65

Saturday, here, is traditionally "Take Out the Trash" Day; it doesn't matter if it's old trash or new trash. It's still trash.

Nice Planet to Visit...But I Wouldn't Want to Live There

or

Stuck Between a Rock (Falling) and a Tar Pit

 

65 ("from the writers of A Quiet Place") is a good idea for a movie. But a bad movie. Oh, it does its job efficiently, providing the beats we've come to expect, the tropes, all of the recycled cliches—of the horror, sci-fi, and reluctant guardian variety—even a couple of Spielberg call-backs (as tribute, or just because they're "expected" in a dino-movie?) 

 

But, it never becomes inspired. It never does anything newish. It has that initial bright shining idea bulb that gets progressively duller until it finally fizzles out and then, at the tail-end, re-iterates the premise to remind us that it was a good idea. But, by that time, even that good idea has become hum-drum and (dare I say it?) pedestrian.

 

Which is too bad, because it's got Adam Driver in it, and he's doing something new.

 

And he's the only one who is.

It is 65 million years ago, "titles" tell us."Prior to the advent of man...in the infinity of space...other civilizations explored the heavens." Good premise (if the inclusion of "man" being merely us sounds a little speciest...and sexist). It's a long time ago in a galaxy far, far way. Commander Mills (Driver) is spending time with his nuclear family on their planet as he's about to go on a mission—that will last two years—ferrying an exploratory group to some far-flung part of the Universe. It's not a mission he wants to undertake, but he's doing it for economic reasons. His daughter (Chloe Coleman) is very sick and his wages will pay for her medical expenses. But, he'll be gone for years (if all goes well), and he's spending as much time with his family as he can before he leaves.

Note to self: plan your route.

Well, there wouldn't be a movie if it all went well, and Driver's ship gets caught in an unexpected asteroid field en route, which batters his ship and forces an emergency landing on a planet that just happens to be in the neighborhood—amazingly fortuitous when your commuter route is in light-years. The ship breaks up, killing the vast majority of his passengers (save one, but that's for later) and his command section is miles away from where the "escape pod" with any sort of rocket thrust has landed. He puts out a distress signal, checks the air, and does some recon of his camping site.

You know the drill—it's described in the movie's posters. He's on Earth of 65 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period—if you don't know the particulars, that puts you in the same boat as him. Let's just say that things are a little rough, what with tar-pits and hot-springs, the sometimes unexpected explosive geysers, quick-sand, bad bugs and badder lizard-things, including trex's. All very hungry, as if they haven't been fed in weeks. The movie goes by the dramatic rule of "Chekhov's Gun"—if you see something in the movie, it's assured that it's going to be used (which is fine and all, but it eliminates any anticipation of surprise. One could bring a score-card, write down one sees and then just check them off as they're utilized for drama.

Not exactly watching each others' backs!

 

That includes all the dangerous flora and fauna of Olde Earth, but also Mills' sick daughter, and the charge that he takes on—the lone crash survivor named Koa (Ariana Greenblatt), who (of course) reminds Mills of his own daughter, and forms a grumpy "you watch my back/I'll watch yours" relationship, despite their speaking different languages and the traditional old guy/punk kid relationship that is tried and true to the "reluctant family" story-line of so many films. But, they're the only game in town; that's certainly what the dino's see them as—game, I mean.

But, at least it gives Adam Driver a chance to morph out of his "geek" role that we've grown accustomed to and into a more-standard somewhat grudging pater-familias along the lines of the Alan Ladds and latter roles of the John Waynes and Clint Eastwoods, trying to survive while also dragging a kid along to make him a more charitable protagonist. It's the "Lone Wolf and Cub" trope among the dinosaurs, and that's an elevator pitch that can be done within half a floor. Maybe even before the door closes.

All this is to reinforce that 65 is nothing new and nothing that hasn't been seen before in different packages—just not done as well. I was thinking that even a dumb movie like Robinson Crusoe on Mars, although short on science and long on special effects that depend on the viewer's charity, is still entertaining and intriguing, whether your a kid at a matinee (as I was when I saw it) or an oldster (as I am now) who can still find it charming. 65 is not charming. Nor is it innovative in any sense. The only sense of wonder it instills is you wonder if the film-makers could milk the same water-downed formula until there is no nutritional value whatsoever.

 

The Help (2011)

Written at the time of the film's release...

"The Other Side of the Bridge Club (Insuring Domestic Tranquility)"
or
"You Ought Not to Joke About the Colored Situation"

You go into The Help with a certain amount of trepidation.  Will it be so politically correct as to have no bite? Will it be a "TWGSTD" movie, where the true story of the oppresssed is supplanted by "the drama" of a privileged person's conscience to help? Will it be a Neapolitan "Chick-Flick," all sugary ice cream of different flavors and colors? We've seen plenty of those, and one would hope that we've evolved out of our tribalism enough that film-makers—even commercial film-makers—hedge their story by surrounding the center with white-washing vanilla.**

Stanley Kramer, after all, has been dead for ten years.

With The Help, it's a hesitant answer of "Yes" and "No." "Yes," the story has elements of "White Guilt" saves the day, but only in the short term, and said Guilty Party, Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan (known as "Long-Haul" to her high school friends for actually attending and graduating college and pursuing a journalism "job," rather than settling for domestic tranquility) may have a sense of accomplishment, but it costs her. And the issue of "You think you're gonna help us?" is very pointedly brought up by the character of Minny Jackson (played by her real-life inspiration, Octavia Spencer, in an excellent performance).  Say it, sister.. Nice touch of dignity, that. 

Young Miss "Skeeter" (Emma Stone), is ambitious, as are all the white women in the segregated community of Jackson, Mississippi; her ambitions don't center around who throws the nicest bridge club setting (or has it thrown for them), or making a name for herself preserving the traditions of The South. She wants to be a journalist, which, given the times, relegates her to ghosting a "best-bleach-for-the-sheets" column for the local newspaper. 

But, gnawing at her no. 2 pencil is what happened to the woman who raised her as a child. No, not mother Charlotte (Allison Janney, who tends to periodically rise above her material), but the house-servant, Constantine Jefferson (the always wonderful Cicely Tyson—I've missed her), who accepted and applauded her graceless duckling ways in a city of debu-taunting swans, and who disappeared while she was away at college, never to return. The vacancy of Constantine and her story inspires her to talk to the "help" about their stories, and how they maintain during their domestic servitude. Fearing a backlash from amongst the womens' society, she initially only gets to talk to a reluctant Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis, whose movie this is**), who tells her of her early days and of her family's molasses-like progress from house-"slaves" to house-"servants."

It involves the telling of tales on the pastel and flower-printed white woman she works for, a friend of "Skeeter's" (Anna Camp) and of the Red Queen of the Bridge set, Miss Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard, a subtle, ethereal actress, allowed to go "broadly comic," which, as when Meryl Streep does it, is not pretty).*** 

Set about the time of the Medgar Evers murder, where any sort of racial consciousness-raising was cracked down upon by Jackson police and strict curfews enforced, The Help has a tendency to overlook the more serious event in the timeline of its narrative, veering more towards comedy in Tate Taylor's adaptation (Taylor is a lifelong friend of novelist Kathryn Stockett's and acquired the rights to her novel before publication), but there is enough genuine tension in scenes of servants trying to get home by curfew, that the plight of the women in the serving class, and the genuine danger they faced in up-braiding their employers, and the structure imposed on them, simmers under the surface.  

Even in the face of somewhat trivially humiliating comeuppance, any sense of triumphant table-turning seems negligible against the long road to some sense of justice, however piddling (though entertainingly apt to provide a shit-eating grin) those small victories might be. 

As such, The Help, like those small victories, is a measured success.

(And I appreciated the handy list of uses for Crisco).

* "The White Guy Saves The Day," ala "Robinson Crusoe," Dances with Wolves, Glory, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Mississippi Burning, The Last Samurai, Avatar, heck, even "Transformers"...

** The closest it comes to teetering over the edge is in a sub-plot of an ostracized Southern belle from the other side of the tracks (played by Jessica Chastain), who embodies a white version of Southern social stigma, and, in a reverse of the normal Hollywood strategy of "white moves first," is shown "the ropes" by one of "the help," an act that becomes mutually beneficial.

*** Octavia Spencer is a real "find" here and a shoo-in to get a Best Supporting Actress nomination come Oscar season, but I hope that Academy voters will also give a Best Actress nod to Davis, whose tremulous fire in her role would make it her second nomination in three years—her first being Doubt, in which her one-speech scene managed to outshine Meryl Streep, Amy Adams and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

**** As if this embarrassment of acting riches wasn't enough, Miss Hilly's mother is played by Sissy Spacek, who continues to play ordinary roles in a most extraordinary way.

*+

Disney's The Lone Ranger

Written at the time of the film's release....

...A Cloud of Dust...
or
Depp in the Heart of Texas

The last time "The Lone Ranger" hit the big screen (1981's The Legend of the Lone Ranger, directed by cinematographer William A Fraker), it hit with a resounding thud. It's not that the story wasn't any good, or that the basic idea isn't ripe for story-telling—it's just that the movie was dull, dull, dull, even as it was trying to be more "politically correct," giving John Reid's "Indian companion," Tonto, a bit more respect and hewing a little closer to a generically Native culture.

That was then. This is now.  John Ford made the first modern Western in Stagecoach.  Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah made the "post-modern" Western in the 60's. Then, after post-modernism came death. People stopped making Westerns entirely, with hold-outs like Eastwood and Costner and Kasdan and Harris, the tropes of the genre falling into use in, cop movies and martial arts and space fantasy films. But the form stayed pretty much dead and buried. Given the history of the form, and with its emphasis on the spirit world, resurrection of dead men, and its manic quality (especially as its de rigeur for the creatures these days) maybe Gore Verbinski's film of The Lone Ranger (now Disney's) is the first zombie Western.

It fits.* One of the themes galloping through this one is that "nature is out of balance," what with the "Wild" West being invaded by iron horses, the presence of "spirit horses," villains who will eat the hearts of their victims and manically carnivorous jack-rabbits out on the plains. Zombies, okay. But it's a bit of a Frankenstein monster, as well, made up of parts of what has gone before. The final credits say that it was filmed "from Moab to Monument Valley," mostly Utah, and its true, with shots in Zion, Arches National Park, and the Monuments (looking slightly different from the time John Ford filmed them—the calved spires seem to have been digitally erased—although Verbinski has taken a lot of Ford's specific angles several times in the film). 

Verbinski's The Lone Ranger on the left; Ford's The Searchers on the right

But it seems like Nature isn't the only one with the problem. The Lone Ranger is a Western out of balance, tipping from side to side and waving its arms frantically while standing on a line between olde Westerns and the post-modern varieties, with full-stops at the Leone era** and the silent era of comedic Westerns, specifically Buster Keaton's The General (not technically a Western, but go with me here) in the film's final bursts of energy. The movie veers from queasy nastiness to whimsy to outright comedy and slapstick, without taking a break for water. The villains are played absolutely straight, from Tom Wilkinson's rail baron to his nasty co-hort, Butch Cavendish (a greasily unrecognizable David Fichtner), while the heroes are bumblers with good intentions, like Armie Hammer's rube of a Ranger,*** and top-billed (above the character and movie title) Johnny Depp's bizarre take on Tonto—well, it's bizarre for Tonto, but not for Depp, as this "Indian companion" would line up well with his other pasty-faced odd-balls like Edward Scissorhands and Barnabas Collins. And, in action, his Tonto acts more like the Sam character in Benny & Joon, there's some Chaplin, but a lot of Buster Keaton in his stone-faced, article-challenged Tonto (the make-up for which is inspired by a painting by Kirby Sattler entitled "I Am Crow," which is neither authentic or historically accurate, but it looks distinctive, which suits Depp's purposes, I suppose). 

The movie runs on two parallel tracks of revenge—the Ranger, John Reid's, and Tonto's—as the two end up joining forces to deal with the guys who ambushed the Ranger's brother and posse, and the guys who wiped out Tonto's village, for which he feels responsible. It's a little late in the game to plead weariness of the revenge scenario—it seems like every movie hero has to have a personal grudge as a pilot light, rather than to "do what they gotta do" through some sense of altruism. Possibly that heroic quality is passé or considered foolish in today's culture, or maybe there's no sense of audience involvement if it isn't seen why the protagonists stand up for what's right.

But, it spends most of its running time moseying through origin stories and the whittling away at the uneasy alliance between Reid and Tonto. Then, once things get going, there's an extended chase sequence featuring the two trains involved in the driving of the golden spike uniting the nation's railways, an "Indiana Jones" type of marathon that explores everything that you can possibly do with two trains running on occasionally parallel tracks (when did they find time to lay all that extra track, one wonders?). The sequence would make the silent comedians gape, and propelled by variations of "The William Tell Overture," provides a lot of entertainment.  It's fun for quite awhile and Verbinski constructs some Rube Goldbergian scenarios that are, once or twice, ingenious.

But, instead of coming at the nick of time, it comes a might too late.  The focus there at the end comes after a lot of wandering aimlessly through the desert, looking for something to do. Granted, its not as dull as the 80's attempt to put the spurs to the franchise, and in parts its entertaining, if one isn't looking for native axes to grind**** or is approaching the material with an already jaundiced eye. One wonders if it was worth doing, or whether "The Lone Ranger" should be allowed to pass into legend, a relic of the thrilling days of yesteryear.

My favorite appearance of Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels as

The Lone Ranger and Tonto.

Kind of reminds me of how the movie plays them.*****

* Yeah, but one can see that as a strain running through Verbinski's work, especially considering the "Pirates" movies and Rango, where folks are coming back from the dead, or at least the crossing back from whatever spirit-world seems to fit the project.

** Composer Hans Zimmer does a lot of riffing off Ennio Morricone, the most notes taken from For a Few Dollars More (with its tinkling chime contrasting with a heavy-handed forward momentum theme), but also in the comedic grace notes that follow Tonto's shenanigans with a punctuating trill that Leone used for Eastwood's "Man with No Name" in A Fistful of Dollars.

*** Hammer is introduced like Jimmy Stewart's Ransom Stoddard in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the "duded" pilgrim who stands out far too much in the rough West, in a suit so formal he's mistaken for a missionary...by a missionary. It's one of his better performances, showing that he's at his best, comedically, despite (and maybe because of) his blandly handsome looks, in a way that's similar to Cary Elwes. 

**** Most of the talk is focused on Depp and his "white-face" portrayal of Tonto and how authentic it is (not very), which with the existing suspicions people have of the character as demeaned and inferior, has been mostly negative, because, like skin color, its very easy to see and remark upon with what one thinks of as authority. One wonders if such a rehabilitation is possible, given the character's man-servant past, like Robinson Crusoe's "Friday," or The Green Hornet's "Kato" (although it certainly helped if Bruce Lee was in the role, bringing the character up several notches just on ability and charisma—should we mention that Brit "The Green Hornet" Reid is a descendant of The Lone Ranger?), and whether its even worth it to right the past's wrongs. The alternative is to stay in place, and be content—although grousing—with the way things were and just leave it aside.  I think it says something that Depp thought Tonto was the more interesting character to play, as for authentic...is anything Depp does very authentic?  Short answer: No. As for the whole racial thing, I thought the best line was Depp's Tonto griping about the ranger being a "stupid white man," and the Chinese railroad workers grinning and nodding in agreement at him—he's just another American...to them. Now, that's some funny ethnic humor there.

**** It also is inherently racist as it paints Tonto in a bad light, obviously Natives are gluttonous. (*cough*)

Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze

Dog Savage: Man of Bronze (Michael Anderson, 1975) Lester Dent (writing as Kenneth Robeson) produced the "Doc Savage" series of stories for Street & Smith Publications from its first issue in March, 1933 (based on a first outline by publisher Henry Ralston and editor John Nanovic) through the summer of 1949, "pulp" publications, known for the low quality paper used to print them. "Doc" Savage was of the gruesome adventure variety, a kind of Sherlock Holmes without the deductive gifts, more the type along the lines of "The Shadow" (also published by Street & Smith), Fu Manchu, and "The Avenger" ("Justice, Inc." variety), heroes with a sense of the exotic and the somewhat mystical. The "Savage" series made a phoenix-like resurrection in the 1960's with their re-printing in paperback editions (one per month!) published by Bantam Books (with those freakishly attractive Larry Bama covers.)

But "Doc" Savage (real name: Clark Savage Jr.),apart from the dark edge of the stories, had a shining bright side—a giddily altruistic hero, scientist, inventor, surgeon, biologist and all-around paragon of virtue and athleticism, a soldier-of-fortune without need of wealth, altruistic to the point of not considering romance (despite opportunity) to protect any loved ones from being a target for revenge.

This doesn't stop him from surrounding himself with a devoted clutch of idiosyncratic specialists who serve as both Dei ex Machina and comic relief when Doc gets in a jam. personally or professionally. For this reason—"The Fabulous Five" as they're nicknamed—if anybody does another Doc Savage adaptation (and there are talks of Dwayne Johnson being approached as a sort of "Rock" Savage), it is going to be very crowded.

If anyone does another Doc Savage film, the 1975 version is a must-see...for what not to do. The last film to be produced by the ingenious producer-director George Pal (The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, Destination Moon, The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao, to name a few), the film is a-clutter with his design sense, but none of his sensibility. Whatever genre Pal put his imagination to—science fiction, fantasy, puppetry—there was a seriousness of purpose, even for a project as rife with puerile pot-holes as Robinson Crusoe on Mars. 

This was 1975, the year before the U.S. bicentennial, but two years after the resignation of President Richard Nixon before he could be impeached. In the years after Watergate, cynicism about anything, let alone altruism, was the easy answer—the knee-jerk reaction—of the day. Heroes were not to be believed, but, rather mocked, not just because they were "too-good-to-be-true," but because such a "goody-goody" attitude was naive...and stupid. After all, If you can't trust your President, who can you trust? Roger Moore was James Bond (Moore didn't believe in that type of hero and played him as such). And in a litigious society, where everybody is "lawyered up," and PR is a major industry in a perpetual "spin-cycle" to make their shady clients look good, the mere appearance of honesty leaves one suspect.* 

Directed by Michael Anderson, who always seemed to make any film, no matter the budget, look a little cheap-jack, Doc Savage: Man of Bronze engenders worrisome thoughts from the get-go. A tiny American flag gyrates over a frozen wasteland. That flag is attached to a snowmobile, one embossed with a "Doc Savage" logo on it (apparently all of his vehicles, be they cars, autogyro's, what-have-you, will have it) as it approaches a perfectly made igloo on the snow surface. Doffing his parka-hood, Ron Ely makes his first appearance, revealing a shock of blond hair and a literal, animated twinkle in his eye as Narrator Paul Frees intones "This is Doc Savage...The Man of Bronze!" Then the music comes up—the subsequent title will say "Music by John Phillip Sousa" specifically "The Thunderer" as it is adapted by Frank DeVol—a fine craftsman, but even he can't do anything with something that's 100% joke material.

Oh, good Lord. The thing sets out to "out-camp" the "Batman" television series from the 1960's. Some of that is part of the "'Doc' Savage" appeal—for instance, check out the "Code of Doc Savage" below. My favorite line in it is a perfect example, as Savage explains to the female lead (Pamela Helmsley, not the most expressive of actresses unless she was playing "the bad guy") why he can never have a woman in his life after she has suddenly (and somewhat inexplicably) blurted out her love for him. "I understand," she says, betraying just a hint of disappointment behind her stoicism. Doc gently cuffs her chin and says amicably, "Mona...you're a brick." I seem to remember that line from the book and chortling over it, but, how "camp" is that? 

Ron Ely plays Doc Savage the way Charlton Heston played everything. Given the circumstances and the silliness with which the whole thing is presented, he could have taken "camp" lessons from Adam West, who at least managed to "play straight" while always letting you know he knew there was a joke going on. The main villain is played by Paul Wexler, who seems to have no appetite for scenery-chewing (which is disappointing, especially when one of the villains has the habit of sleeping in a crib) or maybe he just didn't know how to do it entertainingly. The whole thing is horrendously "dubbed" the sets look cheap, the locations very "back-lot" and one has to put the blame on Anderson, who even managed to make his next film, Logan's Run, look cheap despite a budget of nine million dollars (Compare it to Star Wars which was made a year later for 13). Whatever is clever in the movie can be sourced to the novel—Doc's amazing inventions, for instance—but, in the year in which Jaws was released, Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze bombed horribly at the box-office.

Like so much of what passes for humor in movies these days, you have to be a little bit high, or in some other way impaired, in order to appreciate this film—any number of pharmaceuticals and concoctions can be used to lower the bar—and taste—sufficiently. But, look, if you can make a series of "Indiana Jones" parodies of B-movie serials, Lara Croft video-game movies, you can certainly make a serious (if tongue in cheek) version of the "Doc Savage" series and do it somewhat competently.

The film ends with this title card—part of it was filmed  but shelved when
The Man of Bronze did poorly at the box-office. Still, the second film boasted a screenplay by Phillip Jose Farmer, which one can only see as a missed opportunity.

* I once talked to a lawyer over a contentious issue where he brought up "The Golden Rule," which he declared was "the one with the gold makes the rules" and I replied "Is that what they taught you in law school? I grew up with "The Golden Rule" being "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." He looked at me with a pitying look, and I decided the best "do unto you" was not to strangle him by his cheap neck-tie.

The Power

The Power (Byron Haskin, 1968) A sci-fi "who-thunk-it" by the producing-directing team of George Pal and Byron Haskin, whose work included the 1953 War of the Worlds, When Worlds Collide, and Robinson Crusoe on Mars. The subjects of the Pal-Haskin team were usually puerile, with sophisticated special effects that dazzled the child in anyone, no matter their age.  The Power, however, is light on special effects, and the sub-text is less extra-terrestrial than sensorial.

A team of scientists (George Hamilton, Suzanne Pleshette, Richard Carlson, Earl Holliman, Nehemiah Persoff, and Arthur O'Connell) are working on a top-secret project testing astronaut endurance. They are visited one day by their government liaison Arthur Norlund (Michael Rennie) who is skeptical of the worth of the whole project, other than the ideas of the team crack-pot, anthropologist Henry Hallson (O'Connell) who is convinced by his survey studies that one of the subjects has paranormal abilities. His outbursts embarrass the entire board, especially Dr. Tanner (Hamilton) who tries to beat down the doctor's ideas at every opportunity. However, a simple test proves that one of the scientific team has extraordinary mental powers.

Before you can say "Agatha Christie's 'Ten Little Indians'" the scientists start being knocked off in strange ways that only we, the audience, are privy to. First Dr. Hallson is found dead, centripetally squished in a centrifuge run amok. Then Dr. Tanner is fired from the project, accused of never having attended college, and faking his way into his position. He teams up with fellow researcher (and main squeeze) Marge Lansing (Pleshette) to try and track down who the murderer could be. In the meantime, more of the research team end up incapacitated, and it becomes readily apparent to Tanner and Lansing that they're going to end up on a slab unless they can find the killer. But who is it?

The movie is quite clever in how it clicks along, even if the love story feels a bit tepid, and Haskin's stage sense is always assured at making the strange either commonplace or particularly fascinating.* For instance, the scientists work in a facility where their offices are separated by glass, so everybody can keep tabs on everybody else, making hiding the killer a difficult project. Once Tanner is fired, however, the confining space is taken out of the equation, and the individual attempts at messing with people's minds are given free reign and can come out of anywhere...and nowhere at the same time.

As far as the acting is concerned, it's a bit cheesy, with O'Connell over-emoting until you wonder about his credentials, and Hamilton smolders throughout, as if told he'd be the leading man, but not told how. He's at his best convincing us that the illusions he sees are real, and the horror/confusion that he feels play across his face. That's when he truly bonds with his audience, and is the filmmakers' best asset in making the movie come across.

  * Haskin had worked with Disney live action films, and did the more superior episodes of the original version of "The Outer Limits" as well as the first pilot for a little series called "Star Trek."

The War of the Worlds Through the Years

Seventy eight years ago tonight (at 8 pm EST, in fact), Orson Welles chose to do a radio broadcast just for Hallowe'en—a radio adaptation of H.G. Well's novel of "The War of the Worlds" on his "Mercury Theater On the Air" broadcast on the CBS radio network. 
  
Welles' "Mercury Theater" show was not that popular, and so a lot of people didn't hear the introduction of the piece stating clearly that it "presenting 'The War of the Worlds' by H.G. Wells"; most of those listening to the radio at that time of the evening were listening to the more popular "The Chase and Sanborn Hour", which featured ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy (yes, a show with a ventriloquist was very popular on radio). But, twelve minutes into the comedy show, there was a song interlude, and people did then what they do now—they surfed the dial, looking for something better until the segment was over and they could turn back.

And what they found was this:

At about twelve minutes in, the broadcast was just getting interesting: a faux dance music program was being presented and interrupted by "news bulletins" reporting that plumes of incandescent gas had been seen leaving the planet Mars and headed for Earth. A "return to scheduled programming." Then another interruption saying that meteorites have landed near Grover's Mill, New Jersey (as opposed to Woking, Surrey in Wells' novel) and Princeton expert Professor Richard Pearson (Welles) is brought in to speculate that there is no life on Mars. The next segment is a "live report" from Grover's Mill where "reporter Carl Phillips" (played by Frank Readick, who had "prepped" for this segment by listening to reporting of the explosion of The Hindenburg) reports on the opening of the cylindrical meteorites, the appearance of tentacled creatures wielding a death beam that incinerates the crowd...

And then...silence.

The original script (by the ubiquitous Howard Koch) was deemed too dull by Welles, and a new draft was created, inspired by an Archibald MacLeish radio-play "Air Raid" (in which Welles had appeared). The idea was not to dramatize events as in the novel, but to use the medium of radio to provide the context and the drama of how such an invasion might play out under the circumstances and over the air-waves. More than the audio of a staged play (as most of these things were), it was very much of its source—a radio-play, by, of, and about the experience of getting the news live over this new medium, unfiltered and immediately...without a chance for resolution. 

"Panic" may be too strong a word for the result, and the newspapers played it up to discredit the reliance of radio for news,* but there were many, many, many people who heard the simulated news-casts and, now used to recent advances that allowed "news flashes" interrupting programming, and at a time when Germany was making moves on Austria and Czechoslovakia, took them for the real thing. A cursory search on the dial would have told them that the only network broadcasting the events at Grover's Mill was CBS, but the events were so compelling that not many switched away. Some merely left their radios in their panic to avoid "the coming invasion." It wasn't until the 43 minute mark in the broadcast (which ran no commercials as it was not sponsored) that the network broke in to remind listeners that they were, in reality, listening to a radio-play. This was necessitated as the CBS switchboard in New York was flooded with calls to the point of incapacitation.

For Welles, three things happened: he became a nationwide celebrity, "The Mercury Theater On the Air" got a sponsor and became "The Campbell Soup Hour", and Welles was lured to Hollywood by RKO Studios, where they hoped he might make a film of "The War of the Worlds," to cash in on the notoriety. He had other plans.  

A film of "The War of the Worlds" would have to wait.

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The War of the Worlds (Byron Haskin, 1953) Twenty five years after Welles' broadcast, George Pal made a Technicolor movie out of Wells' novel. Like the radio broadcast, it updated the story for the times. The time is the present and the phenomenon is world-wide while the film concentrates on cylinders landing in Linda Rosa, California, outside of Los Angeles. By chance, Dr. Clayton Forrester (Gene Barry), a scientist involved with America's development of the atomic bomb happens to be fishing nearby when the nearest craft zooms overhead. Investigating, he finds a crowd of people, including Linda Rosa residents Silvia van Buren (Ann Robinson) and pastor Matthew Collins (Lewis Martin), her uncle. The glowing craft is giving off radioactivity and so three locals elect to stand guard until the thing cools down enough to be investigated, and Forrester elects to wait until morning in town. 

Before he can return the meteorite opens up and a snake-like periscope rises from the crash. As the three men approach, the scope emits a shrieking heat-ray that atomizes them on the spot, and knocks out power to the town, alerting Forrester that something's happened and he finds out that Earth is under attack from Martian war-machines, shaped like flying manta-rays.** 

** Although not a tripod as in the novel, the Martian attack-ships start off
elevating on three beams of energy that then disappear
(no doubt owing to the cost of animating)

The 1953 movie is interesting for its inclusion of nuclear power and weaponry into the mix—eight years after Hiroshima and amid other films that, at the time, used atomic energy to produce horrors in Nature. Religion is given far more importance in the 1953 movie than the novel (where Wells dismisses it entirely), although it proves ineffective in the short term, but is given the credit for the long-term outcome. Forrester stands in for Wells' unnamed narrator, separated from his fellow survivors and struggling to evade the war machines to get back to his wife—in the movie's instance, its the newly reunited Ms. van Buren, Forrester's former student.

Pal's version became a classic, one of the few science fiction films that the Hollywood establishment took notice of besides its receipts (in no small part due to Cecil B. DeMille's championing of it), winning a de facto Oscar for its spectacular effects combining wire-and-model work and animation (the machines were so popular they were re-used in Pal and Haskin's Robinson Crusoe on Mars). It is still well-regarded as a superior sci-fi adventure film. The Wells estate was so enthusiastic with the result that they gave Pal the pick of any of Wells' stories to make another film of. His choice was The Time Machine, which was released in 1960.

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War of the Worlds (Steven Spielberg, 2005) Fifty two years after George Pal's film and sixty seven years after Welles' broadcast, Spielberg completed his unofficial trilogy of Earth invasion films (after Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra-terrestrial) with his own version of the Wells story, again, updated for the times and without the article "the" in the title, so as to avoid confusion with the original. The invasion is, once again, world-wide, although attention is centered on the east coast of the United States.

This "War" was made within the memory of the 9/11 attacks, as Spielberg stages large infrastructure-dusting battles that tip over intersections and vaporize human beings (leaving their clothes to float empty to the ground). The attackers are not named as "Martians" but acknowledged as "other-worldly" with a suspiciously complicated origin—evidently, they've been long buried in the Earth, only needing the transmission of a spirit via lightning storm that simultaneously energizes the war-machines and knocks out the surrounding power grid. These machines are more the design of Wells' original intent—ungainly tripods that still manage to do sizable damage with its heat-rays, black smoke, and red vegetation that carpets the area in a means of terra-forming (all from Wells' source novel). 

Although it may seem like a "typical" Spielberg project, it is an odd blend of Wells' and Spielberg's sensibilities, and in fact, anti-Spielberg sensibilities. Wells' story was about his narrator trying to get back to his wife amidst the chaos of the war. Spielberg has the same story-line, but his protagonist is another Spielberg "common man" (or as common as Tom Cruise will allow himself to be), who must rise to the occasion—in this case Cruise's Ray Ferrier is a dead-beat, uninvolved dad who must get his kids back to his estranged wife, amidst all the chaos. 

Given that CE3K and ET were films by a less mature Spielberg that broke families apart, while offering them a glimpse of the heavens, this time, Spielberg's protagonist is doing everything he can (as in Wells' novel) to re-unite his family. Spielberg has grown up by the time these aliens visit Earth. And yet, for all his heroics, the film has more in keeping with the ending of John Ford's The Searchers, as Ferrier is left standing in the street of his in-laws' brownstone (and they're played, naturally, by Gene Barry and Ann Robinson from the '53 version), satisfied enough that he has brought them together, but acknowledging that he is still an outsider without regard for acceptance as reward. He's done what he should have been doing all along. And mature enough now to not expect anything from it.

It's one of my favorite Spielberg endings.

* The Slate article preceding this asterisk debunks the myth by citing lack of evidence—not the most reliable indicator—but what's strange is that when stations repeat the stunt (as reported on Radiolab's episode about the broadcast), the results tend to skew the same way.  There are always going to be a few that will panic, and with mob-mentality as an accelerant, things can get out of hand...even for Martians to handle.