Imagine a young girl, tween, early teen, sitting by herself in front of the TV on an early or late afternoon, watching the station that showed a lot of old (and once in a while reasonably new) movies. Tarzan movies (Johnny Weissmuller, of course), sci-fi, horror, dramas, comedies, and weird movies that no one else, apparently, had ever seen.
It was quite an education. Here are some of the highlights:
Sci-fi Movies:
Forbidden Planet - One of the best of the lot (the other will be found further down). My first meeting with Robbie the Robot. While it took me years to figure out it was a take-off of Shakespeare's The Tempest, I loved the whole "monsters from the id" line, and the invisibility of it. Very exciting.
Unfortunately, most of the sci-fi movies were schlock, and the worst was probably The Queen of Outer Space - Zsa Zsa Gabor and a lot of starlets in cone bras...
NOTE: Cone bras apparently were everywhere in the 1950s. Why they were so popular for so long, I have no idea... See https://www.wmagazine.com/fashion/cone-bra-corset-trend-history.
Probably second worst: The Attack of the Giant Leeches - B&W 1959. Has to be seen to be believed, and even then... Trivia note: one of the stars of the Giant Leeches was actress Yvette Vickers who was the Playmate centerfold in the July 1959 issue of Playboy, just a few months before the movie's release, which I'm sure increased attendance.
Lesson to be learned from old American B&W sci-fi movies is that every man, monster, robot and alien wants pulchritudinous white women.
Japanese movies, however, were different:
Matango, a/k/a The Attack of the Mushroom People - 1963 Japanese horror movie directed by Ishiro Honda (who directed and co-wrote the original Godzilla and many more). A group of castaways on an island are unwittingly altered into monsters after they eat certain mutagenic mushrooms... Although I didn't know it at the time, it was almost banned in Japan because they felt that the monsters resembled facial disfigurements caused by Hiroshima and Nagasaki; although of course, that might have been the whole idea. Spooky, yet strangely moving, hard to forget.
Movies that scared me silly:
1984 - Made in 1956, starring Edmond O'Brien, Michael Redgrave, Jan Sterling, and Donald Pleasance. The scene with the rats was perhaps the scariest thing I'd ever seen, and it gave me nightmares. Interestingly, I've never met anyone who actually saw this movie in a theater - I guess it bombed at the box office.
The Invasion of the Body Snatchers - 1954, and set in a fictional California small town. You know the plot. You know the term "pod people". But it still packs a punch as person after person is duplicated and replaced... And they find the pods... And Becky falls asleep... Well...
Trivia NOTE: Future director Sam Peckinpah played the bit part of Charlie, a meter reader.
NOTE: Interestingly, I rewatched it a couple of weeks ago, and for the first time I noticed one fatal flaw in the movie: Jeff, who's a professional photographer, has his left leg in a cast, from hip to toes, and is in a wheelchair 90% of the time, so no wonder he spends all his time watching the neighbors. No problem there. And he figures out that one of them killed his wife, and he's trying to find evidence, long distance, using first binoculars, and then a massive telephoto lens on one of his cameras. He finally sees Thorvald, after his wife supposedly went on a trip, with his wife's purse, pulling out jewelry, including the wife's wedding ring. So what's the flaw? WHY DOESN'T JEFF TAKE A BUNCH OF PICTURES OF THORVALD AND HIS WIFE'S STUFF? He's a professional photographer. He's got a telephoto lens which could pick out the feathers on a flying swallow. Surely he's got film in the house. I don't know why I never noticed that before...
Still love the movie, though.
Movies that for years I couldn't persuade people actually existed:
We're No Angels - Still my favorite Christmas movie of all time, with Humphrey Bogart, Aldo Ray, Peter Ustinov, Leo G. Carroll, Basil Rathbone, Joan Bennett, and St. Adolph... Read my love-letter to the movie HERE.
The Producers - Yes, Mel Brooks' classic 1967 film. I was old enough by then to get most of the jokes, and I nearly died of laughter at the line "don't be a dummy, be a smarty, come and join the Nazi party!" My introduction to Gene Wilder, Zero Mostel, Dick Shawn (hilarious as L.S.D.), and Mel Brooks, as always, going over the top. Loved him ever since.
Harold and Maude - I saw Hal Ashby's 1971 classic in the theater, but most people didn't like it. I laughed so hard I was crying. After 10-11 years, it finally hit cult status, and I could finally share it with my friends. Huzzah!
Highly Educational:
Tarzan and His Mate - 1934, pre-Code B&W, the 2nd in the series with Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan and Maureen O'Sullivan as Jane. This is the film with the nude Jane/Tarzan swimming scene. I remember it well... You can see it on YouTube HERE.
If I couldn't have Jeff Jeffries' apartment, I wanted Tarzan and Jane's treehouse. And lifestyle. And I wouldn't have minded having THAT Tarzan...
Sheer silly fun:
The Pickwick Papers - (1952) I started reading Dickens early in life, and this adaptation is, imho, the most Dickensian I've ever seen. B&W, with full throttle performances, perfect costumes, manners, mannerisms, everything. I bought a copy of it years ago on DVD. I love it.
Great post, Eve. I, too, have fond memories of many of these movies. I own all the Weissmuller Tarzan movies on DVD. The “nude” scene exists in three versions, of varying degrees of nudity, depending on how prudish the community where the movie was to be shown.
ReplyDeleteEdward Lodi
Yes, and the only reason that scene could happen was the movie was made BEFORE the Hays Code took full effect...
Deletethe original Invasion of the Body Snatchers! Did California ever look more beautiful?
ReplyDeleteWell, there's the California of "Mildred Pierce". We were living in a suburban community (right on the edge of a fruit grove and beyond that the chaparral), so the idea of all those pods in the garage made sense to me... Put me right off suburban living.
DeleteNever cared for HAROLD AND MAUDE, a totally unappealing movie and a waste of great talent. I found out later that it was the very favorite movie of my brother-in-law's wife, something that perhaps increased my dislike of the film. Her most hated movie, BTW, was the brilliant WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S, proving once and for all that there was something askew in the universe.
ReplyDeleteJerry, there is always something askew in the universe. Among our best friends for years was a couple (both, sadly, dead now) with whom we were best friends - but every movie we liked, they hated, and every movie they liked, we hated. So we learned to just eat, drink, and be merry together and it worked out.
DeleteWatching We're NO ANGELS is one of my cherished Christmas traditions.
ReplyDeleteOMG Eve, you contributed to the delinquency of a senior citizen. I clicked on the Tarzan link and was asked to confirm my age because "the video might be inappropriate for some users."
ReplyDeleteJerry K. - Isn't it wonderful?
ReplyDeleteMonsters, schmonsters. True horror was being a flat-chested teen in the 1950s.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure it was.
DeleteI've never seen Pickwick Papers! Will look for it. Eve, if you haven't seen Wild Women of Wongo, you are in for a treat. It has got to be the WORST movie ever created (prehistoric women in cone bras and early 60s hairdos...one of said women wrestles with an obviously rubber alligator) Great cult following. I had a viewing party in the 90s, where everyone got hammered and watched it. Fun column!
ReplyDeleteThat is an interesting essay, Eve! I love B&W films. And I learned a few things.
ReplyDeleteScariest B&W movie was Night of the Living Dead. Scariest movie from childhood was titled, I think, The Amazons. Explorers come across a warlike tribe of women… only women… except for one man who they've kept around for breeding. Said man is discovered murdered… the tribe no longer needed him as they picked out a fresh candidate amongst the explorers. Disposable men… that’s pretty cruel. I had no clue.
My memorable encounter with cone bras came as a wee lad in church… I learned a number of interesting things in church. Miss Cynthia Jones and friend were visiting home from their university. Miss Jones and friend were blest with feminine pulchritude and, as some people noted, were exceedingly ‘healthy’. Miss Jones had recently been pinned, and said adornment was attached at the very tip… well, it seemed to hover in mid-air is what I remember most. So I, a mere 5 or 6 years old, found myself scientifically curious. I asked my parents about the pin… didn’t it draw undue attention to the anatomy? My parents dryly said, “That’s mainly the point.” It didn’t dawn on me until much later they had slipped in a damn good pun. Also, I was relieved real women weren’t shaped like torpedos.
Eve, I wasn’t into musicals, but one B&W that I can neither remember or forget was Hellzapoppin (1941). I was working in Paris when the boss ask if I’d like to see a movie. We walked in in the middle of Hellzapoppin. It turned out this particular theatre ran it continuously all day, every day. I have no idea what the plot was, but it was an unusual introduction to the film.