John Kenneth Muir's Blog, page 13

50 Years Ago: The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Although not precisely a good James Bond film, 1974’s  The Man with the Golden Gun  is not as overtly or consistently unlikable as  Diamonds Are Forever  (1971),  A View to a Kill  (1985) or  Die Another Day  (2002), the three worst franchise outings in 007 history. 

Instead,  The Man with the Golden Gun  showcases the film series’ continuing growing pains as producers attempt to accommodate a new era, a new pop culture, and a new actor, Roger Moore, in the iconic role of British agent 007. 

The Man with the Golden Gun  is Moore’s second outing, and the formula is clearly not yet perfected. For example, the humor (which has been developing and growing as a substantial factor since  Diamonds …) is further highlighted here, but there are also remnants of Connery’s tough guy or “brute” image, and they don’t fit the dapper, suave Moore at all.
In terms of the pop culture,  The Man with the Golden Gun  --  like its predecessor  Live and Let Die  – also seems intent on aping other successful film forms, rather than innovating within the pre-existing confines of the enduring spy series.  

Live and Let Die’s  energy and life-blood emerged from the Blaxploitation film movement of the early 1970s, and similarly,  The Man with the Golden Gun  is an “Eastern” Bond film arriving in theaters just in time to capitalize on the global box-office’s love affair with Bruce Lee and Kung-Fu films such as  Enter the Dragon  (1973).

Although it would be easy to scoff at  The Man with the Golden Gun’s  “energy crisis” plot-line, one can see that the film is veritably loaded with pop culture references of a similar stripe that attempt to keep Bond relevant.  These references include the mention of Evel Knievel, and the sinking of the Queen Elizabeth in 1973. Such touches, actually, help to ground the film, especially when  The Man with the Golden Gun  threatens to descend into slapstick.  The allusions remind us that the real world is still relevant to Bond’s increasingly fantastic adventures.

Still, there are a number of grievous creative missteps one must contend with in  The Man with the Golden Gun , most notably the re-appearance of a stock Southern sheriff, J.W. Pepper (Clifton James) from  Live and Let Die.   

And yet, as noted above, the film is not as painful to watch as many of the worst Bonds are. For example, the photography, particularly at Scaramanga’s island paradise, is frequently stunning.

Furthermore, some visual compositions nicely (and covertly…) suggest a unique subtext; a sexual undertone to the action.  Indeed, much the drama in the film emerges, one might conclude, because of the acts of a sexually dissatisfied mistress seeking liberation. 

Also -- and this is entirely a personal conclusion -- I enjoy Moore’s performance as Bond here (when he isn’t strong-arming women, anyway…) as a bit of a cad, and a poor sportsman. 

It’s pretty clear that his Bond is a hedonist, and one who won’t expend valuable energy if he can gain an advantage without doing so.  
The later Moore films downplayed this aesthetic, so that Bond was more of a traditional “good guy” but  The Man with the Golden Gun  certainly showcases the secret agent’s naughty side.  Bond dispatches a martial-arts opponent in sneaky, bad-sportsman-style, and I love it.  After all, 007 isn’t playing for the title of world’s nicest secret agent…he’s fighting for his life.  Who cares if he bends the rules a bit?


“He must have found me quite titillating.”

Agent 007, James Bond (Roger Moore) receives a golden bullet with his number engraved on it, a sign that he is the intended target of a high-priced assassin named Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee).  

This grave situation precludes Bond from continuing his hunt for the missing Solex Agitator, a miraculous device that harnesses the energy of the sun, and could be the solution to the ongoing Energy Crisis.  

Instead, Bond tracks down the golden bullet’s origin, and cuts a path from Beirut to Macau, to a Hong Kong casino.  

Bond soon learns that Scaramanga’s mistress, Andrea Anders (Maud Adams) sent him the golden bullet in hopes that 007 would rid her of a man she loathes and despises.  

Bond also learns that Scaramanga is after the critical Solex Agitator and 007 masquerades as the assassin in Bangkok, attempting to learn more from the wealthy industrialist Hi-Fat, a ruse which fails.  

After Bond escapes from a karate school where he is used as a real life training dummy by the students Scaramanga captures Bond’s assistant, lovely Mary Goodnight (Ekland) and takes her, via a flying car, to his private island. 

There, Bond must recover the Agitator, which Scaramanga intends to sell for a huge profit. But the man with the golden gun is more interested in a duel with his greatest rival than the energy crisis… 

“You’re the only man in the world that can kill him.”

Rather uniquely for the male-driven Bond series, most of the action in the  Man with the Golden Gun  is driven by the actions of a woman, Andrea Anders (Maud Adams).  She is Scaramanga’s mistress, and an unsatisfied one at that. 

Trapped in her unhappy life with Scaramanga, Anders executes a strategy to rid herself of the assassin and her oppressor.  She sends one of his gold bullets to the only man in the world who can kill him: James Bond.  

Although Scaramanga possesses three nipples -- and men with three nipples are legendarily supposed to possess remarkablesexual prowess -- it is clear that this is a myth in terms of Scaramanga...not a reality.  
As the film opens, we see Andrea bend down on her knees to towel him off after a swim. She kneels before his crotch…and the film cuts immediately to Nick Nack (Herve Villechaize) popping a champagne cork.  
The one-two punch of this edit suggests, quite simply, that Scaramanga can’t hold his wad. He’s a poor lover. Andrea not only hates Scaramanga, she feel s he is a rotten lover.

On at least two other occasions, the camera registers sympathetic close-ups of Andrea Anders during foreplay and love-making, as she practically blanches at Scaramanga’s closeness and touch.  
At one point he fondles her aggressively with his gun, and she turns away in displeasure.  Again, the concept here is one of dissatisfaction, and Bond is the antidote in two ways.  First, he will provide sexual excitement, and second, he will actually kill Scaramanga.

We know Bond is a better lover, in part, because the film shows us that fact.  For example, we witness 007's foreplay with a belly-dancer in Beirut.  He kisses her belly, attempting to extract a golden bullet from her navel.  But what does it look like he's really doing?

It’s clear that Bond is not a stranger then, to using his mouth.  By contrast -- as we have seen -- Scaramanga always leads with his “golden” gun. And he pops his cork too soon!

Given Andrea’s crucial role in the film and the fact that she  literally brings Bond into the action, it’s a shame that the remainder of the film doesn’t score too highly in terms of its treatment of female characters. 
Mary Goodnight, while absolutely gorgeous, is a dumb blond.  One minute she refuses to be another of Bond’s “passing fancies,” and literally the next moment she has undressed for him in his hotel room and is ready to bed him.  She also ends up trapped in a car's trunk for much of the film's last act.

Similarly, the scene in which Bond questions Andrea and threatens to break her arm is literally cringe-inducing.  Roger Moore absolutely has his talents and skills as 007, but he just looks mean -- and horrible -- slapping Andrea and twisting her arm. These moments play as horribly anachronistic today, and they are wrong, tonally, for a Moore picture.  This Bond shouldn't be violent towards women.

Moore is much better, I feel, when his Bond cleverly pinpoints an easy advantage, and plays it out. 
For instance, I love how he turns a bullet-maker’s gun around on him.  Bond then tells him to spill his guts or “forever hold his piece/peace,” meaning his genitalia…which the rifle is aimed at.   

Similarly, I like how Bond stuffs Goodnight into a hotel room closet and makes her listen there while he beds Andrea.  Such caddish, wicked, and rotten behavior...and yet this seems like the perfect Bond aesthetic for the 1970s.  This Bond is on the side of right, yet isn’t going to go out of his way to reach the moral high-ground.  He's sort of...sleazy.
The moment in which Bond head-butts an opponent during a bow of respect is classic in that regard.  Indeed, this is how I would have liked to see the less-than-physically-intimidating Moore interpret Bond in all his pictures.  As a guy who seeks the advantage, whether it is noble or not.

While we’re discussing performances, some mention should be made of Christopher Lee.  He’s a great actor, but he doesn’t seem to project much menace, or much character in  Man with the Golden Gun.   
His Scaramanga is unfailingly polite and charming, the “anti-Bond”/Bond, but he’s sort of a big black hole at the center of the movie.  Some blame must go to the writers, I suspect.  Why is a laid-back, happy-go-lucky, well-paid assassin even bothering with the Solex when he is living in paradise?  
And why do his confrontations with Bond seem so casual and off-handed, if he is so obsessed with beating 007 in a duel?  
The screenplay never manages to bridge this contradiction.  Again, I love Lee.  He’s a great actor.  But his Scaramanga doesn’t rank as a great Bond villain, or even a particularly good one.

The Man with the Golden Gun  possesses a negative reputation with Bond film lovers, in part, because it possesses few memorable stunts or set-pieces.  

The pre-title sequence -- usually a brilliant, self-contained action show-stopper -- is instead but a trip through Scaramanga’s hokey, low-scale fun-house/shooting gallery.  We get a very clichéd looking gangster exploring the attraction, and even making a joke about Al Capone.  One might wonder what all this is about until one remembers that  The Man with the Golden  Gun  came out just two years after  The Godfather’s  blockbuster success.  
And if  The Man with the Golden Gun  can be said to concern anything, it is exploiting pop culture trends.

In terms of action, the film’s big stunt is a car jump featuring a rather unromantic automobile: an AMC Hornet.  While incredibly impressive, the stunt is over very quickly, and is accompanied by the ludicrous sound of a slide whistle, a “note” which totally undercuts any sense of shock and awe regarding the spectacular flip.  

Similarly, Scaramanga oversees a huge island fortress and a giant complex that operates an impressive solar laser. And he has precisely one henchman (other than Nick-Nack) to control all that machinery.  

Budget cuts?

The greatest problem with  The Man with Golden Gun  is not its largely forgettable action, however, it is the return of an unnecessary and distasteful character.  Sheriff  J.W. Pepper (Clifton James) is a Louisiana policeman, a raging racist and Southern by the grace of God. And he shows up in The Man with the Golden Gun…shopping for a new with his wife while on vacation in Thailand. 

So, first of all, why shop for a car while on your vacation in a foreign country?  

And secondly, who believes for one second that a bigoted, ignorant character like Pepper would leave the confines of ‘Murica and visit a country in the Far East? (Especially during the Vietnam War...).

It makes no sense, and Pepper’s presence in the film’s big action scene is a pandering move to bring the inexplicably popular Archie Bunker-type character back for an encore performance.  

Despite these myriad flaws, what  The Man with the Golden  Gun does possess in spades is a sense of timeliness.  The film’s McGuffin is the Solex Agitator, a device that can adapt the power of the sun, and the ongoing Energy Crisis is name-dropped in the film on at least one occasion. 

The film’s action plays in a world that had just endured the OPEC oil embargo of 1973, with all its repercussions and frissons.  M (Bernard Lee) makes a speech about peak oil, and the need for an alternative energy source if the West is to survive.  In the 1980s and 1990s, perhaps this felt like a relic from a different time.  Today it seems relevant again.
The Solex Agitator thus represents one of the most focused attempts by the Bond franchise to be overtly topical in presentation, though  The Living Daylights  (1987) involves an Iran-Contra-type arms deal, and  Quantum of Solace  (2008) carries an environmental message. 
Although it is widely considered one of the worst films in the Bond franchise,  The Man with the Golden  Gun moves with relative agility and pace, and is more often than not entertaining.  
In fact,  The Man with the Golden Gun  is a whole lot more seamless than the bloated  Diamonds are Forever.    This one is close in tone and shape to  Moonraker  (1979), perhaps, a Bond film that is sort of funny and sharp, even while at the same time it is hopelessly silly.

Semi Finalist at Lonely Wolf International Film Festival!

 

50 Years Ago: Land of the Lost: "Elsewhen"

"Elsewhen" by the late D.C. Fontana (and directed by Dennis Steinmetz) has always been one of my favorite episodes of the 1970s Saturday morning series,  Land of the Lost . Even today, five decades after it first aired, it is poignant, intelligent and endlessly fascinating.

This story finds the Marshalls exploring the Lost City of the Sleestak. The family heads to Enik's cave to open the time doorway there (or to attempt to, anyway...). Rick Marshall's (Spencer Milligan) experimentation at the matrix crystal table seems unsuccessful, or so it appears. He opens up a misty gateway...but to which world? It's unclear.

Meanwhile, Holly (Kathy Coleman) wanders off by herself. After an encounter with the allosaurus Big Alice, she discovers a deep cavern leading hundreds of meters below the stone city. She spies a pylon key ensconced on a cave wall by the entrance, and brings back Will (Wesley Eure) and Rick to investigate this anomaly. The Marshalls quickly find a "black hole" in the cave and wonder if it will lead to a time doorway. The hole appears to be bottomless.

While her brother and father research the black hole further, Holly returns to Enik's cave and is surprised to encounter a beautiful young woman, Ronnie. Ronnie lovingly tells the young girl things about herself and her future; things that Ronnie couldn't possibly know, and Holly is able to use this knowledge to save Will and Rick from the Sleestak, as well as survive a trip into that black hole (and conquer her fear of heights).

In the end, Holly comes to realize that Ronnie is actually an older or "future" version of herself; that she came through the time doorway that Rick Marshall opened. 

"Cherish your father and brother, Holly," Ronnie warns the young girl in closing. "They won't always be there."

That message -- that loved ones die -- is a powerful one that has always resonated with me; since I first saw the show in 1974-1975. It seems like a particularly strong message for a kid's show, but that's one of the things I love about  Land of the Lost.  Say what you want about it being a "kiddie" program, but it deals with real issues in an intelligent fashion, like the notion that friends, pets, and family don't...live forever.

I had the good fortune to discuss "Elsewhen" with its creator, the late writer D.C. Fontana, back in 2001. 
"The idea had been on my mind that it would be nice to know things as children that we do as adults," Fontana said. "They [the producers] wanted to do a Holly story because they didn't have too many. And so Holly's adult self came back to give her younger self a warning, which was like 'If I knew then what I know now...'"

I remember commenting to Ms. Fontana that this was all "pretty heavy stuff" for a childrens' show, since it implied Holly would lose both Will and Rick -- that they would die and apparently leave her to fend for herself in the Land of the Lost.

"I have two brothers, and my mother was alive when I wrote that show," Fontana expressed. "But I was exploring the idea of what would happen if you lost those people in your life that you care most about. In many ways, you're out in the world alone, and you have to be prepared for that."

Watching "Elsewhen," all this material comes through so clearly, and I also appreciated the notion of that inexplicable pylon key showing up. It is never explained why it is there, what it is connected to, or what the purpose may be. I've always enjoyed the fact that this mystery is not resolved. 

We are not always privy in life to answers, after all, so why should the Marshalls figure it out? "I can't explain the unexplainable, Holly," Ronnie wisely tells Holly, and that's one of the undercurrents in this episode as well.

"Elsewhen" is a superb episode, and probably one of the ten best episodes of  Land of the Lost .

Abnormal Fixation Trailer for Friday the 13th

The new trailer for Abnormal Fixation, our indie web series, dropped today.  

Although it is a comedy-horror show, this trailer focuses more on the spooky aspects of the series, in honor of the date, Friday the 13th of December.

If you would, please like and subscribe to our channel.  Our official launch date is January 23, 2025, just about month away.

50 Years Ago: The Towering Inferno (1974)

On it's fiftieth birthday, The Towering Inferno (1974) remains the towering accomplishment of the 1970s cinema of disaster.  

This Irwin Allen film was directed by John Guillermin ( King Kong  [1976]), nominated for eight Academy Awards including Best Picture, and it took home awards for best cinematography, best editing, and even best song .  

As one might expect from a list of kudos like that,  The Towering Inferno  is dazzling in terms of visual presentation, and more than that, the film is highly suspenseful. Some scenes, especially those involving the fate of Robert Wagner’s character, are also harrowing, and quite frightening. The fire effects are, for the most part, legitimately terrifying too.  

Yet  The Towering Inferno  holds up best today due to its carefully constructed social commentary.                                           

I noted in my review of Irwin Allen’s  The Poseidon Adventure  (1972) how that disaster film transmitted a specific philosophy: a brand of muscular Christianity that states, essentially, God helps those who help themselves. Gene Hackman’s character, the reverend, was a spiritual leader, rallying the ship’s survivors to survive one crisis after the other.

The Towering Inferno  doesn’t present a spiritual story-line to go with its chaotic tale of an out-of-control fire, but instead transmits a strong message about one very real pitfall of unfettered capitalism.  
Essentially, the film suggests that if the contest for a business is between turning a profit, or insuring the safety of its customers….the bottom line is going to win out, and people aren’t.

As we discover early in the film, shortcuts have been taken on the fiery building’s electrical wiring by a morally bankrupt subcontractor, Simmons (Richard Chamberlain). 
Simmons wasn’t exactly acting alone, either. Jim Duncan (William Holden), the head of the construction company, was going perilously over-budget on the project, and needed Simmons to save two-million dollars...somewhere.

Well, Simmons found the place where he could save that money. And in the end, though two million dollars were saved, at least before the disaster, roughly two-hundred people also lost their lives because of his actions.

This idea of a high-rise building being a dangerous fiasco or scam, essentially (especially considering the company’s abundantly ironic motto: “we build for life,”) is dynamically reflected in one of the film’s intimate subplots or "B" stories. 
A con-man named Claiborne (Best Supporting Actor nominee Fred Astaire), attempts to bilk a party-goer, doomed Lisolette (Jennifer Jones) out of her money. He too values money more than he does people.

Even the very structure underlining the film's character conflicts -- with corporate big-wigs like Duncan and Simmons on one side, and heroic, municipal firefighters like O'Halloran on the other -- adds to the leitmotif about the pitfalls of avarice and greed. A businessman is a person out to line his or her pockets. A municipal fire worker, by comparison, is someone who has dedicated his or her life to helping others.

There's clearly a conflict between those goals, and The Towering Inferno diagrams those conflicts beautifully.
Because it includes this social commentary about our society,  The Towering Inferno  isn’t mere escapism or disaster porn, as it has been accused of being by some critics.
Instead, this film from Irwin Allen proves a riveting and suspenseful experience that warns its audience that in their rush to make money, some people will cut corners…at the expense of the rest of us.

“We have an equipment problem.”

On the day of a gala party celebrating its opening, the architect behind the 138 story (and 135 floor…) Glass Tower, Doug Roberts flies into San Francisco by helicopter.  
He is greeted at the tower by his romantic partner, Susan Franklin (Faye Dunaway), who informs him that she wants to stay in the city and take an important new media job rather than leave the city with Doug.

Following this meeting, Doug is alarmed to  learn that safety-back-ups are not yet installed in the building, and there are indications of a fire somewhere in the skyscraper. He discovers that some wiring is too hot, and realizes that the electrical sub-contractor, Simmons (Chamberlain), did not follow specs. Instead, he used cheap wiring with no conduit covers.

Doug is worried the situation could escalate to a full-fledged disaster, but the construction company’s boss, Jim Duncan (William Holden) refuses to cancel the impending party, in part because a Senator (Robert Vaughn) and the Mayor are slated to attend.

Soon, a fuse box blows out on Floor 81, and starts a raging, ever-growing fire.  This conflagration begins to burn out of control, and Doug calls the S.F. Fire Department after a co-worker, Geddings (Norman Burton) dies from burns.  

Fireman Mike O’Halloran (Steve McQueen) arrives on the scene with a team of dedicated fire-men, but he informs Doug that if the fire is above the seventh floor, there is no good way for his men to combat it. 

The fire is on the 81st floor..and moving up.
This situation goes from bad to worse as the fire spreads, killing the passengers on an express elevator, and endangering all the party goers on the top floor, in the Promenade Room.

“I want both, and I can’t have both, can I?”

I noted above that  The Towering Inferno  -- based on the books  The Tower  and  The Glass Inferno  -- is actually a social critique of unregulated capitalism. 
A construction company in bed with political elites (the aforementioned senator and mayor) has cut corners to make its budget and get the construction permits that it needs. 
The budget is ultimately satisfied, but human decency is not.  
This leviathan of a skyscraper may be beautiful to look at, but is demonstrably unsafe. 
“Built for life,” in this case, means built for a day. The building does not survive its inaugural celebration.

Simmons is the obvious bad guy here. He installs wiring without conduit covers, and as a result, the wires get too hot. They overheat. They start a fire.
It’s easy to blame Simmons for the entire crisis since he was the hands-on fellow who changed Doug’s specs. 
But there is plenty of responsibility to go around, as Simmons points out. Duncan, of course, wanted to save money, and that became his most urgent concern.  Even if he didn’t specifically tell Simmons to authorize faulty wiring, he created the environment wherein Simmons felt it was permissible to do so. 
 In  The Towering Inferno’s  climax, Duncan is contrite because he knows fully the role he played in the deaths of 200 people. “All I can do now is pray to God I can stop this from happening again,” he notes.

For some, that may be too little too late.

Similarly, Doug bears some responsibility too. True, he absolutely designed a building he believed would be safe. But Doug never ran his ideas past by an expert who might know something about skyscrapers, fires, and safety issues; a man like O’Halloran. 
O’Halloran calls him out in the film over this particular oversight, noting that Doug is fully aware that buildings as tall as the Glass Tower can’t be protected from fire, and yet Doug keeps designing such buildings.  
At movie’s end, Doug sees the error of his ways, and says that the ruined building ought to be left standing as a “shrine to all the bullshit in the world.” 

This was, actually, a building erected on the shaky foundations of bullshit. It had better marketing --- built for life? -- than it did actual safety precautions. It is a reminder of what happens when greed is made more important than human lives.

Poor old Mr. Claiborne is not a bad person, but he too lives by scamming money from people. He pretends to be rich, but can’t even afford taxi fare, as we see in the film’s first act.  He place a greater value on money than on people, and when he loses poor Lisolette, he sees the error of his ways.  He has lost a person he loves, and nothing can make that loss better for him. It was a person, not a “mark” in a con game that ultimately matters most to him. Claiborne's punishment is that he shall be left alone -- with only Lisolette's cat, Elke -- when he could have had the companionship and love of a dear woman.

The film's leitmotif about runaway capitalism and avarice is even mirrored, to some degree, in Susan’s story.  She’s been waiting for five years to get a promotion to story editor at her job, and now the opportunity lands in her lap. She expresses her desire, openly, to have it all, both her job and the man she loves. “I want both, and I can’t have both,” she complains. We can see here the seeds of conspicuous consumption, and the idea that we can have everything we want, when we want it, all the time.

The party-goers in the Promenade are not exactly sterling characters, either, for the most part. 
They panic, they push, and they sow disorder through their ill-considered actions. We want them to survive, but cannot escape the notion, either, that they are in danger in the first place because of their wealth (their money, again), and their power.  

Again, and again, these rich people put themselves first. Two women run onto the roof, for instance, for a rescue helicopter, even though Doug warns them not to go. These women interfere, and the copter crashes and burns. People die because they didn't obey the rules.  Just as Duncan and Simmons didn't obey the rules.
At another point, the party-goers flood the express elevator, even though they have been told not to do so; that the express elevator is dangerous.  They are killed.
The message here seems to be that these people want everything, right now, and nothing -- not even safety concerns -- is going to stop them from getting what they want.
But just try negotiating with a fire...

And of course, attempting to restore order in this chaotic situation we find heroic O’Halloran. He is not a fire-fighter for the money, the power, or the prestige. He is a municipal worker: a civic worker reporting to a public hierarchy.  
And even though the powerful don’t listen to him, O'Halloran rushes in to rescue them when they are endangered. They could not care less about his life, but he puts his neck on the line again and again for the civilians at risk.  
At the end of the movie, O'Halloran has been through the wringer, and yet one feels he would do it again in a heart-beat.  In one great shot, O'Halloran takes in the scene on the ground floor.  He scans the wreckage. His men are in body bags. Their equipment is strewn across the floor.  
This is the cost of staying on a budget; of making a profit  At least for O'Halloran.

O'Halloran serves as the living, breathing mirror of those he saves. He’s not interested in money or power. He’s interested in putting safety, not profit, first.  
By contrast, Doug is the character in the film who starts on one side (that of the corporate interests), and changes allegiances as the truth about the building is revealed.  In the end, he is left humbled by this experience, and will not make the same mistake again.  The film’s closing lines involve his desire to seek out O’Halloran the next time that he designs a building. 
He knows where to find him. That's where he's been all along.

The Towering Inferno 's tragedy of greed is played out against an amazing and spectacular cinematic background.  
One scene that remains awesome and terrifying involves Robert Wagner’s character, Don Bigelow.  He dons a wet towel, and runs out into a room on fire, convinced he can safely reach an exit.  
He is consumed in fire in seconds. It devours him.

It goes without saying that this horrifying moment is not faked with digital special effects. A stunt man accomplished this run, and it was edited for maximum impact in slow-motion photography so the terror is extended. The moment is stunning and horrifying, and impossible to look away from. It captures the beauty and destructive power of fire in visceral terms.

Other scenes will cause your belly to drop, or flop. 
Late in the film, one nail-biting rescue attempt involves sending a lone person in a chair across a dangling line connecting two buildings  Although some of the process work has aged a bit -- the rear projection, specifically -- this moment still looks great in high-definition. A poor soul sits in that chair (belted in), and is moves slowly in mid-air between burning building and distant sanctuary.

I would not want to take that ride.

Before the film is done, we also see water tanks explode and flood the fire -- buffeting the survivors in the Promenade Room -- and a scenic elevator come off its track and dangle dangerously 110 floors from terra firma. 
These moments are executed with an eye towards maximum suspense and realism.

What surprised me, watching the film today, is that every minute seems genuinely suspenseful, rather than histrionic, and I actually cared about what happens to the characters, especially those played by Newman, McQueen, Dunaway, Astaire, and Jones.  

They don’t all make it out alive.

I felt very enthusiastic on my re-watch of  The Poseidon Adventure  last week, and assumed that  The Towering Inferno  might not compare favorably.  The Poseidon Adventure  was short, to the point, and right on target with its commentary about mankind making his own way in the world.
On the contrary, however,  The Towering Inferno  may just be the zenith of the seventies disaster format.  
The actors are not just good, but fully engaged, the danger is palpable, the threat is not merely pervasive, but in a way, beautiful, and there’s an undercurrent of social critique underlining all the action. The story means something, in the final analysis.

And that’s how you made blockbusters fifty years ago.

40 Years Ago: 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)

Stanley Kubrick’s  2001: A Space Odyssey  is absolutely, indisputably a one-of-a-kind movie. It is a cinematic masterpiece, and more than that, one of the greatest films ever produced.   

So the simple and apparent fact that must be acknowledged and embraced regarding the Peter Hyams sequel -- 1984’s  2010: The Year We Make Contact  --   is that it is not in the same class. 

Kubrick’s film was part science fiction, part art film, and part “ultimate trip” head movie, and  2010’s  ambitions are, well, if not smaller, then at least a great deal more direct. 

When approaching  2010 , one must, therefore, dispense with the perhaps-unreasonable expectation that the enterprise is going to rival, or even near the majesty and awe of its 1968 predecessor. 

Because a funny thing might happen once you jettison those personal expectations (or, perhaps, your memories of  2001 ). 

Another truth looms ever more apparent. 

2010: The Year We Make Contact  is still a good science fiction film, though of a markedly different style.  

Where  2001: A Space Odyssey  took man to the precipice of his own future, and to the next step of his very evolution, the sequel is very much about who man is “now” (in 1984, essentially).

Where  2001: A Space Odyssey  offered a commentary on how man’s tools could overwhelm his life, and his environs (remember the white-on-white minimalism of the production design)  2010  instead reveals man grappling with his still-human nature: the propensity to fear that which he doesn’t understand, and to go to war over territory or ideology.

2001  paid some attention to that idea, certainly. One scene in the space station lounge saw Heywood Floyd meet some Soviet scientists, and they questioned him about all the secrecy on Clavius. The scene hinted at on-going rivalries and distrust between Super Powers.

Similarly, the orbiting nuclear platforms depicted in  A Space Odyssey  suggested that war and hostility had survived and endured to the 21st century. Man’s competitive nature -- apparent from the moment the ape-man tossed a bone-weapon into the air at the dawn of the species -- was thus seen as unchanged.

Yet in Kubrick’s film that idea was merely a note in a great and elaborate symphony.

In Hyams’  2010 , by contrast, that note underlines and dominates the entire composition. It does so in faithful, earnest adaptation of Clarke’s 1982 literary source material, as well as in a brutally honest reckoning with the political details of the early 1980s.

In many ways,  2010  is thus the “hot” to  2001’ s “cold.”  

The snow-blind whites, minimalism  and yet majesty of the space station and other settings in  2001  have been replaced, largely, in  2010  by cluttered, smoky control rooms bathed in suffusing red alert lighting.  

And the sequel’s characters -- instead of showcasing smooth, emotionless efficiency as Frank Poole or David Bowman did -- experience outbreaks of panic, fear, homesickness, and even…humor.

If Kubrick’s film took a big step back from the characters and attempted to observe the long arc of man’s development with a sense of cerebral detachment, Hyams’ film instead examines man at this juncture with passionate, colorful, up-close strokes.

When considered in such terms,  2010: The Year We Make Contact  might be viewed as a pretty strong and, yes, wholly valid complement to Kubrick’s film. It is both a faithful continuation of the franchise’s overall narrative, and at the same time an apparent commentary on the visionary world envisioned by Kubrick.  

It’s almost as if this sequel applies the brakes -- the aerobrakes? -- in response to  2001’s  flights of imagination and futurism.  

It says, instead,  Hold on!  We’re not quite there yet.  

The famous black Monolith may have judged Bowman ready to evolve into a star child, but for now, the rest of humanity remains mired in conflict and self-destructive impulses.
Absent entirely in  2010: The Year We Make  Contact is Kubrick’s sense of “order in the universe,” the amazing compositions which suggest a God’s eye view of the cosmos. 

Missing as well is the feeling that we humans are part of a long, ongoing process of development, moving from our “dawn” to “the infinite and beyond.”  

The sequel substitutes such awesome visions and ideas with a direct, teletype-style message to mankind (from the aliens…), transcribed by HAL.  “All these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landing there. Use them together. Use them in peace.”

In 1984 -- soon after The Day After (1983) aired on television, and at the height of East-West Cold War tensions -- the Klaatu-esque message of this film really resonated, at least with my teenage self. It was less “grand,” perhaps, “less cosmic” than Kubrick’s intellectual musings, but perhaps  2010’ s direct approach was the very thing that audiences needed to hear at that moment in history.

Bluntly worded,  2010  tells its audience this: you can’t evolve and be “a star child” until you grow the fuck up.  

The astronauts of the film -- men and women from the United States and the Soviet Union -- are at the vanguard of that growth, and become the very symbols for man’s ability to, even in dire circumstances, to evolve beyond basic tribal instincts.

So if  2001  concerns what man will one day become,  2010  suggests how he needs to get there, through the end of war and petty conflict.

“My God, it’s full of stars.”

Nine long years after Discovery One went silent near Jupiter, and Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) was lost approaching the strange, alien monolith, the Cold War on Earth has grown hot.  

The Soviet Union and the United States of America tussle over the resources and loyalty of the Third World.  A problem in Central America, in Honduras, grows ever worse, and the United States threatens a naval blockade.

Meanwhile, Dr. Heywood Floyd (Roy Scheider) is asked to spearhead a mission to Jupiter, to re-activate the HAL 9000,  nd then determine the nature of the mysterious Monolith.  

Unfortunately, the Russians will beat the Americans to the derelict Discovery One, so an accommodation --- a joint mission -- is broached by the competitors.

Floyd and an American team consisting of computer expert Dr. Chandra (Bob Balaban), and Discovery One designer Walter Curnow (John Lithgow) thus board the Russian craft, Leonov, under the command of Captain Tanya Kirbuk (Helen Mirren) for the journey.  In turn, they will share their findings about the Monolith.

Leonov begins its long space journey, and takes a detour to Europa, where chlorophyll -- an early sign of life -- has been detected.  A probe is sent to examine the surface of Europa, but is destroyed by an unknown force.

Later, the Leonov conducts a difficult aero-braking maneuver on approach to the Discovery, and Dr. Chandra revives HAL. 

Meanwhile, on Earth, an entity resembling Dave Bowman begins to appear to the astronaut’s surviving family members.  He tells them that something wonderful is going to happen, and soon.

Tensions on Earth grow exponentially worse, and at the same time, HAL warns the crews of the Leonov and Discovery One that this area of space is becoming dangerous because of a strange “storm” of Monoliths in the atmosphere of Jupiter.

With the storm expanding, and the outcome unknown, the two space crews must put their ideology and suspicion behind them to survive and escape this region of space.

“We should each be treated with appropriate respect.”

2001: A Space Odyssey  raised many questions about the universe, mankind’s evolution, and even the reasons why the HAL 9000 went berserk. 

2010: The Year We Make Contact  makes no bones about the fact that it is in the business of providing answers. 

For instance, early in the film it is established that the final reports regarding Discovery One and the Jupiter Mission failure left its readers with “a good amount of questions.”  Just like some members of the audience for  2001 . Later, Floyd reveals, in voice-over, very detailed information about the Monolith “controlling” everything in nearby space. He seems to know a lot about it.

If the sequel boasts any substantial flaw it is that it feels both conceived and executed to satisfy those who were unsatisfied by  2001: A Space Odyssey.  Accordingly, the answers just keep on coming.

And yet, if you were unsatisfied by  2001,  you didn’t really get the movie, did you?

Leaving that issue aside  2010  takes great artistic pains to “ground” all the proceedings in terms that its audience would easily comprehend. For example, Floyd feels guilt and remorse about sending the Discovery One crew people to die, and so this Leonov mission is explicitly one about his redemption. 

“This won’t bring those men back,” or provide “absolution” suggests Heywood’s wife.  

And again, one need only note that in  2001 , we had no such insight into Mr. Floyd, or his motivations. He was not humanized in such fashion.

Other characters are similarly endowed with traits that ground them, or make them more recognizably human and contemporary. Chandra is prideful at times, and Curnow undergoes a bit of fear or agoraphobia on a harrowing spacewalk. During the tense aero-breaking scene, Floyd and an attractive Russian astronaut clutch one another, out of abject fear.

Even when Dave was locked out of the Pod Bay of the Discovery in  2001 , he evidenced no such outward signs of fear.

Indeed, the film’s entire approach to character is best exemplified by Curnow’s line that he misses the color “green.”  

Was there any green (outside the Dawn of Man segment) in  2001 ?  Was there any explicit longing for it?

What  2010: The Year We Make Contact  wants to suggest, then, is that although man may erect a white-on-white future, he’s not going to like it, and he’s still going to long for the “green” of terrestrial Earth.  He’s still going to be “man" as we recognize him now.

HAL is newly humanized as well in this sequel. We learn that he is, essentially, schizophrenic, because of the contradictory orders he received from home base. Instead of acting as a ruthless, cunning opponent, he becomes here a figure of sympathy, one who even asks if he will “dream” when Discovery One is destroyed.

Finally, the ghost of David Bowman indulges in behavior that we would consider extremely human and emotional too. He visits his relatives on Earth. He combs his elderly mother’s hair.

Again, this kind of material is absolutely absent from  2001: A Space Odyssey , where even a vid-phone call between father and child feels strangely distant and unemotional. But  2010  is a different film. 

This film’s modus operandi -- also evidenced in the desire to create thrilling space action scenes like the space walk or the aero-braking --  is to showcase the yin/yang of human emotions or passions. 

The environs of the Leonov, the new ship created for the sequel, likewise showcase this aesthetic. The ship’s control room is always either under-lit and dark, or bathed in red light. Papers are scattered everywhere, on panels and tables. The visual aesthetic is much more Ridley Scott’s  Alien  (1979) than it is Stanley Kubrick’s  2001.  And again, that’s because the film wants to present a realistic portrayal of emotional, contemporary man in space.  

Why? Well, the film examines man at close-up range. He can be wonderful and good, seeking absolution, longing for nature's "green," or acknowledging his fears. Or he can bring the world to the precipice of nuclear Armageddon.  

And again, I feel it incumbent to note as well the apocalypse mentality of the country in the first Reagan presidency, which forms the cultural context behind this sequel. This was a time when in public forums Russia was derided as “The Evil Empire,” and it was announced (as a joke) that bombing Russia would begin in "five minutes." It was an era in which cabinet appointees like Secretary of the Interior James Watts declared it was not really necessary to take care of the planet's environment because Jesus Christ would return in his lifetime, and this would be the last generation. These words are not my opinion of what happened, they are historical record, and therefore not partisan or biased. These things were said in public, and heard in the public square, by children and adults alike. They were noted.

2010: The Year We Make   Contact  is very much about that context (as well as the Falklands Island War…), an environment of distrust and concern about nuclear war in which it becomes impossible to visualize your “enemy” as another human being, but rather as a godless monster that must be destroyed.  

The message is made plain in the film terms of the astronauts’ behavior, and their cooperative solution for survival.  

To endure a disaster near Jupiter, two ships and two crews must literally become one.  

The Russian Leonov and the American Discovery One must join together and pool resources -- literally as one ship -- to see a new sunrise.  This is the Monolith’s lesson for the entirety of Earth as well. The two rival super-powers --  if they hope to claim their stake in space -- must become one. They must treat each other “with appropriate respect” and recognize their enemy’s common humanity.

The aliens final message in the film is very on the nose.  “Use these worlds together. Use them in peace.”  

If humans do not do so, the implication is that the Monolith aliens will respond accordingly. The events on Europa with the destroyed probe reveal that these aliens will brook no interference with their agenda. Again, this seems highly reminiscent, at least to me, of  The Day The Earth Stood Still  (1951), and its alien ultimatum. 

“Join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration.”

2001: A Space Odyssey  doesn’t transmit an easily-digestible message like that, which can be stated in a few simple words, and  2010: The Year We Make Contact  does.  The two films stand in stark contrast because of that difference.  2001  coolly asks its audience to interpret its message, and  2010  states its message, rather bluntly and emotionally, and with some degree of heat and excitement.

In general, I prefer Kubrick’s approach, but there are times when the  2010  approach becomes a necessity too…especially if you are the parent of a misbehaving child.  

As such a parent figure (as the Monolith aliens may be to humanity), it is necessary at times to make certain you are heard and clearly understood

The message in  2010  is indeed clearly heard and understood. That fact doesn’t make the movie “bad.”  It just makes the film a very different kind of space opera from its predecessor.  

Beautifully mounted, and buttressed with splendid recreations of the Discovery One, and some tense moments in space,  2010  is a worthwhile film, and a solid sequel to one of the cinema’s all-time greats.  We can remember it that way, in part, because it sought not to imitate a great film, but to chart its own (if ultimately less challenging..) territory.

Another way to put it. We may not give  2010  equal respect to  2001 , but let us all treat it with "appropriate" respect nonetheless, especially on its 40th anniversary.

Reflections on Turning 55

Last year on my birthday, I wrote about a study published in The Guardian about turning 54.  

That study concluded that fifty-four is the age that people lose their "get-up and go," meaning their "passion and grit."

I was determined not to succumb, and be another statistic. I was not ready to give up my energy and creative life.  Not yet.

And here I am, turning 55, and, well, it has been a heck of a year since I made the pledge not to grow old, to be Peter Pan forever.

There have been great highs and great lows in these last twelve months.

The low, of course, was losing my dad in April.

He was eighty, and battled prostate cancer for so many years. 

We're in the holiday season of 2024 now, and it's the first without him.

I miss him. 

My whole family misses him. 

It already seems like forever that my Dad has been gone. I hope I honored him and his incredible journey of resilience and strength with this diary entries I posted here on the blog early in 2024.

But the fact is that when you lose someone so important to you, you are never the same. 

There is a new normal, but it is not the same normal. 

Here, we are all clinging to one another, and charting a new way forward, because life must go on. But we all miss my Dad and his humble, patient, loving nature.

I have been so fortunate, this year, in other ways, that, I hope, keep me young, and looking to the next sunrise, the next horizon.

This past summer, I collaborated with a tremendously talented group of artists (of multiple generations!) to create our independent web series, Abnormal Fixation. 

It is a comedy-horror show, silly to its low-budget core, and I have been go gratified not just to do the work with my friends, but to see the reception the web series has had on the film festival circuit. 

Its reception so far has exceeded any expectation I had, in honesty. 

So far, Abnormal Fixation has won awards for:

-Best Screenplay (Oniros Film Awards)

-Best Comedy Actor (Elegant International Film Festival) -- That's me!

-Best Actor (Alicia Martin) -- Magic Silver Screen, Critic's Choice International Film Festival, Script Symphony Awards

-Best Supporting Actor (Chris Martin) -- Elegant International Film Festival, Magic Silver Screen

-Best Sound Design (Tony Mercer) -- Oniros Film Awards, Magic Silver Screen

-Best Web Series (Script Symphony Awards)

-Best Indie Film (Cineverse International Film Festival)

And, our series teaser got over 41,000 views in two weeks, which is great. Our show premieres January 23rd, and I hope you will all watch it and see what the fuss is about.

Working with Kathryn, and Joel on Abnormal Fixation, and with all the other amazing cast and crew has been, in so many ways, a life-changing experience for all of us, with more excitement to come. 

We are on an AF journey here in Muirland, for sure.

Also in 2024, Alicia Martin and I co-authored the first novel in a series about a psychologist dealing with the supernatural, The Subway Game, and we are hard at work on the second novel in the series. 

If you want to read a great yarn, with a unique voice, I hope you will check it out!

I've also had the pleasure of seeing my work published in Filtered Reality, an anthology about found footage films, and on the Arrow Films UHD edition of A Simple Plan (1998).

Horror Films of the 2010s is also in preparation, at McFarland another whopping 300,000 word tome, and that's been fun to work on too, to revisit a decade of scary movies (even the elevated horror ones...)

And, I keep at this blog!  In 2025, it will be my twentieth year blogging.  In 2024, this blog has had 999,000 views, as of my birthday, today.  (Overall, since starting 20 years, ago, it has had 10 million+). To celebrate two decades blogging, I'll be sharing my most read posts throughout 2025.

Last but never least, I continue to love teaching. I love my co-workers at South Piedmont Community College, and I cherish the opportunity to teach communications and humanities to a new generation of students, each semester.  

So I don't know that I have any universal answers about the "turning 54" slump or conundrum, except for this:  

Be with people you love, doing what you love, as much as you can, as often as you can. 

Create. Collaborate. Share. Learn. And then do it all again.

Second star to the right, and straight on till morning.

50 Years Ago: The Land That Time Forgot (1974)

You will never forget Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Land That Time Forgot," blared the trailers to this 1974 Amicus film starring Doug McClure.

And you know what?
The advertisements were truthful.
I first saw  The Land That Time Forgot  in theaters in 1975 -- when I was only five years old -- and I have never, ever forgotten the adventurous Kevin Connor film. 
In fact, I affectionately count this disco decade "lost world" production as one of my key, youthful "gateway" productions (like  20,000 Leagues Under The Sea  [1954],  The Golden Voyage of Sinbad  [1974],  Land of the Lost  [1974-1976],  Logan's Run  [1976] and  Space: 1999  [1975-1977]).

What I mean by that "gateway" descriptor is this: a love and enjoyment of these particular visual productions led me to learn more about the genre and to explore science fiction, fantasy and horror in literature, in comics, in film, and on television. 

The Land That Time Forgot , for instance, ignited my life-long love affair with the works of Burroughs and fed my fascination with all-things dinosaur and submarine-related.) 
Over the years I have returned frequently to  The Land That Time Forgot  from the perspective of nostalgia. The film was something I enjoyed watching as a child, and so it holds a safe, cherished place in my heart. 
However, that fact doesn't mean that the film is actually childish or lacking in quality, like, for instance, the wretched  Dinosaurus!  (1960), a film I enjoyed as a child but ultimately outgrew upon adult re-viewing. 
I guess what I'm trying to say is that some movies hold up over time...and some don't, and I'm not so blinded by nostalgia that I can't detect the difference.

And after I watched  The Land That Time Forgot  again for the first time in a few years, I realized that, for the most part, this modestly-budgeted film still holds up really well as solid fantasy entertainment.
Although  The Land That Time Forgot's  aged dinosaur effects -- accomplished with rubbery puppets -- may appear horribly primitive by today's CGI post- Jurassic Park  standards, this 1970s film still boasts a surfeit of impressive qualities, particularly a most welcome sense of wonder. In an age in which our movie blockbusters pummel, bruise and batter us with sound and fury, but not much imagination and wonder, that's no small accomplishment, to be certain.

More than that,  The Land That Time Forgot  has been shot (by the legendary Alan Hume) and assembled by Connor in more than your typical workman-like fashion. Some of the meticulous composite shots are actually pretty gorgeous, not to mention impactful. Many of the miniatures, produced by Derek Medding, are also convincing, though some shots are notably less effective than others.

Learn the Secret of Evolution

Based on the 1918 book by Edgar Rice Burroughs and adapted for the screen by a young Michael Moorcock,  The Land That Time Forgot  begins in portentous, enigmatic fashion. The first shot is of a small object -- a thermos -- careening over the side of a high, craggy cliff...and landing in a turbulent, cresting sea.
A montage of views of the rough ocean follow, until the wayward canister arrives at a small fishing community. and an old sailor retrieves it. 
Inside is a wrinkled, aged manuscript, written by a marooned American, Bowen Tyler (Doug McClure).

Narrated in voice-over -- and commencing with the words "I do not expect anyone to believe the story I am about to relate" -- Tyler's manuscript describes the strange events of June 3, 1916, when German U-Boat-33 torpedoed a British merchant ship, the Montrose on the high sea.

Tyler, a beautiful biologist named Lisa Clayton (Susan Penhaligon), and several crew-members of the British ship survived the attack and managed to commandeer the attacking sub. After several pitched battles between opposing, loyal crews, however, a tender peace was forged with the reasonable U-Boat captain Von Schoenvorts (John McEnery) when it was learned that the ship -- headed due south -- had become irrevocably lost after six days in uncharted waters.

With fuel and supplies low, the submarine happened into a frozen sea. There, it came upon a forbidding, undiscovered continent named Caprona after an explorer who, in 1721, had first spotted it its jagged cliffs. At Tyler's instructions, the sub sailed inland through a subterranean river passage, only to surface in the lagoon of a prehistoric terrain...a world of dinosaurs, volcanoes and lush vegetation.

During the course of his stay there, Tyler learned from Lisa and Von Shoenvorts that the continent was populated not just by prehistoric beasts, but by creatures "at every stage of evolutionary development" including Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon Man (called "Galu").

Tyler and his associates -- for whom the "war in Europe" had now been rendered meaningless -- then braved tyrannosaur attacks, ambushes by cave-man, quick- sand pits and other threats on Caprona before a volcanic eruption that ultimately destroyed the sub and left all but Tyler and Liz dead. 
The survivors were left to -- much like evolution on Caprona -- "move ever forward;" to explore the island, and if possible, share their miraculous story with the faraway world of 20th century man...

We Must All Work Together

The Land That Time Forgot's  inaugural act is -- in many criticals ways -- the film's tightest and most impressively drawn. After the sinking of the British ship in a misty sea, Germans, Brits and Americans are confined to the claustrophobic confines of U-33, and pitted against one another. There's one battle on the deck of the sub, in particularly, which is expertly shot and well-edited. 
Connor's camera is deliberately shaky and immediacy-provoking without proving so jerky that the motion hides the action choreography (the case with much of the hand-held work/quick cuts vetted in today's blockbusters). 
The film's characters -- looking authentically grimy, exhausted and weary -- plot against one another until faced with a common threat that unites them: starvation and death. 
The impressive and atmospheric live-action submarine scenes that open the picture were shot on H. Stage at Shepperton Studios over a span of a week, and they nicely set up the isolation of the crews..the hunger for landfall and the feel of terra firma.

The Land That Time Forgot  is also distinctively anti-war in nature, since the British, American and Germans decide to leave behind petty concerns about territory and work together in unison for the common good. This was an idea which had special resonance in 1918 when Burroughs wrote the story, and also highly relevant in 1975, the final year of America's involvement in Vietnam. 
Together, the "evolved" men of the 20th century combine here --among other qualities -- "German metaphysics" and "British empiricism" in the service of learning about the wonders of Caprona. 
Indeed, one of the film's explicit plot threads involves the fact that life in Caprona is constantly evolving, moving forward. As Tyler puts it simply "You cannot go back to the beginning." 
When a villainous German officer, Dietz (Anthony Ainley) attempts to do just that by reviving the old national feuds, the result is total destruction and annihilation for the warring parties. War belongs in the past, with the dinosaurs, the film seems to suggest, at least implicitly.

The Land That Time Forgot's  second act is also strong and direct, focused on the discoveries and dangers of the undiscovered continent and the strange life-forms inhabiting it. Many of the film's most impressive special effects are featured in this portion of the action, particularly some beautiful blending of fantasy matte-paintings with the live-action.

Director Kevin Connor told me in an interview for  Filmfax  (No. 117, April/June 2008, page 56) that the idea of "shooting on Vista-Vision plates for rear projection was fairly new" at the time of  The Land That Time Forgot  and that the production shot "all the monster plates over two weeks before main shooting." The approach was, in his words, "a combination of live action and hand puppets."
It's only in the film's cataclysmic, explosive third act climax -- with one threat looming after another -- that Connor's sturdy film tends to appear less than entirely impressive. The careful characterization and plot development give way, inevitably, to fisticuffs, battles and (admittedly-impressive) on-set pyrotechnics. 
The result is that some level of intimacy is sacrificed, especially as the cool-headed, affable Van Schoenvarts character is relegated to the background. There's just something anti-climactic about this span in the movie (though, as a kid, I loved the action and fireworks).
This lapse in tone is rectified, however, by the elegiac and picturesque book-end finale (shot on the Island of Skye by Peter Alliwork, an aerial camera man). These moments finds lonely survivors Taylor and Clayton in the frozen north of Caprona, tossing the thermos canister (and manuscript) into the cleansing sea, saying their goodbyes to civilization and the possibility of rescue.

What I too k away from  The Land That Time Forgot  as a child was the thrill of exploring a new and dangerous land...the prehistoric world of the pterodactyl, the diplodocus and the tyrannosaur. 
As an adult, the film's themes about moving "ever forward" -- away from a history of bloodshed, ignorance and war -- really crystallized for me. 
On the island of Caprona, World War I era man -- with all his flaws and foibles -- was just one evolutionary step beyond the Neanderthals and the Galu, and not as entirely evolved as man could (and can yet...) be.

In 1975,  The Land That Time Forgot  proved an unexpected box office hit, and was followed promptly by the Burroughs film  At The Earth's Core  (1976) -- also starring McClure and directed by Connor -- as well as the (disappointing) direct sequel,  The People That Time Forgot  (1977). 
By the time of  People , of course, the pop culture had moved on from lost worlds, dinosaurs and the Vietnam conflict, and a small film called  Star Wars  came to dominate the national imagination. "Our distributors didn't want to spend any large amounts promoting the film, and neither did the backers want to go into huge-budget pictures," Kevin Connor told me about his time adapting Burroughs. "They said there was no money in kids' films! How wrong they were..."

Even with a low-budget and some dated effects, this initial Amicus fantasy outing deserves to be much more than the movie that time forgot. 

Our pop culture has evolved significantly since  The Land That Time Forgot , I suppose, but in this case, "going back" to the prehistoric past is an option I recommend wholeheartedly.

Happy Turkey Day!

I have posted this story, or some variation of it, every Thanksgiving going back over a decade now. Hard to believe. Perhaps it is a tradition of its own, after a fashion.
Looking back, I think the notion of a "monsterous" [sic] holiday film marathon is an experience that many "Monster Kids" and youngsters of the 1970's cherish and remember fondly. But, of course, the marathon is a reminder not only of monsters, but of family too, and of a specific time and place from our youth.
And, surely, this story is about how a memory of watching a film can color memories of families and holidays too.
Today, it is such a different world. 
Not necessarily better or worse. Just different. 
Today, we can put on any movie at any time, basically. We have options, and limitless possibilities via streaming. We can build our own marathon, specific to our family, on any day of the year. But the communal experience of enjoying of a film is something, perhaps that we have lost.  Or are in the process of losing.
When I was growing up in the New Jersey burbs during the seventies and early eighties, that communal idea of a holiday movie marathon, however, was thriving, especially, for some reason, with giant monster movies.

Every year, WOR Channel 9 would broadcast King Kong (1933),  Son of Kong  (1933) and  Mighty Joe Young  (1949) on Turkey Day.

Then, on Friday, the same station would host a Godzilla marathon consisting of such films as  King Kong   vs. Godzilla  (1962),  Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster  (1971) and many others. Some years, if memory serves,  War of the Gargantuas  (1968) also played. I'm sure that's how I first encountered the film.

I remember showering and dressing early on those Thanksgiving Days, so I could be lodged near the TV when the  Kong  movies started. 
Meanwhile, my Mom and Dad would be busy in the kitchen preparing a great meal of turkey, stuffing, baked carrots with cinnamon, and home-made biscuits. The house would fill with the aromas of the feast, and even downstairs in the basement rec room -- while glued to WOR-TV -- I could feel my appetite for dinner building.

Our guests, usually my grandparents and aunts and uncles, would arrive sometime in the early afternoon, around 1:00 pm and I would socialize with them, and then sneak back to the family room for more  King Kong.   Sometimes my uncle Larry, a monster movie fan after a fashion (ironic?), would join me.

Dinner had multiple courses. My mom made her home-made French onion soup, which is a delicacy she still makes, 40+ years later, and which my 18 year old son Joel now enjoys.
Then the meal and dessert -- a chocolate cream pie and a pumpkin pie -- would be served, and we’d all enjoy each other’s company over the delicious food.
After an appropriate interval of visiting and socializing, I’d high-tail it once more back down the stairs to watch more of the movies. Others would matriculate in and out to see what was I watching, and we'd socialize more.

I’m certain my description of Thanksgiving makes it sound weird and anti-social, but you must remember that in the seventies, there were no VCRs (let alone DVRs or movie streaming), which meant that if you wanted to see a movie like  King Kong , you had to seize your moment, or else wait for another year. 

I believe it took me the better part of four Thanksgivings to see all of  King Kong,  and then not even in chronological order. I actually saw the entirety of  Son of Kong  first, perhaps because it was often scheduled between our early afternoon dinner and dessert course.

This tradition of  King Kong  Thanksgiving and Godzilla Black Friday continued over a long period at my house -- the better part of a decade -- so much so that I still irrevocably associate the holiday season with WOR Channel 9 and its monster movie broadcasts.  
I still remember, a bit guiltily, forcing my parents to watch the 1970's  Godzilla  movies on Fridays, while we ate Thanksgiving leftovers in the family room. My folks liked the  King Kong  movies, but when it came to Japanese monster movies, they weren’t exactly big fans. Today, my wife, son and I prefer the  Godzilla  movies.

Fifty years have now passed since those Monster Thanksgivings in NJ. 
My grandparents are gone. 
Many uncles and aunts are gone, or living in faraway states, and the monsters on TV no longer roar for hours on end. 
My father passed away this year, 2024, in April.
I'm happily married, raising a young adult of my own. As a country, our national holidays, like Thanksgiving, seem fraught with different dangers in 2024. 
Such as? Discussing politics, rather than the fictional dangers of Godzilla stomping Tokyo...again.
In the span of history, these marathons happened for a few short years,  I guess. But I'll always remember those years, and the company of family and kaiju.  
I'm thankful for those years, and those friends, and for all of you too, reading these memories today. 
Happy Thanksgiving!

30 Years Ago: Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)

The tenth birthday of cinematic boogeyman Freddy Krueger should have been a big deal to start with, that's for sure. 

Why?

Well, in the late 1980s, Freddy Krueger veritably ruled the box office and the horror genre, thanks in large part to three or four very talented people: Wes Craven, who gave birth to Freddy, Robert Englund, who gave the silver screen monster body and personality, and talents like Heather Langenkamp and Lisa Wilcox, who, on more than one occasion, gave Krueger worthy nemeses.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Freddy was truly flattered throughout the eighties.  In the latter part of the decade, every new issue of Fangoria  seemed to trumpet the arrival of "a new
Freddy, a boogymena challenger to knock Krueger from his long-held king’s throne.  
The candidates didn’t end up being so imposing, from Harris (Richard Lynch), the cult-guru of  Bad Dreams  (1988), to  I Madman’s  (1989) Malcolm Brand.  Even Craven himself took a shot at toppling Freddy with his new monster: Horace Pinker (the great Mitch Pileggi) in 1989’s  Shocker.

But by 1991, somehow, Freddy Krueger was played out. The last series film,  Freddy’s Dead  (1991), was a disaster, and his TV show ( Freddy’s Nightmares ) was cancelled after just two seasons.

After years holding on, and being praised as the best of the slasher pack, Freddy lost his cultural currency.
So New Line Studios did the only thing that made sense. It went back to Freddy’s dad, Wes Craven, one more time, and he devised a new twist on his most beloved character.  Craven revived the series, -- at least from an artistic stand-point -- with the brilliant  Wes Craven’s New Nightmare  (1994).

As Kim Newman pointed out in  Sight and Sound  (Jan 1, 1995, pg.62), “The major achievement of the film, given the complicated mix of in-jokery and philosophy and the by-now familiar nature of Freddy’s schtick, is that Craven manages to make things scary again.”

That was a big deal, considering the fact that after five sequels, Freddy had become more circus ringmaster than slashing, menacing murderer.

But even better,  New Nightmare  was scary in a smart way. The New York Post’s Thelma Adams observed that it is a “rippingly good movie-within-a-movie, a pop Day for Nightmare.”  Indeed, the film’s is-it-real-or-is-it-a-movie approach to the action might very well be seen as the missing link binding 1980s slashers to the most popular horror franchise of the 1990s:  Scream  (1996). 

I love  New Nightmare,  however, not merely because it is scary, and not merely because it plays with our understanding of reality (and indeed, franchise history). 
Rather, I adore the film because it speaks meaningfully about the horror film’s place in American society.  It erects, brilliantly, in my estimation, a pro-social case for the horror film as art. 
Horror films offer a very necessary catharsis for our society, states the film's thesis. The monsters that we don’t capture on the screen will haunt us in real life. Thus horror movies not only “bottle” such monsters, butthey  help children grapple with the idea of evil in a way that does not endanger them, and, to the contrary, shows them how to survive.

A good scary story is more than entertainment. It is a journey survived, an obstacle overcome, a mountain climbed. A good horror movie can demonstrate how, once destroyed, order can be restored. It can shows us that monsters are defeatable, just as life's troubles can be defeated.
In case you couldn't tell, I love this film, and everything it stands -- and fights -- for.

"Every kid knows who Freddy is.  He's like Santa Claus. Or King Kong."
Former horror movie star Heather Langenkamp grows agitated when, following an earthquake in Los Angeles, she learns that her young son, Dylan (Miko Hughes) has been watching her  Nightmare on Elm Street  films.   
Worse, she is being stalked by an obscene phone caller, and is having nightmares about Freddy.

Before long, it seems as Freddy (Robert Englund) himself is crossing over into our reality, and using Dylan as a vessel to do so.

Desperate, Heather seeks the advice of her friend, John Saxon (himself) and horror movie guru, Wes Craven (himself), who suggests that it is time for the actress to reprise her role of Nancy Thompson if she hopes to defeat an ancient demon that has taken the shape of Freddy Krueger.

"I think the only way to stop him is to make another movie."
At its most basic form,  Wes Craven's New Nightmare  is a parent’s personal journey towards enlightenment.  
As the film commences, Heather obsessively protects her son Dylan from the danger of “scary movies,” of horror films, that she perceives. 
She admits that she wouldn’t allow Dylan to see her own motion pictures, namely Craven’s  A Nightmare on Elm Street ,  and that she is uncertain about “doing horror roles" because of their impact on Dylan and other children his age. 

She thus makes an argument that all horror film fans  have heard again and again. Horror movies are bad! They are bad for society, and bad for young eyes!
Additionally, Heather does not understand why her boy -- here representing all of America’s children -- is drawn to scary stories in the first place.  Regarding Hansel & Gretel, Heather declares, “it’s so violent, I don’t know why you like it.”  
Horror movie fans have heard that one too. 
I get this one all the time, especially when I reveal how much I appreciate  Last House on the Left  (1972), or  Straw Dogs  (1971).  
How can someone so gentle, so nice, actually like movies filled with such horrible violence?  
Well, unlike a lot of folks, I prefer all my horrible violence to be on screen, not in real life. I work out my fears, my anxieties in these movies, imagining the unimaginable, and feeling a catharsis when I have survived it.
But back to the movie.  
As a result of his mother’s repression of horror films and bedtime stories, young Dylan becomes partially possessed by the demons he has only half-glimpsed in these apparent fiction.  
Because he has not seen the entire picture, the whole film A Nightmare on Elm Street, he has not witnessed his mother defeat Freddy’s evil. He is therefore left vulnerable to evil influences and emotions. He has nowhere to put that "horror" and no way to achieve closure.

To illustrate this point, Craven’s screenplay has Dylan awaken as if from a trance each time Heather turns off the television to censor his viewing.  His need for security is shattered, and Dylan screams in horror.  
Significantly, he is not frightened by the images of terror unfolding on the screen, but because his mother has robbed him of narrative closure; of the knowledge that, in the end, evil is defeated and the world is returned to normal.

Similarly, as Heather reads Hansel and Gretel to Dylan for the umpteenth time, he orders her to finish the story before he goes to sleep.  
“Say how they find their way home, it’s important,” he insists.  

Craven’s implication here is that children like to be scared and that stimulating horror stories/films serve as an outlet for this need.  By seeing a scary story all the way through to its conclusion, children learn that they too can beat scary influences in real life. Horror makes them aware that they will survive.  
The form is cathartic, in addition to being fun.

As the plot of  Wes Craven’s New Nightmare  develops, Heather realizes that, as Craven eloquently puts it, an evil repressed can sometimes break through into “safe” reality.  A woman who has refused to allow her child to see horror films is then thrust unexpectedly into the position of defending them.  

“I’m convinced that those films can send an unstable child over the edge!” the well-meaning but parochial Dr. Heffner declares, but the horror Dylan faces is not imagined bur real, ironically, because the Freddy films are no longer being made in the 1990s.  
When they were produced in the 1980s, the series served as a healthy outlet for teenage fears and anxieties.  Since they have stopped, evil has escaped into the real world and is doing massive damage.

Craven explores this theme of horror as acceptable, even desirable outlet for fear by crafting an ongoing parallel between his  Elm Street  universe and the grim childhood story Hansel and Gretel.  
Since Hansel and Gretel is deemed acceptable “bedtime reading” by most parents, a  Nightmare on Elm Street  is, by extension, also acceptable. And like the witch in the scary fairy tale, Freddy Krueger even tries to shove Dylan into an oven and in the film’s denouement is cooked himself. 

In stalking the young boy, Freddy declares, “I’m gonna eat you up!” and that he has some “gingerbread” for the boy, and these moments heighten the film’s similarity to written folklore.  

The film’s conclusion is the final reiteration of this leitmotif as Heather and Dyaln sit together and read the  New Nightmare  script from start to finish as the camera gently pulls away from the duo, both safe and sound. 
This reading provides closure and vanquishes Freddy forever to the world of imagination…or at least until people stop making horror movies about this particular demon once more.

Rich in theme and intellectual heft,  Wes Craven’s New Nightmare  not only examines parental responsibility and the healthy aspects of the horror film, it is also profoundly self-referential in its commentary on the world of Hollywood filmmaking. Freddy masks, costumes, gloves and affectionate fan signs are all seen on the talk show stage. Memorabilia from the  Elm Street  line, including reference books, action figures and paintings are seen in executive Bob Shaye’s office, and fans like the creepy limo driver pop up everywhere and startle poor Heather in the tradition of Freddy himself.

Craven pointedly contrasts the fanaticism of some fans with the blasé attitude of those who make the films and profit from them. 

“That thing puts bread on our table,” Chase reminds Heather when she petulantly objects to Freddy’s new razor glove.  

“The fans, god bless ‘em, they’re clamoring for more,” Bob Shaye laughs, realizing that he has a money-making bonanza in this particular franchise. 

Indeed, the very fact that the tenth anniversary of  A Nightmare on Elm Street  is a plot point in the film speaks to both fan devotion and executive greed.  Amusingly, Craven bites the hand that feed him here.  At the same time that he makes another horror sequel for New Line and Shaye, he criticizes the company for literally running Freddy into the ground.  
Freddy has returned to the real world not just because of repression, but because his mythos has become overly familiar, too watered down by mainstream concerns to be scary anymore. 

Even as New Nightmare slams past sequels, it is loaded with references visual and verbal to past entries in the  Elm Street  film cycle.  It is a movie about transformation and alternate reality bleeding in to ours, so by the movie’s climax Heather’s world has turned into the world of the 1984 film.  John Saxon is suddenly her father, her blond babysitter dies like blond Tina died, and so on. Heather's hair even goes gray again, and she finds herself inadvertently repeating dialogue from the original film such as “whatever you do, don’t fall asleep” and “screw your pass!”
The first  Nightmare on Elm Street  is not the only series entry referenced here. 
Dr. Heffner, the disbelieving professional, echoes Dr. Elizabeth Simms in  Dream Warriors  (1987), who felt that Freddy wasn’t real but rather a byproduct of “rampant” adolescent sexuality.  
The roadside death of a male protagonist, Chase, is reminiscent of Alice’s boyfriend Dan and his death in  The Dream Child  (1989), down to the inclusion of a pick-up truck in the sequence.  Another repetition from the fifth film is the subplot that a child can serve as a vessel of evil, one which Freddy can operate. 
 Finally, Heather’s comment to Dylan that people can only enter other people’s dreams in the movies represents a sly put-down of the premise of  Dream Warriors.
By re-interpreting these standards of the  Nightmare on Elm Street  film series,  New Nightmare  transcends the familiar mythos and actually becomes oddly unpredictable.  Viewers believe they know all the twists, but all the twists are, themselves, twisted and given new meaning (and thus power) in their revision.

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare  contains many intricate realities.  For instance, the audience here is watching a horror movie concerning an actress planning to play herself in a horror movie. Fictional and real worlds overlap, and this is buttressed by the presence of Nick Corri, Robert Englund, Sara Risher, Craven and others, all playing themselves in the drama.  
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare  also succeeds on a primal, childhood level. It plays on fears of the dark, monsters, “what’s under the bed,” anxieties about hospitals, and more.  It also deftly blends humor with the fear of losing a child, that which is most valuable and innocent in the world. 

So credit Wes Craven for doing something here that many thought was impossible on Freddy K's tenth birthday.
He breathed new life into an old monster, and an old form too.