Enduring Influences 02
The Film influence
As I mentioned in my blog post, “Not so Fast,” my parents preferred my brother and I to entertain ourselves as much as possible. This was actually not really such a bad thing. Yes, we would have loved to hang with our dad more, but as I’ve said, I believe good can come from most difficulties. In this case, my brother and I became huge movie fans.
Not enjoying the movies and shows we liked, my parents got us a small tv for our room. It was, of course, black and white and we spent countless hours watching and re-watching movies.
This was, of course, way before cable or satellite. In Southern California, where we lived, there were basically 7 channels. These were channels 2 (CBS), 4 (NBC), 5 (KTLA), 7 (ABC), 9 (KHJ - now KCAL), 11 (KTTV), 13 (KCOP) and a couple of UHF stations that were scarcely watched at that time. Those were Channels 28, (which became PBS) and 56 (KDOC). My brother and I quickly gravitated to channels 9, 11, 13 and 5, in that order. These were where the old movies were found along with wrestling and, believe it or not, roller derby (channel 5). Wrestling and roller derby were sort of last resorts when sci-fi, horror, or mystery films were not playing on the other channels.
While I and my brother did gravitate to horror and sci-fi, those were by no means the only films we watched. Pretty much anything shown frequently on these local stations would get our attention, at least until we were so bored we would have to look elsewhere for amusement. Since the local stations did not have a big budget, that meant the movies, if newer, were generally not big budget films, while, if they were big budget films they were invariably old. So, while we watched tons of low budget films we also watched great, but older, films like, The Maltese Falcon, Citizen Kane, Stagecoach, The Big Sleep etc.
All of these films made a huge impression on me. Most were in black and white, but, since the tv set in our room was black and white, all the movies and tv shows were black and white to us anyway.
I’m very glad I had this exposure to, and appreciation for, black and white films. I realize now that viewing things in black and white was a big help in my eventually understanding lighting, composition and design both in film and in art.
However, I think the main thing about film that grabbed me as a child, was the story telling. Through it, I learned to empathize with people I would never have thought I could relate to. It allowed me to “experience” places, adventures and fears I’d never have imagined. And often through story telling I would, (and still do), question a belief or attitude I’d held that I’d otherwise never doubt or explore.
As a young kid, sometimes the films that frightened, shocked or even terrified me look absurdly un-frightening by today’s standards. That’s one of the wonderful things about being a young child that I fear the current generation is missing. Today’s films and shows are so genuinely terrifying that kids don’t seem to get the chance to use their imagination to create the imagery and fear that we did.
“It, the Terror From Beyond Space” (1958) Vogue Pictures / United Artists
Crew member left behind. From “It, the Terror From Beyond Space” (1958) Vogue Pictures / United Artists
Here’s a great example of one such film. As a young boy I loved this film, (and I still do!). It’s called “It, the Terror From Beyond Space” released by Vogue Pictures (1958). It’s since been re-released by United Artists. While VERY low budget and quite laughable by today’s standards, it might be worth noting that this was the inspiration for “Alien” (1979).
A charcoal rendering I did from “It, the Terror From Beyond Space” (1958) Vogue Pictures / United Artists
The film involves a creature that sneaks onto a space ship just before it lifts off to begin it’s trip home from Mars. The creature then proceeds to pick the crew off one by one. Due to the lack of water on Mars, it particularly wants to drain people of blood and any other fluids in their body. The scene that got to me was when they find one of the missing crew in the ventilation system, he’s still alive, though partially drained of fluids and they have to leave him there to continue to be fed on by the creature! Wow, as a 7 or 8 year old kid I couldn’t imagine anything more horrifying than to be left in that position by friends, one of whom was his own brother!
While clearly made on a minute budget, to this day I’m struck by the extraordinary lighting in this film. Great care was obviously taken for the lighting by one, or all, of the following; the director, Edward L. Cahn, the director of photography, Kenneth Peach A.S.C. or the art director, William Glasgow.
A scene from “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms” (1953) Warner Brothers
It’s hard to overstate the impact of films for me growing up. I loved good story telling. Of course what was “good” for someone aged 6 years through 16 or 17 may be, in retrospect, not so good when one becomes an adult. However, the impacts these “lesser” films had on me were tremendous. Because of the era in which they were made, the special effects may appear unconvincing or even laughable today. I believe that often this could be a positive by causing the viewer to have to suspend belief and use their imagination to compensate for the quality of the effects.
Sometimes, the the limitations of available methods resulted in an entirely new technique that actually became it’s own genre. For me, a prime example of this is stop motion.
Largely gone today, with the notable exception of Nick Park’s Wallis and Gromit and a few isolated efforts like “A Nightmare Before Christmas,” this was one of the coolest effects motion pictures ever created. Of course one of the earliest, and possibly the most famous, examples of this is King Kong (1933) RKO Radio Pictures / Warner Brothers, with stop motion effects by Willis O’Brien. Since this was a very old movie by the time I was born, I was able to see it over and over on the local channels. I loved it, particularly the first 3/4 of it that took place on the island inhabited by dinosaurs, in addition to Kong.
Thanks to this film, some of the most influential and exciting movies of my early life were made. Ray Harryhausen worked as O’Brien’s protege on King Kong and went on to become almost synonymous with stop motion.
The first film in which Harryhausen had complete control of the effects was “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms” (1953) Warner Brothers. This film was right there with “It the Terror From Beyond Space” at the top of the list of my childhood favorites. Also in the ranking was his “Jason and the Argonauts” (1963) Columbia Pictures and “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad,” (1958) Columbia Pictures.
Even his films that, for me, were a notch below these three were still enormously fun to watch, particularly “Earth vs the Flying Saucers” (1956) Columbia Pictures and “Mysterious Island” (1961) Ameran Films Distributed by Columbia Pictures.