
"Devil Girl from Mars" is similar.
I want to read these posts and gain something beneficial from them as well and so I am grateful to you and obit and others like you both who add to the long and wunnerful conversation. -
hobnob53 — 17 years ago(April 23, 2008 09:08 PM)
Hard catching up with this trio's posts in any kind of order, but that's part of the IMDb funisn't it?
escalera, I congratulate you on so quickly figuring the origin of obit1's IMDb nom-de-movie-boardon which I commented in my reply to his post. We're all in this together!
Cash sang "Dirty Ol' Egg-Suckin' Dog"? Now why didn't they include THAT one in WALK THE LINE?
I think the main thing W. Lee risked was Billy's wrath. He was jealous of his younger brother's Hollywood success (and lifestyle), and so sold his highly successful ladies hand bag business in NYC, moved west, altered his name (it was Willy Wildersee a problem?) to what he thought sounded a more sophisticated one, brought his son into the business, and I guess made a small fortune turning out his 16 or so movies between 1944 and 1960. I don't know if I admire him so much, since a lot of marginal producers did the same thing, but I suppose having a brother at the opposite (i.e., upper) end of the Hollywood social stratum did make his moves, if not his movies, gutsier.
Billy's real name was Samuel, but his mother, who had lived for a time in America before returning to Austria-Hungary, where the boys were born, always admired things American and nicknamed her youngest after Buffalo Bill. When he arrived in the US Billy found that the German spelling he'd grown up with, Billi, was a girl's name in English, and so changed it accordingly. Willi Wilhelm, then Willy in the US came here in 1924, a decade before Billy, but his change to W. Lee is rumored to have been not so much voluntary as under pressure from Billy, who didn't want the two confused. Tragically, although their mother constantly talked about America and was pleased her sons had migrated there and done well, Billy's efforts to get her to leave Austria after the Anschluss were unavailing. He was able to visit her briefly after Hitler annexed the country, but she and her second husband (Billy's father had died in 1928), and Billy's sister, all refused to leave, stubbornly insisting everything would be okay. It wasn't; after the war Billy got attached to the US Army and went to Berlin, where he found his mother, sister and step-father all listed among the murdered at Auschwitz. If you watch his films closely, you can see his vehement anti-German feelings in movie after movie sometimes necessarily blatant (A FOREIGN AFFAIR, STALAG 17, ONE, TWO, THREE), but other times subtle, giving absurd or nasty characters German names or inserting some slight anti-German line someplace. Who could blame him? And his scorn for his fellow Austrians was even worse. As he once said, the Austrians are the most brilliant people in the world they've convinced everyone that Beethoven was Austrian and Hitler German!
So you don't have your Buck Rogers/Derek ray gun? What do those things go for on ebay anyway? Enough for a proper remake of TFOS?
On the subject of, here we are, talking about these movies half a century laterthe late Robert Clarke, star of THE MAN FROM PLANET X and other, less good low-budgeters like THE HIDEOUS SUN DEMON, CAPTIVE WOMEN and THE INCREDIBLE PETRIFIED WORLD, wrote a fun autobiography in 1995 entitled "To B or Not to B", about his life and career. He remarked at how surprised he and other stars of these minor sci-fi flicks of the fifties were by the overwhelming devotion of their fans, of how so many remember these movies while many big studio productions have sort of lapsed into obscurity. And it's true. Peter Graves said, back in a 1998 segment on his own life on the old A&E show "Biography" that he hosted, that, of all the movies and TV shows he'd done in his career STALAG 17, AIRPLANE!, "Fury", "Mission: Impossible", all of it the one he still got the most mail about, that more people came up to him and asked him about, after over four decades, wasKILLERS FROM SPACE! At least he was able to laugh about it. But he too said, who could have imagined this, 45 years ago?
And here we are. Sad part is, those who come after us will never know the exquisite pleasure we drew (and draw) from this stuff. We are lucky, are we not?
Well, it sounds better than "demented". -
escalera-2 — 17 years ago(April 24, 2008 05:30 AM)
Quick note: Two Hubley Atomic Disintegrator Guns are presently on the auction block on e-Bay. One, with a starting bid of $9.00 is up to about 122.00 and the other, in a little better shape, started at 9.99 and is up to $225.00 with 11 bids.
These guys were not the first to use toys as props or the last. -
hobnob53 — 17 years ago(April 24, 2008 09:58 AM)
No, but to revert, sort of, to the thread topic, if they'd held on to those props they'd probably be able to recoup the costs of the film on eBay even with 49 years' worth of inflation!
You just never know what kind of stuff is going to appreciate in value, do you? Or what kind of thing we'd appreciate today!? -
escalera-2 — 17 years ago(April 24, 2008 10:19 AM)
Certainly the time many spend discussing such films even as you described in an earlier post bears out what you have said.
As a child I was a bit of a genre snob. Being the youngest in the family I was the mayvinn of Sci-Fi and Horror. Oh, the wonder and the beauty of a "Forbidden Planet", the awe and the spectacle of "This Island Earth", the weird beauty and mystery of "The Angry Red Planet".
Then, quite unexpectedly, one Saturday morning when I was about to go out to play, "Teenagers from Outer Space" demands my attention and I reluctantly submit. But I planned on being harsh. I think I bought into the movie and it would have had me back then in those black and white days until the Gargon made it's appearence and I had them, The EXPERT spoke.
I quickly dismissed it.
But I was just a fool, too young to know. -
-
escalera-2 — 17 years ago(April 24, 2008 11:25 AM)
"TARP" was one of my favorites for along time. The amoeba with the whirrling eyeball was freaky. There's another one I should like to see again as well (still haven't viewed "Caltitki").
"mars the picture"
Oh, my -
escalera-2 — 17 years ago(April 23, 2008 12:54 PM)
and I don't mean to nag, hobnob, but I really would like the first volume of your series of books out soon. I believe many others would enjoy them as well.
I won't mention it again. Just know that I'll be waiting to see the press release. -
obit1 — 17 years ago(April 23, 2008 05:51 PM)
"Thanks for that. It is lots o' fun to read your posts and obit (is that from The Outer Limits I wonder?) and that's what movies should be about some fun. "
When I got online for the first time (YEARS ago!!!) I had to come up with a "tag" and I thought of the Outer Limits episode, O.B.I.T.
"Are you watching itor is it watching you?"
I loved the idea that if I turned my computer off, someone or something, could be watching from the other side.
So, escalera-2, you have hit the nail right on the head!!! Your year's supply of Turtle Wax is in the mail (Hopefully you have a turtle)
The correct title to the special effects house in question was PROJECT, singular, but everybody, including some title houses out here, would get it wrong at times. It's natural to confuse that, because you'd think that they worked on many "projects" but according to Baar, Warren's idea for the title was to show that no matter what project they worked on, there was no limit to what they could do.
Tim got me into CASCADE PICTURES where I worked for a split second animating on sets with Dave Allen and Jim Danforth, so I am very appreciative of that. Baar died in the mid 1970's of a brain tumor.
Tim Baar had ALL of Bill Brace's glass paintings from the Time Machine and when he(Tim) died, his daughter was calling up everybody who had worked with him, wanting to know if they would buy the stuff. The paintings now reside in the BOB BURNS collection.with the real Time Machine too. Just where they should be.
Good Lord! The Time Machine! Boy am I WAAAAAAAY off course on this thread.
http://www.woodywelch.com -
escalera-2 — 17 years ago(April 23, 2008 07:35 PM)
Well, I would have thought it WAS "Projects", smart guy that I am. That's interesting background.
Dave Allen was a nice guy. I met him when he ws directing his segment for Charlie Band's "Dungeon Master".
Until tonight, I did not know that Paul Blaisdell was involved in "Teenagers from Outer Space" (my attempt to bring us back to the title in question, although I have enjoyed the sidetracking!) as I was about to mention that I thought the Special Effects were superior for a low budget movie. I was going to compare the efforts to the homegrown efforts of Mr. Blausdell and checking the IMDb Main Details right ther was his name ("uncredited"). I'll be.
One of the things that I like about movies like this are the flashes of ingenuity like putting a tiny mirror on the end of a cap pistol for effect.I think Paul Blaisdell was a genius. He took a bunch of foam rubber and plastic tubing and turned out some great monsters. His wife, Jackie, was a gem.
Now, we've joked about the budget for this and other such movies being 25 cents and OK they had a few dollars more but it was still a shoestring budget and look here, all these years later we still have fun discussing the film. Sure, it only ran 86 minutes, but it still entertains.
(The great thing about The Outer Limits and OBIT was that it did make the viewer look again or to see everyday things a different way)
I await my Turtle Wax! A major prize! -
hobnob53 — 17 years ago(April 23, 2008 08:32 PM)
You know, I'd occasionally pondered whither you'd gotten that moniker, obit, and at some point the OL episode "O.B.I.T." crossed my mind, but I never really thought that might be it. Congratulations to escalera on hitting it right away!
(Okay, but how come "obit1"? Was obit0 taken? Hey, now there's a coolly mysterious, inscrutably intergalactic B-movie space nameObit Zero. Feel free!)
And in between my doubting inquiry and reading your response I checked and discovered it was indeed Project Unlimited, singular. They did some cool stuff for OL, the Zanti misfits, that fish man from "Tourist Attraction", all those alien make-ups. Daystar Productions. Also, I infinitely preferred that dramatic, doom-epochal music from the first season, by Dominic Frontiere, to the sickly-eerie sound of season two's theme. My favorite episode, however, was the monster-less two-parter from season two, "The Inheritors", with Robert Duvall and the great, too-soon-departed and honestly lamented Steve Ihnat. Call me a sucker for a sweet and sentimental (and somewhat sad) story, but I really liked that episode. I always thought it would have been a natural for a big screen version by Spielberg. It's the sort of story I think he'd find appealing.
I'm always gratified when props and other things from a film are reunited into one collection, like you say obit, where they belong, as long as it's with someone who truly treasures the stuff, not simply some "investor". So good for Bob Burns holding so much from THE TIME MACHINE. It still astounds me, how the studios not just threw away but actively destroyed so much of their valuable, painstakingly made props and other film assets. A case in point is our friend Paramount's destruction of all three Martian war machines from our pal Pal's THE WAR OF THE WORLDS! They were among the greatest props ever constructed they shot real rays (sort of) and stuff! Sleek and exquisite craftsmanship. And Paramount melted every one of them down for the copper! Can you imagine what one of them would be worth today? Even if all three still existed? Pity George didn't grab them and sneak them out the front gate after wrapping. Criminal waste!
Now, how much am I bid for this leftover lobster from TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE? Comes complete with bib sewn from Derek's space uniform! (Yes, not just any old uniform a SPACE uniform. Wooooooo) -
hobnob53 — 17 years ago(April 23, 2008 09:10 PM)
Oh, my friend, one day the nagging may produce something. Or you and I and obit might collaborate. Why not publish our IMDb posts for starters?
But you're really very kind, and I thank you. And, well, we shall see. -
obit1 — 17 years ago(April 23, 2008 10:21 PM)
"Okay, but how come "obit1"? Was obit0 taken? Hey, now there's a coolly mysterious, inscrutably intergalactic B-movie space nameObit Zero. Feel free!)"
Someone did have obitME! LOL
When I moved from the Alto Nido apartments to my high rise in Hancock Park I got reset up, but the new provider said that "obit" wouldn't work for me (as "somebody" already had that and it wasn't showing up as a usable i.d.) and that I had to have it changed.I decided. "obit1" and it's been that way for the last 5 years I think.
Of course that somebody must've been me cause I had obit for about 8 years before. Oh well. Nobody said that me OR Comcast were geniusesNow I have Time/Warner. Big deal.
Oh yeah, I forgot about Blaisdell working on the little gun.
I am a BIG Paul Blaisdell fan.
http://www.woodywelch.com -
hobnob53 — 17 years ago(April 24, 2008 10:23 AM)
IT CONQUERED THE WORLD maybe P.B.'s best!
THE BEAST WITH A MILLION EYESTHE SHE-CREATUREDAY THE WORLD ENDEDNOT OF THIS EARTHIT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACEall with beings designed by Paul Blaisdell, and sometimes acted by him. INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN? The giant hypodermic needle in THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN? Okay, we'll overlook those. But the design of FROM HELL IT CAME?? HmmmPaul, Paul, Paul. The curse of the Tabanga looms large!
Come to think of it, Paul would have done a better job creating some sort of monster for TEENAGERS than the silly shadow-lobster. Maybe lots of smaller Gargons scuttling over the Earth? But then the herds might have been harder to control. I keep forgetting critical plot points like that. -
escalera-2 — 17 years ago(April 25, 2008 08:26 AM)
You're right again, hob, it is getting a mite difficult to follow the thread. Besides we've worn out the original Poster's comment and gone far afield. A great field, but way off the subject.
Perhaps we can take the party elsewhere.
hobnob, obit any suggestions? -
hobnob53 — 17 years ago(April 25, 2008 09:27 AM)
Yes. I'd say we've gotten our nickel's worth on this two-bit thread. What, is this like page 19 or something? I'm open to alternate sites, and will try to think of one, but have to be off now. (As if this thread weren't sufficient proof of how "off" I am already.) Let's pick on somebody else our own size, just notify via this poor old thread!
hob -
escalera-2 — 17 years ago(April 25, 2008 12:43 PM)
Agreed.
By the way, since Bob Burns and George Pal's production of H.G. Wells "The Time Machine" was mentioned in this conversation, it is of some interest that the Machine itself will be featured in the next episode of a TV sit-com called Well, now, I don't know what it is called. Something about some "nerds" who live across the hall from a beautiful young woman.
It will be on whenever it comes on the week of the 27th. It is a CBS presentation.
Stay in touch, hob and OBIT and anyone else interested in this, (as hobnob has described) our "demented" dialogue. -
hobnob53 — 17 years ago(April 25, 2008 06:20 PM)
Did I say "demented"? Oy. Okay, agreed, but I did go back to my last post just above to add another adjective to describe the thread, in the first sentence, that occurred to me later on and I couldn't pass up. Maybe one more fitting than demented!
See you guys around and about soon!