Genre, Special Effects and Authorship in the Critical Reception of Science Fiction Film and Television during the 1950s By Mark Jancovich and Derek Johnston Accounts of science fiction in film and television in the 1950s often present it as dominated by the alien invasion narratives, in which monsters from outer space seek to subjugate or exterminate humanity. Furthermore, these alien invasion narratives are commonly presented as rather simplistic products of cold war tensions in which the alien is merely a thin disguise for soviet aggression. As Andrew Tudor puts it: In the fifties … our way of life is threatened by alien forces which adversely affect the world around us. In this xenophobic universe we can do nothing but rely on the state, in the form of military, scientific and governmental elites … In this respect, then, fifties SF/horror movies teach us not so much ‘to stop worrying and love the bomb’ as ‘to keep worrying and love the state’, an admonition which accords perfectly with the nuclear-conscious cold war culture of the period.1 1 Andrew Tudor, Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the Horror Movie, Oxford: Blackwells, 1989, p. 220. See also Peter Biskind, Seeing Is Believing: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Fifties, New York: Pantheon, 1983; Andrew Dowdy, Films of the Fifties: The American State of Mind, New York: Morrow, 1973; Mark Jancovich, Rational Fears: American Horror in the 1950s, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996; Patrick Lucanio, Them or Us: Archetypal Interpretations of Fifties Alien Invasion Films, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987; Bill Warren, Keep Watching the Skies: American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties, McFarland, 1982. For histories of science fiction see Brian Ash, ed., The Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, New York: Harmony, 1977; Thomas R. Atkins, ed., Science Fiction Films, New York, Monarch, 1976; John Baxter, Science Fiction in the Cinema, New York: Paperback Library, 1970; John Brosnan, Future Tense: The Cinema of Science Fiction, London: Macdonald and Jane’s, 1978; John Brosnan, The Primal Screen: A History of Science Fiction Film, London: Orbit, 1991; Christine Cornea, Science 1 In other words, the dominant image of 1950s science fiction film and television is reinforced by its easy fit with specific social and political contexts within the period. Furthermore, this image is also supported by the tendency to privilege specific films, such The Thing from Another World (1951) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), which are often singled out due to their association with the auteur directors Howard Hawks and Don Siegel. However, neither of these films was a major industrial production or particularly significant in terms of their performance at the box office. The New York Times does not even seemed to have bothered to review Invasion of the Body Snatchers, although it did regard The Thing from Another World as one of the most enjoyable science fictions films of the period.2 Even in histories of British film and television, the critical focus on the Quatermass serials, and their subsequent film adaptations, seems to conform to this image of the period. Fiction Cinema: Between Fantasy and Reality, Edinburgh: EUP, 2007; Edward Edleson, Visions of Tomorrow: Great Science Fiction from the Movies, New York: Doubleday, 1975; Alan Frank, The Science Fiction and Fantasy Film Handbook, Totowa, Barnes and Noble, 1983; Denis Gifford, Science Fiction Films, London: Studio Vista, 1971; Bill Harry, Heroes of the Spaceways, London: Omnibus, 1981; Phil Hardy, ed., The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Movies, London: Octopus, 1986; William Johnson, ed., Focus on Science Fiction Films, New Jersey: PrenticeHall, 1972; Damon Knight, In Search of Wonder, Chicago: Advent, 1967; Frank Manchel, Great Science Fiction Films, New York: Franklin Watts, 1976; Douglas Menville, A Historical and Critical Survey of the Science Fiction Film, New York: Arno, 1975; Douglas Menville and R. Reginald, Things to Come: An Illustrated History of the Science Fiction Film, New York: New York Times Books, 1977; Peter Nichols, Fantastic Cinema, London: Ebury, 1984; Frederik Pohl and Frederik Pohl IV, Science Fiction Studies in Film, New York: Ace, 1981; Jeff Rovin, A Pictorial History of Science Fiction Films, Secaucus: Citadel, 1975; Vivian Sobchack, Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film, New York: Ungar, 1991; Philip Strick, The Movie Treasury of Science Fiction Movies, London: Gallery, 1976; J. P. Telotte, Science Fiction Film, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001; Gary K Wolfe, The Known and the Unknown: The Iconography of Science Fiction, Kent, OH: Kent State Univesity Press, 1979. 2 Bosley Crowther, ‘THE SCREEN: TWO FILMS HAVE LOCAL PREMIERES; 'The Thing,' an Eerie Scientific Number by Howard Hawks, Opens at the Criterion 'Communist for F.B.I.' New Picture at Strand Theatre, Features Frank Lovejoy At the Criterion’, New York Times, 3 May, 1951, p. 34. 2 However, there are a number of problems with this account of 1950s science fiction film and television. Most centrally the alien narrative was not a product of cold war paranoia but had been a key element in the science fiction pulp fiction and comic books of the 1930s and 1940s, (although its literary roots stretch back to ‘England Invaded’ narratives such as G.T. Chesney’s The Battle of Dorking (1871) and H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds (1898).) Indeed, by the 1950s, the alien invasion narrative was considered such a cliché within science fiction literature that writers such as Ray Bradbury were even parodying the form in stories such as ‘The Concrete Mixer’.3 In other word, different media had very different understandings of science fiction as a genre and, in science fiction literature, the alien invader was not only regarded as old fashioned, but even actively rejected. Certainly, a number of key alien invasion stories were written within the period, including Robert Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters (1951), Jack Finney’s The Body Snatchers (1955) and John Wyndham’s The Kraken Wakes (1953) and The Midwich Cookoos (1957), but all of these novels clearly distinguished their alien invaders from the Bug-Eyed Monsters (or BEMs) of the 1930s and 1940s. Elsewhere prose science fiction covered a range of settings and themes but became strongly associated with the ‘“Hard SF” fabulation’ of Arthur C. Clarke4 and the ‘weird under-the-skin oddness’ of Ray Bradbury.5 Conversely, the films and television programming of the period made little use of ‘Hard SF’ and while there was some interest in the work of Robert Heinlein, whose Rocket Ship Galileo (1947) provided the basis for Destination Moon (1950), it was Bradbury who came to signify the best of the science fiction literature to both the 3 Ray Bradbury, ‘The Concrete Mixer’, in Thrilling Wonder Stories, April, 1949 and republished in The Illustrated Man, (first edition Doubleday, 1951). 4 Adam Roberts, The History of Science Fiction, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, p. 215. 5 Roberts, The History of Science Fiction, p. 218. 3 personnel who made films and television programmes, and the critics who evaluated them. For example, Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) was claimed to be ‘from a story by one of the most imaginative science fiction writers, Ray Bradbury’,6 while the New York Times made special mention of the fact that It Came from Outer Space (1953) was an ‘adaptation of a story by Ray Bradbury, a top hand in the science fiction field’7 and Variety claimed that this ‘Ray Bradbury story proves to be good science-fiction’.8 Bradbury was even used as an marker of quality against which to evaluate other films, and while The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) was based on a novel by Richard Matheson, it was praised for being ‘as startlingly original as a vintage Ray Bradbury short story’.9 Conversely, The First Man into Space (1959) was claimed to have various merits but to be ‘far from achieving Ray Bradbury quality’.10 Of course, in the realm of science fiction literature, Bradbury has never been considered typical of the dominant trends in 1950s, and is often distinguished from the genre altogether on the grounds that he ‘has no use for science except as an allegorical device’, a position that results in the claim that he is a writer of ‘fantasy and horror rather than SF.’11 Perhaps the reason that he was often identified as central to science fiction literature within the realms of film and television production and criticism was that, although he was associated with the pulps in various ways, he was one of the key writers to have broken out of the subculture of science fiction fandom 6 Anon., Monthly Film Bulletin, August 1953, p. 131. A. W., ‘Look Out! The Space Boys are Loose Again’, in New York Times, 18 June, 1953, p. 38. 8 Brog., ‘Film Reviews’, Variety, 27 May, 1953, p. 6. 9 Anon., Monthly Film Bulletin, June, 1957, p. 83. 10 Anon., Monthly Film Bulletin, March, 1959, p. 45. 11 George Mann, ed., The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, London: Robinson, 2001, p. 74. 7 4 and had managed to publish within the ‘slicks’, the glossy, mainstream magazines exemplified by the Saturday Evening Post. If understandings of science fiction within literature were very different from those in film and television, it is also a mistake to assume that film and television were the same, and there is now a growing body of work that demonstrates the genre works very differently in each medium.12 Generic categories in operation in one medium are not necessarily operative in another, and even when both media use the same generic term, this term may have a very different meaning in each medium. The key trends in science fiction television during the 1980s or 1990s, for example, look very different from the key trends within the films of these decades. Furthermore, as Roberta Pearson and Maire Messenger Davies point out, even in cases where film and television texts are part of the same franchise, the franchise may acquire a very different character in each medium. In their account of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994), for example, they illustrate that while the television series, and the films that followed it, share the same characters, the same universe and even purport to be temporally continuous, these texts are noticeably different in their concerns, their narrative organisation and even their understanding of character. Pearson and Messenger Davies see this as largely a result of differences between the two media, so that cinema is seen as a predominantly visual medium, in which science fiction is principally about spectacular special effects, while television is presumed to be a far less visual medium, in which science fiction is largely 12 See, for example, Glen Creeber, ed., The Television Genre Book, London: British Film Institute, 2001; Jane Feuer, ‘Genre study and Television’, in Robert C. Allen, ed., Channels of Discourse, Reassembled, London: Routledge, 1992, pp. 138-60; and Jason Mittel, Genre and Television: From Cop Shows to Cartoons in American Culture, New York: Routledge, 2004. 5 concerned with ideas, narrative complexity and the development of character arcs. Certainly, Pearson and Messenger-Davies’ attention to the differences between science fiction film and science fiction television is vital, although these differences are probably not due to some inherent feature of each medium, but rather due to the differences between specific institutional contexts. Indeed, we seriously reject the frequent claims that the image is relatively unimportant within television,13 and would stress that from the earliest days of science fiction television special effects and spectacle have always been important.14 Furthermore, it is not simply that film and television are different from one another, but also that American science fiction films of the 1950s were fundamentally different from those made in Britain in the period, and that American science fiction television in the 1950s was very different from 1950s British television. Indeed, while 13 For the classic account of this position, see John Ellis, Visible Fictions: Cinema: Television: Video, London: Routledge, 1982. For challenges to Ellis’s claims, see John Caldwell, Televisuality: Style, Crisis, and Authority in American Television, Piscataway: Rutgers University Press, 1995; and John Corner, Critical Ideas in Television Studies, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999. Furthermore, there is often a confusion between the supposed transparency of television’s visual style, and the supposed lack of television’s visual style. Writing of the supposed incompatibility between television and horror, Waller moves from a discussion of ‘the “invisible” style’ of the made-for-television films to a complaint about ‘the technical limitations that affect all telefilms’ so that the ‘relatively poor definition of the standard television image, for example, hampers, if not prohibits, telefilms from disclosing to the viewer a complex mosaic of vivid, mysteriously charged details’. Gregory A. Waller, ‘Made-for-Television Horror Films’, in Gregory A. Waller, ed., American Horrors: Essays on the Modern American Horror Film, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987, p. 147. 14 RUR is often cited as the first science fiction programme made by the BBC (1938) and reports of the programme drew attention to its use of superimposition of two camera images at the climatic moment of the programme to multiply the apparent number of robots represented on screen. This was then followed by The Time Machine (1949) in which special effects were used to convey the sense of movement through time: while two cameras mixed between live studio shots of the Time Traveller on his machine and scenery elements to establish the shift through time, a telecine sequence was also used which showed the dissolution of the Time Traveller’s laboratory to reveal the buildings of the future and the rapid passage of the sun, settling on the future landscape in the rain. 6 American science fiction film is generally seen as far more creative than American science fiction television during most of the 1950s, with television initially dependent on materials culled from the film serials and comic books of the 1930s and 1940s, the case was very different in Britain, where it was television which was the dominant and creative form, with many of the key British science fiction films being attempts to exploit television successes as demonstrated by the Hammer’s film versions of Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass serials. Furthermore, the differences between the television programmes and their film adaptations was recognised by reviewers at the time, with the Monthly Film Bulletin declaring that the film version of Quatermass II had been ‘arbitarily cut’ from the television version so that it ‘has necessarily lost much of the quality of the original’.15 As should be clear, then, one needs to be careful of generic terms such as science fiction, which do not simply describe a coherent and unitary body of texts but rather a process of classification subject to intense debate and conflict. Indeed, while many American television programmes were routinely identified as science fiction from the very start of the 1950s, most of the programmes identified today as key examples of British science fiction television were not identified as such at the time. It was not until Mystery Story (1952) that there was any overt reference to a programme as science fiction, and even then the programme was not identified as science fiction in listings pages but rather on the letters page where viewers responded to the show after the event.16 Even a supposed science fiction classic such as The Quatermass Experiment was actually described as a ‘thriller’ by the BBC rather than science fiction, although the Monthly Film Bulletin referred to the film version as ‘closer to 15 16 Anon., Monthly Film Bulletin, February 1957, p. 75. Anon., “Viewers Write to the ‘Radio Times’”, Radio Times, 29 August 1952, p. 38. 7 the horror film than most recent science fiction pictures’,17 showing that there was a difference in the use of genre labelling between media. One reason that these British television shows were not identified as science fiction was due to the very different meanings of the term in the United States and Britain. At the time, science fiction was only beginning to be taken seriously as genre, and it was still largely associated with the pulps and the comic books. This was not a problem in the United States, where science fiction television was largely identified as a form of children’s entertainment, but it was a problem in Britain, where the programmes later identified as science fiction were usually presented as serious or at least adult dramas. Furthermore, negative responses to British television science fiction were often couched in relation to what were considered to be ‘childish’ or ‘sadistic’ comics, which could appeal ‘only to immature minds, to children and to young people, and to some adults who are perhaps not very intelligent.’18 The comics, and by association genre science fiction, were perceived as being part of a particularly American popular culture which threatened British native culture and therefore its national identity. However, during the early 1950s, the image of the genre started to change due to a series of factors. The golden age writers had already been struggling to present their writings as serious speculation on the social, economic and political effects of technological change, while others such as John Wyndham had been working to stress the literary credentials of science fiction by drawing attention to the stylistic qualities of their writing. Christopher Priest has even claimed that Wyndham’s popular success was due to the distance that he established from science fiction as a genre so 17 Anon, Monthly Film Bulletin, September 1955, p. 150. Michael Lewis, ‘Did You Hear That? Children’s Comics’, The Listener, 13 December 1951, p. 1007. 18 8 that his novels can to be seen as ‘comedies of English manners’.19 However, following the critical and commercial success of Wyndham’s novel, The Day of the Triffids, in 1951, the mainstream press started to develop science fiction lists that would further validate the genre and distance it from an association with the pulps and comic books. As a result, it is not just that different media have different perceptions of a genre but that definitions may change across periods,20 and even conflict within periods.21 For example, Gernsback had invented the term ‘science fiction’ precisely to designate a particular type of fiction in which writers would ‘focus on the technological aspects of their stories or base their adventures on some scientific premise’,22 and so distinguish his pulp magazine, Amazing Stories, from other types of futuristic and fantasy fiction. Later generations of writers and editors would be highly critical of Gernsback’s contribution, but many continued to use ‘science fiction’ as a term of precision. For example, the period in which John W. Campbell was editor of Amazing Stories is often seen as crucial to ‘the dawn of a new age in SF’ that would bring into being ‘the intelligent, adult genre that we know today’;23 and his influence is often attributed to the way in which he ‘strove to make his writers consider the full implications of their ideas and to question the motives of their protagonists’,24 a move that ‘led him to reject the Bug-Eyed Monsters’ of the pulps.25 19 Christopher Priest, ‘British Science Fiction’ in Patrick Parrinder, ed., Science Fiction: A Critical Guide, London: Longman, 1979, p. 194. 20 See, for example, James Naremore, More than Night: Film Noir and its Contexts, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998; and Stephen Neale, Genre and Hollywood, London: Routledge, 2000. 21 Mark Jancovich, ‘A Real Shocker: Authenticity, Genre and the Struggle for Cultural Distinctions’, Continuum, 14: 1, April 2000, pp. 23-35. 22 George Mann, ed., The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, London: Robinson, 2001, p. 146. 23 Mann, The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, p. 98. 24 Mann, The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, p. 98. 9 However, if these uses of science fiction sought to privilege ‘intelligent, adult’ fiction over the supposedly childish concerns of the pulps magazines and the comics, by the 1950s, science fiction had become virtually synonymous with the pulps and comics for those making and reviewing film and television. Moreover, if these uses of the term ‘science fiction’ no longer required an attention to scientific plausibility, science fiction films and television were often seen unscientific and even as antiscientific, so much so that the term was also applied to a series of films that would rarely be identified as science fiction today. As a result, in its review of Project M 7, the New York Times complained about ‘the wholly incredible and “unscientific” things [characters in the film] are permitted to do’,26 while it also described other films as ‘pseudo-scientific’.27 Taking a slight stronger tone, Variety even claimed of Captain Video that, from ‘a scientific standpoint, the script was generally balderdash.’28 As a result, some reviewers expressed a preference for the trend for semi-documentary films, and praised George Pal’s plans to follow up Destination Moon and When Worlds Collide with a move into ‘the realm of science-fact films’.29 Writing of these ‘semi-documentary’ or ‘science-fact films’, it was therefore claimed that Unidentified Flying Objects (1956) ‘quietly and effectively demonstrated’ that ‘truth can be more engrossing than fiction’,30 while On the Threshold of Space was 25 Brian Aldiss, Billion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction, London: Corgi, 1973, p. 258. 26 Bosley Crowther, ‘British Science-Fiction Thriller, ‘Project M.7,’ and Italian Import, ‘The Lucky Five,’ Bow Here’, New York Times, 27 November, 1953, p. 22. 27 Bosley Crowther, ’20,000 Leagues in 128 Fantastic Minutes’, New York Times, 24 December, 1954, p. 7. 28 Anon., ‘Tele Followup Comment, Variety, 25 April, 1951, p. 36. 29 Thomas M Pryor, ‘George Pal Plans New Film On Space’, New York Times, 21 May, 1952, p. 22. 30 A. H. Weiler, ‘Screen: ‘Saucer’ Story – Quasi-Documentary on ‘Flying Objects’ Bows’, New York Times, 13 June, 1956, p. 46. 10 claimed to be ‘proof that science-fact can be stranger and more interesting than science-fiction’.31 Of course, this position becomes more understandable when one considers that many reviewers by the mid-1950s had not only grown tired of the science fiction cycle but were also classifying a wide variety of fantasy films as ‘science fiction’. For example, Variety described The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) as a ‘Fairytale actioner with science-fiction and horror trimmings’,32 while the Monthly Film Bulletin identified Lost Continent, a lost world picture featuring prehistoric creatures, as ‘a change from the more customary type of science fiction’.33 Nor was this simply a oneoff and idiosyncratic description. The New York Times clearly identified Creature from the Black Lagoon, as a ‘science fiction’ story in which the heroes have ‘found another lost world and conquered it’,34 and it also noted the similarity between Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and Godzilla (US release, 1956) on the one hand, and King Kong on the other.35 The latter film was even re-released in 1952 in an attempt to cash in on the science fiction monster cycle.36 Similarly, Rick Altman shows that, in 1954, Universal included the Mummy, the Wolf Man and Dracula in a list of ‘Hollywood’s prize science fiction monsters’ that it used to promote Creature from the Black Lagoon.37 This association of science fiction with the presence of mythological, prehistoric or extraterrestrial monsters also demonstrates the importance of special 31 A. H. Weiler, ‘Screen: Supersonic Age Pioneers – ‘On the Threshold of Space’ Bows at Globe’, New York Times, 30 March, 1956, p. 10. 32 Hift., ‘7th Voyage of Sinbad’, Variety, 26 November, 1958, p. 6. 33 Anon., Monthly Film Bulletin, February 1952, p. 36. 34 A.W., ‘At the Paramount’, New York Times, 1 May, 1954, p. 13. 35 A.W., ‘“Beast from 20,000 Fathoms” Invades City’, New York Times, 25 June, 1953, p. 23; and Bosley Crowther, ‘Screen: Horror Import – “Godzilla” a Japanese Film, is at State’, New York Times, 28 April, 1956, p. 11. 36 Holl., ‘Film Review’, Variety, 17 June, 1953, p. 6. 37 Altman, Film/Genre, p. 78. 11 effects within the period, an importance that was equally relevant to television as film. For example, one of the first American science fiction shows of the decade was Captain Video (1949-1955), which was described by the New York Times as ‘a triumph of carpentry and wiring rather than writing’.38 While this is clearly meant as a dismissal of the show’s supposedly juvenile content, the review also stresses that it is ‘in the use of settings, props and special effects that “Captain Video” derives its appeal’ and it is claimed that the show ‘boasts enough fancy gadgets to bewilder the adult and fascinate the youngster.’ Similarly, Buck Rogers is claimed to be ‘endowed with a lot of expensive sets, technical mumbo-jumbo, scary incidents and atrocious acting, which probably will give it a banner Hooper rating with the small fry.’39 However, special effects were not simply associated with juvenile entertainment but were also believed to be capable of adding value to productions. As a result, while it was claimed that Out There ‘may prove to be the best of the lot’, when compared to the science fiction shows that had preceded it, the show was also claimed to be distinguished by its sets, which were described as ‘imaginative’.40 The New York Times even took the television industry to task in 1958 for its failure to develop science fiction shows after the Soviet launching of Sputnik. For the newspaper, this event should have made ‘“sci-fi” programs … a natural for TV’: ‘If the cyclic history of TV means anything, TV-film producers should have begun preparing inter-galactic projects months ago’ but even Ray Bradbury was still ‘looking for someone to put [Report from Space] on the air after it is filmed.’41 Television’s failure to develop a ‘strong trend to space shows’ is described as ‘another 38 Jack Gould, ‘Television in Review’, New York Times, 20 November, 1949, p. X9. Jack Gould, ‘Television in Review’, New York Times, 30 April, 1950, p. X11. 40 Jack Gould, ‘Television in Review’, New York Times, 4 November, 1951, p. 123. 41 Oscar Godbout, ‘TV Blast-Off: A Slow Start’, New York Times, 3 August, 1958, p. X9. 39 12 case of TV’s lack of foresight’. Certainly, the New York Times acknowledged that shows would have to avoid ‘“Buck Rogers” type of excursions to worlds inhabited by seven-headed gloops’, and feature the strong ‘human stories’, if they are to appeal to adults and so secure ‘prime-time evening audiences’. But it argued that the real problem facing television is that science fiction ‘must have the trappings of space and extra-terrestrial excitement’ and ‘the plain fact is, special effects are too expensive for the average TV budget.’ However, this reference to special effects is not intended as an explanation for the failure of television but as a condemnation of it. As the article makes clear, the industry is ‘simply a season behind the times’ and that it cannot continue to get away with poor writing and cheap production values. Of course, as the reference to Captain Video demonstrates, special effects were sometimes seen as silly and superficial spectacles that simply disguised worthless trash, but it is also the case that, as is clear from the discussion of the New York Times’ condemnation of television’s failures in the aftermath of Sputnik, special effects were also seen as vital to science fiction. Even poor or silly special effects were not straightforwardly condemned but could even be used to present the film as humorously inept, as fun in spite of itself. As a result, while the New York Times claimed that the ‘trick effects’ in The Blob (1958) ‘look pretty phoney’, it also claimed that the ‘color is quite good’ so that ‘the blob rolls around in at least a dozen horrible-looking flavours, including raspberry’.42 Similarly, Queen of Outer Space was described by the Monthly Film Bulletin as ‘an amiable, if rather tame, burlesque of science fiction formulae’, which featured ‘stylised settings, costumes and effects … pleasantly shot in shiny space-color.’43 42 Howard Thompson, ‘“Blob” Slithers into Mayfair’, New York Times, 7 November, 1958, p. 23. 43 Anon., Monthly Film Bulletin, April 1959, p. 62. 13 While this quote obviously finds the film’s visuals as amusingly ludicrous but fun, the New York Times was unreservedly positive in its assessment of the colour processes in Destination Moon, which are described as ‘rich’ and ‘luscious’, while the film as a whole is claimed to ‘make a lunar expedition [into] a most intriguing and picturesque event’. Indeed, its complaint about the film was that the ‘human reactions’ of the film’s characters ‘are nothing to the gadgeted ship, their miraculous observations – and those are all we advise you to go and see.’44 In other words, the film is supposed to be distinguished by its visual spectacle: ‘it’s awesome to watch the mechanics constructing that giant rocket’ and ‘exciting to climb aboard the ship with those four men … to wiggle and squirm with them in agony as their silver tube roars into space and to join in their general amazement at the various phenomena which occur.’ Similarly, Forbidden Planet is described as ‘a wonderful trip into outer space’ that excels in its spectacle. Not only has it been ‘put on the screen in Eastman color and properly spacious CinemaScope’, it also features ‘the gaudiest layout of gadgets this side of a Florida hotel.’45 In the process, the review not only draws attention to the spectacle of Robby the Robot, ‘a phenomenal mechanical man’, and Anne Francis, ‘the prettiest thing’ in outer space, but it positively stresses the film’s status as visual experience. For example, while Francis’ character is claimed to ‘intrigue and confound’ the spacemen in the film, who come to ‘see what’s what’, it is also stressed that the spacemen see plenty – and so, we promise will you … You’ll see the dry and ragged face of a worn-out planet, looking for all the (modern) world like some of those 44 Bosley Crowther, ‘“Destination Moon,” George Pal Version of Rocket Voyage, New Film at Mayfair’, New York Times, 28 June, 1950, p. 32. 45 Bosley Crowther, ‘Screen: Wonderful Trip in Space – Forbidden Plant is Out of This World’, New York Times, 4 May, 1956, p. 21. 14 handsome illustrations in the slick-paper picture magazines. You’ll see the vast subterranean power-houses built by the super-human Krells who inhabited this far-off planet 2,000 centuries before earth-man was born. And you’ll see – or rather you won’t see – the fearful monster created by the Id, which (according to Dr Morbius) is the evil impulse of the subconscious mind. You won’t see him because he’s invisible, but when he gets caught in the electronic grid that the fellows put up around their flying saucer, you’ll get a vague idea of his giant proportions. And, brother, will you hear him roar. The film may be kitsch but every one involved has ‘had a barrel of fun with this film’, and produced something that is not only fun for the audience but visually engaging. In other words, science fiction special effects were seen as having the capacity to be genuinely creative and inventive and, in its review of The Island Earth, it is the ‘technical artists’ who are ‘the real stars of the picture’, and their ‘technical effects’ are claimed to be ‘so superlatively bizarre and beautiful that some serious shortcomings can be excused’ in other aspects of the film.46 Similarly, Ray Harryhausen acquired a considerable reputation for himself in the period. The New York Times, for example, singled out both Harryhausen and his collaborator, Willis Cook, for credit in its review of Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, and these special effects artists are claimed to have ‘rigged an awesome apparition’ in their creation of the prehistoric monster of the title. Similarly, Variety gave Harryhausen ‘Special credit’ for the film’s ‘socko technical effects’ in which the ‘sight of the beast stalking through Gotham’s downtown streets is awesome’.47 In other words, special effects were seen as an area that could be genuinely creative and 46 H.H.T., ‘“This Island Earth” Explored From Space’, New York Times, 11 June, 1955, p. 8. 47 Anon., ‘Film Reviews’, Variety, June 17, 1953, p. 6. 15 imaginative, and although the Monthly Film Bulletin complained that the creature ‘appears all too obviously a rather implausible model’, the positive reviews do not praise special effects for their realism but, on the contrary, for their capacity to create spectacular and off-beat fantasies. This position is in marked contrast to discussions of science fiction today where, as Telotte puts it, ‘it is precisely the tension between such seemingly magical effects and the desire to make those elements neatly “fit” into a reality illusion that is the core … appeal … of the entire science fiction genre.’48 In these accounts, special effects are understood as aspiring to the realism that the Monthly Film Bulletin finds lacking in Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. In other words, these effects attempt to fit so seamlessly into the world of the film that they pass unnoticed or disguise its trickery like a skilled magician so that performance of the illusion is blatant but the method of achieving it is hidden. So while science fiction films often proclaim their special effects as moments of cinematic exhibitionism, both in their promotion and in their mobilization within individual films, it is claimed that the appeal still depends on an illusion in which our vision is fooled by the visual evidence of that which we know is a fabrication. In this sense, science fiction special effects are seen as operating in much the same way as they do in historical epics. In other words, special effects are claimed to operate as part of the visual spectacle through which film industries, such as Hollywood, celebrate their own power and prestige. By appearing to reproducing the scale of bygone civilizations and major historical events, film industries confer an almost divine status upon themselves. As Moses declares, in Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 version of The Ten Commandments, after one of the most celebrated special effects 48 Telotte, Science Fiction Cinema, p. 25 16 sequences in the history of cinema in which the Red Sea has parted and then drowned Pharaoh’s armies: ‘Thou didst blow with Thy winds and the sea covered them. Who is like unto Thee Oh Lord. From everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God!’ The difference, it is claimed, is that science fiction does not recreate the past but promises glimpses of the future, and this does not simply involve the spectacle of future societies and alien worlds, but also presents its special effects as being so advanced that they provide a glimpse into the future of film itself.49 In the process, such films present themselves as events in themselves, but such concerns have been read as both positive and negative. On the one hand, it has become commonplace today for academics, critics and even sections of the general public to complain that the spectacle of special effects now overwhelms plot and character,50 but others such as Telotte have argued that special effects also have the potential to foreground the very illusionist character of cinema. If special effects provide cinematic illusion as spectacle, they draw attention to themselves as illusions and to the workings of film as a whole. Telotte’s argument is both persuasive and attractive but, like other accounts, it presents illusionism as being the fundamental appeal of special effects. However, it is important to remember that the obsession with ‘state of the art’ special effects is actually relatively new, and that, as Schatz has pointed out, when New Hollywood filmmakers such as Lucas and Spielberg initially turned to science fiction, they were actually appropriating a tradition of fairly low budget filmmaking.51 While special effects were certainly vital to the serials of the 1930s and 1940s, such as Flash 49 Telotte, Science Fiction Cinema. There is a strong suggestion of this position in Pearson and Messinger Davies’ account of the film version of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which was discussed earlier. 51 Thomas Schatz, ‘The New Hollywood’, in Jim Collins, et al., eds. Film Theory Goes to the Movies, New York: Routledge, 1992? 50 17 Gordon and Buck Rogers, these were hardly big budget productions that used ‘state of the arts’ effects, and could therefore hardly expect their special effects to attain an illusory realism. Even by the 1950s, most science fiction films were low budget productions, and even someone like George Pal, who was using state of the art special effects was hardly working in the most economically powerful or technologically advanced sections of the industry. While his budgets may have been bigger than his competitors, he was certainly not making films that competed with spectacular historical epics such as The Ten Commandments. As a result, the function of the cheap, low-tech special effects of the 1950s would seem to be somewhat different to the financially intensive and technologically advanced special effects that distinguish contemporary blockbusters and, as a result, it is questionable how ‘illusionist’ 1950s special effects were supposed to be. Even the work of figures such as Ray Harryhausen seems to have been evaluated less according to some notion of ‘realism’ than according to one of creativity and imagination; i.e. it was less a question of whether special effects had the capacity to create an illusion of actuality than whether special effects displayed skill and invention. In this way, they were judged according to the values of fantasy rather than realism: they were judged on the basis of whether they were able to offer a vision of ‘a world that has not previously and indeed might never exist’.52 In other words, Sobchack may be right that the ‘major visual impulse of all SF film is to pictorialize the unfamiliar, the nonexistent, the strange and totally alien’, but she may be wrong that it always seeks to do so ‘with a verisimilitude which is, at times, documentary in flavor and style’.53 52 53 Telotte, Science Fiction Cinema, p. 28. Sobchack, Screening Space, p. 88. 18 Indeed, Harryhausen continues to be a cult figure today and is valued for his ‘wonderfully wobblesome’ special effects,54 a phrase that stresses that his strength lies not in the invisibility of his craft but, on the contrary, in the imprint of its creator. Not only does the Radio Times frequently refer to Harryhausen as a ‘genius’ in its announcements of forthcoming television showings of his films,55 but it is the presence of his ‘unique touches’ that make a film such as 20 Million Miles to Earth a ‘minor classic’.56 Rather than creating an illusion of reality, he is praised for his imagination, which produces monsters that are ‘memorable’57 and often possess a ‘well-defined personality’ that can, at times, ‘evoke sympathy for its bewildered plight’.58 In short, his monsters are not seen as being creatures of mere artifice but as inspired ‘creations’,59 which are ‘brought to fabulous life’ by their creator.60 In this way, the ‘stop-motion special effects put the flat characters and routine plot[s] in the shade’61 or rather ‘the actors and the plot once again end up playing second fiddle to the magnificent Dynamation sequences meticulously created by the godfather of special effects’.62 Not merely an element in the construction of these films, the special effects are seen as having precedence and, rather than the director or stars, it is Harryhausen who assumes the function of the author of these films and 54 AT, ‘Review of Clash of Titans’, Radio Times, www.radiotimes.com, accessed 16 December 2008. 55 See, for example, AJ, ‘Review of Beast from 20,000 Fathoms’, Radio Times, www.radiotimes.com, accessed 16 December 2008; AJ, ‘Review of Earth Vs the Flying Saucers’, Radio Times, www.radiotimes.com, accessed 16 December 2008. 56 AJ, ‘Review of 20 Million Miles to Earth’, Radio Times, www.radiotimes.com, accessed 16 December 2008. 57 AT, ‘Review of Clash of Titans’; and DP, ‘Review of The Golden Voyage of Sinbad’, Radio Times, www.radiotimes.com, accessed 16 December 2008. 58 AJ, ‘Review of 20 Million Miles to Earth’. 59 AJ, ‘Review of 20 Million Miles to Earth’. 60 AJ, ‘Review of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad’, Radio Times, www.radiotimes.com, accessed 16 December 2008. 61 JG, ‘Review of The Valley of the Gwangi’, Radio Times, www.radiotimes.com, accessed 16 December 2008. 62 DP, ‘Review of The Golden Voyage of Sinbad’. 19 their main attraction. In Harryhausen’s films, it is the ‘stop motion magician’63 who makes the film ‘worth an excursion’.64 Science fiction was therefore seen as something that could certainly be childish and ridiculous but also as something that could be creative and profound, and while in some cases it was the special effects creators who were claimed to acquire the status of artists, in other cases, it was the writers and the directors. In the case of television, Kneale’s scripts for the Quatermass serials are regarded as some of the most important products of the decade and attracted phenomenal audiences and controversy,65 while Rod Serling’s scripts for The Twilight Zone (1959-1964) consolidated and extended his reputation as a writer while simultaneously bestowing respectability on the genre. Prior to the series, Serling had a strong reputation as a writer of several highly regarded single plays, particularly Requiem for a Heavyweight (1956). Furthermore, these plays were famous for their controversial social commentary, and Serling himself was famous ‘for his public protests against what he described as “interference of non-artistic people in an artistic medium.”’66 His decision to co-produce the show was therefore seen as a significant move that even warranted an whole article in the New York Times, in which he claimed that the series would give him greater control over his scripts: ‘“I’ll have a say in taste and policy,” he said. “I’ve never been in a position like that before. Nobody will be able to 63 AJ, ‘Review of The First Men in the Moon’, Radio Times, www.radiotimes.com, accessed 16 December 2008. 64 SG, ‘Review of Mysterious Island’, Radio Times, www.radiotimes.com, accessed 16 December 2008. 65 See Andy Murray, Into the Unknown: The Fantastic Life of Nigel Kneale, London: Headpress, 2006. See also John Caughie Television Drama: Realism, Modernism and British Culture, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000; Lez Cooke, British Television Drama: A History, London: British Film Institute, 2003; and Jason Jacobs. The Intimate Screen: Early British Television Drama, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. 66 John P. Shanley, ‘A Playwright at the Controls’, New York Times, 20 September, 1959, p. X19. 20 change lines by going to the executive producer because I’m the executive producer.”’ However, the article also quotes him as saying that there ‘won’t be anything controversial in the new series’ and, although this might sound as though the move from the single plays to the science fiction series represented a retreat from social commentary, he was also claimed to have declared that he now believed that ‘you can get adult drama without controversy.’ Indeed, as many critics have since noted, one of the strengths of The Twilight Zone’s fantasy format was that it enabled the show to handle materials that might have been too controversial outside the context of fantasy.67 As Serling himself said of his earlier work: ‘I was not permitted to have Senators discuss any current or pressing problem … In retrospect, I probably would have had a much more adult play had I made it science fiction, put it in the year 2057, and peopled the Senate with robots’.68 The show was therefore one of the first instances where science fiction television started to be taken seriously and the New York Times not only identified Serling as ‘one of television’s abler writers’ but also claimed that, in ‘the desultory field of filmed half-hour drama … Serling should not have trouble in making his mark. At least his series promises to be different.’69 In film, both Jack Arnold and Roger Corman acquired reputations as important directors. For example, Variety began to take note of Corman as a figure after describing Monster From the Ocean Floor (1954) as an ‘oddity’ on the grounds 67 See for example Paul Buhle and Dave Wagner, Hide in Plain Sight: The Hollywood Blacklistees in Film and Television, 1950-2002, New York: Palgrave. 2003; and Jeff Sconce, ‘Science Fiction Programmes’ in Horace Newcomb, ed., Encyclopedia of Television, Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn 1997. 68 Quoted in Tom Engelhardt, The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation, Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998. 69 Jack Gould, ‘Rod Serling Series’, The New York Times, October 3, 1959, p. 39. 21 that it was supposed to be ‘a well done quickie’,70 and claiming that It Conquered the World was ‘a definite cut above the normal’, which ‘poses some remarkably adult questions amidst the derring-do.’71 Similarly, Teenage Caveman was claimed to be ‘somewhat surprisingly, a plea for international cooperation in terms of the dangers of radiation’ in which, despite its low budget, ‘the “message” is handled with a restraint and good taste’ that ‘gives substance to the production’.72 Of course, not all Corman productions received positive reviews but reviewers seem to have seen him as more than just a director of low budget exploitation, and to have developed a genuine investment in his development as a director with the Monthly Film Bulletin comparing Not of This Earth to Attack of the Crab Monsters and declaring that since the former is ‘such a marked improvement’ on the later , ‘one hopes it is the more recent of the two films.’73 Similarly, Jack Arnold was also singled out as a director of significance. For example, Variety described It Came from Outer Space as a ‘strong’ film in which Arnold’s direction is distinguished by his handling of atmosphere. He not only ‘whips up an air of suspense’ but also achieves a ‘considerable atmosphere of reality’ for such as fantastic story.74 He is also praised for doing a ‘first rate job’ with Creature from the Black Lagoon, a film that was commended for ‘the eerie effects of its underwater footage’.75 Monthly Film Bulletin also praised ‘Jack Arnold’s characteristically blunt and melancholy style of direction’, which it considered to be ‘perfectly attuned to and in sympathy with’ the story of The Incredible Shrinking 70 Neal., ‘Film Reviews’, Variety, June 9, 1954, p. 6. Kove., ‘Film Reviews’, Variety, September 12, 1956, p. 6. 72 Powe., ‘Film Reivews’ Variety, 17 September, 1958, p. 7. 73 Anon., Monthly Film Bulletin, June 1957, p. 89. 74 Anon., Variety, 27 May 1953, p. 6. 75 Anon., Variety, 10 February 1954, p. 6. 71 22 Man.76 However, as the decade unfolded, there was a sense that he did not realise his early promise. Monthly Film Bulletin claimed that Revenge of the Creature ‘adds little to the repetoire of movements and mannerisms [the Gill-Man] displayed in his first appearance’ and described the film as a ‘naïve and indifferently played shocker’. Nor was Variety much more positive, and it dismissed the film as ‘a routine shocker with obvious appeal for the crowd that goes for the horror pix’. As a result, by the time of Monster on Campus, the Monthly Film Bulletin complained that the once ‘astringent director’ was ‘repeating himself ad nauseam’ and that the film marked ‘a further decline in Jack Arnold’s melancholy, and at one time thoughtful, talent.’77 Conclusion As we have seen, then, the contemporary critical pre-occupation with the 1950s alien invasion narratives provides a very limited sense of the science fiction film and television and rests on a questionable assumption that these narratives were the product of cold war tensions. However, the genre not only developed in very different ways within different media, but the meaning of the term was, and continues to be, a highly contested one that had diametrically opposed meanings within different contexts. While some sought to distinguish science fiction from the pulp fiction and comic books of the 1930s and 1940s, others directly associated science fiction with these forms. Furthermore, the function of special effects was understood in ways that are very different from those common today. Certainly, in some cases special effects were seen as silly and childish but, in others, they were seen as genuinely inventive 76 77 Anon., Monthly Film Bulletin, June, 1957, p. 83. Anon., Monthly Film Bulletin, April, 1959, p. 61. 23 and creative the products of special effects artists whose work was praised and admired. If in the case of Harryhausen, the special effects artist was therefore seen as the true author of his films (or at least whatever was valuable within them), the period also saw the emergence of other authors (scriptwriters, producers and directors) whose reputations were not only constructed by distinguishing them from the genre more generally but which also worked, ironically, to legitimate the genre as it moved into the 1960s and 1970s. 24