My name is Jason Lockard and being an independent filmmaker and a singer, songwriter as well, I love great singers and when they can act even better! Well, singer/actors don’t come much better Frank Sinatra!

Ole’ Blue Eyes… The Chairman of the Board… The Voice these are just some of the monikers for the great Frank Sinatra! Sinatra was born Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra on December 12, 1915 he is best known for his career in music, singing such classics as Come fly with me, Under my Skin, New York, New York and others too many to count! Frank began his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra broke from the big band leaders and became a solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, being the idol of the "bobby soxers." Then he rode on a high few singers ever see, but by the 1950s his singing career had stalled. He co-starred in many musicals during the 40s and in 1954 Frank’s career was rejuvenated when he won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in for The Best Picture that year “From Here to Eternity!” which boasted an all-star cast including Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr and Donna Reed! After this Frank would go on to be in many memorable films but we are only going to focus on one this time!

After his successful Oscar winning role Frank took a dark route with 1954s little known gem Suddenly!
In post-war America the president of the United States of America is scheduled to journey through the fictional small town of Suddenly, California. In this film Frank plays the ruthless, troubled assassin John Baron. He and his henchmen pretend to be FBI agents ordered to protect the president and take over the home of The Benson Family. Soon after their arrival Sheriff Tod Shaw (Sterling Hayden) arrives with Dan Carney (Willis Bouchey), a Secret Service agent in charge of the president's security detail. When he does, Baron and his gangsters shoot Carney and a bullet fractures Shaw's arm.

What started out as a simple assassination attempt becomes more and more complicated as the hostages pile up in the small house you can feel a sense of claustrophobia. This sets off a chain of events you won’t believe, but I’m not going to spoil it for you, you’ll have to what the film to see what happens! While Suddenly is just around 75 minutes in length it is a very enjoyable film. It is one that must be seen to be appreciated! The acting is superb, the script is tremendous and the cinematography is spectacular! Do yourself a favor and treat yourself to the classic melodrama Suddenly!

The film’s copywrite was not renewed and thus fell into the public domain making the film available via discount distributors. It can also be downloaded online for free. In 1986s Suddenly was colorized by Hal Roach Studios in which they made Sinatra’s blue eyes brown. Than on June 16th, 2009 Legend Films also did a colorized version bringing Ole’ Blues Eyes back!

Frank went on to star in many films after this, the best in my humble opinion 1962s The Manchurian Candidate. Frank even teamed with his fellow rat packers for several films including 1960s Oceans Eleven, 1962s Sergeants 3 and 1964s Robin and the 7 Hoods.

On June 12, 1971 — at age 55 he performed a benefit concert in Hollywood to raise money for the Motion Picture and TV Relief Fund. At that concert Sinatra announced that he was retiring, bringing his 36-year storied career in show business to an end, but his retirement wouldn’t last and in 1973, Sinatra came out of retirement with a television special and album, both entitled Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back. The album proved the world wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Ole Blue Eyes as the album reaching number 13 on Billboard and number 12 in the UK.

In October 1974, Sinatra appeared at Madison Square Garden in a televised concert later released as an album under the title The Main Event – Live. In 1979, in front of the Egyptian pyramids, Sinatra performed for Anwar Sadat. Back in Las Vegas, while celebrating 40 years in show business and his 64th birthday, he was awarded the Grammy Trustees Award during a party at Caesars Palace.

In 1990, Sinatra celebrated his 75th birthday with a national tour, and was awarded the second "Ella Award" by the Los Angeles–based Society of Singers. At the award ceremony, he performed for the final time with Ella Fitzgerald.

Sinatra's final public concerts were held in Japan's Fukuoka Dome in December 1994. The following year, on February 25, 1995, at a private party for 1,200 select guests on the closing night of the Frank Sinatra Desert Classic golf tournament, Sinatra sang before a live audience for the very last time. Esquire reported of the show that Sinatra was "clear, tough, on the money" and "in absolute control." His closing song was "The Best is Yet to Come."

Sinatra was awarded the Legend Award at the 1994 Grammy Awards. He was introduced by Bono, who said of Sinatra "Frank's the chairman of the bad attitude... rock 'n roll plays at being tough, but this guy is the boss. The chairman of boss... I'm not going to mess with him, are you?" Sinatra called it "the best welcome...I ever had." However, during his speech, Sinatra apparently ran too long and was curtly cut off by music, then commercials, leaving Sinatra looking confused while talking into a dead microphone. What a way to treat a legend!

Sinatra suffered from senile dementia in his final years and made no further public appearances after a heart attack in January 1997. Frank Sinatra suffered another heart attack and died at 10:50 pm on May 14, 1998 at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, with his wife Barbara by his side. He was 82 years old. Sinatra's final words were "I'm losing." Imprinted on Sinatra's grave marker are the words "The Best Is Yet to Come"!

While Sinatra was a good Academy Award winning actor he will always be remembered as Ole’ Blue Eyes one of the greatest singers who ever lived! So if you want to see The Chairman of the Board in a dark and sinister role unlike his old happy-go-lucky musicals of the 40s pick up a copy of Suddenly and treat yourself to “A Cold Blooded Thriller“! Until next month this is Jason Lockard saying if you want to watch a good movie pick up a classic!

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Moral Rating: Mild Violence
Audience: Teens & Adults
Genre: Drama
Length: 75 min.
Year of Release: 1954
Our Rating: A

After trying to convince anyone that Scarlett Johnansen and Jessica Biel playing beach volleyball in an epic movie for 4 1/2 hours is the greatest idea since pizza delivery, I've decided to discuss some of the forgotten movies of the 1980s. By forgotten movies, I'm not accepting any movie that has a retro-neon pink DVD cover blaring its 1980-ness. As a kid, some movies played almost continuously and parents would let you watch them. Remember the days when a Roger Moore James Bond movie was on the Sunday night movie? Yes, children, there was a Sunday night movie on the network TV stations. If it wasn't, it would be one of the movie channels on the satellite at least 3 times a week. The days are gone when Beast Master was on everyday right before Flash Gordon and Howard the Duck.

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Beast Master
The touching story of Marc Singer being born of a cow and gains the ability to talk to the animals. However, he uses the talent for far more than just the typical Dr. Doolittle conversations. The Beast Master is the movie that made all kids want to own pet ferrets. It is better to want a ferret than wear a leather mask and have a neon green liquid shot into your head. If you listen closely enough when Rip Torn first appears, you can even hear him mourn the loss of his career or why he was in that bank last month...


CHUD
The words just roll off the tongue: Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers. A group of bums get infected with toxic waste and become the aforementioned Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers. Nobody seems that concerned with the bums on the streets because they're totally unaware of the "Cannibalistic" part of the radioactive homeless dietary needs.


Flash Gordon
"Flash-AHHH AHHHHHHHHHHHH, Defender of the Universe." Decades ago, some kids didn't know who Queen was. They had heard the "Flash Gordon" song from this movie. If they were old enough, they'd be thinking "hey this band doing the Highlander theme songs sounds familiar from somewhere else."


Howard the Duck
The movie George Lucas wants the world to forget right after the Star Wars Holiday Special. I don't think it would be bragging to claim this is the greatest "midget wearing a duck suit being seduced by Leah Thompson" movie ever made. At the very least, no one could take Tim Robbins seriously after seeing him as a janitor who becomes a 1980s girl band manager. Jeffrey Jones who gets possessed by the Dark Overlord of the Universe has just gotten creepier after his arrests which make him chasing a midget in a duck suit even stranger.


Superman IV: a Quest for Peace
The early 80s cable channels showed Superman 2 and Superman 3 quite a bit. However, both movies combined or raised to any exponential power could be shown anywhere as much as the Cannon Films last hurrah or how to kill a superhero series for more than a decade without Joel Schumacher. Too be fair, the next DC superhero movie was the original Tim Burton's Batman (Never let a chance go by to not show my comic book geek cred...)

Greetings, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Happy... Groundhog's Day?  There's always something, huh, for those of you north or east of here, at least.  I hope Puxatawny Phil sees his shadow and grants you with an unreliable forecast of spring, a forecast utterly irrelevant here in SoCal; I'm in a tank top and shorts at the moment.

So, how's my journey going these days?  Well, I took some new headshots, as always with my brilliant friend Farley, and I'm thrilled with them.  I've always really hated taking headshots, and I wasn't sure why-- I'm a model, I love the camera, I love taking portraits, and I like making eye contact, too, staring down into the bottomless well, the eye of the beholder who only knows me at my best.  But headshots... always felt uncomfortable... making eye contact is a requirement, and with headshots it feels extremely self-conscious, and wrong, like accidentally stealing a glance at the lens while filming a scene, you blew the whole take, you broke the third wall, oops.  Yeah, it's always felt like that, and I've never been happy with the result, just so unnatural and visibly stiff.  Whether modeling, acting, singing or playing an instrument, the performer must be relaxed in their foundation, connected with their breath, allowing the emotion to come naturally, and focused.  And with those darn headshots I could never relax, because I never had a focus, I didn't know where to go emotionally, or what I should convey.  And this time I figured it out, to just relax, and think and be and make eye contact when I wanted to, relating to the camera like I always do.  So, there's that. 

January has been an interesting month, internally, musically, experientially, but not with acting. There have been some scripts, some introductions, and one audition, which I blew off.  The script was just awful.  I'm uninspired.  I don't care, to drive to these auditions, to seek them out, to nag my manager and agent about projects, I just simply don't care.  I spend hours writing music and performing around town, and hours upon hours writing, prose, letters, my blog. But taking five minutes to check out a breakdown or forward a headshot requires so much energy and effort, I find myself putting it off for days. 

I've been here before... kind of.  I've been here before, but not in years, not for this long, not in presumably the right place, with the right credits, and the right team.  I know if I were given an opportunity to work on something that inspired me, I would snap out of it, and I also know that opportunity won't come when I'm slacking like this, when I can't be bothered.  Though, you know, these things come when "you least expect them," and "when you're not looking."

And indeed they do.  My agent called me a few minutes ago with a big audition.  I normally don't tell people about my auditions, or my plays, or my movies, or my music. Talking shop is boring, and so many people in this town announce their perceived triumphs long before they occur... a throw-away late night conversation, a project in its infancy, an audition, like any other, but that they're just damn sure they nailed, because they just have that inflated self-confidence, and rocket-fuel drive, and wide-eyed optimism, and downright denial that just might be beneficial, even necessary in this industry.  And then those projects are never mentioned again, and nobody asks, because everybody knows it just never happened, and that's just expected, and accepted, and the proud proclaimers are not embarrassed that they've been crying wolf since you've known them.

To be quite honest, and that seems to be the tone today, the aforementioned attitude-- the one before honesty-- just doesn't sit well with me.  It's Taco Bell.  Turns my stomach just a bit.  The air of desperation and delusion that's so prevalent here it's become the norm, has weighed on me and trapped me in my room, howling and pounding on the windows at night, scolding and sweating with the dawn, atonally singing with the ringing in my ears.  I get it, LA, I get it.  We're all here to reinvent ourselves and chase dreams.  And dreams come true here.  Dreams come true.  Maybe one in a thousand, one in million, maybe fifteen years down the road, maybe never, maybe you'll stare them in the face and come so close to touching them and back away, because up close they're not so seductive after all. In order live to like this, always wanting, around others who are always wanting, around people so hungry they seem to be honoring a deathwish, clay pigeons for young sharks, carrion for the swindlers, lifeblood of the dejected bullies with the plastic smiles and empty promises, one hand always behind their back, clutching wool to pull over hungry eyes.

And among them, the brilliant, the honest, the selfless, the dreamweavers.  And living in all of it, and walking that tightrope between cynicism and naivete, is hard, and it's exhausting, and it's not for everybody, and I, personally, don't believe that choosing not to choose it is a failure or a character flaw.  "Quitter."  Why is it such a pejorative?  What's more ineffectual and passive than sticking with something you hate?  Sigh.

Inspiring in January:  Paul, my acting coach for years and years.  I started studying with him, with his upstart school in America, when I was 19 in New York City.  At the time it was completely unknown, small and inconsistent groups, in small and inconsistent studio spaces in Hell's Kitchen.  And I had one student thesis film on my CV... I had take one class-- or rather, started-- before, at a well-known, very affordable school in the city, and quit after two classes.  We only went up and performed, for two minutes, every two weeks, and the teacher spoke in a false British accent, and deliberately, but UTTERLY embarrassed me the day I went up, part of his great technique, no doubt.  I stopped acting for a couple years.  I was in a band.  I'm playing music all the time again now, and I love it.  But funny always, the symphonic symmetry of life.  I'd quit, and then started this new class, and it was wonderful.  It is wonderful.  I have seen, and heard of, and studied with a lot of coaches, many with some cache, and they haven't measured up.  My teacher is just passionate and intelligent and funny and caring, to all of the students, and the techniques we learn are invaluable and direct, and unpretentious.  And just yesterday, he asked me if I'd like to come in and help out while the school auditioned new students.  And of course I did, after having been out of class for months, and I walked into this enormous space, with a theatre, and a loft office, and on-camera auditions, and a sort of sister-company casting director workshop, and UC-accredited degree program.  Six years.  We came up together, the school and I.  I was blown away.  I'd told an acquaintance about it, maybe six months ago, and she was there yesterday to audition.  She called me last night to say she'd signed up, and my teacher thanked me, and she's so excited to do it, for the emotional release alone, its therapeutic power, the confidence it will build. 

I am inspired, January.  That's what I know.

As a young boy, my obsession with monster movies knew no boundaries. I would walk to any theatre to see one, wake up at any hour of the night to watch one on TV and scour the local newsstands looking for any magazines that carried information on them. When nothing was available, I took an old English composition tablet and wrote notes about each film I’d watch and created my own reference book. I’d copy everything on that film that I could get from TV Guide, (including the credits) and write my own review. I’d try not to bash any film I didn’t like too hard (although being kind to the K. Gordon Murray Mexican horror imports of the 1960s was tough). By the time I was 13 years old I had collected a lot of information about my favorite subject. Back then I thought Nathan “Jerry” Juran was the best director working in films.

If there ever was an unassuming director of sci-fi and fantasy films, it was Nathan Juran. Between 1952 and 1973 Juran directed at least nine fantastic films (horror, sci-fi and fantasy – not including his forays into sci-fi TV) with hardly any fanfare. In the 1950s, Universal lavishly promoted the sci-fi films of Jack Arnold and Paramount would make a big deal about a new George Pal project. Juran, however, went from project to project with scarcely a notice. He directed for major studios (Universal, Columbia and United Artists) and low budget companies (Allied Artists, Howco). In all fairness, he can not be considered a true pioneer of the genre like George Pal or Jack Arnold and he did not exercise complete control over his films. He was somewhat of a gun for hire. It’s also true that the quality of Juran’s films varied more than any of Arnold’s or Pal’s; some of Juran’s films are remembered as endearing classics while others are considered classics of “trash cinema”. But his artistic eye won him praise and made him uniquely qualified to direct sci-fi and fantasy.  Through it all, Juran bought a steady (if unspectacular) hand to each of his fantastic film projects.

Juran was born in Romania and immigrated to the US around 1912. During the great depression, Juran and his family moved to Los Angles where he found work in the art department at RKO Pictures. Eventually he worked his way up to art director where he won the Academy Award for 1941’s How Green was my Valley. After serving in World War II, he moved to 20th Century Fox and worked on several other major films including The Razor’s Edge (1946) Body and Soul (1947) and Harvey (1950). His selection of the portrait used to represent James Stewart’s imaginary friend is striking and indicative of the visual flair Juran was capable of bringing to a project. 


Early Directorial Efforts

Juran began directing films in 1952 with the routine horror film The Black Castle. Filmed at Universal Studios for producer William Alland, The Black Castle is an attempt to revive Universal’s gothic horror films from the 1930s and 1940s. Boris Karloff stars as Dr. Meissen an honorable physician who is held captive by a mad nobleman who likes to hunt human prey (The Most Dangerous Game anyone?).
While the film suffers from a deadly slow pace, Juran does give the low-budget film a much more expensive look.  Unfortunately, there is little else Juran brings to the film. Juran followed The Black Castle with routine westerns like Law and Order and Gunsmoke (1953). 

Juran’s next fantastic film was 1957’s The Deadly Mantis, one of the worst big bug movies of the 1950s. Starting with a lackluster script and saddled with pedestrian special effects, Juran was unable to bring anything to this tale of prehistoric fauna gone wild. His handling of the actors (Craig Stevens, William Hopper and Alix Talton) is mechanical. He merely moves from scene to scene without creating any spark or energy. Instead of the actors displaying a sense of urgency about their quest to find and destroy the monstrous insect, they all act like they’re going to the supermarket. The film is reminiscent of Juran’s latter bland work on TV. The sad fact about The Deadly Mantis is that the stock footage scenes (added to pad out the running time) have more life to them than the rest of the film.


Collaborating with a Master

Fortunately for Juran, his next two collaborations would be more fruitful and memorable. In 1957, Juran was hired by producer Charles H. Schneer to direct the live action scenes for the monster romp 20 Million Miles to Earth. The film would feature animation effects from Ray Harryhausen. Juran became one of the participants in the infamous Harryhausen “sweatbox” sessions. Juran would sit with Schneer and Harryhausen and decide what could and what couldn’t be put in the film before even a frame was shot. This method was used to film only what was deemed absolutely necessary. In interviews Harryhausen always mentioned Juran’s artistic eye and how he was one of the few directors who understood what he was trying to do with his films. (For a more detailed review of 20 Million Miles to Earth, please see my article in Rogue Cinema’s November 2009 issue.)

After completing 20 Million Miles to Earth, Schneer and Harryhausen asked Juran to direct the live action scenes for another classic The 7thVoyage of Sinbad (1958). Juran’s previous career as an art director really helps him here as he anchors the live action scenes with a plausible sense of fantasy which helps make Ray’s creatures all that more real. He also coaxes good efforts from his leads (Kerwin Matthews and Kathyrn Grant). But his best trick was getting a great controlled performance from Torin Thatcher as the villainous Sokura. Thatcher was known as a ham and could woefully overact if left on his own. Juran keeps him in check and focuses Thatcher, so that the actor’s portrayal of the evil sorcerer (along with Ray’s great creatures) becomes one of the most memorable aspects of the film.


Pass the Cheese Please

After directing 20 Million Miles to Earth and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Juran directed two low budget sci-fi films for Allied Artists and Howco  — 1958’s The Brain from Planet Arous and Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. Probably concerned with his ability to direct more major film projects in the future, Juran chose to use his middle name (Nathan Hertz) on both of these.

 Over the past 50 years these two films have become synonymous with bad sci-fi. While it’s hard to defend these cheese classics, they still offer a few guilty pleasures on repeated viewings. For The Brain from Planet Arous, Juran was able to get yeoman’s work out of John Agar as the possessed scientist. He’s also able to get Agar to express Gor’s (the title brain) awakening lust for co-star Joyce Meadows. It was highly unusual for a 1950’s sci-fi film to refer to sex, but Juran keeps that tension (along with the implied threat of rape) bubbling under the surface. He avoids focusing too long on the woefully inept brain prop. He also directs the scenes in Bronson Caverns well and conveys the proper feeling of claustrophobia.

In Attack of the 50 Foot Woman Juran gets a wonderfully sexy performance out of Yvette Vickers  as the sleazy town tramp Honey Parker (her best remembered role). As in The Brain from Planet Arous, he probably realized that there would be no wonderful special effects to compensate for the low budget, so Juran resolved to get what he could to make his film compelling. He takes a cue from the soap operas of the day and plays the sexual tension that Vickers generates with William Hudson for all its worth. And somehow despite all the awful lines generated by the script and the incompetent special effects, it all works.  One of my favorite scenes is when the sheriff (George Douglas) and Allison Hayes’s faithful butler Jess (Ken Terrell) go out to investigate her allegation of a flying saucer piloted by a giant. They find it, of course, and go in to investigate. As the pair look around the ship (which seems constructed for normal sized humans rather than extraterrestrial giants) they come upon a small fortune in jewels being used to power the otherworldly craft. Juran has the camera follow Douglas and Terrell’s faces as they are distorted through the prisms holding the jewels.  Attack of the 50 Foot Woman is trashy, yet strangely compelling. It’s a wonderful twisted take on the alien invasion theme.


Back to TV and a Virtual Remake

After 1958, Juran received fewer film opportunities, so he returned to television (he had started directing for television earlier in the decade). He directed episodes of the classic Men in Space TV show. Finally in 1962 he was given the opportunity to direct another fantasy film, Jack the Giant Killer.

The history of Jack the Giant Killer is fascinating. Producer Edward Small was once given the opportunity to make The 7th Voyage of Sinbad with Ray Harryhausen. Small turned him down feeling the project wouldn’t succeed. After the film’s phenomenal worldwide triumph, Small decided to make his own similar film. He hired the same actors (Kerwin Mathews and Torin Thatcher), the same director (Juran) and employed stop motion for all the creatures in the film as well (the effects were done by Projects Unlimited). However Columbia Pictures slapped Small with an injunction claiming copyright infringement and halted its release. The case was eventually settled and the film was distributed, but it was not the huge success Small hoped it would be.

Juran directs the film with a steady hand. He seems to know that it will be the effects that will carry the day here. He’s able to convey a sense of wonder in the scenes with the leprechaun (Don Beddoe) and the scenes in Pendragon’s castle where the sorcerer and his minions conjure new challenges for Matthews and his comrades (I especially loved the sword-fighting arms!). Though overtly silly in some scenes, (the original musical numbers [which were later deleted] water down the imaginative aspects), Jack the Giant Killer is still an appealing fantasy.

Of HG Wells and Selenites

In 1964 Juran was tapped once again by the Harryhausen/Schneer team to helm the live action scenes for First Men in the Moon.  For this charming version of the HG Wells classic, Juran had to direct all of the modern day earthbound and moon landing scenes, the quaint scenes in Victorian England and the scenes when the Victorian astronauts are on the moon.  Juran does good work here and he is able to establish different emotions for the audience throughout the film. He conveys the correct sense of English propriety in the early scenes (e.g., Lionel Jeffrey’s escorting his geese out of harm’s way before the diving bell takes off; his outrage over the fact that Edward Judd and Martha Hyer are not married). These scenes act as juxtaposition for the fantasy that will follow. There is also a true sense of awe in the scenes on the lunar surface (“Bedford old man isn’t it magnificent? It’s imperial”!). He keeps the lighting low in the shadowy world of the Selenites which adds to the viewer’s feeling of eeriness.  In his 2004 autobiography “An Animated Life”, Ray Harryhausen said of Juran:

“ ...Jerry could deliver quality when the subject matter allowed and First Men in the Moon supplied him with all the necessary elements to shine. His art director’s background, humor and ability to handle actors all came together to make this his best film.”1

First Men in the Moon represents the high water mark for Juran. He would never again work on a major film as colorful and exciting as this.


The Small Screen Beckons and a Final Film

In 1965 Juran accepted an offer from TV schlockmeister Irwin Allen to return to the small screen and become the house director for his new TV show Lost in Space (Juran had previously worked with Allen on his Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea series). Over the next few years, Juran settled in as a TV director and helmed many shows about the Space Family Robinson. Again, it was probably Juran’s artistic eye that caught Allen’s attention (I sometimes wonder if Allen had called Ray Harryhausen to ask about Juran. After all, Allen and Ray worked together on 1956’s The Animal World, so they knew each other). It was probably also Juran’s ability to work quickly within a low budget that was of primary importance to Allen. Juran’s experience with Harryhausen’s “sweatbox” sessions prepared him well for the low-budget world of sci-fi TV.

As a boy I was very sad to see Juran’s name in the credits for Lost in Space. I will always remember Allen as a cheap lowest common denominator producer. I was infuriated to see him reuse sets, creature costumes and special effects over and over again in his shows all in an effort to save money. For me it seemed such a letdown that the man, who directed so many of my favorite fantasy and sci-fi films, was now reduced to working for a crass producer like Irwin Allen.

As the 1960s morphed into the 1970s, Juran worked primarily in television. Besides Lost in Space, he also churned out episodes for two other Allen series, The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants. But little of Juran’s ability is evident here. To me it seemed as if Juran was merely paying the bills. Working with Harryhausen and Schneer seemed to fire his artistic ability, and his direction blended well with Harryhausen’s creatures. But now it seemed as if it was all about merely getting the shot completed.

Finally in 1973 Juran got the opportunity to direct one more fantasy film. I remember reading about it in Famous Monsters of Filmland. The title sounded great – The Boy Who Cried Werewolf. Wow! That seemed like it could really be something. And hearing that Kerwin Matthews would star in it fueled my desire to see the film even more. For months I scoured the movie ads in the newspapers watching and searching. Finally I saw an ad for it. But it wasn’t being released as the “A” feature. It was the second feature on a double-bill with American Graffiti. My heart sank. Second features usually weren’t that good. But I went anyway.  And my young heart was crushed. It was beyond pathetic. It was a bad werewolf movie with bad acting, cheap sets and bad werewolf makeup. I remember thinking that the monster looked like a big shaggy dog. There was nothing terrifying here. No images to stir the imagination and hold on to. For Juran it was a flaccid final feature.
 

Coda

Juran never directed anything notable again. But even though he worked on a lot of forgettable projects, he himself was not forgotten by film fantasy fans. In 1999 (at the age of 92), he was recognized with a lifetime career award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. It must have been gratifying to Juran to be recognized, not by the people who had hired him, but by the young fans that went to see his efforts. They were now old enough to properly thank him for his contributions. Juran died in 2002 knowing that he made a lasting impression on several generations of film fans.

Seeing his name on screen now makes me smile. I laugh when I think of the innocent 13 year old who proudly wrote in his private notebook “Nathan Juran makes the best movies ever!” While that may not be true, Juran did help fire the imagination for a lot of people including me (he also made a young adolescent very curious about a certain adult subject). He kept fantastic ideas alive in his films without letting those ideas spin the movie out of control. That’s as fine a tribute as I can think of.

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The Fantastic Filmography of Nathan Juran

1.    Harvey – as Art Director (1950) (20th Century Fox)
2.    The Black Castle (1952) Universal
3.    The Deadly Mantis (1957) Universal
4.    20 Million Miles to Earth (1957) (Columbia)
5.    The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) (Columbia)
6.    The Brain From Planet Arous (1958) (Howco)
7.    Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) (Allied Artists)
8.    Jack the Giant Killer (1962) (United Artists)
9.    First Men in the Moon (1964) (Columbia)
10.    The Boy who Cried Werewolf (1973) (Universal)


Citation

1.    Harryhausen, Ray and Dalton, Tony. An Animated Life. New York, New York: Billboard Books, 2004, pg. 179.


Selected References

Brosnan, John. Movie Magic. The Story of Special Effects in the Cinema. New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1978.

Harryhausen, Ray and Dalton, Tony. An Animated Life. New York, New York: Billboard Books, 2004.

The Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0432846/. Accessed January 28, 2010.

Naha, Ed. Horrors from Scream to Screen: An Encyclopedic Guide to the Greatest Horror and Fantasy Films of All Times. New York, New York: Avon Books, 1975.

Pettigrew, Neil. The Stop-Motion Filmography. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company Inc, 1999.

Weaver, Tom. Attack of the Monster Movie Makers. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company Inc, 1994.

Warren, Bill. Keep Watching the Skies (Two Volume Set). Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company Inc, 1982 and 1986.

If you're anything like me, when you first saw the children's movie Milo & Otis you wept like the baby that you were. This classic children's story focused on a cat and a dog who had to manage their way through treacherous terrains that would leave even the boldest human a little uneasy. The film was designed to be a real tear jerker, and it succeeded. You wept, just like I did, because you knew that a perfectly great crime/cop drama was lying just below the surface. Unfortunately the filmmakers simply didn't choose capitalize on any of this. Well, thankfully my imagination is quite vivid and I'm able to give you all a quick glimpse into just another brilliant movie that Should Have Been. You see, the technology just wasn't there back in 1986. The Japanese crew wouldn't have even had the budget to dare approach the amount of explosions and violence that this film was going to call for. Not to mention that the Ninja Turtles movies had not been made at this point, so the concept of getting these animals into suits would be hard enough but to actually manage to train a cat and a dog to actually learn martial arts and take on legions of gun toting yakuzas... I can't blame them for turning to different ideas. However, I think with today's technology and the progress consistently being made in the world of robotics -such a film could very well be made. So, if there are any Hollywood execs out there reading this (and I know you are), don't be afraid to use some ideas. I'm really not greedy, I just want to see this brilliant story come to life no matter what it takes.

Enter our first scene. A stormy night in central tokyo, where a group of yakuza thugs are meeting up in order to discuss their new entrepreneurial business of dealing arms to schoolchildren in Shinjuku. We're introduced to the Big Brother of this yakuza organization, an elderly Japanese man who dresses in full samurai regalia, despite this being a contemporary film. This ancient Japanese father figure is seen riding along in a rickshaw for the majority of the film and is very traditional in everything he does. His name is Steve. Steve surveys his men and he gives a monumental speech to them that the recent K-9 unit has been cracking down on their business and the drug trade has almost become too dangerous of a game to dare pursue. Just as he's about to pour tea for the remainder of his men, we're finally introduced to both Milo & Otis, who break into this warehouse through the front door - both bearing shotguns. What ensues is a brutal massacre of gunplay and extreme violence, while this dog and cat (who are clad in black suits) shout out one liners such as "What's the matter, cat got your tongue" which is of course spoken after our cat does of course have the tongue of a yakuza thug ripped out and hanging on one of its claws. That's just the sort of movie Paws of Vengeance was to be.

Following the brutal beatdown put on Steve's forces, the yakuza boss manages to escape while the dog and cat detectives shout such awesome lines as "Who needs cat nip, when you've got cat gats" or "I'm gonna chop you up and put you in a doggy bag!". So, with a half exploded building and roughly three hundred dead yakuza - Milo & Otis are called in to meet their chief since letting Steve escape wasn't part of the gameplan. What starts off as an extremely conventional sequence where the boss man does some yelling and our detectives are supposed to just take it, however the two stand up halfway through their verbal beating and kick the desk into the solar plexus of their administrator. They both pull out machine guns and blast him into smithereens before doing a duck and roll jump through the glass window panes into the foyeur of the police station. What follows is another very John Woo-esque scene of brutal heroic bloodshed which culminates in Milo & Otis tying massive amounts of explosives to this building as well as two others and blowing them to kingdom come. With these two rascals now taking to the streets, no one can be safe! What follows is a montage sequence showing Milo & Otis dragging the streets of tokyo trying to gather up information. Ultimately they do find a young Yakuza thug who has some information to spill on Steve and his crew. The Yakuza underling is held suspended upside down above a skyscraper, in a scene that sees him urinating in his pants which soon leaks into his face. While Milo & Otis are taking shots at him with a crossbow, he spills the beans on Steve and the two discover that his base is located just two blocks away. So yeah, they drop the yakuza guy who disintegrates into a human explosion of gore and intestines once he hits the cement.

We cut back to Milo & Otis who each throw up a magnificent fist pump into the air, only without thumbs it's more like a unanimous arm-raising. So Milo & Otis once more traverse into enemy territory with only their duffel bags full of explosives and military grade weaponry. Their vengeance, which at this point really has no basis, will not be left in the dust! With their ordinance, Milo & Otis proceed to destroy another plethora of Yakuza underlings looking to do right by their master – but who only end up with a cavalcade of bullets in their chest. Our finale soon arrives which has our pet animal heroes facing off with Steve and his most fearsome henchman: Jeffrey, a European kickboxing Judo expert who proceeds to throw Milo around while Otis has a duel of fisticuffs with Steve who is also apparently a martial arts expert. Otis eventually finds a suction hose off of a vacuum cleaner and feeds it down Jeffrey's throat and then helps Milo take on the evil Steve in a three way martial arts battle that defies everything that has ever come before it. The final shot is of two very cut arms shaking hands with glistening (but furry) bicep muscles like those of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers in Predator, with their hands holding the hair of the decapitated head of Steve just inches below.

With all of that out of the way, I'd just like to say that if I were able to see this movie – at least a third of all the coolest things I've ever wanted to see in life could be consolidated all within one feature length film. Who needs too much plot when you've got uber buff cats and dogs taking on crime with a robust and firm hand? I certainly don't! Which is why this article is so short on it! I also don't need much in the way of a reason when it comes to writing, I just type until a series of words form on their own. As you may could guess at this point. I think at the end of the day, we can all agree however that Milo & Otis: Paws of Vengeance is a movie that SHOULD BE MADE. Fin.

My Name is Jason S. Lockard and I guess I’m still just a kid at heart. I enjoy watching animated films as much as children and some of the greatest stories ever written are fairy tales. Well, this month I’m bringing you a retelling of a fairy tale from the comedic mind of the great Jerry Lewis.

Fairy tales are as synonymous with childhood as skinned knees and free tag. We will always remember the stories of The three little bears, Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood. Than on February 15, 1950 Walt Disney changed how we viewed animated films when he released Cinderella to the big screen; we were all in awe! Than in 1960 the comedy genius Jerry Lewis wrote, directed and starred in a male version of the iconic story this one entitled Cinderfella!

Cinderfella is a comedy fairy tale classic that revolves around the title character Fella (Jerry Lewis). When Fella’s father dies, never telling where he hid his fortune Fella continues to live with his wicked stepmother, Emily and her two sons, Maximilian and Rupert in the family mansion, but the poor, imbecilic, ostracized Fella is reduced to serving his cruel, absurdly wealthy stepmother (Judith Anderson) and her two greedy sons in the palatial mansion. Fella lives in an unfinished room at the end of a really long hallway and sleep on a bed with no mattress. He has in essence become their butler, catering to their every whim.

Fella dreams of his father nightly, and believes he is trying to relay to Fella where he has hidden his fortune, but he always awakens before he learns the hiding place. His stepfamily knows of this secret fortune and they go to great lengths to try to discover its whereabouts. They pretend to befriend poor Fella in order to wrangle his fortune away once it is found.

Princess Charmine of the Grand Duchy of Morovia (Anna Maria Alberghetti) is in town and the stepmother decides to throw her a lavish ball in order to get her to marry one of her sons. Fella isn't allowed to go to the ball, but his fairy godfather (Ed Wynn) tells him that he won't remain a "people" much longer, but will blossom into a "person".

On the evening of the ball, Fella is turned into a handsome prince and sent to the ball in a limousine. The great big band leader Count Basie is playing at the ball when Fella makes his grand entrance. The young man quickly gains the attention of the Princess. The night is cut short when midnight strikes and Fella flees, losing his shoe along the way. The rest of the film plays out just like the classic fairytale!

Jerry is priceless when it comes to engineering clever, complex, high-energy sight gags. A testament to his versatility here is mimicking the musicians as he listens to a song on the radio in the kitchen. The dinner scene where he caters to his family at an absurdly long dining table is another ingenious moment. Sprinkled throughout too are numerous well-timed bits, like the reading of the inscription off his father's ring.

During the production of Cinderfella while shooting Fella’s arrival to the ball one take was shot with Jerry Lewis going down the stairs and one take going up. He ran the stairs in 7 seconds and collapsed at the top, where he was taken to hospital suffering from a mild heart attack and ended up in an oxygen tent for 4 days. This delayed filming for 2 weeks.

Paramount Pictures wanted to release the film during the summer, but Lewis considered it a holiday film and wanted to hold it back for a Christmas release. Paramount was adamant to have a release for the summer, so Lewis offered to produce another film for the summer and Paramount agreed. So Lewis wrote, produced, directed and starred in The Bellboy in four weeks in February 1960 while he was performing at the Fountainbleau Hotel in Miami Beach. That movie was released on July 20, 1960. It is another Lewis Classic!

Cinderfella is good family fun for young and old alike. While it is a fairytale that plays to children, it's not a childish film! So next time you want to watch a film with your family don’t spend out $50 to go to the theater, instead go to the local video store or netflix and rent Cinderfella you won’t be disappointed!

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Moral Rating: Nothing Offensive
Audience: Family
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Length: 93 min.
Released: 1960
Our Rating: B+

Once more onto the breach with ideas that are deranged enough to have come from the mind that gave us 50 killer shark and killer snake movies of the past few years but without the pay or respect. Too many people automatically assume they're the reincarnation of Tennessee Williams or even think that they're superior to the screenwriters from Scary Movie 2. For some reason, you would think there could be a limit to the number of movie plots that could be developed by fusing multiple movies together with a cerebral Brundlefly teleporter. Sleep deprivation and a loose connection to reality are the only things needed to come up with these ideas.

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American PI

Jim is a mathematical genius and truly loves his mom's hot steaming apple pie. As he tries to develop a formula to calculate the probability of getting to third base on Prom night, his friends have wacky shenanigans. Stifler is accidentally caught when he tries re-enacting a gag from Porky's and must endure the wrath of Coach Beulah Ballbricker (Eugene Levy in drag). Jim becomes more frustrated by his lack of success with the Ursula, the busty Swedish exchange student. As the formulas and variables come easier to Jim, he starts to realize the profound equation is far more reaching than he ever imagined...

Class of Nuke 'Em High Plains Drifter

A mysterious cowboy wanders in Tromaville with his own score to settle. The radioactive waste has mutated the entire city of Tromaville is a challenge. As he takes care of the toughest of the tough, mutated honor roll, the Man with No Name sets his sights on the Tromavilla High Principal, Lloyd Kaufmann. With revenge being the prize that only a high enough body count can win, he cuts through each of the opponents by playing them against each other as he gets closer to the last target.

Purple Reign of Fire

The world has been falling farther and farther into a nightmarish realm since dragons have started attacking people around the world. The world does have some heroes left. The Artist Formerly Known as Prince or as a Strange Symbol has discovered he can wield his funky shaped guitar to slay dragons. He is joined by shaven-headed Chris Kattan leading a small band of commands in commando missions against the dragons. Can these heroes unite for one mission that will free the world without killing each other first? The soundtrack will of course include the future classic songs "When Dragons Fry" and "Dragon Nikki."

Rhinestone Zombie

A famous singer (Jessica Simpson) makes a bet with her manager that she can train anyone to be a successful country singer to break her contract. However, when the unscrupulous manager (Steve Buscemi) raises a down on his luck cabbie (Vin Diesel) from the dead to become a zombie for his nefarious choice, can she train this zombie to sing, curb his inhuman bloodlust, and fall in love with him all at the same time?

Okay.  Well, Happy New Year!  Happy new year, a pat on the back, we made it through, we made it through the damn holiday season, us orphans and outcasts, gypsies and dreamers, displaced and wandering through six weeks of Winter Wonderlands. December slipped away while I was sleeping, without a warning or a peep or good-bye.  As indeed did 2009.  

I like to start my New Year in style.  Sure, so do most, but I really care.  It's become almost a superstition to me that each December 31st will somehow foreshadow the following 365 days, an opportunity to outsmart fate for a year by carefully planning, or irreverently not planning a single evening.  And because this New Year's Eve was no different-- both very planned and unplanned, exceeding expectations and dwarfing the fated day the year before-- I didn't make my deadline and thus can write in the present and not in the future for a change.  I'm watching Cabo San Lucas glitter and glow and recede from the window on my left, peering over the shoulder of a precociously hip little boy with his face buried in a comic book... If New Year's Eve is in fact a sign of things to come, I am hopeful for 2010.  I believe it is a sign, and in my go-in-with-a-bang tradition.  But one tradition in which I do not partake is the New Year's Resolution, which can, unlike champagne toasts or wearing red or kissing at midnight, truly and directly improve one's life.  And yet I resolve nothing.  

I tried, at a Mexican restaurant on the beach, to the serenade if conga drums and flamenco guitar, skillfully pulling off a Gypsy Kings classic, which I requested after they attempted "Tears in Heaven" and endlessly repeated the first verse.  I tried again, at a quarter to the new year at a club in downtown Cabo, lit by pink and blue strobes, to the serenade of Britney Spears over a deep house beat.  I had nothing but nebulous abstractions like "Do more for my career" and "Learn from my practice."

"Well, those are good, but you should make one that's quantifiable," encouraged a friend.  I couldn't.  I rejected every suggestion.  I can't. But what if I WANT another cigarette?  No, no, I won't stick to that... Oh that won't happen... I have no control over THAT!   
I don't want to break a promise, not even to myself, so I just won't make one in the first place, I thought, and my ears rang from the echo: I don't want to fail, so I just won't try.  

A few weeks ago, someone delivered me a blow, intended no more than a little dig, but sort of woke me up to the reality of my career as it stands.  I was staring at my laptop, curled up in the warm glow of radiation, fingertips perched on the keyboard, prepped to write this column that evening.  I realized I'd been hit by a writer's block going 80 mph and curving from the left.  Usually they just pour out onto the page, an endless barrage of extraneous words, irrelevent thoughts, and half-baked ideas.  I... err toward excess.  But Calliope simply would not come.  So I procrastinated, naturally, chatting online, inevitably, mostly to declare that I should really be writing instead of wasting my time, and how I felt like a phony writing a column named as it is, as the voice of the "Working Actress" when I haven't had any work as an actress or even actively pursued it recently.  In fact, this past month, I've hardly thought about it, what with the holidays, and last-minute travel, and two solid weeks bedridden with a vicious flu (H1N1 status undetermined, vicious either way).

"I don't get it" read the chat window. "The column... Like, what's the point of it."

"Well... it's kind of like partly just entertaining, or I hope, or just interesting, and partly my experiences so that others can read them and relate to them.  And so it's positive, encouraging."

"So they're supposed to read and be encouraged by the 'journey of an actress' who's not in any movies?"

Well, yes, they are!  If I were to validate it with a response, other than the obvious arguments like, how many great teachers were never successful actors, that you can have all the wisdom and knowledge despite lack of talent or success, that most importantly a teacher is a good teacher, and most importantly a writer is a good writer, or that though it's been a while, I have had experiences and successes and been in a lot of movies, and that actors starting out might want to know about getting to those points, and experienced actors might relate to the memories of those times, I'd explain that ideally the point of the journey is about the journey, and that's "the point" of what I'm writing too.  That's the celebration, and anyone who understands that celebration can write about it.  This isn't a Guide to Hollywood or an Insider's Q & A, of which topics I'm neither qualified nor curious to write.  But the rhetorical rim-shot still stung... Obviously I had been thinking about it, questioning my legitimacy as an artist, my success as a professional, my worth as an adult entirely.  Why aren't I in any movies?...  It's not just a bad economy or bad luck.  It never is.  I'm a firm believer that things happen for the best, that we should never regret the choices we made, because utlimately they are the only choices.  

It's okay that I've only worked one day on a film since the summer... It's good that I spent the latter part of December seeing friends and feeling the ocean and alone in my apartment, writing songs on my piano.  And thank GOD that in September I realized I had to take a step back from the world of agents and sides and casting directors, of waiting for phone-calls, for feedback, for an interview or a decision or a no, no, no, no, sorry, great but, no, no, no.  I found other outlets for my thoughts and feelings, writing and music and dance, friends and aqcuaintances and the analyst's couch.  I found another source of income, not as lucrative but steady, and another way to fill my time, some routine, some familiar faces.  I've never highly valued stability.  I prefer things shaken up.  I thrive on change.  I'm a gypsy.  I hate routine.  And I need to perform.  But when everything was up in the air and I found myself absolutely surrounded by strangers scrambling and scrapping for the same thing as me, and I heard clips of conversation as I walked into a coffee shop, never about the news, or politics, or the game, or the family, never even gossip, the conversation, as though powered by Google's search-engine, MUST CONTAIN the phrases "in escrow," "in development," and "is attached to the project"... When I was used to ambitious but eccentric artists comprising the minority that is my industry, and found an overwhelming majority comprised mostly of those as single-minded, disciplined, and tenacious as lean teenage greyhounds, I realized that unless I changed some things I'd remain in a no-man's land where I wasn't performing, wasn't changing, or traveling, wasn't shaking anything up, and at the same time had no reliable income, or social life, or ontological security, as it were.  I needed to step back.

The New Year is a time to take inventory of where we stand, how far we've come, what we've gained and lost and learned since the previous one.  And 2009 was a tough year, a year of serious disillusionment; I feel as though I've aged ten years in the last twelve months, and I feel as though it's been tough for most people. I feel as though a good majority of my conversations have been about shared disappointment and anxiety, sympathy over coffee, hesitation over the bill, the strain on our wallets-- that elephant in the room.  I've lost some illusions, I've lost confidence perhaps, fifteen lbs, and momentum in my career.  It's also been a year of personal evolution, and larger-scale revolution, and now, finally resolution.  I can't make those pesky resolutions because I can't ever quantify what I've gained.  I don't know where I stand; I know I've come 3,000 miles.  I know I've learned the most I've ever learned.  I know I appreciate more, and can laugh at almost everything.  I know I've gained most of those pounds and that confidence back.  And I gained a cat.  Otherwise, I'm not counting.  Whether I, whether you, haven't worked in six months, or won't work for another six months, or six years, or ever, or will get our dream gig in six weeks, whether we will switch careers or forego a career entirely to focus on family, but remain active in community theatre through our golden years, or whether we break through, and meteorically ascend, and become more famous than Elvis, only to realize we hate the lifestyle and the job and drop out at the peak of our career, our lives are a still journey.  It's the journey of an artist, and ours are no more or less significant than the journeys of any artist anywhere.

Fantasy film fans honor Ray Harryhausen and rightfully so. Those magical stop motion images he created have entered film lore and continue to delight generations of film lovers. A few years ago I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Ray at one of his signings for his book “An Animated Life.” I proudly introduced my son and told Ray how my son now loves his movies as much as I do. Ray smiled and said how it seems that even though he hadn’t made a movie in more than 20 years, he was still gathering new fans. Later that day I thought about what Ray had said and smiled wistfully. While I was delighted that people were still discovering Ray Harryhausen, I was also disappointed because it seemed that no one was taking the time to discover stop motion’s forgotten man – Pete Peterson.

Looking at their body of work there’s no comparison. Ray completed 16 films during his career with many of them now entrenched as fantasy favorites. He was smart enough to team up with a producer who saw the commercial possibilities in stop motion and tirelessly promoted Ray. Pete only worked on three films and a couple of short projects in his brief stop motion career. For the most part he toiled on low-budget sci-fi movies. Pete died just as Ray was hitting his creative stride. Whereas Ray’s career had a full and lasting bloom, Pete’s career was over in a flash. And the true irony of Pete Peterson was that while he breathed life into some truly wonderful creatures, he suffered terribly in his own life.

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Humble Beginnings

Little is known of Pete Peterson so it seems fitting that the life of the man who created some terrific stop motion creatures would remain as shadowy as one of his creations. He came late to his calling in life. He worked as a grip (electrician) in Hollywood and by the 1940s was working at RKO studios where he was assigned to work on the Willis O’Brien project Mighty Joe Young. It’s rumored that he already knew O’Brien and was a crew member on his masterpiece King Kong. But it was on Mighty Joe Young that Peterson’s stop motion career took hold.

Because Mighty Joe Young was a studio picture, Peterson was probably assigned to O’Brien’s group as one of their grips, and he most likely lit the miniature sets that were constructed for the stop motion photography. Here he watched patiently and with great interest as O’Brien and his assistant (a young Ray Harryhausen) worked painstakingly at the frame by frame manipulation of the Joe Young puppets. Since O’Brien was in charge of the effects team, his time was almost certainly taken up by meetings and devising the many complex process shots which left the majority of the animation up to Ray Harryhausen. As the animation fell further and further behind schedule, O’Brien desperately looked for ways to speed up the process. He hired others (including Marcel Delgado and Buzz Gibson [who worked on Son of Kong]) to try their hand at stop motion, but their results were unusable. Peterson was bitten by the bug and in his spare time performed stop motion experiments at home. He placed tape on people’s arms and legs to gauge movement and recorded these experiments to gain an understanding of the process. After a while he finally asked O’Brien if he could try his hand at stop motion. O’Brien gave him a small corner in the effects studio to work from and was delighted to see that Peterson had real talent and a feel for the work.

So Peterson was added as “second technician” and worked on several scenes in Mighty Joe Young. The two scenes that show his emerging talent are the beginning of the nightclub scene and the escape in the truck. In the nightclub scene, Joe is shown hoisting Terry Moore and her piano high overhead on a platform while she performs Joe’s favorite song “Beautiful Dreamer.” The scene has great dramatic impact as Joe is unlit at first, and it seems as though Moore and her piano are floating and turning in the air by themselves. Only when the club lights are fully lit does the audience (both the club and the movie) realize that this incredible beast is behind the magic. And it’s a tribute to Peterson’s emerging skill as an animator that Joe’s power and strength is fully conveyed. Joe stands majestically astride effortlessly holding the crushing weight of the circular platform and the piano. You can see the sinew and sweat on the gorilla as he stares confused at the audience, not sure what to make of these strange new surroundings. This creature has great dignity and power and Pete captures it perfectly.

Later in the film, Joe is condemned to death for the riot in the nightclub. However, O’Hara (Robert Armstrong) schemes to get Joe back to Africa. With the help of Terry Moore and Ben Johnson, they load the great ape into a truck and head to the pier. It’s here that Peterson’s animates Joe as he sits at the back of the truck. Pete has the ape sit there bored, drumming his fingers aimlessly on his leg. It’s a silly scene, but as a boy I loved it. It humanized Joe and involved me in his escape that much more. There are a few other scenes that used some of Peterson’s animation (including the lasso scene), but the above mentioned scenes were his first major animation successes.

It was during this time on Mighty Joe Young that Pete met and married his wife, only to lose her to the hand of death three months later. This tragedy bonded him forever to Willis O’Brien since O’Brien was no stranger to misfortune (in 1933 shortly after King Kong was released, O’Brien’s wife shot and killed their two sons and then turned the gun on herself). The two men were forever linked by their passion for stop motion and the hard luck they endured.

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Of Mexico and Monsters

No one knows what Pete Peterson did between 1949 and 1957. He may have continued to work as a grip at a Hollywood studio for a while. It was probably during this time that he contracted multiple sclerosis, that terrible degenerative disease that robs its victims of their muscle control.  Another ironic cruelty; Pete was able to give life and motion to inanimate objects but was unable to enjoy the fullness of motion himself. Almost certainly it cost him his job as a grip which involves a great amount of time standing.

However, opportunity came knocking again when Willis O’Brien was hired to create the effects for the low budget sci-fi film The Black Scorpion. Originally hired by director Eugene Louriè (who directed The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and subsequently left the production before filming began) the film was an attempt to cash in on the sci-fi craze of the 1950s. Once more giant monsters would terrorize the world. For this film, it would be monster scorpions and Mexico would be the location. O’Brien needed an animator for the film (O’Brien had done little actual animation since Mighty Joe Young) and since Ray Harryhausen had fully established himself as a solo act now, O’Brien turned to Peterson.

So down to Mexico the pair went. For some reason, they were despised by the film crew and given meager facilities to perform their tasks. They only stayed three or four months and then came back to California to finish the effects. And while The Black Scorpion may not be as groundbreaking as King Kong or The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, O’Brien and Peterson delivered a terrific array of effects for the film. It is one of the few 1950’s sci-fi films where it really does seem as if an army of giant monsters is invading the human world. Peterson captures the movement of the giant arachnids perfectly. They move quickly. He has them holding their tails up always ready to strike. When they see a potential human meal they move with direction and purpose. In short they act like scorpions.

There are three scenes in the film that speak volumes about Peterson’s skill as an animator. The first is when lead scientists Richard Denning and Carlos Rivas descend into the scorpion’s lair. The cave setting is magnificent (clearly the set design was by O’Brien, reminiscent of King Kong) and creates a mood of anticipation for the other worldly creatures that would inhabit such a place. Here Peterson gives the scorpions a sense of invulnerability. They take steady, even steps. They don’t appear agitated at first. However, once the fight with the worm creature occurs, their blood lust is aroused and one of the scorpions greedily tries to move in and steal a morsel from the worm carcass for himself. He’s given a deadly stinging for his efforts.

The next impressive set piece is the train wreck. Here Peterson shows the scorpions swarming over the pile of crashed Pullmans as if they were picking at an exposed termite nest. They grab screaming humans in their claws and selfishly fight over them. In a macabre moment, the camera follows one limping survivor as he struggles to enter a nearby cave for safety. Just as he is about to make it, one of the scorpions grabs him in its pincher and hoists him high in the air to keep the tasty morsel away from the other monsters. Peterson has the tiny human puppet kicking furiously all in a vain attempt to escape his fate.

The film finishes with a bang up animation set piece as the last giant scorpion is lured to a stadium and does battle with the military. It’s done at a break neck pace with helicopters, tanks and trucks rushing out to fight the invader. Peterson adds dramatic touches to the animation such as a lone figure who escapes from a bulldozer that the scorpion has crushed. The figure limps along trying to get away until help arrives in the form of another truck which whisks him away from the battle. Pete also adds little flashes of light to the military vehicles to indicate the fusillade of firepower that is being emptied into the monster. When the deadly electric harpoon is fired into the creature, Peterson captures the shock and rage wonderfully. The scorpion pulls back trying to get away and then tries to use its powerful stinger against its tormentor.  It strains mightily and only after a massive effort does it finally succumb. The final battle lasts for over four minutes on screen. While the overall film is mediocre at best (the drooling scorpion head created by Wah Chang is pretty silly and the infamous “empty matte” scorpion damages the effect’s overall impact), The Black Scorpion has one of the best giant monster movie finales from the 1950s. It is a testament to Pete’s ability as an animator that despite his own physical limitations, he was able to concentrate and deliver a fantastic film climax.

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Gambling on a Monster

After The Black Scorpion Pete did some animation tests on his own. His most famous is the Las Vegas Monster footage which he shot using one of the miniature sets from The Black Scorpion.  For this test footage Pete created an ape-like creature with two elongated face tendrils. In the short, the creature strides purposefully onto the set and rips the roof off a building, reaches in, pulls out a struggling human and kills him. A truck then arrives and the monster goes out to investigate. He reaches into the truck and kills the human interloper driving it. The next scene has the monster rampaging through a nearby town while crowds of people flee in the foreground. The beast picks up a vehicle and throws it at the scurrying throng. Then its back to the miniature set as a military helicopter (probably also left over from The Black Scorpion) moves in on the beast. The creature plucks the helicopter from the sky and tumbles to the ground with its catch. It then straightens out its tendrils which were bent backwards in the scuffle. The monster then marches off camera.

The Las Vegas Monster test footage lasts only for two and a half minutes. But in this short test, one can see that Pete has become very confident animating. His monster is unique and just like Mighty Joe Young; he gives it ape-like qualities. The creature is decisive in its movements and is able to express curiosity at first and later, rage. As a sci-fi fan I would very much like to know the background for this footage. Was Pete paid for this? Was this his brainchild? Was it an attempt to interest a producer in his creature? We’ll never know, but The Las Vegas Monster remains a unique exercise in stop motion animation.

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Destroying London on a Dime

In 1959 Eugene Louriè called O’Brien and Peterson and asked about their availability to do the special effects for The Giant Behemoth, another city smashing monster movie that he was preparing. O’Brien and Peterson agreed, but the producer of the movie (David Diamond) wasn’t sure that the duo could deliver all the needed effects. Instead he hired Jack Rabin and Irving Block to supervise the visuals. Rabin and Block then sub contracted all of the animation work to O’Brien and Peterson. The total effects budget for the film was $20,000 and the two animators were given considerably less than this to bring the city-destroying dinosaur to life.

But that’s what they did. Now reduced to working out of Peterson’s garage for economy, O’Brien and Peterson created another wonderful monster that thrilled movie goers. The Giant Behemoth remains a terrific creation, mostly for the vitality and serpentine grandeur that Pete instilled in the puppet. Though there are only a precious few minutes of dinosaur stomping in the film, what is there is superb. From the moment the Behemoth rises up and attacks the shipyards of London, you know it means business. First it destroys several cranes as if they were paper mache, then marches into the heart of London, crushing and burning everything in its path. The scene that stands out for me is when the monster is seen approaching from a distance. Its rampage brings it closer and closer to the camera. There’s just a faint hint of light in the sky. You can’t make out too many details of the monster at first as it stomps around. As it gets closer, it approaches some high tension wires. Jolted by the electricity in the lines, it recoils in shock and then moves in sideways and grabs the tower as if it was a primordial opponent. It crushes and shakes the structure and, finally convinced that it can do no further harm, the paleosaurus throws the twisted piece of metal aside and strides purposefully towards the camera. Pete tilts the camera up as the beast approaches, so we can get a complete look at it in all its glory.

But $20,000 can only stretch so far. Pete and O’Brien were not able to animate as many city crushing scenes as they wanted. So footage was reused. The scene of the car getting crushed was used three times. There was no money to create miniature London buildings for the puppet to crush, so enlarged photos of the British capitol were created instead. The prop behemoth head (used to sink the ferry) was designed to arch its neck, open it mouth and move its eyes. But it was damaged by a technician and had to be filmed lifelessly moving from side to side. There were simply too many problems and no money to solve them with. Despite his great success with the animation, the overall effects in The Giant Behemoth are mediocre. It must have been greatly disappointing for Pete to work so hard and yet know that all his efforts were only for a B monster movie.

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Final Experiment and Coda

The Giant Behemoth was the beginning of the end for Pete. His MS had advanced to the point where he could not stand for long periods. So all miniature sets for the film were constructed very low to the ground enabling him to sit and animate. Afterwards, no more film projects were forthcoming. So Pete went back to the drawing board and filmed another test reel. He built several creatures now known as “Beetlemen” and filmed a color test of these figures coming over a hill. These creatures were once astronauts who became misshapen when they were trapped for a long time in a pressure chamber.  Barely a minute long, the footage has the creatures marching over a hill, one after the other against a glowering grey sky. Pete was never able to preserve this footage properly, so it degraded badly over time; the degradation in this final test film echoes the degradation in Pete’s own physical abilities. Shortly after working on the Beetlemen footage, Pete was diagnosed with kidney cancer. He died while in surgery in February of 1962.

A few years later, several young animators (including Jim Danforth and Dennis Muren) stumbled across a trunk of Pete’s that was being cared for by the wife of a former neighbor of his. To their delight the trunk contained several of Pete’s models (including a scorpion from The Black Scorpion and the model of The Giant Behemoth) as well as the Las Vegas Monster and Beetlemen footage. The neighbor gave the young men the trunk. They eventually reused some of the armatures in other films that they worked on and bought the unused test footage to light, so that a lot of stop motion fans could see them.

I was six years old when Pete Peterson died and his death meant nothing to me in 1962. But even at age six, I knew when a movie had a “good” creature in it. Now I’d like to think that Pete would be happy to know that there are legions of film fans out there like me who know that in his brief time as an animator, Pete Peterson contributed a great deal to the art of stop motion and created some “good” movie creatures that have withstood the test of time.

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Pete Peterson Filmography

1.    Mighty Joe Young – (RKO) 1949
2.    The Black Scorpion – (Warner Brothers) 1957
3.    Las Vegas Monster Test Footage – 1958 (?)*
4.    The Giant Behemoth – (Allied Artists) 1959
5.    Beetlemen Test Footage – 1960 (?)*

*The Las Vegas Monster and Beetlemen footage is available as a special feature on the DVD release of The Black Scorpion. They can also be found online.

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Selected References

Archer Steven. Willis O’Brien: Special Effects Genius. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company Inc, 1993.

Berry Mark F. The Dinosaur Filmography. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company Inc, 2002.

Harryhausen Ray and Dalton Tony. An Animated Life. New York, New York: Billboard Books, 2004.

Harryhausen Ray and Dalton Tony. A Century of Stop Motion Animation. New York, New York: Billboard Books, 2008.

Jensen Paul M. The Men who made the Monsters. New York, New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996.

Pettigrew Neil. The Stop-Motion Filmography. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company Inc, 1999.

Warren Bill. Keep Watching the Skies (Two Volume Set). Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company Inc, 1982 and 1986.

My Name is Jason Lockard and as an independent filmmaker…. I love films that are driven by thrills. There is nothing in the world like going on the roller coaster ride of a thriller! Now this month I’m uncovering one of the thriller of thrillers!

We as a society love to be frightened; that’s why tales of the macabre score so high at the box office, even if the stories are less than stellar! While the tales can be terrifying these menacing tales would be nothing without the psychotic characters that drive these films! Whether it's the creepy mama's boy Norman Bates from Hitchcock's classic Psycho, the nightmarish Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs or The sinister “Other Brother” in The "Original" Texas Chainsaw Massacre these character haunt our memories!

In 1962 Universal Pictures released Cape Fear is film adapted from a John D. MacDonald novel entitled The Executioners. The story revolves around a North Carolina attorney Sam Bowden [Gregory Peck] whose family is stalked by a criminal offender Max Cady whom he helped to send to jail. Originally the studio wanted Gregory Peck [who was originally just going to produce the film] to play the villain, but he felt the audience would not accept him as the villain, so he instead took the role of the hero. After Peck’s declining the role of Cady, director J. Lee Thompson had a monumental task on his hands, trying to find the man to play the role of the psychotic Max Cady. His thoughts immediately went to Robert Mitchum because of his performance as Harry Powell in 1955’s Night of the Hunter! After reaching out to Mitchum he declined, so Thompson and Peck sent Mitchum a bottle of bourbon. A couple of days later, Mitchum sent a telegraph to Thompson, which read: "I've had your bourbon. I'm drunk. I'll do it." Robert Mitchum who is known for his roles in classic such as El Dorado, Heaven, Knows Mr. Allison and The Longest Day smashes this role as Max Cady out of the park!

J. Lee Thompson went on to get Polly Bergen to play Sam’s the victimized wife Peggy and he wanted Disney’s princess Hayley Mills [Parent Trap, Pollyanna] to play the daughter, but she was under exclusive contract with Disney and was unable to do so, so the role went to Lori Martin, but she plays the terrified teen to a tee. It was reported that Mitchum was so believable in this roles as Cady that Lori had nightmares for weeks after filming the scenes where she is menaced by Cady at school and when he confronts her in a cabin.

Cape Fear is elegantly shot with unique lighting and the eerie musical score that enhances the film to heights rarely seen in film! Max Cady sent to prison spends his sentence studying law while behind bars, his only intent was to gather knowledge, so he could torment Sam Bowden and his family. Than when he is released from prison after serving his eight year sentence he begins his elaborate plan to seek his revenge and chooses to rape Sam’s wife on their boat. Polly Bergen plays the role of the horrified victim so well you almost feel like screaming for help! It's hard to believe that the scene where Mitchum attacks Polly Bergen's character on the houseboat was almost completely improvised. Before the scene was filmed, the director suddenly told a crew member: "Bring me a dish of eggs!" Mitchum rubbing the eggs on Bergen was not scripted and Bergen's reactions were real. She also suffered back injuries from being knocked around so much. She felt the impact of the "attack" for days.

Cape Fear takes you on a roller coaster ride and the film reaches a fever pitch to the fantastic and thrilling finale! This film was a precursor to the thriller films of today.

Although the film never used the term rape in 1962 the film enraged the censors so much the producers edited the film because of the threat of sexual assault on a child! After 161 edits in the film it still almost receive an X Rating from the Ratings Board! In April 2007, Newsweek selected Robert Mitchum's character Max Cady as one of the ten best villains in cinema history. Cape Fear understandably so received #36 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Moments for its famous scene where Cady attacks Sam's family. Cape Fear remains as one of those films that after you watch it you don't easily shake it from your mind!

While Robert De Niro reprised Mitchum’s role of Cady in Scorsese’s 1991 remake of Cape Fear and did an good job as the eerie Max Cady, Mitchum is the definitive maniacal Max Cady!

So if your in the mood for a suspenseful evening or just want to discover a classic check out Cape Fear! Until next time remember if you want to watch a good film? Go to your local video store or Netflix and check out a classic!

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Moral Rating: Violence and Rape
Audience: Adults
Genre: Mystery/Suspense
Length: 107 min.
Released: 1962
Our Rating: A