Confessions of a TV Addict #9: The Amazing Sci-Fi Worlds of Irwin Allen Pt. 2

Last week, I did an overview of producer Irwin Allen’s first two sci-fi shows, VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA and LOST IN SPACE. Today, Allen’s final shows in the quartet, THE TIME TUNNEL and LAND OF THE GIANTS! 

Where Allen’s LOST IN SPACE was juvenile fantasy, his next series THE TIME TUNNEL (ABC, 1966-67) took a more serious tone. Scientists Dr. Doug Phillips (Robert Colbert ) and Dr. Tony Newman (James Darren), working on the top-secret government Project Tic-Toc, become “lost in the swirling maze of past and future ages… (and) tumble helplessly toward a new fantastic adventure, somewhere along the infinite corridors of time” (at least according to the opening narration!). Project director Lt. Gen. Kirk (Whit Bissell ), ‘electrobiologist’ Dr. Ann McGregor (Lee Meriwether), and electronic genius Dr. Raymond Swain (John Zaremba) track the pair through those “infinite corridors” and try to assist in navigating them home safely.

The handsome Colbert was the more level-headed of the two, but teen idol James Darren, with his cool green turtleneck sweater, was the one that set young audience’s hearts a-flutter. Darren, who played Moondoggie in the GIDGET films and scored a few hit records in the early 60’s (“Goodbye, Cruel World”, “Her Royal Majesty”), was the hot-head who got them trapped in time in the first place, impulsively trying to prove to a visiting senator (guest star Gary Merrill) the project was successful in the series’ first episode. While Colbert never quite made star status (though he later had a long run on the soap THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS), Darren went on to a long career, appearing in Jess Franco’s erotic nightmare VENUS IN FURS, as Jim Corrigan opposite William Shatner’s TJ HOOKER, the hologram lounge singer Vic Fontaine on STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE, and as a director in episodic TV.

Doug and Tony’s travels through time took them to famous dates in history like the sinking of the Titanic (with guest Michael Rennie as the ship’s captain), Pearl Harbor, the War of 1812 (Carroll O’Connor plays a dual role), Custer’s Last Stand, the French Revolution, the battle of the Alamo (DALLAS patriarch Jim Davis as Jim Bowie), an encounter with Billy the Kid (Robert Walker Jr), and plenty of stock footage from the 20th Century-Fox vaults. They also moved forward in time on a mission to Mars, the year 8433, and smack dab in then middle of the great alien invasion of 1978! THE TIME TUNNEL was a hit, and scheduled for a second season, until a regime change at ABC caused it to be cancelled in favor of THE LEGEND OF CUSTER – a series that barely made it through half a season!

Allen bounced back with LAND OF THE GIANTS (ABC, 1968-70), a fantasy adventure that found the sub-orbital spacecraft Spindrift caught in a space warp and transported to a planet where everything is twelve times the size of Earth! The stranded crew featured Gary Conway (of I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN fame) as Captain Steve Burton, with Don Matheson, Deanna Lund, Heather Young, and Don Marshall, the first black male actor to costar in a sci-fi series. Also on board were Stefan Arngrim as young Barry (with his faithful canine companion Chipper), and “Special Guest Star” Kurt Kasznar as on the lam bank robber Alexander Fitzhugh. Kasznar’s character was modeled somewhat on Jonathan Harris’s Dr. Smith of LOST IN SPACE, right down to the relationship between Fitzhugh and Barry.

This was Allen’s most expensive series, but there was still lots of stock footage between all those giant-sized props. The Liliputian members of the Spindrift encountered perils around every corner, as well as a slew of Familiar Faces: Jack Albertson, Richard Anderson , Michael Ansara, John Carradine , Broderick Crawford , Bruce Dern , Sam Elliott, Paul Fix, Ronny Howard , John Marley, boxer Sugar Ray Robinson, and William Schallert . Robert Colbert and Lee Meriwether from THE TIME TUNNEL showed up in different episodes (and as different characters), as did Jonathan Harris. Kevin Hagen appeared from time to time as Inspector Kobick of the Special Investigations Department, hunting down our pint-sized heroes.

After LAND OF THE GIANTS was cancelled, Irwin Allen returned to the big screen and became The Master of Disaster Movies , but for six years he ruled the airwaves with his sci-fi/fantasy shows. Since then, LOST IN SPACE has been rebooted as a feature film and a Netflix series, but neither captures the charm of Allen’s goofy original. All his 60’s sci-fi series are sterling examples of what can be accomplished with a small TV budget, solid acting, and a whole lot of chutzpah!

More CONFESSIONS OF A TV ADDICT:

It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane.. No, It’s CAPTAIN NICE  – A Fan’s Appreciation of Adam West  – The Marvel Super Heroes Have Arrived!  – How TURN-ON Got Turned-Off  – Aaron Ruben, Man Behind the Laughter  – Justin Wilson “Guar-On-Tees” You’ll Have a Happy Mardi Gras!  – TJ HOOKER and His Amazing Hair Helmet!  – The Amazing Sci-Fi Worlds of Irwin Allen Pt. 1

 

Confessions of a TV Addict #8: The Amazing Sci-Fi Worlds of Irwin Allen Pt. 1

Irwin Allen  (1916-1991) wore many different hats during his long career: magazine editor, gossip columnist, documentarian, producer, director. He helped usher in the Age of the Disaster Movie with such 70’s hits as THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE and THE TOWERING INFERNO, but before that he was best known as the producer of a quartet of sci-fi series from the Swingin’ 60’s. From 1964 to 1970 he had at least one sci-fi show airing in prime time… during the 1966-67 season, he had three, all complete with cheezy-looking monsters, campy humor, stock footage, guest stars (some on their way up… some down!), special effects by Oscar winner L.B. Abbott, and music by John Williams (who later scored a little thing called STAR WARS )! Here’s a look at the Amazing Sci-Fi Worlds of Irwin Allen:

Allen’s first foray into sci-fi TV was VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA (ABC, 1964-68), based on his hit 1961 film. Richard Basehart starred as Admiral Nelson, head of the Nelson Institute of Marine Research, in charge of the nuclear-powered sub Seaview, with David Hedison as Commander Crane. The first season was more a straightforward adventure series, filmed in black and white, with Nelson and his crew up against many Cold War threats. From the second season on, now in color, the Seaview began battling more outre’ enemies: aliens, giant sea monsters, even werewolves became the norm!

The series started to introduce futuristic gadgets like the Flying Sub, compete with laser beam, to confront these new monsters-of-the-week. The 1966 debut of BATMAN ramped up the camp quotient a few notches, as the plots got more and more out there. Among the many guest stars featured in the course of the series were Nick Adams , Eddie Albert , Edgar Bergen (without Charlie McCarthy), James Brolin (pre-stardom and Streisand), John Cassavetes, Michael Dunn (diminutive Dr. Loveless of THE WILD WILD WEST), Jill Ireland, Leslie Neilsen, and Vincent Price as a mad puppeteer out to take over the Seaview!

Space Family Robinson (back row, from left) Angela Cartwright, Mark Goddard, Marta Kristen, The Robot, Jonathan Harris, Guy Williams (front row) June Lockhart, Billy Mumy)

Next up for Allen was LOST IN SPACE (CBS, 1965-68), a take on Swiss Family Robinson set in outer space. The Jupiter-2, due in large part to sabotage by stowaway foreign agent Dr. Zachary Smith, hits a meteor storm and veers off course from its destination Alpha Centauri, causing the Robinson family and crew to become hopelessly lost in space (hence the series title). The cast consisted of TV veterans Guy Williams as Prof. John Robinson (ZORRO), June Lockhart as wife Maureen (LASSIE), Mark Goodard as pilot Maj. Don West (THE DETECTIVES), Angela Cartwright as youngest daughter Penny (MAKE ROOM FOR DADDY), and Billy Mumy as ten-year-old Will (practically every TV show made calling for a precocious kid!). Marta Kristen (Lorelei the mermaid in BEACH BLANKET BINGO ) played eldest child Judy, who served as Major West’s love interest.

Jonathan Harris (the TV version of THE THIRD MAN) received “Special Guest Star” billing as the nefarious Dr. Smith, and at first played him as a straight villain. The character was not originally intended to last the entire series run, but Harris, with Allen’s blessings, began to tweak the role, rewriting his dialog to turn Smith into something completely different than originally intended, a comically cowardly character who managed to create chaos wherever he went. Dr. Smith became pals with young Will, though their roles were reversed, as the boy was much more mature than the older doctor!

Dr. Smith  was constantly at odds with The Robot (Bob May inside the suit, Dick Tufeld providing the voice), another popular character on the show (“Warning! Warning! Danger, Will Robinson!”), berating the mechanical marvel with sobriquets like “You blithering booby” and “You cackling cacophony”. Harris’s portrayal, relationships with Will and The Robot, and catch phrases (“Oh, the pain!”, “IN-deed!”), helped turned the show from straight sci-fi to high-camp fantasy, with the plots getting more and more ridiculous during the series’ three year run. The Robinson family, thanks to Smith’s blundering, encountered space pirates, circuses, cowboys, and Vikings, an intergalactic collector (Michael Rennie of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL in a two-parter), a “devilish” alien (Gerald Mohr), a cosmic toymaker (Walter Burke), a band of far-out hippies (twice!), and sentient vegetables!

Plots from films and fables past were recycled and adapted for the show: the legend of King Arthur, Sleeping Beauty, THE THIEF OF BAGDAD , FANTASTIC VOYAGE, THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, GULLIVER’S TRAVELS. My favorite episode was a unique original titled “Visit to a Hostile Planet”, where the Jupiter-2 gets trapped in a time/space warp and returns to Earth – but it’s the Earth of 1947, and the small town population they land near thinks they’re being invaded by aliens! LOST IN SPACE enjoyed a long run in syndication after being cancelled by CBS, making it Allen’s most popular (and profitable!) space series.

Next week, part 2 of The Amazing Sci-Fi Worlds of Irwin Allen, spotlighting THE TIME TUNNEL and LAND OF THE GIANTS!

Recipe for Disaster: THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (20th Century-Fox 1972)

Although 1970’s AIRPORT is generally credited as the first “disaster movie”, it was 1972’s THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE that made the biggest splash for the genre. Producer Irwin Allen loaded up his cast with five- count ’em!- Academy Award winners, including the previous year’s winner Gene Hackman (THE FRENCH CONNECTION ). The special effects laden extravaganza wound up nominated for 9 Oscars, winning 2, and was the second highest grossing film of the year, behind only THE GODFATHER!

And unlike many of the “disasters” that followed in its wake, THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE holds up surprisingly well. The story serves as an instruction manual for all disaster movies to come. First, introduce your premise: The S.S. Poseidon is sailing on its final voyage, and Captain Leslie Nielsen is ordered by the new ownership to go full steam ahead, despite the ship no longer being in ship-shape. (You won’t be able to take Leslie too seriously if, like me, you’ve watched AIRPLANE! way too many times!)

Next, introduce your all-star cast: We’ve got Hackman as a rebellious priest having his dark night of the soul, Ernest Borgnine as a belligerent NYC cop and Stella Stevens as his ex-prostitute wife, Red Buttons as a lonely, health-food nut bachelor, Jack Albertson and Shelley Winters as an elderly Jewish couple sailing for Israel, Carol Lynley as a young, aspiring singer, and Roddy McDowell as a steward. Add youngsters Pamela Sue Martin and Eric Shea on their way to meet their parents in Greece for good measure.

Then, add your disaster: a sub sea earthquake that triggers a freak tsunami, hitting the Poseidon with devastating force on New Year’s Eve, right after the singing of “Auld Lang Syne”! The ship capsizes, and now in order to survive our stars must make their way to the bottom (which is now the top) of the ship and reach the engine room to be rescued or, like all the rest of the supporting players and extras, they’re doomed to die in the frigid waters of the Atlantic Ocean!!

Oh, and let’s add some conflict for dramatic effect: Hackman and Borgnine are constantly at odds, bellowing at each other like bull elephants. Winters is old and overweight; the others think she’ll drag them down. Lynley’s suffering from trauma because her brother was killed, MacDowell’s got a wounded leg, Shea’s an obnoxious little know-it-all. There’s enough suspense, thrills, and terror put before our ten heroes for three disaster flicks, and it all works thanks to the steady hand of  director Ronald Neame (who later helmed one of the worst in the disaster cycle, 1979’s METEOR ).

Let’s talk a moment about Shelley Winters’ performance as Mrs. Rosen. During the late 60’s and early 70’s, double Oscar winner Shelley (THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK, A PATCH OF BLUE) began giving way-over-the-top performances in whatever she did, and was becoming more and more a parody of herself. Granted, she had recently suffered a nervous breakdown, and was taking roles beneath her considerable talents. Yet here Shelley toned down her act, giving a subtly emotional portrayal, and her bravery and self-sacrifice in saving Hackman’s life, especially after enduring all the cracks about her weight through the film, deservedly earned Winters an Oscar nomination (though she lost to Eileen Heckart for BUTTERFLIES ARE FREE). THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE may be just a big-budget popcorn movie, but it does have a heart and soul; its name is Shelley Winters.

Let’s also have a tidal wave of applause for the stunt crew, set designers, and special effects wizards who made THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE a visual delight… no CGI necessary! Veteran SPFX men L.B. Abbott and A.D. Flowers were given a Special Achievement Oscar for their fantastic technical work, and the film also won for what I consider one of the most annoying songs of the 70’s, the perennial soft-rock snoozer “The Morning After” (well, as Joe E. Brown said in SOME LIKE IT HOT, nobody’s perfect!). Despite that lame title tune, THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE is just as enjoyable today as it was upon first release,  an exciting, fun piece of Hollywood filmmaking that’s endured the storm-ravaged test of time!

Jurassic Joke: THE LOST WORLD (20th Century Fox 1960)

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s adventure novel THE LOST WORLD was first filmed in 1925 with special effects by the legendary Willis O’Brien  . O’Brien gets a technical credit in Irwin Allen’s 1960 remake, but his wizardry is nowhere to be found, replaced with dolled-up lizards and iguanas designed to frighten absolutely no one. This one’s strictly for the Saturday matinee kiddie crowd, and though it boasts a high profile cast, it’s ultimately disappointing.

Genre fans will appreciate the presence of The Invisible Man himself, Claude Rains , in the role of expedition leader Professor Challenger. The 71 year old Rains is full of ham here, playing to the balcony, and still managing to command the screen with his sheer talent. Challenger claims to have discovered “live dinosaurs” in the remote Amazon rainforest, a claim scoffed at by the scientific community, especially rival Professor Summerlee (the equally hammy Richard Hayden). The crusty Challenger asks for volunteers to accompany him on a return journey, and we meet the rest of the cast: Michael Rennie as big-game hunter Lord Roxton, David Hedison as intrepid reporter Ed Malone, Jill St. John as Roxton’s girl Jennifer Holmes (complete with a teacup poodle), and Ray Strickland as her younger brother David.

The crew fly to South America, where guide Manuel Gomez (Fernando Lamas) and his partner Costa (Jay Novello) will take them by chopper to the unchartered plateau deep in the wild. We get some breathtaking shots of the Amazonian jungle along the way (presumably by DP Winton Hoch ) before landing, where a giant lizard destroys the helicopter, stranding the expedition. The monsters they encounter are a sorry lot indeed, just blown-up reptiles and (in one scene) a goofy superimposed green spider. I mean, the studio sprung for Cinemascope and DeLuxe Color, and they give us el cheapo special effects! Not to mention they had Willis Freakin’ O’Brien on the payroll!

There’s a love triangle between Rennie, St. John, and Hedison that fails, mostly due to the sexist script by Allen and Charles Bennett. The dialog’s on a par with Allen’s sci-fi shows like LOST IN SPACE, dumbed down to children’s level. Lamas tries to bring some panache to his role, as Gomez holds a dark secret, but he too is doomed by the script. There’s a subplot about the lost city of El Dorado that didn’t amount to much. In fact, the film as a whole doesn’t amount to more than a semi-pleasant diversion.

THE LOST WORLD could’ve been much better, but is sunk by the crummy special effects and ludicrous script. You’d be better off watching the 1925 silent, and you can, if you’re interested. It’s in public domain, so instead of me babbling on about how lousy the newer version is, here’s 1925’s THE LOST WORLD in its entirety:

 

Let’s Get Buzzed With THE SWARM (Warner Brothers, 1978)

The 1970s were the decade of the all-star disaster movie, and nobody made ’em like Irwin Allen. The Master of Disaster opened the floodgates for this genre with 1972’s THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, following quickly with the red-hot 1974 mega-hit THE TOWERING INFERNO. Soon Hollywood was unleashing one disaster film after another: EARTHQUAKE, AVALANCHE, SKYJACKED, and so on. But Allen was a sci-fi guy at heart, having made his mark with TV shows like LOST IN SPACE, VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, THE TIME TUNNEL, and LAND OF THE GIANTS. Combining the two seemed natural for Allen, so together with screenwriter Stirling Silliphant, they concocted THE SWARM.

A missile base has been mysteriously attacked, killing the communications crew. General Slater (Richard Widmark) rides in on a chopper, leading the troops. Brad Crane (Michael Caine), a Ph D entomologist (studier of bugs), is on base for reasons unknown, so the General holds him prisoner. A “moving black mass” on the radar screen reveals a giant cloud of “millions of bees”, that attacks some military helicopters, which crash and burn (lots of crashing and burning in this one!) Meanwhile, the sleepy little town of Marysville is holding their annual flower festival, where we’re introduced to a love triangle between two elderly gentlemen (Ben Johnson and Fred MacMurray) and a spinster schoolteacher (Olivia de Haviland,,,,hey, what’s SHE doing here!!)

The President places Crane in control of the bee problem, to the chagrin of General Slater. Crane assembles a crew of experts including immunologist Dr. Krimm (Henry Fonda) and Dr. Kildare, I mean Dr. Hubbard (Richard Chamberlain). There’s a military doctor, Captain Anderson (Katherine Ross), on board, too, and of course she and Crane get all googly-eyed and lovey-dovey during the movie’s course. Slater assigns his assistant (Bradford Dillman) to keep an eye on the scientist. The rest of THE SWARM is a bunch of set-pieces for the action. Killer bees attack picnickers! Killer bees attack Marysville! Killer bees attack a train! Killer bees attack a nuclear facility!! The military attack the killer bees, burning down half of Houston in the process! Killer bees retailiate and attack the military! Finally (thank God!), Crane comes up with the answer to stop the bees from attacking by luring them to sea via sonic waves (shades of INVISIBLE INVADERS!!), where the military blows the swarm to kingdom come with missiles!!

Allen directed THE SWARM himself, and he pretty much lets the actors do what they want, which is to overact and collect their paychecks. Those slo-mo shots of bee attacks are ludicrous, not frightening at all. Stirling Silliphant’s script is paint-by-numbers hokum, a far cry from his Oscar-winning IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, not to mention his classic TV series ROUTE 66. Besides those I cited earlier, we get what amounts to cameo roles from Patty Duke, Slim Pickens, Lee Grant, Jose Ferrer, Cameron Mitchell, and Donald ‘Red’ Barry. Sadly, this was Fred MacMurray’s last film appearance.

THE SWARM came at the tail end of the disaster cycle. Allen made a couple more (BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, WHEN TIME RAN OUT) before returning to television. The all-star disaster epic was spoofed by 1980’s AIRPLANE!, and is revived every now and then (ARMAGGEDON, of instance). I guess if your interested in playing Spot the Star, you might enjoy this film. Otherwise, I suggest you find another way to get your buzz on than watching THE SWARM.