Silent Running

Silent Running is a 1972 science fiction film with music by Peter Schickele. I remember when all these 70's films were first released, though I didn't see them in the theater but later on tv.

It is online in several segments at youtube and googlevideo or in 2 parts at guba.
part 1 of 2:

part 2 of 2:


Moria says,

Silent Running is considered a genre classic. It was never a huge success when it was initially released, but has garnered quite a well-liked reputation among sf fans subsequently.
...
But outside of its status as a fan favourite, Silent Running is a rather loopy film.

Roger Ebert gives an overview of the plot and then says,

All of this is told with simplicity and a quiet ecological concern, and it makes "Silent Running" a movie out of the ordinary -- especially if you like science fiction.

The New York Times review describes it as

no jerry-built science fiction film, but it's a little too simple-minded to be consistently entertaining. This is especially true when it is drumming home its perfectly reasonable pleas for sane conservation policies by having the voice of Joan Baez, on the soundtrack, belting out space-folk songs that sound as if they had been composed by a rotten computer. They more or less match the movie's theme, which is more like an editorial policy.

StompTokyo says it's a slow starter but "If you can make it through the first half-hour, you'll be rewarded."

Crimes of the Future

Crimes of the Future is a 1970 post-apocalyptic Cronenberg film. He gets rid of all "post-pubertal human females" via a plague brought on by modern cosmetics. We are led through the movie by a narrator, and we see how men deal with a world in which the only females are children. I'm not a fan of Cronenberg's films, and this one does not change my mind.

Googlevideo has it online:


Reviews are scarce, but Only the Cinema talks about it.

R.I.P. John Mortimer

Oh, dear. John Mortimer author of the Rumpole books, died on January 16. I still haven't bought the BBC Rumpole of the Bailey series on DVD, but I will, I will. I have read some of the books but not many. The Guardian, where I first saw the news, has a fond farewell with videos.

obits:
The Nashville Examimer has a tribute.
The Telegraph has a tribute by his son and more by others who knew him.
The Financial Times
New York Times

On the Beach

On the Beach is a 1959 near-future post-apocalyptic film based on the classic Nevil Shute novel with the same name. The film stars Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire and Anthony Perkins.

Fred Astaire's character explains what causes war in this video clip. There are 7 short clips (ranging from 1 to 8 minutes long) from the 1959 version of this film at googlevideo. The segment showing the car race is here. A clip from late in the film is here. Another late scene with Anthony Perkins is here.

TCM has an overview. 1000 Misspent Hours calls it "a memorably affecting film" but adds

The more serious problem is that Kramer loses all capacity for subtlety whenever he reaches a scene that bears directly on what he really wants to say, leading him to begin piling on jarring camera maneuvers and obnoxious musical stings.

Moria says "On the Beach’s distinction is not really that it is a very good film, merely that it was the first." and

The pace also drags hideously. The reason for this is that Stanley Kramer deems it necessary to spell every issue out in bold several times over. He leaves nothing understated. The film literally talks us to the end of the world. And not merely content with portraying the end in a grim light, Kramer at the end turns and directly preaches to the audience, allowing, with an appallingly heavy-handedness, the film to fade out on the image of a Salvation Army banner, “There is Still Time ... Brother” sitting in the midst of a city empty of all human life.

The New York Times Review doesn't mind the preachiness, saying

In putting this fanciful but arresting story of Mr. Shute on the screen, Mr. Kramer and his assistants have most forcibly emphasized this point: life is a beautiful treasure and man should do all he can to save it from annihilation, while there is still time.
...
The great merit of this picture, aside from its entertaining qualities, is the fact that it carries a passionate conviction that man is worth saving, after all.

The 2000 made-for-tv remake is divided into 20 pieces at youtube. Part 4 is missing. Part 5 does not follow directly from part 3, so there does appear to be a section unaccounted for. Part 1:

part 2, part 3, (no part 4 listed at youtube), part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, part 12, part 13, part 14, part 15, part 16, part 17, part 18, part 19, part 20

The book is wonderful (though I have to make an effort to look past the blatant 1950's sexism).

20 Million Miles to Earth

20 Million Miles to Earth is a 1957 science fiction film starring William Hopper (The Deadly Mantis and, of course, as Paul Drake in the Perry Mason TV series). Ray Harryhausen provides the special effects. This is lots of fun! It's like King Kong, only without the "'Twas Beauty killed the Beast" angle.

Watch it from Internet Archive here:



1000 Misspent Hours has this to say towards the end of their review:

The movie sets itself apart from the rest of the pack by playing the Sympathetic Monster card, and does it quite well, at that. It’s not the Ymir’s fault that it’s a menace, after all— it would have been perfectly content to spend its life on Earth hanging out at the sulfur pits of Mount Aetna, never bothering anybody who was smart enough to leave it the hell alone. It’s also just a really impressive monster,

Moria says,

Harryhausen’s effects are highly impressive. These represent the real blossoming of him as an animator from the point he was merely creating monsters to where he started to craft them into characters. There are some impressive scenes with The Ymir fighting a dog and battering a farmer – 20 Million Miles to Earth is quite a surprisingly violent film in some regards.

DVDJournal opens their review with this:

Of all the Rampaging Monster B-movie potboilers from the 1950s, 20 Million Miles to Earth, showcasing the work of stop-motion animation innovator Ray Harryhausen, remains among the most fondly remembered. And rightly so.

DVDTalk says,

a favorite 50s monster film and the last Ray Harryhausen effort in B&W. Ray's animation talent and special effects compositing skills are shown at their best.

Kronos

Kronos is a 1957 science fiction alien invasion movie starring Jeff Morrow, Barbara Lawrence and George O'Hanlon.

It's at youtube in 8 sections of reasonable 10-minute lengths. (This is gone when checked 5/8/2010)

available via youtube:



trailer:


1000 Misspent Hours finds it laughable. TCM has an overview. DVDTalk calls it "the most over-achieving low budget Science Fiction films of the 50s" and says it "delivers a fascinating concept and a stunning production that transcends its own silly dramatics". StompTokyo says,

Kronos is a terrific example of the 1950's science fiction movies that have been featured on UHF channels on many a Saturday afternoon. One can plainly see the roots of modern science fiction in these cheesy productions, right down to the technobabble.

The plot of "it feeds on our attacks" is an oldie but a goodie. I'm so glad the token woman had the good taste to wear a dress and pearls for the grand finale.

List of Great 1970's Science Fiction Films

Since Epiphany I've been involved in a fun quest to see how many science fiction and fantasy movies I could find online and watch. The List Verse has a list of "15 great science fiction movies of the 1970's". It surprises me that some on their list are ones I've found online.

The bare list is below, but thelistverse has annotations -reasons the movies were selected and photos.

1 Alien (1979)
2 Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
3 Star Wars (1977)
4 A Clockwork Orange (1971)
5 Solaris (1972)
6 Slaughterhouse Five (1972)
7 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
8 Superman (1978)
9 Logan’s Run (1976)
10 The Andromeda Strain (1971)
11 THX 1138 (1971)
12 No Blade of Grass (1970)
13 Westworld (1973)
14 The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)
15 Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

Ones I've seen are in bold print. If I've blogged them I've added the link to my post.

HT: SFSignal

Sunday Psalm

Psalm 139

1 O lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.

2 Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.

3 Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.

4 For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.

5 Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.

7 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

9 If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

10 Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

11 If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.

12 Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

13 For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.

14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

15 My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

17 How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!

18 If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.

19 Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men.

20 For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain.

21 Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?

22 I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:

24 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

KJV

Odyssey by Jack McDevitt

Odyssey is the 4th book in Jack McDevitt's Academy (or Priscilla Hutchins) series. I have read several of his novels, including Chindi, Omega and A Talent for War. I like all I've read by him so far, but I do prefer the Academy series to his other series books.

from the back of the book:

To boost waning interest in interstellar travel, a mission is sent into deep space to learn the truth about "moonriders," the strange lights supposedly being seen in nearby systems. But the team soon discovers that their odyssey is no mere public-relations ploy, for the moonriders are not a harmless phenomenon. They are very, very dangerous-in a way that no one could possibly have imagined.

scifi.com prefers his other series and says, "A number of factors conspire to drag down this tale, developing a germ of a good idea into something of a disappointment."

I like it as well as the others in this series, which is quite a bit. I like the space ships, the AI's, the plots and characters and even the unsolved mysteries. I'm assuming all will be explained in time. I look forward to reading the next one.

Colossus: The Forbin Project

Colossus: The Forbin Project is a 1970 science fiction film in which the monster computer takes over the world. I remember seeing this on television back in the 70's but can't remember exactly when.

Watch it below, compliments of googlevideo:


Moria calls it "a quiet but highly effective little film" and "one of the most unassuming and perfect of all lesser-budgeted science-fiction films". The New York Times calls it "an unpretentious science fiction film with a satiric point of view" and says it

is no "Dr. Strangelove," but it's full of surprising moments of humor and intelligence, a practically perfect movie to see when you want to go to a movie and have nothing special in mind.

1000 Misspent Hours says, "This is what all makers of mad computer movies should aspire to," and concludes,

In the final assessment, Colossus: The Forbin Project is just a high-tech dramatization of one of the oldest morals in literature: Be careful what you wish for.

SciFiPedia says that

despite its failure at the box-office and its relative obscurity today, it stands up a generation later as one of the most intelligent, unusual and thought-provoking SF films of the Cold War era.

No Blade of Grass

No Blade of Grass (no wikipedia entry) is a 1970 post-apocalyptic film based on John Christopher's novel The Death of Grass. It is directed by Cornel Wilde and stars Nigel Davenport.

On youtube in 20 (yikes!) parts, here's part 1 at just 5 minutes: [removed]
Each of the 20 segments is about 5 minutes long, except the last one, which is just 2 minutes. Sheesh. Not that I'm not glad it's there, mind you. I'm just surprised to find it divided into segments that short.

8/20/2009 update: all of those videos have been removed, but the first 3:30 of the film can be viewed here:


from the beginning of the film, this voiceover:

By the beginning of the 70's man had brought the destruction of his environment close to the point of no return. Of course there was a great deal of rhetoric about saving the Earth, but, in reality, very little was done.

I keep forgetting how sexist the language was in the 1970's.

I don't see much about this movie online, and I don't remember it being released. It's a depressing piece.

Lifeboat

Lifeboat is a 1944 Alfred Hitchcock film starring Tallulah Bankhead, William Bendix, Walter Slezak, Mary Anderson and Hume Cronyn.

The Younger Son selected this, never having seen it. The Husband and I had never seen it straight through.

Here's the first part:


The rest of the film is in pieces linked here.

Slant Magazine, the New York Times and Films de France have reviews.

5/30/2010: Great Old Movies blog has a review.

Four Hundred Billion Stars

Four Hundred Billion Stars, Paul McAuley's first novel, won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1988. It's currently out of print, but I found it at my favorite local used book store. Amazon lists some copies. It hits me like a breath of fresh air after the obscure, convuluted experience of Jeff Noon's Vurt.

from the back of the book:

A million years ago, a powerful alien species moved a dead planet into the narrow life-support zone of an old, cold class M0 star. Then it gave the world an atmosphere, settled its surface with a bizarre mixture of creatures - some long since vanished from Earth - erected marvelous hivelike cities, and disappeared.

But Hunanity's arrival had apparently set the planet's hidden machinery to working. The dead cities had begun to glow at night and even the animals were undergoing startling transformations.

So Dorthy Yoshida, astronomer and reluctant telepath, was summoned from self-imposed exile near distant Earth and set to search for the mind that moved the world.

Attack of the Crab Monsters

Attack of the Crab Monsters is a 1957 science fiction film directed by Roger Corman. Russell Johnson (The Professor on Gilligan's Island) stars with Mel Welles (The Little Shop of Horrors, The Silver Chalice) and Ed Nelson (Bucket of Blood). I love the art work over the opening credits.

It's online at youtube in 7 parts. Part 1:

part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7

1000 Misspent Hours says,

Attack of the Crab Monsters still suffers from uneven acting, irritating comic relief, and a monster origin story consisting of some of the most incomprehensible pseudoscientific gibberish ever uttered, but it’s a remarkably streamlined and fairly effective film— perhaps the earliest to give some indication of what its director would prove himself capable of during the following decade.

The Omega Man

The Omega Man came out in 1971. It's another one I didn't see until it showed up much later on TV. What can I say? I didn't get out much. It is based on Matheson's novel I Am Legend and stars Charlton Heston and Anthony Zerbe (Star Trek: Insurrection). This is the 2nd of 3 (so far) film adaptations of the novel. The 1st is the Vincent Price Last Man on Earth, and the 3rd is the Will Smith movie that keeps the book title.

Ah, the 8-track tape! I sometimes see them for sale in junk shops. There is such a sense of loneliness and isolation as he talks to himself, tears down the pin-up calendar, sits alone in a movie theater watching Woodstock and reciting the lines with the kid onscreen...

SciFi.com says,

The Omega Man, based on Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend, can legitimately be considered an SF Easter film. Its predominant themes of sin, deliverance, sacrifice and resurrection are high-minded and ambitious, as well as nicely balanced and executed. One of the film's neater ironies is Neville's twin aspects--destroyer and savior.

The New York Times has a review. So does Roger Ebert. Moria calls it "ham-fisted". 1000 Misspent Hours says it's "the only post-(man-made)-apocalyptic Christian allegory ever committed to film."

The Man from Earth

The Man from Earth is a 2007 science fiction written by Jerome Bixby.

There are links here to sites where you can view the film online.

It's certainly not an original concept. I've seen it done several times, including by Star Trek.

Locus Magazine has a review here.

1/20/2009:
SFSignal has a review, which closes, "the exploration of the experience of immortality is what this film is about - and ultimately that makes The Man from Earth is a film worth watching".

R.I.P Ricardo Montalban

From SFScope I see that Ricardo Montalban has died. This is a hard day for me. First I hear about Patrick McGoohan, and now this. So sad. I love him best for his portayal of Khan Noonien Singh in the Star Trek (TOS) episode Space Seed and again in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. SciFiWire has some interesting trivia about Khan.

obits:
Reuters
SFSignal
/film offers "a lamentation for the loss of one of cinema’s all-time greatest villains."
SyFyPortal
TrekWeb
NPR
Edward Copeland
io9
Bad Astronomy
FilmChat
Cinematical

6/1/2009: Out of the Past has an overview of his career.

The photo is from MHJohnston's Flickr photo stream.

The Time Machine (1960)

The Time Machine is a 1960 science fiction film based on the book with the same name by H. G. Wells. Directed by George Pal (When Worlds Collide, War of the Worlds), it stars Rod Taylor, Yvette Mimieux, Alan Young, Sebastian Cabot and Whit Bissell. It won an Academy Award for best visual effects.

It's at youtube in 11 parts, which should autoplay from here:

SFSignal found it in one piece at The Cinemated Man:


I remember how disappointed I was the first time I saw this movie. I was expecting more of the book to be there.

Moria calls it

one of the finest films to emerge from George Pal, who was the single most important contributor to science-fiction in the 1950s

1000 Misspent Hours says the movie,

is a perfectly serviceable movie, and it’s obvious that a lot of thought went into the details of the story.
...
The Time Machine is also well handled from a technical perspective.
...
I can see why The Time Machine gets the respect it does today, even if the message it sends is almost exactly the opposite of the one its creators seem to have intended.

The New York Times has a reviewhere.

DVDJournal's review likes it and calls it

a Boy's Own adventure complete with handsome square-jawed inventor undertaking a journey through the Fourth Dimension to a new world complete with monsters, fisticuffs, rescues, escapes, and a keen awareness of our protagonist's superiority to the poor benighted heathens in his midst.

R.I.P. Patrick McGoohan

I saw the news at NPR that Patrick McGoohan died yesterday. He was 80. I knew and loved him in The Prisoner, which can be seen online.

obits:

io9 calls him "one of genre television's most innovative voices".
BBC

He died in Los Angeles after a short illness, his film producer son-in-law Cleve Landsberg told Associated Press.

The Guardian

EW:

Number Six's famous cry, "I am not a number, I am a free man!" became both a counterculture catchphrase as well as an anguished plea for freedom.

LATimes
Reason Online
EOnline
CNN
TimesOnline:

He won two Emmy Awards for his work on detective drama Colombo with long-term friend Peter Falk, and appeared in the 1995 Mel Gibson film Braveheart as King Edward Longshanks. Fansites across the internet paid tribute to the cult star today.

SFSignal
SFScope
Edward Copeland
The Independent opens with this:

As the star of Danger Man and The Prisoner, Patrick McGoohan was the face of British cult television in the 1960s and the highest paid TV actor of his time. Orson Welles once said of McGoohan that he could have been one of the major stars of his generation: he had the looks and the intensity and painted most of the roles he played with a wryness and a satirical edge that made him a compelling actor to watch. Yet this complicated man, highly-strung, unpredictable and irascibly enigmatic, seemingly threw away his career while at the height of his fame and influence and was never again to fully recapture it.

The picture at the top of the post is one I saw at several sites online. None had information on who to credit.

Przekładaniec

Przekładaniec ("Roly Poly" or "Layer Cake" or "Hodge Podge" in English) is a 1968 Polish made-for-tv short film based on a work by Stanislaw Lem. It is directed by Andrzej Wajda.

It's at youtube in 4 parts. Part 1:

part 2, part 3, part 4

Film Journal describes it this way:

this is set in the 21st century. Racing car driver Richard Fox is ‘reconstructed’ by transplants after an accident and his lawyer helps him solve the mystery of whether he is himself or his brother, killed in the crash.

English subtitles would help a lot; but they are not provided in these videos, and I can't find a transcript or text subtitles online. The film was still interesting to watch.