Screenplay by Terry Hayes based on the Novel by Charles Williams
Cinematography by Dean Semier
Edited by Richard Francis-Bruce
MAIN CAST: Nicole Kidman (Rae Ingram), Sam Neill (John Ingram) & Billy Zane (Hughie Warriner)
ORPHEUS VIDEO TAPE CAST:Rob Mullinar (Russel Bellows), Lisa Collins (Cruise Girl 1), Paula Hudson-Brinkley (Cruise Girl 2), Sharon Cook (Cruise Girl 3), Malinda Rutter (Cruise Girl 4)
MAINLAND CAST: George Shevtsov (Doctor), Michael Long (Specialist Doctor)
The film begins as a train pulls into a station and we see sailors through the cars’ windows. As the passengers move from the cars to the platform, the sailors are greeted by their girlfriends, wives, and mothers. Their commander however, John Ingram (Sam Neill) stands waiting as the platform empties. We feel his anxiousness grow as he keeps checking his watch. Then, he notices two police officers in the distance surveying him. This does not set him at ease. He walks toward the officers.
Nicole Kidman & Sam Neill in Dead Calm (1989)
Rae (Nicole Kidman) has had a car accident and is in the hospital where Ingram learns that their child was killed in a head on collision. We experience the horror of it through Rae’s eyes staring up at us, as the doctor tries to bring her out of the shock by having John speak to her. When she comes out of the nightmare, she is already on the yacht.
Nicole Kidman & Sam Neill in Dead Calm (1989)
Her husband has taken her out to sea to rest and recuperate from the trauma. The calm sea is an idyllic setting. They are both hopeful that it will help them move on, but then a derelict schooner appears in the distance. Rae wants to ignore it, but John cannot.
Nicole Kidman & Billy Zane in Dead Calm (1989)
Then, Rae spots a dinghy approaching. They let Hughie (Billy Zane) onto the yacht. Initially, they think he is just in shock. His erratic behavior could be the result of being trapped on a sinking ship. While they wait for Hughie to calm down, they ask him questions; what happened to the other passengers, and how the ship was damaged.
Nicole Kidman in Dead Calm (1989)
Hughie’s story of food poisoning taking the lives of the 5 other passengers doesn’t hold water for John. Once he gets Hughie to go to rest, he takes the dinghy and goes out to the derelict.
Nicole Kidman in Dead Calm (1989
Having a main cast of just 3, there is plenty of room for close-ups. One of Kidman’s strengths is that she says so much with her face alone. From her early film roles in Dead Calm (1989) and To Die For (1995) to her latest projects, Nicole Kidman has shown herself to be one of the most versatile actors in Hollywood. In addition to her talent, she has a keen sense of what she is able to achieve in a role. This profile will focus on a number of her key performances.
Nicole Kidman in Dead Calm (1989)
When Dead Calm was released, Kidman was 19 and unknown in the US. Dead Calm was her first large budget film. Instead of being fearful of the role, she embraced it. She took sailing lessons in order to be able to do the sailing herself. She was also able to do all the action scenes.
Nicole Kidman & Billy Zane in Dead Calm (1989)
Her preparation paid off as her seamless performance stands out as one of the highs in suspense cinema. From the moment that Hughie comes aboard, she moves from shock to suspicion to horror to determination, and even manages to seduce him to gain leverage.
Nicole Kidman & Billy Zane in Dead Calm (1989)
The real suspense begins once John is on the derelict and Rae is alone with Hughie. It is Nicole Kidman’s performance, the excellent direction, editing & photography by Phillip Noyce, Richard Francis-Bruce &Dean Semier that make this film a milestone in the suspense genre that even Hitchcock would love.
Facts, Rumors & Hearsay
In a 2021 interview with Marc Maron, Sam Neill expressed some discomfort over the fact that he was twice Nicole Kidman’s age when they played a couple in this film.
In May 1987 as production began, Neil was 39 years of age and Kidman was 19.
Sophia Loren, Michelle Pfeiffer, Veronica Ferres, Cher & Susan Sarandon were considered for the role of Rae Ingram.
From the moment Scottie sees her, he is entranced. Even across the distance of the dining room from the bar at Ernie’s, Madeline stands out with her blonde hair and the emerald green of her gown against the lavish red wall covering of the restaurant. Hitchcock’s use of color glares at us from the red walls as Scottie’s obsession begins. The green of her gown will echo through the rest of the film and is the color that Scottie will associate with Madeline. The immediate attraction is discernible in the restaurant scene as Madeline and Elster are leaving: Scottie gets his first fleeting glance as she pauses, then turns to look back at Elster. She personifies beauty and elegance, and against his own better judgement, he takes on the job.
James Stewart & Kim Novak in Vertigo (1959)
The next shot is of Scottie in his car, and then cut to her coming out of her building and getting into her car from Scottie’s point of view. Hitchcock’s choice of the green car provokes thoughts of her in the restaurant the night before. As she drives off, Scottie follows. He becomes her shadow as she quickly becomes his obsession. The longer he tails her, the harder it it will be for him to think clearly. Surely, a trained detective would have been suspicious? He had initially scoffed at Elster’s tale about possession. It is true that he’s just had the trauma of the death of a fellow officer and the guilt that goes along with it, but still? Doing a 180 after a mere glimpse at the woman? We realize that it is the woman in question that turns his head and eventually, sets it spinning.
James Stewart in Vertigo (1959)
The measured pace that began in Madge’s studio, continues as Scottie follows her through San Francisco’s scenic streets of twists and turns that echo the dizzy spiral of his vertigo. The last turn is down an alley behind a flower shop. After she goes in, he follows. Once inside he stands in the shadows, watching while she waits to pick up a pink and white nosegay. Perplexed, he watches. He then goes back to his car and waits, but not before getting a good look at her in her elegant grey suit. When she comes out, he continues to follow.
Kim Novak in Vertigo (1959)
This time she stops in front of Mission Dolores, and after going through a chapel to follow her, Scottie steps out into a cemetery garden. The Mission Dolores foreshadows Scottie’s later realization of where Madeline is being led. He follows on foot, as she goes to stand before a grave. Seeing her first from a distance, he slowly moves closer until he is almost too close. She moves away and then stops, and he sees her in a clear profile before she leaves the graveyard.
James Stewart & Kim Novak in Vertigo (1959)
Going to look at the grave stone, we see it from Scottie’s point of view. It is as though she has been led to her own death, and he has followed. It is the completion of the foreshadowing.
Once again he tails her, this time to the Palace of the Legions of Honor and inside the
Kim Novak in Vertigo (1959)
museum, Scottie finds her sitting before the painting of Carlotta Valdes who holds the identical nosegay to the one Madeleine holds in the painting. Her hair style is also similar to Madeleine’s. Scottie asks the museum guard what the name of the painting is and of course is told that it is, The Portrait of Carlotta.
The next stop is where things take another turn in the spiral. It is the McKittrick Hotel and as Scottie gets out of the car and walks toward the building, we see Madeline from Scottie’s point of view already up in the window of one of the rooms. How did she get up there so fast? It seems impossible. When he opens the door, we see the lobby from Scottie’s point of view that it is empty; there is no one behind the reception desk. His glance then follows the stairs to the landing and we hear a voice, “Yes?” When he looks back down there is a woman behind the reception desk.
Kim Novak,Ellen Corby& Jame Stewart in Vertigo (1959)
When we first see the lobby from Scottie’s point of view the rubber plant is there, but the woman is not. Upon questioning, she tells him that Miss Valdes hasn’t been in today confirming that she has been at the counter all morning, oiling her rubber plant. His reaction does not conceal his disbelief. Scottie asks her to go up and check the room. Although she thinks it is silly, she does as he asks.
Ellen Corby & James Stewart in Vertigo (1959)
As she goes up the stairs, Scottie looks perplexed. She calls down to him that he should come up. As he looks up the stairs at her peering down from the landing; the vertigo is suggested, although he has no trouble on the stairs. He thinks he is being led up to Madeline, but when he gets there, she is not in the room. Still, Scottie can’t accept it as he looks out the window and says, “Her car is gone!”
“What Car?”
Ellen Corby& Jame Stewart in Vertigo (1959)
This scene strikes me with the same impact that the opening scene does with Scottie hanging from the questionable rain gutter. Even if he had grabbed the officer’s hand, there was nothing to anchor the man and they both would have plunged to their deaths. In Donald Spoto’s exceptional, Hitchcock: Fifty Years of His Motion Pictures, he says of the scene at the McKittrick Hotel, “...we are as confused as Scottie. Any logical explanation offered in retrospect–that the two women were in collusion, or that Madeleine escaped through a rear door–is in no way supported by the text or the atmosphere at this point. Scottie wonders whether Madeleine is in fact a spirit or a figment of his imagination.” I would add that Scottie has become an unreliable witness. As we see through his eyes, his confusion becomes our own. We also grope to understand, hoping for an explanation that never comes.
At this point, Scottie has completely left reality behind and is prepared to accept any eventuality without question. We accept it as well. We too, have been enchanted by this chimerical beauty.
Screenplay by Ted Sherdeman/Adapted by Russell Hughes based on the Story by George Worthing Yates
Cinematography by Sidney Hickox
Music by Bronislau Kaper
Warner Brothers / 1hr 34min
CAST: James Whitmore (Sgt. Ben Peterson), Edmund Gwenn (Dr. Harold Medford), Joan Weldon (Dr. Patricia Medford), James Arness (Robert Graham), Onslow Stevens (Brigadier General Robert O’Brien), Christian Drake (Trooper Ed Blackburn).
Them! opens with a shot of the desert and Bronislau Kaper’s ominous score as a plane appears in the distance and slowly pulls us into the action. We then meet police Sargent Ben Peterson (James Whitmore) as the plane’s pilot leads Peterson and his partner Ed Blackburn (Christian Drake) to a child (Sandy Descher) that is roaming through the desert as if in a trance. Parking their squad car, they call out to the child, but she does not respond. Obviously in shock, she just keeps walking.
The pilot than contacts them about an abandon car and trailer further down the road. They take the girl and head down the highway. At first it looks normal. Until they walk around to the side of the trailer that has been smashed open. It’s a mess inside, everything even money is scattered inside the vehicle. There is a bloody cloth, but no real clue as to what happened. There is a mysterious print in the sand that neither officer can identify.
When the specialist from the Department of Agriculture arrives in response to the print lifted from the sand at the trailer site, he is taken to see the girl who has not yet snapped out of her shock. He holds a vial of formic acid under her nose and she bursts out of her impingement, jumping up with a scream and shouting, “Them! Them! Them!”
Sandy Descher in Them!
The power of the film emits from director Gordon Douglas’ (They Call Me Mister Tibbs!) direction that keeps a serious demeanor never allowing camp to set in, but he doesn’t forget to include humor. Much of it is centered on Edmund Gwenn’s (The Trouble with Harry) Dr. Medford. From the moment he and his daughter Patricia get off the plane, he contributes the needed comic relief within the bounds of his hyper serious character. He comes down out of the plane’s hatch, but his daughter gets stuck and all that can be seen of her are her legs. Both Sargent Peterson and Agent Graham take note of her predicament while Dr. Medford remains oblivious.
Joan Weldon, James Arness & James Whitmore in Them!
Both Dr. Medfords suspect the truth, giant ants, but they refuse to tell even the FBI agent until they are certain. Special AgentRobert Graham is not used to waiting and quickly loses patience with the doctors.
Them!
Simply one of the best and most enduring of the creature features from the 1950’s. The ants are really frightening and the action is exuberantly real. A fine cast plays it with deadpan chagrin and terror.
Forbidden Planet(1956)
Directed by Fred McLeod Wilcox
Screenplay by Cyril Hume based on a Story by Irving Block & Allen Adlerloosely based on William Shakespeare’s The Tempest (Uncredited)
Cinematography by George J. Folsey
Music Department: Bebe Barron & Louis Barron composers of electronic tonalities
CAST: Walter Pidgeon (Dr. Morbius), Anne Francis (Altaira Morbius), Leslie Nielson (Commander Adams), Warren Stevens (Lt. ‘Doc’ Ostrow), Jack Kelly (Lt. Farman), Richard Anderson ( Chief Quinn), Earl Holliman (Cook).
MGM / 1hr 38min
Forbidden Planet was not the first film to have its screenplay based on a Shakespeare play, but it certainly was the most unusual. The film that was influenced by the world of Prospero and Miranda became an influence in the world of science fiction. The excellent script’s original story foreshadowed many science fiction tales to come. Many of the TV shows and films that came later borrowed freely from Forbidden Planet, from the story telling to the uniforms to the use of robots and even the names of weapons.
LEFT:Leslie Nielson, Warren Stevens, Jack Kelley, Anne Francis &Walter Pidgeon inForbidden Planet (1956) RIGHT: William Shatner, DeForest Kelley & Walter Konig in Star Trek: The Original Series (1966)
In addition, the cast was exceptional including: Walter Pidgeon, Leslie Nielson, and Anne Francis. The film looks like the blue print for the soon to be popular, Star Trek: The Original Series (1966) right down to the landing party of three (in Star Trek usually the Captain, Spock & Bones), and the Captain getting the girl. More blatantly, Forbidden Planet’s, United Planets Starship C-57D is reflected in Star Trek’s Federation of Planets Starship USS Enterprise.
LEFT: Anne Francis & Leslie Nielson in Forbidden Planet (1956) RIGHT: Nancy Kovack & William Shatner in Star Trek (1966) Season 2 Episode 19
The decompression chambers on the United Planets Starship C-57D look like a prototype for the USS Enterprise’s transporter.
LEFT: Decompression Chambers in Forbidden Planet RIGHT: Transporter in Star Trek: the Original Series
Set design in subsequent science fiction films echo the long before its time set design displayed when Morbius takes Adams on a tour of the Krell’s astonishing complex. Star Wars (1977), Blade Runner (1982), and Total Recall (1990) come to mind. In Total Recall it was a machine that was built by ancient Martians to create air on the planet.
Forbidden Planet (1956)Total Recall (1990)
Robby the Robot not only influenced both television shows and films, but the robot in the 1966 television series, Lost in Space was designed by Robert Kinoshita who had also designed Robby for Forbidden Planet.
LEFT: Anne Francis & Robby the Robotin Forbidden Planet (1956)RIGHT: Robot (B-9 class) & Jonathan Harris in Lost in Space (1965)Publicity photo
LEFT: R2D2 in Star Wars (1977)RIGHT:The Robot & Maxwell Jenkins in Lost in Space (2018-2021)
Forbidden Planet is a classic of the genre and remains a must see film for both science fiction fans as well as the casual film viewer.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Directed by Don Siegel
Screenplay by Daniel Mainwaring & (Richard Collins/Uncredited due to being blacklisted) based on story by Jack Finneyserialized in Collier’s Magazine
Cinematography by Ellsworth Fredericks
Music by Carmen Dragon
Allied Artists Pictures / 1hr 20min
CAST: Kevin McCarthy (Dr. Miles J. Bennell), Dana Wynter (Becky Driscoll), Larry Gates (Dr. Dan Kauffman),King Donovan (Jack Belicec), Carolyn Jones (Theodora Bellicec), Jean Willes (Nurse Sally Withers), Ralph Dumke (Police Chief Nick Grivett).
The undeniable high point in 50’s Science Fiction, Invasion of the Body Snatchers has so much going for it that it will never go out of date. The opening is unforgettable as Kevin McCarthy tries to convince disbelieving doctors and authorities that the world is in danger of being invaded by interstellar plant life! Just the extreme yet subtle manner in which the aliens supplant the humans in their own bodies defies rational thought.
Larry Gates, King Donovan, andKevin McCarthy in Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Once the doctor calms Dr. Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) down getting him to calmly tell his tale, the action begins. As the good doctor returns home from a trip, we are introduced to the characters as he finds that something odd has been going on during his absence. Many of the townspeople have tried to make appointments while he was away, but on his return, most of those that seemed panicked to see him, cancel without explanation! At the same time, there are a number of people that are under the delusion that someone they are close to is not really that person anymore.
Dana Wynter in Invasion of the BodySnatchers
Once Bennell realizes what is actually going on, the clock begins to tick as he and Becky Driscoll are aided by Belicec’s in plotting to escape and expose the alien plot.
Dana Wynter & Kevin McCarthy in Invasion of the Body Snatchers
A well honed script based on a serialization that ran in Collier’s magazine is transformed into a masterpiece of science fiction, horror, and suspense. Don Siegel’s direction employs economy and pacing to keep the beat as it gradually quickens with every scene. The cast is as memorable as the story itself, and each character is fully realized as the horror slowly engulfs them. The exceptionally shot black and white adds to the feeling of isolation and fear.
The film has been re-made three times: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Body Snatchers (1993), The Invasion (2007) with varying degrees of success; although none have surpassed the original, they stand as a testament to it’s influence.
Facts, Rumors, and Hearsay
Them!
“Sharp, slightly vinegary formic acid is the one-carbon volatile acid, a chemical weapon found in ants and other insects but turned against them by the anteater, which relies on it to help digest them.” Harold Mcgee WSJ – 10/24/2020, What Does Outer Space Smell Like?
Forbidden Planet
The Robinson’s (Lost in Space – 1966) robot was created by Robert Kinoshita, who also designed Robby the Robot for Forbidden Planet (1956).
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Don Siegel directed two episodes of the original Twilight Zone. One of the episodes featured Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet. The episode aired November 15th, 1963 and was titled, Uncle Simon.
The last sequence was not filmed on the Hollywood Freeway, but on an out of the way cross-bridge. The cars were actually manned by stunt drivers. Don Siegel admitted that Kevin McCarthy was in real danger of getting hit, because the sequence was shot at dawn and the actor was nearing complete exhaustion.
Years after the film, Dana Wynter received a message on her answering machine from Kevin McCarthy and he said: “Hi Becky, this is Miles. Stay awake won’t you!”
