| Attack of the Giant Screen
http://www.myspace.com/americancinematheque
This series is an Aero Theatre Exclusive, but for more
B-Movie Action Check Out THE
LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA and a Sneak Preview of the Sequel at the Egyptian!
As Americans began to feel increasingly uneasy about the threat of nuclear war in the
years following World War II, Hollywood responded with a series of films in which
society’s fears were externalized in the form of alien attacks and radioactive
mutations. While the directors of exploitation movies like THE BLOB and THE DEADLY MANTIS
used monster movies for pure sensation and shock value, other filmmakers saw sci-fi’s
potential for philosophical inquiry and provocative social comment. Don Siegel helmed the
masterpiece of the genre, the original INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, a
sophisticated and deeply disturbing classic whose warnings about conformity and mob rule
still resonate today. Gordon Douglas’s THEM!, meanwhile, used its fantastic
tale of giant ants as cover for a sober look at the dangers of nuclear testing. The Aero
will show these and other classics, as well as two latter-day variations on the formula
(the beloved cult classics TREMORS and CRITTERS), in a series filled with
glop, goo and alien terror.
Wednesday November 5 – 7:30 PM
ED WOOD, 1994, Disney, 127 min. Director Tim Burton’s
unabashed love for his subject makes this 1994 biopic of the director of the "worst
movie ever made" (that would be PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE - See it Nov. 2) a
perversely uplifting experience, although in reality its title character’s life was
anything but happy. Johnny Depp portrays legendary schlock director Ed Wood as an
enthusiastic hero of the cinema, a man whose love for moviemaking is so intense that it
almost makes the quality of his work irrelevant. Just as P.T. Anderson would do three
years later with BOOGIE NIGHTS, Burton depicts a group of disreputable filmmakers who form
an alternative family unit—and since that family includes Martin Landau (in an
Oscar-winning performance), Jeffrey Jones and Bill Murray, the results are sublime. Trailer | Ebert
Review Discussion following with actor Martin Landau,
writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski.
Thursday, November 6 – 7:30 PM
THEM!, 1954, Warner Bros. 94 min. Dir. Gordon Douglas.
Giant killer ants emerge from the Southwestern desert in one of the first and best sci-fi
films to deal with fears about atomic testing and warfare. Desert cop James Whitmore
joins G-man James Arness ("Gunsmoke") and scientist Edmund Gwenn
(MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET) in trying to mount a defense. Avoiding the campy quality of later
movies in the genre by treating its subject matter with utter seriousness, THEM! remains
one of the most unsettling monster movies of its era—and keep your eyes peeled for
those Fess Parker and Leonard Nimoy cameos. Trailer | More
on this Film
THE GIANT CLAW, 1957, Sony
Repertory, 75 min. Fred F. Sears (EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS) does his best to
direct this unintentionally surreal, monster-bird-from-space opus. Jeff Morrow and
sexy Mara Corday join a cast of hundreds fleeing from one of the goofiest-looking
big creatures to ever hit the silver screen. Producer Sam Katzman farmed out the effects
to a small Mexican SFX house and got something he hadn’t bargained for: a titanic
bird resembling a cross between a hideously deformed marionette and a cartoonish piņata!
Bizarre doesn’t even begin to describe the unnerving result. Ah, the days before CGI!
Trailer | More on this Film
Friday, November 7 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature:
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, 1956,
Paramount, 80 min. Director Don Siegel (DIRTY HARRY) and screenwriter Daniel
Mainwaring adapted Jack Finney’s novel into a brilliant, utterly compelling sci-fi
story of a small Southern California town overtaken by alien seedpods that mutate into
emotionless doppelgangers of the human inhabitants. Still one of the most frightening
movies ever made and a paranoiac’s delight, the picture has been credited as a
metaphor for the Red Scare’s McCarthyism. Kevin McCarthy is excellent as the
returning-from-a-trip doctor who gradually realizes the insidious changes going on right
under his nose. The exceptional supporting cast includes Dana Wynter, Carolyn Jones
(Morticia of TV’s "The Addams Family"), King Donovan, Larry Gates
and a cameo by a young Sam Peckinpah (!). Trailer | More on this Film
EARTH VS. THE FLYING
SAUCERS, 1956, Sony Repertory, 83 min. Dir. Fred F. Sears (THE WEREWOLF,
TEENAGE CRIME WAVE). Classic 1950s drive-in stuff: Earth’s scientists can’t
figure out why all the rockets they shoot into space are disappearing … until a fleet
of flying saucers appears over the White House! Husband-and-wife scientist team Hugh
Marlowe and Joan Taylor form a vanguard of defense against the invaders. FX man
Ray Harryhausen collaborated on the original story for the film with famed sci-fi writer
Curt Siodmak (THE WOLF MAN). Trailer
| More
on this Film
Saturday, November 8 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature:
TREMORS, 1990, Universal, 96 min. Dir. Ron Underwood.
When handymen Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward head out into the desert in search
of work, they find something else instead: giant underground creatures that turn out to be
man-eating worms. This wildly inventive homage to 1950s creature films is scary and
hilarious in equal measures, with terrific special effects and surprisingly sharp
dialogue. Trailer | More on this Film
CRITTERS, 1986, Warner Bros., 82 min.
A spaceship filled with the fuzzy alien monsters of the title lands in a Midwestern town
and proceeds to wreak havoc, while a pair of intergalactic bounty hunters on the
critters’ trail causes even more chaos. What could have been a mere GREMLINS rip-off
becomes a witty comedy as well as a swiftly paced action film in the hands of director Stephen
Herek, who blends the anarchic spirit of classic Warner Bros. cartoons with a
Spielbergian sense of the fantastic. Trailer | More on this Film
Sunday, November 9 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature:
20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH, 1957, Sony
Repertory, 82 min. An American spaceship returning from Venus crash-lands off of Sicily
with two passengers on board – pilot William Hopper (famed columnist Hedda
Hopper’s son and Paul Drake on TV’s "Perry Mason") and a miniature
reptile, who soon grows to monstrous proportions in Earth’s atmosphere. Director Nathan
Juran’s first collaboration with F/X wizard Ray Harryhausen features a
surprisingly sympathetic monster, and an astounding climactic battle at the Roman
Colosseum. Trailer | More on this Film
THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD,
1957, MGM Repertory, 83 min. Dir. Arnold Laven. An earthquake sets killer
prehistoric monsters free after radioactive material infects a group of underwater eggs.
This overlooked entry in the cycle of ’50s paranoia movies stars cowboy Tim Holt
(co-star of TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE and THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS!) as Twill, the naval
intelligence officer who tries to stop the encroaching menace. Trailer | More
on this Film |
