1940 to 1959
Dr Cyclops 1940
With World War II dominating events during the 1940s, few science fiction films were released and several of those were mere vehicles for war propaganda. Among the few notable examples was Dr Cyclops 1940, an early colour film, and Fleischer Studio's animated Superman short subjects, which often incorporated science-fiction themes.
Destination Moon 1950
During the 1950s the science fiction genre finally began to come into its own. The large increase in science fiction literature during this time was also reflected in the quantity of science fiction films being played. However, many of these movies were low-budget, "B" movies.
The atomic bomb caused a renewed interest in science, and in 1950, in the widely publicised Destination Moon, the American public got their first glimpse of space travel on a more sophisticated level than Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars. With a script co-written by Robert A. Heinlein and astronomical sets by renowned space artist Chesley Bonestell, the movie was a commercial and artistic success.
The Day the Earth Stood Still 1951
Destination Moon was followed by The Day the Earth Stood Still, directed by Robert Wise, and Howard Hawks' The Thing From Another World, with their contrasting views of first contact. To give the appearance of seamlessness to the space ship, the crack around the door was filled with putty, then painted over. When the door opened the putty was torn apart, making the door seem to simply appear.
The Thing From Another World 1951
The 1950s witnessed the emergence of the monster movie trend, driven by the anxieties and paranoia of the emerging cold war, beginning with Howard Hawks's The Thing From Another World 1951 and the success of The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. When producer Howard Hawks attempted to get insurance for the creature, five insurance companies turned him down because The Thing was to be frozen in a block of ice, chopped by axes, attacked by dogs, lit on fire, and electrocuted.
The War of the Worlds 1953
A notable producer of this period was George Pal who was responsible for Destination Moon, When Worlds Collide, The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds 1953, and the pseudo-documentary of manned space exploration Conquest of Space.
Regarding The War of the Worlds, this film had a budget of $2,000,000. Of that sum, $600,000 was spent on the live action scenes while $1,400,000 was spent on the extensive and elaborate special effects. Conquest of Space had beautiful special effects, but lacked the intelligent script of Pal's earlier science fiction films, and flopped at the box office.
The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms 1953
Beginning in this decade, Ray Harryhausen began to use stop-motion animation for both science fiction and fantasy films. His work appeared in such films as The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms 1953 and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers 1956.
The fictional Beast (called a Rhedosaurus in the film) is a prehistoric reptile but not a dinosaur. The main distinction is that true dinosaurs have erect limb posture, while the Beast has features of prehistoric reptiles: semi-sprawling limbs, a reptilian skull, lizard-like spines, a forked tongue and dragging tail. The Beast is a quadrupedal predator, whereas carnivorous dinosaurs were bipedal.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1956
Other major films in the science fiction/horror genre in this decade include Them!, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and the coldly realistic On the Beach. In Britain there was a period of notable production in the '50s, with Hammer Films adaptations of Nigel Kneale's Quatermass series. The success of the television versions inspired the company to commission a series of film adaptations.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers was originally intended to end with Miles screaming hysterically as truckloads of pods pass him by. The studio, wary of such a pessimistic conclusion, insisted on adding a prologue and epilogue to the movie that suggested a more optimistic outcome to the story which is thus told mainly in flashback.
The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms 1953
Another Ray Harryhausen stop-motion animation project was 20 Million Miles to Earth 1957. However, he never received an Academy Award nomination for his painstaking work. Apocalyptic themes were popular in science fiction films during the Cold War era.
The Angry Red Planet 1959
Several important movies, now considered classics, were released in the mid-1950s, notably This Island Earth, the first film to show interstellar travel, and Forbidden Planet (an inspiration for Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek. The 1950s were also the dawn of the space age as humans began to venture into outer space, and a number of films from this period reflected a fear of the consequences.
Among these were The Angry Red Planet 1959, First Man Into Space 1959, and It! The Terror from Beyond Space 1958. (This last film is also considered a precursor to the film Alien.) Another popular theme from this period was movies about flying saucers, reflecting the prevalence of UFO sightings. One of the best known of these was Earth vs. the Flying Saucers.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth
In the later years of the 1950s, the major American studios limited themselves to adaptations of "classics" by Jules Verne and H. G. Wells that had fallen out of copyright. In addition to The War of the Worlds mentioned above, these included Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth.
Be sure to check out SFMZ's more extensive feature dedicated to the glorious decade of Fifties Sci-Fi, a period that was filled with both cheesy B flicks and hallmark sci-fi masterpiece classics.
Resources: imdb.com, wikipedia.org
|
