MovieChat Forums > World Without End (1956) Discussion > Why So Little Ammunition?

Why So Little Ammunition?

posted 18 years ago by gary_overman
123 replies | jump to latest

In the fights that our heroes have prior to their going into the tunnel, I counted eight shots in the cave, another eight at the camp, and twenty in the battle before they got taken in by the people in the tunnel. This makes 36 rounds expended.
At the mouth of the tunnel, Dr. Galbraith tells Borden that they had "30-40 rounds" left. Which means that they started with at most 75 rounds.
The guns they carried were Smith & Wesson .38 Special Military & Police, which later became the Model 10, and held six rounds. This adds up to a paltry two reloads per man, plus what was in the revolvers.
Anyway, the question that I have is: why would the government have issued them so little ammuntion?
Any thoughts?

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

Better question still: why would the government have issued them guns in the first place for an orbital spaceflight around Mars (not even a landing, where they theoretically might run into some hostile creature)? Suicide in case they couldn't get back? I doubt the space agency was prescient enough to say, "Hey guys, in case you should break the time barrier on the way home...".

Even so, this is one of my favorites.

Oh, by the way, Galbraith tells Borden that they couldn't recover his gun, so presumably they would have had a few more bullets if he hadn't lost it outside.

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

<Better question still: why would the government have issued them guns in the first place for an orbital spaceflight around Mars (not even a landing, where they theoretically might run into some hostile creature)? Suicide in case they couldn't get back? I doubt the space agency was prescient enough to say, "Hey guys, in case you should break the time barrier on the way home...".

Even so, this is one of my favorites.

Oh, by the way, Galbraith tells Borden that they couldn't recover his gun, so presumably they would have had a few more bullets if he hadn't lost it outside.>

In a way, I can see what you are saying, but the guns may have been useful in case they crashed in the present-day earth wilderness as well. Plus the psychological value would have been good as well.
In any event, I would have thought that fifty rounds apiece have been a more realistic quantity to have issued our heroes. Borden's revolver would have held six more rounds at the most.
And yes, I agree with you: this is one of my favorite 1950's sci-fi flicks as well. In fact, it is probably my favorite.

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

Interesting aspect, the notion of their crash-landing in some inhospitable place on present-day (i.e., 1957) Earth. (Actually, even the beginning of the story took place in the future. Movie was released in 1956, and Galbraith tells Timmek they took off on the 17th of March, 1957. We just missed the 50th anniversary!) Anyway, the idea of providing them with firearms of any kind is very '50s, and of course a critical plot point, but I doubt in real life NASA ever considered doing such a thing. Or did they...?

I always wondered about Galbraith's request of Timmek, in the scene where they first meet the council and find out what's happened, and their "burdens" -- backpacks, which they'd left in that little anteroom -- are brought in. The first thing Galbraith asks is, "If you're convinced of our good intentions, may we have our weapons back?" He'd already found out how much these people abhor weapons and violence, yet he asks for their guns even before asking for their general belongings. Why ask at all? They didn't need them (and as you say, they had little ammo left, so even if they planned a murder spree they couldn't have gotten very far). It just alienates the council right off the bat, making it seem all they care about is violence. The guys might have felt better having them, but under the circumstances it was a pointless request that could only backfire (as it did), and this should have been obvious, especially to someone like Galbraith.

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

Now that you mention it, it does seem as though Galbraithe did alienate the Council when the first request that he made was to let them have their weapons back. Good point.

On the question of whether or not NASA ever provided astronauts with firearms, I understand that in the Apollo program at least, they did issue the standard service 45 to their crews. I guess they figured that it was better to have them and not need them than to need them and not have them. This is not 100% certain however. But to me at least, it makes sense.

Even though this is all academic, it still makes for an interesting discussion, doesn't it?

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

What I'd be worried about carrying guns in space is some idiot shooting out a window or something. That would not be conducive to a successful mission. It would be interesting to know what NASA may or may not have done in this regard. I'll bet they certainly thought about it, whether or not they actually provided guns.

Anyway, as you know guns were pretty standard equipment in many 50s spaceflight films -- ROCKETSHIP X-M, MISSILE TO THE MOON come to mind. Interesting that the more "scientific" cinematic efforts didn't allow for guns -- DESTINATION MOON, e.g., although some more futurisitc films substituted ray guns for (to quote Rod Taylor) "these poor old-fashioned shootin' irons".

I do think this an interesting discussion. But, hey, it may not be academic. Granted, no one's flown to Mars yet, but according to the movie's timetable we've still got 181 years before "the great blow", so there might yet be time. Hell, next year we can mark the 500th "pre-anniversary" of their landing.

And that's another point. Most films that dealt with the aftermath of a nuclear war had it take place in contemporary (i.e., 50s or 60s) times. It always intrigued me that the war referred to in WWE came as late as 2188. You'd have hoped man would have advanced far enough to avoid such a catastrophe by then. But unfortunately a post-nuclear world would never look like the virgin wilderness shown in our movie, references to sending parties into ruined cities for materials notwithstanding.

Okay, here's one more question to ponder....If, as Garnet said, "the beasts watch our tunnels day and night", how come she & Borden can safely go out to look at the moon through that "old tunnel" (which I think is the same one the guys left through when they went out to bazooka the mutates, and also never got ambushed)? Did the mutates give up lurking there after no one had used that door for 20 or 30 years, I wonder? Naga had a badly exposed flank.

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

<What I'd be worried about carrying guns in space is some idiot shooting out a window or something. That would not be conducive to a successful mission. It would be interesting to know what NASA may or may not have done in this regard. I'll bet they certainly thought about it, whether or not they actually provided guns. >

Fears like this are greatly overblown. Pilots are generally very stable, and NASA had all sorts of psychological tests that astronauts had to pass.
(However, the *beep* in this statement is in the recent events concerning Lisa Nowack. See? I'm intellectually honest enough to admit the flaws in my argument.) Still in spite of Nowack, I don't see much danger of there being an accident with a gun in space. In the first place, they would be locked up, as our hero's Smith & Wessons were, and then if there was an accident, and the ship and crew survived, there would be absolute, holy HELL to pay afterwards.

Now, the tunnel: The ventilator intakes were protected with electric fencing, so, would it not be logical to infer that the old tunnel was as well? I'm not saying that this was for certain the case, but it seems to me to be a logical assumption.

<Most films that dealt with the aftermath of a nuclear war had it take place in contemporary (i.e., 50s or 60s) times. It always intrigued me that the war referred to in WWE came as late as 2188. You'd have hoped man would have advanced far enough to avoid such a catastrophe by then. But unfortunately a post-nuclear world would never look like the virgin wilderness shown in our movie, references to sending parties into ruined cities for materials notwithstanding.>

Human nature has been the same since the beginning of man. I think it would be very optimistic to think that it would change so much in the short span of 180 years. The enemies of freedom in my lifetime have been first, communism, and now, Islamist extremists. I wish I could say that no more tyrannies will be formed in the future, but I fear that such hopes are far too optimistic. And we can't put the atomic genie back in the bottle. The technology is here, and it is here to stay. Eventually, some madman is probably going to push the button.
I am not overly influenced by such films as The Day After, and On the Beach. While entertaining, such films present a picture of post-nuclear life that is too pessimistic. Now, please don't get me wrong: a full-scale nuclear exchange would be a disaster unsurpassed in human history. But far more people would survive that either of these two films depict. If you want a fairly accurate portrayal of post-nuke life would be like, there is the 1962 film Panic in Year Zero.
I hope I have not just branded myself as a nut-case!
On another subject; do you think, as did Galbraithe, that there may have been "other pockets of survivors"?

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

Well, the old tunnels might have had some protection besides the one sliding bolt Garnet used to open the door -- that itself looks pretty flimsy to me, though the mutates may have lost the necessary technical knowledge to construct a battering ram -- but Garnet doesn't shut off any switch to indicate she could safely touch the door. Anyway, basically beside the point: once outside, there's no electric fencing of any kind, they were just exposed, sitting there. Actually, the more I think about it, the less secure these tunnel entrances seem. Not even any apparent alarm to sound if anyone broke in.

You're probably right (unfortunately) about human nature not improving. Certainly present world conditions aren't overburdened with optimism about the future. My main point was simply that it was highly unusual for a film of the 50s to refer to a nuclear war occurring so far in the future, rather than roughly contemporaneously with the year the film was made (though not necessarily with the year the action of the film takes place). Movies like FIVE, CAPTIVE WOMEN, INVASION USA, ON THE BEACH, PANIC IN YEAR ZERO, THIS IS NOT A TEST and others all had such a war occurring around the time the films were produced, so in that sense WWE was perhaps a useful cautionary to say that the danger could persist centuries into the future. (I'm not sure YEAR ZERO is the best depiction of a post-nuclear war, though surely closer than ON THE BEACH. I suspect the made-for-TV duo THE DAY AFTER and the British THREADS are closest to the mark. Whatever the truth would be, I have no desire to find out.)

Yes, there should have been other pockets of survivors somewhere; just not conceivable there wouldn't be. Interesting that the underground civilization didn't seem to have any radio or other communications equipment to find out. As a plot point I liked it better that way, gave more of a sense of isolation, but it doesn't seem logical. Even today, someone somewhere would likely have a cell phone on him...assuming all the satellites hadn't been destroyed.

Here's another one...how come all the men (except Mories, who was hardly a virile 30-something [actor Booth Colman was 33]) seem to be between about 59 and 75, while all the women were around 25? I know the commercial rationale of the filmmakers, but in the reality of the film it seems likely they would have faced extinction years earlier if guys like Elda and Timmek were representative of the available males of the species.

Incidentally gary, although I've been reading the IMDB boards for a long time I only decided to start throwing in my 2 cents in the past month or so. I'm pretty sure I've read messages of yours elsewhere and you always have some interesting and intelligent comments to make.

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

OK, I will concede the thing about the door to the tunnel could have been a screw-up on the part of the scriptwriters. This was a low budget film and allowances have to be made.

Yes, there should have been other pockets of survivors somewhere; just not conceivable there wouldn't be. Interesting that the underground civilization available didn't seem to have any radio or other communications equipment to find out. As a plot point I liked it better that way, gave more of a sense of isolation, but it doesn't seem logical. Even today, someone somewhere would likely have a cell phone on him...assuming all the satellites hadn't been destroyed.

This could be grist for the sequel mill, could it not? Do you recall Galbraithe's response to a very amused-sounding Timmek's question? It was "It occurred to me that we could use the ship to explore the earth and see if there are other groups like yours." The exact words escape me at the moment, but this was the gist of it.
Besides, who even knows if satellites would be necessary for cell-phones of the future?

Here's another one...how come all the men (except Mories, who was hardly a virile 30-something [actor Booth Colman was 33]) seem to be between about 59 and 75, while all the women were around 25? I know the commercial rationale of the filmmakers, but in the reality of the film it seems likely they would have faced extinction years earlier if guys like Elda and Timmek were representative of the available males of the species.

IIRC, there were other young men in the colony; reference Galbraithe's remark towards the end to the effect that Timmek had persuaded about twenty of his young men to join our heroes.

Incidentally gary, although I've been reading the IMDB boards for a long time I only decided to start throwing in my 2 cents in the past month or so. I'm pretty sure I've read messages of yours elsewhere and you always have some interesting and intelligent comments to make.

Thank you for the very kind words. I find it interesting and enjoyable to talk (such as we are doing) with you as well.

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

Yes, I'd forgotten that line about the twenty young men persuaded to join in the expedition...though of course none of them actually showed up! (And without explanation, save for Garnet's vague earlier statement that "They will fail you, just as that weapon did." Boy, did these women know their menfolk!) That also reminded me that Hank in talking about the diminishing population had asked the others, "Hasn't it struck you that we haven't seen any children here? Sixteen and seventeen year olds, yes, but no children." Of course, we (the audience) never saw any 16 or 17 year olds anyway, or 25-year-olds, or basically any male under 50-something, except Mories (whose skullcap made his age difficult to assess, I thought), until the end of the movie, when everybody's back out in the open.

(Remember Hank implores the council to let them establish a base camp on the surface by exclaiming, "Your children need the sun!"? Would he later get the blame for the increase in skin cancer rates, I wonder?)

And as long as we're back on the surface, another odd bit of dialogue I never quite got. Hank's teaching the non-mutate mutate kids English to replace their post-apocalyptic-Spanish (as I more or less called it on another thread here!). Anyway, he's having them conjugate the verb "to be" thus: "I am", "You are", "Here he is"..."Here"? Where did that come from? He uses it in all his third-person singular lessons. Why not just "He is"/"She is" etc.? I wondered whether this was some old style form once actually used in teaching. I even had a mental image of Edward Bernds including it in the script because that's how he was taught in a one-room schoolhouse somewhere in the 20s. (I have no idea where he grew up.)

Later.

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

And as long as we're back on the surface, another odd bit of dialogue I never quite got. Hank's teaching the non-mutate mutate kids English to replace their post-apocalyptic-Spanish (as I more or less called it on another thread here!). Anyway, he's having them conjugate the verb "to be" thus: "I am", "You are", "Here he is"..."Here"? Where did that come from? He uses it in all his third-person singular lessons. Why not just "He is"/"She is" etc.? I wondered whether this was some old style form once actually used in teaching. I even had a mental image of Edward Bernds including it in the script because that's how he was taught in a one-room schoolhouse somewhere in the 20s. (I have no idea where he grew up.)

According to the closed-captioining (which I use due to a serious hearing impairment) the dialogue is "He, she, or it, is." Don't feel bad, however. I could never get all of the dialogue in XRM during their going through the time-warp, until my late mother's old TV went out and I finally got a new one that is CC-enabled. I had no idea that the tape was even closed-captioned.

Do you think a sequel would work? I do. Maybe one where XRM is repaired and our heroes explore the world and find other groups of survivors? Some would be freindly, some would be hostile.

I wish that Warner Brothers would bring this little gem out on DVD.

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

CC'ing notwithstanding, the kids are indeed saying, "Here he is". I've listened closely and repeatedly to this for over 40 years (I am fortunate in that my hearing is pretty acute), but I've noticed that CC is often slightly in error and also condenses or even skips some bits of dialogue in most films. I too have often used it to find out what certain pieces of dialogue are in movies where it's difficult to pick out the lines in a scene and it certainly is helpful, but in this case it's not accurate (or maybe that was in the original script, used for the closed-captioning?).

A sequel, or a combination sequel/remake might work. I'm sure they'd overtech it with CGI and so forth, probably at the expense of character. Probably set it further in the future to give it more of a sense of remove from this era. One problem is that things are so technologically advanced on even a day-to-day basis today than they were in 1956, that the sense of isolation so important to the original would be impossible to recapture. I suspect any remake or sequel would be significantly different and maybe not as interesting as the original.

As to a DVD, I have two entries on the "Shows on TCM" thread on this board which address that issue (I saw you had an entry there as well). A DVD should be letterboxed, but I have great concerns as to the feasibility of that, as you'll see if you read both those entries. But if it's do-able, there may be hope, in that Warner is at last dipping into their Allied Artists holdings and bringing some out on DVD in June. They have four sets of so-called Cult Classics (I dispute many of those characterizations) being released 6/26, and the sci-fi box contains three AA gems from the late 50s: THE GIANT BEHEMOTH, ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN, and QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE. "Queen" is sort of a sister film to WWE (same director, uses footage of the XRM, same cave spider), so I hope this means that WORLD WITHOUT END may be somewhere on the horizon...though I suspect it may be a year at least before we find out! Hope I'm wrong. But see those other entries I mentioned.

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

As to the accuracy of CC, I agree; it is not always word for word with what the spoken words are. This being the case, I will take your word for it on what the real dialogue was.

And in spite of the risks to the story, I do think this film would be a good candidate for a sequel at least. I fully share your reservations about a remake. However, could it not be argued that there is already a remake of sorts? I am referring to Planet of the Apes. The two plots are so similar that one could quite convincingly argue that POTA is a remake of WWE. I will grant that there are some great dissimilarities, but the two plots are very close to one another; close enough that I am convinced that POTA was at least influenced by WWE.

I am really looking forward to the release of all of the DVD's that you mentioned. And what's more, it would not surprise me in the least if Warner Brothers has a copy of the whole wide-screen version of WWE. I have nothing to base this on, so call it a hunch, but I have a feeling that WWE will be out on DVD soon after the others.
It's a good thing, too; my VHS tape is starting to get old.

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

My tape, too! Fortunately I bought an extra one before they disappeared, and I'm not giving up my VCR for years to come, just in case!

Did you ever see or hear of a movie called CAPTIVE WOMEN (1952)? Very low budget item about three tribes living in and around the ruins of post-nuclear-war New York City one thousand years from now (the film was originally to be titled 3000 A.D. before RKO boss Howard Hughes changed it to something he thought sounded more enticing). One group was the Upriver Men, another the Mutants (in New Jersey, I guess appropriately), and a third, the Norms, in the NYC subway ruins. Anyway, the sequel to PLANET OF THE APES, 1970's BENEATH THE..., is actually very similar in its plot to the '52 film, right down to the subway setting. So you may be onto something there about the original APE's drawing upon plot elements of WWE and similar tales for its plot development. (Of course, POTA was based on a novel, "Monkey Planet", by Pierre Boule...the same person who several years earlier had penned another little book entitled "The Bridge Over the River Kwai". "Over", not, as in the movie, "On".)

Unfortunately CAPTIVE WOMEN seems to have disappeared. I last saw it on late night TV in NYC in the late 60s. I remember it quite fondly, though it wasn't all that good, just unusual. From the same writing/producing team who the year before had made the much better THE MAN FROM PLANET X, with three stars from that film. Anyway, certainly no WORLD WITHOUT END. Hope your hunch about a release, maybe late this year (?), is good! I thought it might be another year because some of their recurrent sets (Films Noirs, e.g.) are released one per year. But as these sets are three films per set, and this is a new concept, they may do them more often. Let's hope. (Check the Movies Unlimited website under New Releases [see under Cult] for descriptions of all four sets, each with a different theme and type of movie; a few good, some forgettable; titles also available singly.)

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00005KI4X/imdb-adbox/

I looked up Captive Women and found the above link. You probably are aware of it, but just the same, I put it out there. I had heard of it, but in its' alternative title, 3000 A.D.. I had no idea what it was about however. Sounds interesting. Amazon says to keep checking back. Also check eBay.
Anyway, please don't get your hopes raised too much about WWE coming out on DVD. My hunches are not always right.
I will check out the Movies Unlimited website as well. Thanks for the tip.

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

Thank you for the link to Amazon -- no, I had never bothered to look it up. But did you read the movie description on that page? Something about a Polish country girl kidnapped by slavers who send her to Brazil, where her sister is also enslaved, then dies, and the girl is finally rescued by Polish sailors?????!! Someone in Poland must have really redubbed the 1952 Hollywood version! Sounds...fascinating. Wow. (And despite this most of the other info is correct for the '52 film!) Whatever movie they're talking about, I doubt the original will surface -- at least in English, no Polish sailors -- anytime soon!

Have faith that one day, even if in a year, WWE will, like the underground civilization of 2508, surface. It actually is available on DVD from scifistation.com, but it's a pan & scan version, probably duped from the same source material as the WHV tape.

And that's another good question....The underground denizens had no name for themselves or their city. That never particularly occurred to me, but in almost all such films the societies involved have some name for themselves. What might be a good one? Coloradans? Remember they're somewhere in the Rockies. The Nuggets? They do call the mutates "beasts"...never figured out why the boys used the word "mutates" instead of the proper "mutants". But when I first saw this movie at about 9 it was the first time I ever heard the word correctly or otherwise, and for several years thereafter said "mutate" when I should have said "mutant". Not that it came up all that often in conversation, even at that age.

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

Thanks for the tip on scifistation. It has been duly bookmarked.
As for the name of the community discovered by our heroes, it may have had one; it just was not mentioned in the film.
And BTW, I am surprised about the description of the film. The one I read was very similar to what you had told me about the film. I'll have to go back and re-check it.
I'm in Kansas. Are you by any chance in the New York area? You mentioned seeing WWE recently in a New York theater, IIRC. Also, I gather that you also are a fan of 1950's sci-fi. What all movies do you have?

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

The thought just came to me: why were the denizens of the tunnel so remarkably UN-curious about the existence of other groups like them? They seem to have made no efforts whatever to find out. This strikes me as very odd, to put it mildy.
I wonder why this was. Any ideas?

[–] paul-fisher-ctr 18 years ago

AS to the original question -- re ammo -- the USAF which is a very close NASA relative, used to issue S&W .38s such as the Model 10 and the Model 64 to pilots from WW II into the early 80's. There was usually one reload or less. AS TO ---the second question --- the whole theme of the tunnelites is they had lost virility and testerone as motive forces. Research indicates that testosterone is a drive enhancer in both males and females

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

Thank you for joining us and welcome to the discussion!!
I am assuming that this single reload was for the pilots that had a reasonable expectation of imminent rescue. How about the crews without this hope, and for whom rescue would take considerably longer? I know that it is risky to base real-life off of the movies, but I seem to recall that in the movie Dr. Strangelove that each crewman on the B-52 was issued a survival kit that included a 1911 .45ACP and a box of fifty rounds. I would have thought that our heroes would have been issued at a minimum fifty rounds apiece since rescue would be difficult, and could concievably have taken considerable time. This is always assuming an earth rescue of course. What do you think?
Again, welcome to the discussion!

[–] paul-fisher-ctr 18 years ago

DR STRANGELOVE -- it was fiction. Pilots were told that the pistol was to be used to fend off angry civilians with pitchforks but all combat crews spoke or thought of a somewhat more pessimistic use. This would involve scenarios such as being trapped in a burning aircraft with no escape and the like. Personnel such as SOG men with a reasonable expectation of ground combat were equipped like any infantry unit --but more so. As I remember this crew was on an exploration flight planned to be entirely aerospace not on a search and destroy infantary mission.

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

<DR STRANGELOVE -- it was fiction. Pilots were told that the pistol was to be used to fend off angry civilians with pitchforks but all combat crews spoke or thought of a somewhat more pessimistic use. This would involve scenarios such as being trapped in a burning aircraft with no escape and the like. Personnel such as SOG men with a reasonable expectation of ground combat were equipped like any infantry unit --but more so. As I remember this crew was on an exploration flight planned to be entirely aerospace not on a search and destroy infantary mission.>

It just ocurred to me that it would have been more realistic for the government to have equipped our heroes with, say fifty rounds apiece. It would not have taken that much more space, nor weighed all that much. I am also aware that this was not an infantry mission, but I was thinking in terms of survival more than combat S&D. If it were, they would have had more than the revolvers that they had.
However, I will defer to your military experience.

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

Hi gary, interesting to see others joining the thread -- already much longer than the rest on this site put together!

Yes, I live just north of NYC, in the 'burbs. And I definitely am a fan of 50s sci fi. I was lucky growing up in the NYC vicinity in the 60s because we have a lot of local TV stations, and back then most of them rans lots of movies, including a lot of recent (i.e., 1950s) sci fi. Actually, I am in general a film aficianado, of all kinds. Very middle-road in my tastes. But back to sci fi: in the 60s one of the local TV stations, channel 9 (not a network affiliate), ran the Million Dollar Movie daily, and in that era they'd run one movie 16 times in one week -- twice nightly, Mon.-Fri., then three times each Sat. & Sun. Martin Scorsese, who grew up in the city, has talked fondly of that program. That's the first place I ever saw WWE -- 16 times in one week! (I'm sure I didn't get to stay up to watch the 11:00 PM showing.) But here's the interesting thing: as you know it's a Cinemascope film, and when widescreen films began hitting the airwaves c. 1960, they developed the infamous pan & scan process so that people saw a full TV screen instead of the entire film (talk about being satisfied with half a loaf). Anyway, there must not yet have been a p&s version of WWE because channel 9 ran it in Cinemascope -- but NOT widescreen. Instead, they ran it in its raw state, compressed, so you saw the whole picture but everyone seemed about seven feet tall, the XRM was like a big ice cube, the mutates' faces looked like rodents' snouts, and so on. Still, we accepted it, I guess because people didn't care much about the quality of the prints they would see in those days. It was quite a shock for me a few years later when I saw it in proper anamorphic perspective, though not widescreen.

As to what I have, well, as I said, I'm a big film fan, and your timing is funny, because I just finished trying to reorganize my movie collection today. I still lack a proper inventory (I have all the titles, but haven't had time to organize them again in years, as the collection has grown). As a guess, I probably have 1800 titles of all kinds -- it's a little alarming. But hopefully it's my only real vice. Each summer I host a weekly showing of a film at a club I belong to, something they asked me to start doing five years ago (and again this year); I introduce a film, discuss it artistically, and then top off with some gossip, career details, and so forth, of the people involved: a poor man's Robert Osbourne. But I get a big crowd each week and no less than Leonard Maltin's agent, who lives in this village, says he wants to introduce me to him because he's impressed by what I know. Just talk, it'll never happen, but I suppose it's flattering. Anyway, I enjoy it, and get to drink for free Thursday nights when I run the film! (I'm an ex-Commodore of the joint but that means nothing!)

As for sci fi, my favorite category, I have most of the great (plus several so-bad-they're great) 50s stuff. My favorite is Destination Moon, as the one that started it all, and very nice in its straightforwardness and simplicity. I have George Pal's other stuff, The War of the Worlds, When Worlds Collide, Conquest of Space, etc. Space films like Rocketship X-M, Invaders from Mars, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Flight to Mars, Forbidden Planet, The Man from Planet X (another personal favorite), and so on; "monster" films like The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, the original Gojira (Godzilla), The Giant Behemoth, Gorgo, Them, Tarantula, Rodan, etc.; and other things like The Thing from Another World, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Lost Continent, It Came from Outer Space -- oh, and Harryhausen items like It Came from Beneath the Sea, Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers, 20 Million Miles to Earth; plus some of my favorite bottom budget things like The Cosmic Man, Stranger from Venus, and the real dreck which is still great fun, like Robot Monster, Teenagers from Outer Space and of course Plan 9 from Outer Space. Those are some of the titles I have. How well they mix in with different films in the 'collection' such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Lost Weekend, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Seven Samurai, Judgment at Nuremburg, The Best Years of Our Lives, Ben-Hur, The Godfather and my personal favorite of all, The Guns of Navarone -- well, that I don't know. But it gives me a wide range of movies to choose from for my Thursday night movie each year! Most of what I have I guess falls between the late 30s and the mid-60s, though I have a lot of stuff right up to the present; almost no silents, however. As long as a film moves, it doesn't matter if it's mostly action or mostly talk, it must be interesting, entertaining, and sometimes it's nice if it has something to say; other times, I just love a film for the pure entertainment, even if it's not so good (or downright awful!). To me, the only sin is a movie that's boring. Plus I love introducing people to things like science fiction that they may disdain without really knowing much about it, and have them discover some great lost gem they've been missing. (Two years ago I ran Destination Moon for my audience, having no idea how they'd react. They loved it! Several people came up to me over the following couple of days to say how they hadn't expected anything much and found the film really enjoyable and well done. If I can help in a small way spread the word to try everything, there's some great things out there, I'm happy.) I try to run a different type of film each week and make it a point to show one sci fi each year. So far, I've done The Thing, Man from Planet X, and now I can't remember the others off hand. But they all went over well. Then the next week I'll run something like Advise & Consent or Heaven Can Wait (1943, not the unrelated '78 Warren Beatty film), and get great responses then too. Of course, on occasion I have struck out, but I prefer not to discuss those incidents!

Well, sorry for such a long-winded answer. It's been a very busy day and this is the first chance I've had to respond and in part I'm unwinding. I was trying to guess where you were located but was about a thousand miles off (I'm terrible at that sort of thing). I attended grad school at the U. of Missouri for a couple of years and saw some of the surrounding states, but regret to say my only instance of touching Kansan soil was when my then-girlfriend and I drove into KC for a few hours one day. I know there's a lot beyond Wyandotte County!

And before I go, especially as we have a new participant, I have to remind you both that besides the guns and ammo they provided the crew with in Dr. Strangelove, they also provided them with money, condoms, lipstick, chocolate bars, chewing gum and several pairs of nylons! As Slim Pickens said, "Shoot, a guy could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff!"

Okay, guys, as sooner or later do all boards on IMDB, I'll close this post (and return us to World Without End) with a typically male question: who would you rather end up with -- Garnet, Deena or Elaine? (And how come Garnet was the only one of the three never to show any midriff?) Sorry for lowering the standards of the thread, but best to get this settled.

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

<Okay, guys, as sooner or later do all boards on IMDB, I'll close this post (and return us to World Without End) with a typically male question: who would you rather end up with -- Garnet, Deena or Elaine? (And how come Garnet was the only one of the three never to show any midriff?) Sorry for lowering the standards of the thread, but best to get this settled.>

I think any of them would be very acceptible. As for why she never showed any midriff, the only thing I could do was to guess: maybe Nancy Gates had had some abdominal surgery that left scars, and the make up people could not hide them very well. Like I say, just a guess.

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

As a kid I always like Deena, but in later years I've drifted more to Garnet, I think. Interesting idea about abdominal surgery -- Nancy Gates did have twins and so theoretically might have needed a caesarean, but that wasn't until 1960, so no go here. Personally I think it was to make her seem more chaste, and thus a suitable mate for Borden, vs. the wild, exotic look of Deena or the slightly wanton, man-hungry character of Elaine (who you'll notice, after failing with Herb, who shows his own wild side by briefly flirting with her after he's already shown an interest in Deena, ends the film standing with Hank as he teaches the kids English, leaving the viewer to assume they'll end up together and happy eventually). I've always had an affinity for Nancy Gates in part because we share the same birthday (though decades apart).

On the other hand, Garnet's skirt seemed considerably shorter than anyone else's (and of course Deena wore skin-tight pants). For a dying society they certainly offered a variety of choices.

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

On the other hand, Garnet's skirt seemed considerably shorter than anyone else's (and of course Deena wore skin-tight pants). For a dying society they certainly offered a variety of choices.

Yes, they did, didn't they?
People to whom I have shown this movie to, seem to focus on the good-looking women and comment on them. Specifically, I remember the comment by one guy: "Wow! They sure had some good-looking women in that movie!" His response was typical.

On another subject, I think the only male player in this movie who is still alive is Rod Taylor. Shawn Smith is dead, but Nancy Gates, and Lisa Montel are, I believe, still alive. Nancy would be about 80 and Lisa would be in her mid-70's. It's hard to believe, isn't it?
But then, the movie is 51 years old.
Time marches on.

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

Oh, God, don't remind me! Nancy was 81 on Feb. 1. (Trivia note: she was born the same day, Feb 1, 1926, as Stuart Whitman [!]; an even odder pairing: Marlon Brando and Doris Day both born the same day, April 3, 1924: belated happy 83rd to Doris!) If I remember Lisa Montell turns 74 (?) this year, and Rod Taylor is by all accounts except IMDB's 78 (IMDB says 77), this past January. All these people I grew up watching, now all growing old and going fast. You know Gloria Swanson's line from "Sunset Boulevard" -- "We had faces then!"? Even in a mid-budget 1950s picture like WWE, they had faces and characters, so unlike so many of the stars of today, who seem to have less and less identifiable on-screen charcteristics. (Not counting off-screen antics.)

I always liked Rod Taylor, actually one of my favorite actors. He had a decent career, but I never understood why he didn't quite make the breakthrough into the top rank. He was a damn good actor, had looks and charisma, versatile (could play anything), better than people like Rock Hudson, for example. He had some good shots in the 60s but just missed being a major star. Did you ever see a movie called "Young Cassidy" (1965)? Rod played the playwright Sean Cassidy, and his performance was universally praised. He should have received an Oscar nomination for it. Gyp! Besides WWE, my favorites of his movies include Giant (only a small part, but still...), The Time Machine, The Birds, Fate is the Hunter, Hotel and Dark of the Sun. I also loved his early 60s TV program "Hong Kong", which I loved as a little kid. Talk about time marching on: the last time I saw Rod, a couple of years ago, he was almost unrecognizable -- this tiny-looking, wrinkled old man (if you think about it, he wasn't as tall as he seemed), a far cry from the virile types he played so often, including WWE.

I also liked Hugh Marlowe, though he wasn't that good an actor...your favorite?

[–] paul-fisher-ctr 18 years ago

This thread got me thinking -- are many of the WWE elements not present in a 70's scifi classic ELLISON'S 'A BOY AND HIS DOG'. After all, as Vic found out at cost,it only takes one healthy young male to impregnate a whole breeding pop. of young healthy females. Semen --to come full circle-- was the ammo of which there was so little in the underground..............

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

If only they'd been a coastal society they'd have had plenty of seamen....

[–] paul-fisher-ctr 18 years ago

THIS is why BILL CLINTON had his rank changed from C-in-CHIEF to SEAMAN 1ST CLASS!!!!!!!!!!!!

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

<THIS is why BILL CLINTON had his rank changed from C-in-CHIEF to SEAMAN 1ST CLASS!!!!!!!!!!!!>
Oh, my word; you are BAD!!
Still, I loved it.

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

<I also liked Hugh Marlowe, though he wasn't that good an actor...your favorite? >

Without a doubt, it was Rod Taylor. And yes; I remember Hong Kong. Good Lord! I thought I was the only person in the world who still remembers that show.
Speaking of Taylor reminds of something that I noticed about his character, Herb Ellis. Did you sense an undercurrent of tension between Jaffee and Ellis?
There was a couple of times in the film where Jaffee rebukes Ellis. One was when Ellis was putting it on Borden about his dating Garnet, and one other time, but what it was escapes me at the moment. Yet at the same time, Ellis was actually the most sympathetic of our heroes to Jaffee about the loss of his family.
Did anyone else notice that?

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

I didn't sense any tension between Hank and Herb, or between any of the crew. I took the things you mentioned as more good-natured joshing, if we can still use that term. If I remember Hank says something to Herb like, Oh, leave the poor guy (Borden) alone, and Borden, laughing, saying, That's okay, Hank, I don't mind. I didn't sense anything tense or hostile or somehow negative between them. I do remember -- I think it was that same scene, right after Borden left -- Galbraith saying that the women were wonderful there, how he'd been whistled at and flattered and so on all day by the women he'd seen, and how he'd found the whole thing exhilirating. Ellis laughs and pats him on the stomach (remember that?!), but all the while Jaffee stands over to the side looking glum and unamused. But I drew from that that Hank was simply saddened at being reminded by this discussion of his lost wife and children, not upset at Galbraith or anyone. Jaffee was clearly the most emotional all the way through the film, which in some ways made him the most interesting crew member, but in other ways seems at odds with the ideal type of person you'd want to launch into space in the first place.

[–] paul-fisher-ctr 18 years ago

Did the MST3K crew do a sendoff of WWE ???

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

<Did the MST3K crew do a sendoff of WWE ??? >

You lost me here, pal. What are you asking?

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

Mystery Science Theater 3000 -- No, they never did WWE. Might have had possibilities.

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

<Mystery Science Theater 3000 -- No, they never did WWE. Might have had possibilities.>

Thank you.

Getting back to Jaffe's interaction with Ellis, I can see what you are saying and so I am willing to cut Jaffe the slack that he needs. Generous of me, what?
An item of possible interest related to the subject of the series Hong Kong is that I acquired a surplus revolver some time back from, of all places, the Royal Hong Kong Police. It is so marked on the backstrap. Maybe it's the one that Neil Campbell carried. Do you think this is possible? Since the revolver is reliably dated at 1955, who knows?

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

Or Michael Rennie's. He played a member of the RHKP in the 1955 film SOLDIER OF FORTUNE, which was released by 20th Century Fox, the same studio that made "Hong Kong". The series used to occasionally cop (no pun intended) music and other backgrounds left over from the movie. Speaking of "HK", that's a show I wish they'd bring out on DVD.

Interesting that Rod Taylor starred or co-starred in the two most famous time-travel films of the era, WORLD WITHOUT END and THE TIME MACHINE. Playing very different types, too. I didn't much care for the remake of Time Machine but was mildly amused to see Alan Young from the original in an extremely brief cameo as a flower shop owner; too bad they didn't think to ask Rod to make an appearance as co-owner of the shop -- the two could have had a good time fussing about the place or something as brief comic relief/homage to the original.

Doubt there'll ever be a remake of WWE, or that it'd be as good...as previously mentioned, somewhere!

To bring the thread back full circle, maybe they could have used Neil Campbell's revolver in 2508! Six extra shots, six fewer mutates.

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

<To bring the thread back full circle, maybe they could have used Neil Campbell's revolver in 2508! Six extra shots, six fewer mutates. >

Little technical problem here: the RHKP revolvers in the 1950's (including mine) were all chambered for the 38 S&W cartridge, which is different from the 38 Special, which is what USAF/NASA would have issued. Completely different cartridge, not interchangable. At the time, (during most of the 1950's) the 38 S&W was the standard British military handgun cartridge.

<Doubt there'll ever be a remake of WWE, or that it'd be as good...as previously mentioned, somewhere!>

I agree. The WWE that you and I know and love so much is and will probably always be one of a kind.
It is interesting that this thread should have gone on for so long. We are over three times as big as the rest of the posts for this move put together.
On another related note, would you believe that I have never seen The Time Machine?
That movie is going to go on my "to get" list.

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

Yes, but presumably if they had had Neil's revolver they would have had some of his ammunition too. But of course, interchangeability of supplies would be crucial. I wonder if Naga or someone might have accidentally shot themselves with Borden's gun, assuming they found it. Quite a turnover in mutate leadership in just a few seconds if five or six of them had kept at it.

You should definitely get THE TIME MACHINE. (1960 version.) It's very good, has Oscar-winning effects, and produced & directed by George Pal (of DESTINATION MOON, THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, etc.), so you know it's a top-notch film. I'll be curious as to your reaction to it. Has some flaws in logic and detail, of course, but then so do most movies. It's never mentioned in the film, but see if you can catch who Rod Taylor plays (he's only called by his first name).

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

<You should definitely get THE TIME MACHINE. (1960 version.) It's very good, has Oscar-winning effects, and produced & directed by George Pal (of DESTINATION MOON, THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, etc.), so you know it's a top-notch film. I'll be curious as to your reaction to it. Has some flaws in logic and detail, of course, but then so do most movies. It's never mentioned in the film, but see if you can catch who Rod Taylor plays (he's only called by his first name).

I took the plunge today and ordered The Time Machine, Valley of Gwanji, On the Beach, and The Day the World Ended from Amazon. As you may gather, I like post-apocalyptic stuff. I also have When Worlds Collide on VHS, but I didn't care for that one as much because it strayed too far from the book. I do hope the Spielberg version coming out next year is better. George Pal also did the 1951 WWC.
Have you seen Target Earth? It was made in 1954 and has Richard Denning as a guy who is trapped in Chicago when robots from Venus invade the city. It's not bad.

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

Well, I can appreciate your affinity for post-apocalyptic stuff. A few years ago I was buying four DVDs at Border's -- I only remember two titles right now, THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE and TORA! TORA! TORA!, but the others were war & sci-fi things of all-out destruction. When the clerk looked at them he asked me, "What, you planning on holding an end-of-the-world festival?"

Incidentally, if you've never seen DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE, get it! It's British, 1961, about simultaneous nuclear blasts tipping the Earth's axis and also sending it orbiting toward the sun. It's extremely realistic and well-acted, though not a big-budget film. The center of action is a London tabloid newsroom (a real paper, The Daily Express), not some scientist's lair, so it's even more convincing. A truly exceptional film -- its screenplay won the British Film Academy Award for best screenplay of 1961. Directed and co-written by the same man who brought us THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT and QUATERMASS 2, Val Guest (1911-2005). It was restored in 2000 to widescreen and with the famous tinted sequences (it's a b&w film) at the beginning and end -- highly effective and scary. Really, a must-see.

I have all the titles you've ordered except GWANGI (which I've seen several times but am not wild about), but alert me on this site when you've viewed them so we can discuss -- but the discussions themselves should probably be on the sites for each of those films! (By the way, a few days ago I posted a thread on ON THE BEACH complaining about the screwed-around-with ending on the DVD; if you care to, read it and see if you agree with my thoughts. I have several postings for a number of movies where they've altered credits or scenes or whatnot, which irritates the hell out of me. I'm a great fan of just leaving movies alone and can get pretty cranky on the subject.)

Surprised you didn't care much for WWC. But it's true that if they'd had a bigger budget it would've worked better. Pal wanted one but Paramount cut him short. Did you know that it was originally optioned by Cecil B. DeMille, in the 30s, but he could never get a satisfactory script and of course no one thought SF would be box office until Pal proved them wrong with DESTINATION MOON. DeMille gave it to Pal to produce after Paramount lured him back to the lot after refusing to produce DM because they thought it was a loser -- thereby passing up over $6 million in profits! Anyway, despite its shortcomings, I like WWC. I also have TARGET EARTH -- as a kid it really scared me, I thought the robots were cool, but it hasn't held up quite as well as some other things of the era -- like WWE, which I think improves with time (as it were).

Oh, gary, try checking prices on DVD Planet or Deep Discount -- they're often several dollars cheaper than Amazon, though Amazon has a broader selection. I buy all over the place. DVD price search is a good site for quick comparisons of various outlets' prices. But I guess you know this stuff already, as you're clearly a more experienced hand at this than I am.

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

Hobnob, I've seen The Time Mchine, Valley of Gwanji, On the Beach, Day the World Ended. I've also started She-Creature, but that one was just too dumb to finish.

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

God! I haven't seen "She Creature" in about 106 years. I have the DVD of it with "Day the World Ended" but haven't gotten around to watching it either! Now you've spurred my interest...may do so one of these days!

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

Hobnob, please go to the board on Teenage Caveman and read my post.

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

Gary, I went and didn't see any post by you. 1958 version, right?

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

Try it now.

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

Hey Hobnob, anything happening with you? I've been busy on two Stephen king boards; The Stand and It.
Both of them are great films, in fact I think The Stand is my favorite SK movie.

[–] blondinii 18 years ago

BACK AGAIN............

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

Just saw some...well, not bad, but not hopeful, news re any WWE DVD release. The Movies Unlimited website Q&A guy says there's nothing on the horizon about a release, though confirming WB holds the rights. (But he used one of the film's posters as his column's illustration for this month.) Maybe a barrage of emails to Warner will push a release in the coming year. As I wrote someplace earlier, I just hope they have all the widescreen reels.

Wish I had something more substantial, gary.

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

Hobnob, that would be marvellous if that was the case!! How have you been?

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

I'm good, but this has been my busy period, and I'm trying to catch up with movies as well as other things. We need to pick up the threads, my friend. I've been involved in various discussions on other sites but keep looking for time to re-view (as opposed to review!) older titles we've discussed. It does amaze me how far afield many of these threads go, and their length -- I noted as I came to answer your latest that yours was the 51st response on this thread alone! As you said about 35 back, it's amazing how long this thread has gone. If only imdb gave out an equivalent of Pulitzers for these things.

After putting it off for several months, I plan to make some bulk orders of a number of titles in the coming week or so, so I'll have lots more to exchange pointed observations about!

Anyway, everything okay with you, gary? What have you been watching lately? I'll be away over the weekend but would love to catch up early next week. Take care till then, buddy (and as they say, take care even after that!).

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

Yes, Mr. Fisher; glad to have you back. How have you been lately?

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

<Anyway, everything okay with you, gary? What have you been watching lately? I'll be away over the weekend but would love to catch up early next week. Take care till then, buddy (and as they say, take care even after that!).>

I have been fine, thanks. Lately, my IMDB time has been on a couple of movies: The Stand and A Soldier's Story. I think you know about The Stand, but I just bought Story. (I was tempted to just use its' initials like I do with a lot of titles but decided not to for obvious reasons.) Absolutely superb movie!!
It's a whodunnit set against the backdrop of WWII in a segregated US Army. Like I said before, it is superb.
While you are not a Stephen King fan, you may enjoy The Stand. Even though it is long (6+ hours), it is well-acted, and the main theme is interesting: what happens after a pandemic wipes out the majority of the earth's population. There a great many sub-themes to go over such the interactions between the characters and comparing the series to the book.
Like I say, you should try it out, and then we can discuss it in that board.
I have taken the liberty of inviting Eric, from OTB, to our threads on other films.

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

Great! See you over there as well!

[–] jonmiktay 18 years ago

God, I love you guys. Science Fiction forever.

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

Thanks! Join in!

Hey, gary -- a compliment!

hob

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

Hi Hob! Anything new?
I just thought I'd touch base with you. It's been a while.

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

Hey, Gary! Glad to hear from you. Thought you'd given up on the board!

Mostly on IMDb I've been arguing about colorization of late (I'm con), and a few other argumentative tidbits. Not of as much interest as we had on this thread, let me tell you, especially when I was called all sorts of inane names because of an anti-Bush remark I made. I know you and I have political disagreements but I think ours are both informed and respectful, certainly not resorting to name-calling and viciousness as this individual did. But a couple of folks came to my defense, so that was nice. (On the site for "Towering Inferno", of all things.)

I got an email from the folks at Sinister Cinema the other day, in which among other things they stated they'd be adding over 60 titles to their catalogue in October. No hint as to the titles or their genres, but I'd like to hope there'd be maybe a 1000-1 shot that WWE might just possibly be among them. (Is that a tentative enough sentence?) My reason is that a year ago they added a couple of Allied Artists sci-fi titles to their listings, "Attack of the 50-Foot Woman" and "The Giant Behemoth". Both were good prints and TGB was actually letterboxed, but they've both been withdrawn now that Warner has issued its own DVDs of these titles. Point is, if SC's had access to the AA library they might come up with WWE as a release. As I said, it's extremely unlikely, and even if they did no guarantee it'd be letterboxed, but when the time comes I'll update with the (almost certainly disappointing) news. But I'm still hoping WHV will release Our Favorite Film in its next editions of Cult Camp Classics, though I imagine any such release won't come till next year. Maybe in time for our retirements?

Leaving here Thursday to run my weekly evening movie -- tomorrow the 1941 British war drama/propaganda piece, "49th Parallel". Last week I ran one of my faves, from Billy Wilder, the just-released "Ace in the Hole", with Kirk Douglas. Have you seen this? It's never been on home vid in any form and has rarely been shown, though TCM has had it on a couple of times this year and will again on Sunday night, Aug. 26, at I assume 9:15 PM CDT, your time. If you've never seen it, try to catch it. I'd be interested in your take. For 1951, it's pretty damn brutal: definitely not a "feel-good" picture!

Hope to resume with you when I get back to the world of the internet next week! (WWE -- World Without Ethernet?)

Oh, wait -- I bought the WHV DVD of "Queen of Outer Space" (1958), which as you know has several scenes lifted from WWE, including shots of the spaceship and the big spider in the cave. (Also an AA release.) Anyway, I hadn't seen it in years and I noticed that some of the unexplained weaponry the women on Venus sport are the silver-colored bazooka rockets they built to roust the mutates in "World Without End". I thought re-using the velvet spider puppet was bad enough, but at least this is a bit more subtle a rip-off!

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

Hob, it's good to hear from you. I'll have to get QOOS. It's been at least 40 years since I've seen that thing. One of its' many claims to fame is the late Eric Fleming, the trail boss on Rawhide.
I'll take a look at Ace in the Hole. Sounds interesting. Speaking of Kirk Douglas and 1951 films, one of my favorites from that period is Detective Story. Do you have that? I taped it several years ago when AMC had it on and then it recently came out on DVD, so I got it then. Superb movie! It was, for a 1951 film, brutally frank about some pretty taboo subjects for that period of time.
Here's a movie (well, actually, a PBS mini-series) that I bet you don't have. It even won an Emmy in 1983 (or was it 1984?) for its' superb acting. It is called Concealed Enemies. CE was a dramatization of the Alger Hiss case. To my knowledge, the last time it was shown on TV was over twenty years ago, and very few copies of it exist. Yours truly has one and was the first one to comment on it on IMDB. That was in the days when I had my old WebTV account. A couple of others have since commented on it. Anyway, I went to the message board on CE, and who would I find on it but our mutual freind, Eric from OTB? Small world, huh?
Go there and take a look around, why don't you?.
My mentioning Rawhide reminds me of my plans for this weekend. I own 80 acres in northern Oklahoma that is about a mile or so west of the old Chisholm Trail. My uncle and cousin raise a small herd of cattle on it and generally take care of the place for me. I consider this area to be my ancestral homeland, so to speak, as my mother and a lot of her family was born very near there. Anyway, I belong to a Kansas internet gun group, and a few of the others in the group and myself will go down and do some shooting. That is something that you probably don't do too much of in your neck of the woods, but in Kansas and places west, hunting and shooting are very popular. Myself, I don't hunt, but I do shoot. And I love it.
Hey, I just picked up a couple of good war movies. Probably not what you would expect, though; both of them were set in ancient Greece; Alexander and 300. WallyWorld had them on sale, and I really enjoyed both of them. I thought 300 was a little cartoonish in some respects, but its' depiction of how Spartan boys were trained for military service was very accurate, and this is the only film I've seen that goes into this. Have you seen either of them?
As for the political stuff, yeah, I'm a conservative Republican, but I generally try to keep it out of discussions on movies. And when it does come up, I see no reason to get nasty about it. Opinions are like.........., well you get the idea!

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

Gary, time for a quick reply before I head out. Yep, I've got "Detective Story", very good too although the movie never gets past its stage origins. They had a practice air raid drill in Manhattan in the early 50s and newsreel footage of that has turned up in a number of films ("The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms" comes to mind), and clearly visible is a theater marquee advertising "Detective Story"! Nothing like a free plug. But definitely try "Ace" -- see it on TCM first, because if you like it and want to buy it it's from Criterion and hence expensive. Amazon was the cheapest I saw, $24.99, $15 off MSRP. By the way, after getting the lead in "DT", Kirk Douglas went to Phoenix and for a week appeared with a small-town (as PHX was then) theatrical troupe, playing the role he'd play in the movie. He was paid the usual $100 per week, but the crowds were sell-outs and the troupe loved having him on board (or trodding the boards), as you'd expect (although I wonder how the original lead felt about being bumped?!). Speaking of which, here's a trivia question: who played the lead in the original Broadway production? I'm guessing you know.

Yes, we discussed CE someplace earlier, probably OTB. Can't recall whether I saw it, I think so. As I said in that exchange, I always thought Hiss was guilty, long before reading Weinstein, as do all of my friends. Certain propaganda to the contrary, liberals are not fools (at least, not because of that fact alone!). Of course, responsible conservatives should have protested things like McCarthy's "Alger -- I mean Adlai" smear in the '52 campaign, which aside from anything else wasn't in the least clever. Okay, that's my political input!

Haven't seen "300" -- any good? I've seen excerpts, looks intriguing. I saw "Alexander", it was okay, better than its predecessor from 1956, "Alexander the Great" with Richard Burton and Fredric March, of all people.

The Chisholm Trail calls to mind Wayne's "Red River", even though it was shot in Arizona. I'm sure you've seen it -- terrific film. The one where a plainly jealous John Ford muttered about Wayne, working for the first time with Howard Hawks (on Hawks's first western), "I never knew the big son-of-a-bitch could act!" Ford liked Duke and was certainly crucial to his career but was always a bit condescending to him, even trying to horn in on directing part of "The Alamo"! Wayne didn't want to offend him so he sent him off to shoot some second unit stuff -- none of which made it into the final film!

Well, while you're out shooting I'll be involved in the equally hazardous pursuit of sitting on my town council at its monthly meeting and listening to constituent complaints. I'm like Elda to the mayor's Timmek, but unfortunately nothing as interesting as time travelers ever comes up. Next day, flashover practice for my fire dept. -- the fire academy tells us to bring all our own gear except our helmets -- they'll provide special ones because ours would melt in the drill! Great. Well, if we both survive the weekend -- I having no cause to ask with my last breath, "Why so little insulation?" and you "Why so little ammunition?", we can resume later on.

You never figured I could work your title for this thread back in, did you?

[–] blondinii 18 years ago

Fine- I transfered from the DOD base where I was contracting and am now in a system with less time for movie chat....PDF

[–] blondinii 18 years ago

LATELY --I enjoy-- "HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL" "THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR" via NETFLIX

[–] hobnob53 18 years ago

Hi Gary, a minor but hopeful update re the existence of a good print of WWE -- I read that recently there was a showing at a theater in LA of several 50s sci-fi films, including WWE, apparently a beautifully restored (color, etc.), high quality print. No mention was made as to whether it was widescreen, but I'm sure the reviewer would have said something if it were not. So it seems there is at least a good print of the pic out there...next step is to convince WHV to release it sometime before its 2508 Anniversary Edition!

Saw you over at TI, as I assume you'll see from an IMDb email. I can't take that kind of violent discourse too much these days...enough of it in my own life!

"Army surplus"!

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

Well, QOOS is on DVD now, so WWE shouldn't be too far behind. Everyone that I have shown that VHS tape to has enjoyed it.

As for the thing at TI, even though I probably would not disagree with his politics too much, he could have found a much better (more civilized) way of disagreeing with you. Shameful.
Anyway, I thought that I would try to inject a little hunmor in the situation to try to defuse it, as both of you looked like you were about ready to blow your corks.
Incidentally, that was the same line that one of my profs at Seattle U tried to get the classes attention. Poor Sister Christopher!! She announced to the class that she would be gone for a couple of days, so everybody started cheering. "Children! Children! That was not nice!" We all just about cracked up when she said that. I'm going to Google her one day, just to see if she is still around.
Catch you later, my freind. You take care.

[–] gary_overman 18 years ago

Hob, I was just going through another posters's message board, and this guy makes you and Thomas look like you actually got on well with each other by comparision.
I was on the page for the TV-movie about BTK because it took place very close to where I live, and happened across this guys posts, so I looked at his message board and almost all of his posts are very abusive. I am frankly surprised that IMDb has not taken him off of the boards. He makes the exchange between Thomas and yourself look tame.
I found it interesting anyway, and I thought that you would as well.
See ya.

[–] hobnob53 17 years ago

Gary, I'm going a bit batty these days, so please remind me, which one is BTK? I'm into the senior moments several decades early, I'm afraid, though I know we've discussed it, which makes it even more frustrating!

I may look at the boards you noted but I can't take too much of this abusive back-and-forth comment these days.

But I hope you're not insinuating that I should be tossed off the IMDb boards for being nasty! Am I that bad? Argumenative, sometimes, but abusive, I hope not!

You ain't gonna turn me in, are you?

Or turn me out of the safety of our tunnels?

[–] gary_overman 17 years ago

<But I hope you're not insinuating that I should be tossed off the IMDb boards for being nasty! Am I that bad? Argumenative, sometimes, but abusive, I hope not!>

Good God, no!!!

All I was saying was that if you thought that the exchange between you and Thomas was nasty, you should see this guy. This guy is abusive. What happened between you and Thomas was merely a strongly worded exchange. That was not abuse, although the other guy came close.
Sorry about not making that clear. Believe me, I didn't intend to even insinuate that you were abusive.Capice?
Anyway, BTK is the self-chosen nickname given to a serial killer here in Kansas. The initials stand for Bind, Torture and Kill, because that is what he did with his victims.
His name is Dennis Rader, and he is currently a permanent guest of the Kansas taxpayers. He is incarcerated about 25 miles away from me in the maximum security unit in El Dorado Correctional Facility. His earliest possible release date is 2150 give or take a few years. Personally, I think it is too bad that Kansas dismantled its' gallows. Seriously.
Again, I did not intend to upset you. I'm sorry that I did.

[–] hobnob53 17 years ago

Hey, I'm sorry! I wasn't upset, I was basically joking, though I did wonder just how bad I was getting to sound!

Yes, stupid me, I was trying to think of some movie acronym and never connected the BTK killer, Kansas's favorite psychopath. Don't apologize, I quite agree, he deserved to go the way of Dick and Perry (of "In Cold Blod" infamy), though it's good they at least finally caught him...though I guess it took a second round of killings decades apart before they could nail the sick s.o.b. And of course, it turned out to be the good church-going family man next door. Isn't it always (or often)?

Not to get too political, but it's always amazed me that many people who commit murders -- and I'm talking about violent, premeditated crimes committed in the course of other felonies, that kind of thing -- that in most states such people can often end up walking free after only a few years in prison. Not always, of course, but it happens enough that it makes you wonder just what price we set on the value of a human life being taken. Even if death isn't an option, as it often should be IMO, a real life sentence (or an effective one, like being incarcerated until 2150) should be imposed, with parole only in the rarest and most justifiable circumstances, and then only after having served a significant amount of time.

See there, putting guys like this out of the tunnels two hours after the sun sets works for me. No muss, no fuss, his fate is in others' six-fingered hands, and no expense in constructing a gallows, which would have to be too high for the tunnel ceilings to accommodate anyway. If BTK isn't paroled in 2150 and survives the unpleasantness 38 years later, that may yet become his ultimate fate. Meantime he can be the quiet family man living next door to Elda.

[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] gary_overman 17 years ago

I'm glad that misunderstanding was cleared up. You are a good guy, in spite of what one of Stephen King's characters said about New York Democrats.

Actually, Rader was fairly atypical for serial killers in that he was a church-going man and a fairly well-known, if somewhat less than popular member of the community. He was a code-enforcement officer for Park City, just north of Wichita. Rader was very strict when it came to enforcing such things as lawn mowing and building codes, much more than was necessary, and he was also the animal-control officer. He was a deacon or something in the local Lutheren Church. That is one of the things that led to his capture. He typed a message to the media, using a computer disc that he took from his church, and left the disc for the local Fox affiliate. The police were able to pick up some data from the disc that had not been erased, and were able to trace it back to the church and the computer that he used. He was one of the people authorized to use the computer and the police put two and two together. If he hadn't been so cheap, he would not have been caught. That is how most crooks are caught; they make dumb mistakes. They ain't all Professor Moriarity.
And yes; I think Rader is a walking poster-boy for the death penalty. But at the time that the BTK murders were committed, Kansas had no death penalty, and the maximum penalty allowed at this time was life imprisonment. So that is what he got. And in his case, I think that the term may be pretty accurate. He will spend the rest of his worthless life in prison, which is actually the second-best place for him. A lot of people would have paid to spring the trap on him if they were given the opportunity. Like I said before, it's just too damn bad that Kansas dismantled the gallows in Lansing.
Rader was unusual also in his choice of victims. Most serial killers choose someone that most of us don't value too highly, (prostitutes, gays, etc.). Rader, and Ted Bundy as well, went after ordinary people--housewives, college co-eds, and even little girls. However, Rader, unlike Bundy, also killed men. The male victim was killed along with his entire family, including an eleven-year-old girl.
Anyway, now that I have you nice and depressed, I'll sign off. The lesson on serial killers is over for now.
Until next time.

[–] hobnob53 17 years ago

Thanks gary! Especially as I'm not versed on what one of King's characters said about NY Dems! Or...should I say thanks...? Hmmm....

Decided to horn in on your and xerxes's exchange a few entries farther down, as you may see.

If nothing else we may at least get the replies back in sequence.

hob

[–] xerses13 17 years ago

Is this not a little off topic.

[–] gary_overman 17 years ago

<Is this not a little off topic.>

Perhaps, but what does it hurt?

[–] xerses13 17 years ago

We just think it junks up the original topic line. If there needs such a debate it should be under a appropriate message board. Fail to see what the BTK Criminals has to do with this movie. It is not a matter of pain but organization.

[–] gary_overman 17 years ago

<We just think it junks up the original topic line. If there needs such a debate it should be under a appropriate message board. Fail to see what the BTK Criminals has to do with this movie. It is not a matter of pain but organization.>

You got a mouse in your pocket? Anyway, we responded to your post of a day ago if you want to look at it.

[–] oldblackandwhite 14 years ago

I hate to be picky, but...NASA certainly would not have issued these 1957 space jockeys revolvers or anything else. NASA was not established until Oct 1958. Before that such space program as existed was handled by the Air Force with some early high altitude baloon experiments by the Navy.

Maybe these astronauts felt as I do about it -- just don't like going anywhere without some kind of a gun.

He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good... St. Matthew 5:45

[–] gary_overman 14 years ago

<I hate to be picky, but...NASA certainly would not have issued these 1957 space jockeys revolvers or anything else. NASA was not established until Oct 1958. Before that such space program as existed was handled by the Air Force with some early high altitude baloon experiments by the Navy.

Maybe these astronauts felt as I do about it -- just don't like going anywhere without some kind of a gun.>

Well, OK then; your point about NASA is taken, but I did find out that the USAF did often issue either a Colt, or more likely a S&W 38 special revolver plus two reloads (eighteen rounds altogether) to its' pilots, etc.
I think that it was mentioned earlier in this thread.

[–] oldblackandwhite 14 years ago

That seems like a lot of ammo to carry for a weapon, the main purpose of which is to finish yourself off if you are trapped in a burning airplane.

The AF was still toting .38 revolvers when I was in the Navy in the late 1960's(and had occasional contact with the AF). I never noticed any but S & W's, but that doesn't mean they didn't have Colts as well.

He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good... St. Matthew 5:45

[–] xerses13 14 years ago

oldblackandwhite; U.S.M.C. here and we carried more ammunition typically then normal when we could. In addition too my service Rifle M16, one magazine in the rifle plus six (6) combat loaded. Had my .45 1911 Colt, one in the Pistol plus four (4) spare magazines each combat loaded. Now that was during early 1970s' service and not even in combat, just a training excersise. Plus a box of fifty (50) rounds of .45 in my pack.

[–] xerses13 17 years ago

A shortage of ammunition seems to be a common thread in Sci-Fi movies and Gangster films. Just going to the range and we would bring about 500 rounds apiece. Thats only ten (10) boxes of pistol ammunition. Only in the film HEAT(1995) does everybody seem to have brought the right amount of ammo. Anyway they had the wrong pistols in the first place, should have been .45acp Colt Model 1911 plus shotguns 12Gauge pumps. Good for all around defense and food aquistion.

[–] gary_overman 17 years ago

<A shortage of ammunition seems to be a common thread in Sci-Fi movies and Gangster films. Just going to the range and we would bring about 500 rounds apiece. Thats only ten (10) boxes of pistol ammunition. Only in the film HEAT(1995) does everybody seem to have brought the right amount of ammo. Anyway they had the wrong pistols in the first place, should have been .45acp Colt Model 1911 plus shotguns 12Gauge pumps. Good for all around defense and food aquistion.>

One of the reasons that I really liked this film was because they did not use the 1911. I prefer the S&W M&P that our heroes used in this film. And the M&P was very widely issued to USAF people in the 1950's and NASA was largely affiliated with the Air Force, more so than with the Army.
Don't get me wrong: the 1911 is a great gun, but it was only one of several handguns issued to the US military.
As far as 500 rounds goes, you sound like a man after my own heart!
Have you seen WWE? If so, what did you think of it?
And welcome to the discussion!

[–] xerses13 17 years ago

Yes, we have seen WWE and have a copy of it we recorded (VHS) off late night T.V. editing out the commercials. Some time in the 1980s and not wide screen. We would have commented on the movie but so many others have already covered the ground quite well. We rated it a six (6) ****** which we feel is fair for a very entertaining ALLIED ARTISTS effort.

You are quite right about the S&W M&P, it was widely used by the U.S. Air Force
(U.S.A.F.). We prefer though the stopping power of the 1911. If made today the AstroNauts no doubt whould be armed with Heckler & Koch U.S.P. in .40S&W backed up with MP5s in the same caliber. Our personal favorite is an old Webley Top Break Service Revolver from WWI. This model and been rechambered from .455 British to .45acp. We have found the Webley to be the most reliable and rugged revolver in our experience. Though the trigger pull is a little heavy in double action fire.

[–] gary_overman 17 years ago

<You are quite right about the S&W M&P, it was widely used by the U.S. Air Force
(U.S.A.F.). We prefer though the stopping power of the 1911. If made today the AstroNauts no doubt whould be armed with Heckler & Koch U.S.P. in .40S&W backed up with MP5s in the same caliber. Our personal favorite is an old Webley Top Break Service Revolver from WWI. This model and been rechambered from .455 British to .45acp. We have found the Webley to be the most reliable and rugged revolver in our experience. Though the trigger pull is a little heavy in double action fire.>

I must agree to disagree agreeably with you about the strength of the Webley. My reasoning tells me that a solid-frame revolver such as the S&W N-frame or a heavy-frame Colt would be much more rugged than a break-top such as the Webley. It seems to me that the Webley would shoot loose much faster than the solid frame guns would. That was one of the reasons that the old Remington cap and ball was favored by some over the Colt Navy and other arms of the period.The Remington was a solid frame with a top strap whereas the Colt was not.

Just curious about something: I notice that you refer to yourself in the plural. Is there more than one person that you are speaking for? No flame intended; like I said before, I'm just curious.

[–] xerses13 17 years ago

We have a tendency to use both in referencing ourself. As for the Webley our model has seen service in both World Wars and considerable use by myself. It is tight. The construction of the Webley is considerably heavier then the Colt open top cap and balls or the S&W topbreaks. Both Colt and Smith&Wesson Model 1917 .45acp were well built and rugged revolvers. We have them also. The Webleys ejection system is better shrouded from dirt and the lockup is more dependable and durable in field conditions. The automatic ejection system facilitates reloading wether using auto-rim or full moon clips. If you ever handle one you will see its weight is similair to a S&W N Frame.

[–] hobnob53 17 years ago

Glad to see gary and xerxes off serial killers, but to echo x's (one or both of him!) prior inquiry, are we not getting a bit off topic here?

Our boys in WWE had whatever they had, or could make. Guns, bazookas, whatever. It was a start.

By the way, xerxes, too bad you never bought the VHS of WWE. Pan and scan like your off-the-air tape, but at least it would have been less choppy than cutting out the ads.

Many of us are still hoping for a DVD.

Far be it for me to interrupt a heady discussion, but an occasional tack back to the original topic (or at any rate the movie) seems appropriate.

Anyway, wouldn't you think that a civilization residing underground for 300 years might spawn a few serial killers of its own every now and then? I mean, talk about a constricting atmosphere.

hob

[–] xerses13 17 years ago

Mr. hobnob53...Do not know if a civilization residing underground for 300 years would spawn serial killers but the health problems they suffered in the movie may have killed them off alot sooner. Unless their diet had supplements that replace what benefits we get from the sun many infirmities would strike them. Starting with Rickets I believe which effects young children and prevents their healthy growth. That may be more of a problem then a few nut cases.

[–] gary_overman 17 years ago

Well, even if I don't necessarily agree with you, you seem to know your guns anyway. My compliments, sir. (I presume that you are a guy.) What part of the country do you live in? I live in Kansas, as you no doubt gathered.

[–] xerses13 17 years ago

No we did not pick up that you are from Kansas even though we have relatives there. We are near Chicago, Illinois. Home of the Gangster and the Tommy Gun. Yes I am a male. Some of the other commentators have mentioned that they have seen WWE on TCM in a widescreen presentation. We follow Turner Classic Movies faithfully but cannot recall the movie being shown. Maybe this October it would be scheduled for their Halloween program. We intend to contact TCM and recommend the same if others on the message board did likewise maybe it will make an appearance.

[–] gary_overman 17 years ago

So, do you like post-apocalyptic stuff? Myself, I love it.

[–] xerses13 17 years ago

YES, we do. My late Brother and I read WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE and AFTER WORLDS COLLIDE in the mid 1960s. As well as H. G. Wells' THE WAR IN THE AIR and seeing WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE (1951) and others like WORLD WITHOUT END (1956) or the DAY THE WORLD ENDED (1955) on T.V. in the 60s. Usually in October when the local affiliates turned over their late afternoon programming to their Halloween dedications. We rushed home from school to see these GEMS!

Later silents were viewed, starting with NOAH'S ARK (1928) directed by Michael Curtiz and THE TRAIL OF 98 (1928) by Clarence Brown. Though the latter was actual an adventure film with great disaster scenes, like THE WINNING OF BARBARA WORTH (1926). Other earlier silent apocalyptic/disaster films where only seen in fragments in documentaries. For early sound apocalyptic films you must see END OF THE WORLD/Fin du Monde, La (1931) directed by Abel Gance. A Comet hitting the Earth predating DEEP IMPACT (1998). The film is a interesting attempt, but hampered by budget, Gance not having the resources in Great Depression France that he had for NAPOLEON (1927). Its saving grace is seeing a early performance of the fine character actor Victor Francen who did great work for Warner Brothers (WB) in the 1940s as well as other studios into the 50s. Another rare film worth watching is RKOs' DELUGE (1933). Salvaged from the 'LOST' catagory from a print from Italy it is available through www.creepyclassics.com on VHS. It is not complete and is subtitled coming from a Italian print. You may have seen some of the 'End of the World' scenes as they were used in the Republic Serial KING OF THE ROCKETMEN (1949) and the comedy film J-MEN FOREVER (1979). Of course the standard for this type of film was set by Alexander Kordas THINGS TO COME (1936). Unfortunetly there are no completely restored versions of this available. The best being the recent versions from LEGEND supervised by Ray HarryHausen with both original B&W and Colorized versions.

We have most of the current end of the world films in our DVD inventory and have sceen MANY others. You name it and we have seen it. Then of course we try to see as many films as possible of all genres'. The stuff we do not have and cannot stand is that CRAP by Kevin Costner. Both WATERWORLD (1995) and THE POSTMAN (1997) commit the worst crime film can do being self indulgent TOTAL BORES.

[–] gary_overman 17 years ago

As I said in the WWC (2008) forum, I loved the book(s) When Worlds Collide/After Worlds Collide, but did not much care for the 1951 film. The acting was good, and the special effects were as well, but there were too many changes from the book for my tastes. That is one of many reasons that I liked the ABC mini-series, The Stand. Stephen King wrote both the book and the teleplay and he kept it pretty close to the 1978 book. In general, the closer a movie is to the book, the better I like it. I do hope that Spielberg bases the 2008 film on the book rather than the 1951 film and that he keeps it fairly close to the book(s). And yes, I hope that they do the movie on After Worlds Collide as well. Those two are my favorite fiction books.
Hob and I have a thread going over at The Day the World Ended. We both have that film and we really enjoy discussing it and other related things as well. Hob is a good guy. Even though he and I disagree on some things, the exchanges between us are gentlemanly and civilized.
On another subject, I have just finished the Mad Max series. The first one, I had seen some time ago, and I just recently got the other two. I thought they were entertaining. As you probably know, they are set in post-nuclear Australia.

So, what do you have to say about the subject of this board WWE? Both Hob and myself liked it and think that there is room for a sequel, but not a remake. Perhaps one where XRM is repaired and our heroes find other survivors. Some would be freindly and others would be hostile. I'd love for Warner Brothers to run with this idea. What do you think?

[–] xerses13 17 years ago

We have enjoyed the subject on WWE. Looking at the high response rate so did many other people. We looked into your other board in DAY THE WORLD ENDED (1955). You have both covered it well. Our only thought is that EMP falls off fairly quickly from the epicenter of the Nuclear Explosion and the mountains would have easily shielded them from any residual effects. You are both right about the FallOut. Unless they have a Lead lined roof on that house and lead like siding they are in trouble. The house would also have to be hosed down. Our Navys ships have this feature to wash off contaminates. In addition the interior of the house would have to have a slightly higher pressure then the outside to keep contaminated dust out. It is not NBC proof by any definition of the term.

As for a feature version of WWE. It may be practical for a mini-series or two (2) part movie on the Sci-Fi Channel but do not think it is viably commercial venture for a feature. Did not know that Warner Brothers (WB) had the rights to United Artist projects, but would not be surprised.

Judging from the trouble they had in manufaturing rudimentary items like firearms and cartriges, repairing a SpaceCraft as complex as the XRM would be way beyond their capabilities. As suggested in the original film though salvaging the ship is practical. Maybe it would be possible to use the airfoils and construct a new aircraft around a smaller and more useful fuselage adapted for use in the atmosphere. It would all depend upon what degree of manufacturing capacity that the survivors underground city has. Also what scientific and technological records remain concerning aircraft and avionics. With the records it should not be a problem at all.

[–] blondinii 17 years ago

Are you guys familiar with AMAZON WOMEN ON THE MOON (1985) ? It is a spoof of 1950's Schlock-Fi -esp QOOS.

[–] gary_overman 17 years ago

<Are you guys familiar with AMAZON WOMEN ON THE MOON (1985) ? It is a spoof of 1950's Schlock-Fi -esp QOOS.>

Welcome back, Mr Fisher! I can vaguely recall something like that, and I may have even rented it from a video store, but I can't recall anything about the film. Was it any good?

[–] gary_overman 16 years ago

I was speaking to an Air Force veteran about this and according to him, when you underwent your survival training, you only had the ammunition that was in the revolvers plus two reloads. The reason for this was that they wanted you to have the gun just in case, but did not expect that you would ever have to use it, so why carry the extra weight?

[–] xerses13 17 years ago

Referencing AMAZON WOMEN OF THE MOON (1985)

Yes we are/did. It is an enjoyable little parody which reflected pretty closely on the idiosyncracies of the 'Post MidNight' theaters that were run by local T.V. affilliates in the 1950s through the 1960s. These featured cheapo horror/sci-fi or obscure foreign films and we are not talking about ALEXANDER NEVESKY (1938). Films which did often break in the middle of broadcast. These 'Theaters' would usually be featured Friday and Saturday night starting at 12:00am. The prints of these films were of the worst quality remembered and must have come from 16mm dupes. Also featured, frequent and overlong commercial interruptions. Sometimes with a ratio of one (1) to one (1), commercial to film minute. I can sometimes remember the commercials more then I can recall the films shown. One (1) being for a auto paint company called 'Earl Schrieb' which threw in $10.00 of body work for a $19.99 paint job and that would be for the whole car. Another was for a used car dealership called 'Courtesy Motors' with "JIM MORAN YOUR COURTESY MAN!" and 'Candor Electric' which also promoted Professional Wrestling and would have said "Pro" as their spokesperson. Music for theater intro and exits was usually SYNCOPATED CLOCK by Leroy Anderson.

[–] blondinii 17 years ago

XERSES------ is a regular wikipedia of this triviola...

[–] xerses13 17 years ago

We are taking this as a complement, but it does not take much to absorb this information or use it. The History, Discovery, Military, Science channels and their derivatives deluge any watcher with this information. All it takes is remembering it and intergrating with your own life experiences.

[–] xerses13 17 years ago

AMAZON WOMEN OF THE MOON (1985) is being featured this month on ENCORE cable stations.

[–] gary_overman 15 years ago

One thing that I noticed was that once the 'Tunnelites' seemed to learn how it was done, they didn't seem to have any trouble making reliable ammunition. In spite of their fear and loathing of weapons, they must have preserved many of the old books and some of these books very likely had descriptions of how to make small arms ammunition.
And since Borden has told us that he had 'seen the shops--they can build anything' the brass casings would be fairly easy to make and the propellant powder would not be hard, nor would the bullets. The most challenging thing to produce, I think, would be the primers--the caps to the non-firearms people among us--but even these could be made after a bunch of head-scratching.
Any other thoughts on this?
In any event, the 'Tunnelites' seemed, in the film at least, to have solved the problem.

[–] xerses13 15 years ago

gary overman; Yes, if you have the technology to survive underground for several hundred years the manufacturing of firearms should be 'child's play'.
The chemical make-up of 'smokeless powder' nitrocellulose is a relatively simple chemical compound and non of the rest is technologically challenging, including the primers. In fact it would have been better to skip a Revolver design and go straight for a Auto-Matic once the ammunition problem was solved.

The evolution of modern firearms design is to make it more durable, reliable and simpler. In other words, fewer parts to break or cause a malfunction and to be more cost effective. That is why modern handguns are just improvements of John Browning's genius design, the Model 1911. He showed the way along with Berthold Geipel & Heinrich Vollmer's MP-38/40 and Mikhail Kalashnikov's AK-47.

To give a recent Historical example the Lee-Enfield S.M.L.E. has been successfully reproduced in the KYHBER PASS COPIES. They are of variable quality but are far more difficult to manufacture then the before mentioned weapons. If that can be done under such primitive conditions it should have given the 'Tunnelites' no problem at all.

[–] gary_overman 15 years ago

While I recognize that semi-automatics have certain advantages, I still prefer the revolver. For that reason, I would hope that the 'Tunnelites' continue to make wheelguns. Preferably of the Colt, Smith & Wesson or Ruger variety.
Even though I am legally permitted to carry semi-autos here in Oklahoma (I qualified with a Glock) I still prefer to carry one of my many S&W or even Colt wheelguns.
As long as my guns (either revolvers or semi-autos) are taken care of, they will take care of me. It is primarily a matter of due care.
Neither type is perfect; both have given me a few problems along the way, but in my experience, and here YMMV, revolvers have been at least as reliable as auto's.
Besides that, I just like 'em better.
I hope the 'Tunnelites' continue with revolvers myself.

[–] xerses13 15 years ago

gary overman; Pesonally I have no preference between the two (2). Most of the quality producers offer both. From a manufacturing standpoint Automatics are simpler so the 'Tunnelites' would get more bang from their limited resources. As for the subject of reliability in harsh conditions the Automatic has proven to have a edge. That is why the M&P prefer it.

[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] xerses13 14 years ago

wreckerrr; Yes, INVISABLE IVADERS (1959). One of those films that John Carradine did to pick up a fast buck so he could pay the bills and get back treading the boards. No doubt in a local production of RICHARD III! I rate it IMDB Four****Stars, still a good watch.

[–] gary_overman 13 years ago

Any further thoughts on why so little ammo?

[–] xerses13 13 years ago

gary overman; Not really, though as you can see have not commented on this thread for a-long time. Though force of habit even to this day I always bring more ammunition then I need.

[–] gary_overman 13 years ago

You and me both do, it seems.

Besides, this is an interesting thread--at least to me.

[–] xerses13 13 years ago

gary overman; Understand the interest. These '50s' Sci-Fi & Monster films have a undying charm about them. Our DVD of WORLD WITHOUT END (1956) is a first rate copy which enhances the viewing enjoyment. Even crap from ED WOOD is a enjoyable watch provided the print is crisp and the sound clean.

Of course the films of MR. B.I.G. are handicapped by the musical scores of ALBERT GLASSER. As TOM & CROW related on M.S.T.3.K. he holds you down and pummels you with music!

[–] gary_overman 13 years ago

Just thought that I would note a milestone for this thread. It is more than five years old and it is also the first thread that I ever started on IMDb.

[–] hobnob53 13 years ago

A milestone that has not become a millstone! Congratulations, gary!

Best wishes from Naga and the boys, too!

[–] xerses13 13 years ago

hobnob53; Seem to remember you from WAY BACK. Did not you have some hang-up that Colorization was going to take over all 'Classic Cinema'. Still waiting for that to happen. If I am wrong, will apologize.

[–] xerses13 13 years ago

gary overman; Yes, which coincides with the showing of the film on TCM this past Saturday (06/16/2012) and they still needed .45 Colts!

[–] hobnob53 13 years ago

xerxes13: yes, I remember you too. You don't recall my opinion about colorization quite correctly, however.

First, I don't know that it's really a "hang-up", but if you want to use that term I won't argue the point. Certainly I am opposed to colorization, or indeed to any alteration of any kind to a film from the way it was originally made.

Second, I never said or believed that colorization "was going to take over all 'Classic Cinema'". That's a false characterization. I have argued on a few sites of movies that have been colorized (or where people have wished that a movie would be colorized) about why colorization is, to put it simply, a con job and artistically worthless.

There has been a slow creep of a few films being colorized, but fortunately it's never become as widespread as it once was in VHS days. Also, with DVD you can "toggle" the effect so that a colorized film can at least be seen in black and white, though that's not a reason to colorize. I actually bought two colorized DVDs, It Came From Beneath the Sea and Earth vs. The Flying Saucers, but only because the prints on those discs were letterboxed, and complete in having the Columbia logos at the beginning and end, as the films were originally made. (The first DVDs of those films lacked both attributes.) But I watch them in their accurate format, b&w.

I was happy to see that Ray Harryhausen, who originally helped in the colorization of these films, his own 20,000,000 Miles to Earth, and films he had nothing to do with such as She and Things to Come, was appalled at the way they turned out and regretted ever agreeing to help have them colorized.

[–] xerses13 13 years ago

hobnob53; Judging from the length of your reply I hit a REAL or REEL nerve. For it is disportionate too our post. At the time of our original communication you were certain about the wide spread colorization of film. It was I who refuted it and showed historically how it was limited in the 1980s and did not take hold. I was right again, these new efforts at colorization have limited appeal.

You are rewriting history, because going back to your original posts you threw a hand wringing 'hissy fit' about the issue. Like today, or with your last post disportionate to reality. Is it so painful to admit somebody else was right? I said back then there was nothing to fear and I was right and remember your frustrations quite well and correctly. You must be a 'Liberal' they never like to be confronted by their historical hypocrisy's. We are at least consistent.

[–] hobnob53 13 years ago

You know, xerxes, I recall now why I did not care much to talk with you, because you tend to be gratuitously abusive as well as too smug for your own good, or reality: this "I'm always right" attitude you tend to assume, mindless and irrelevant political shots, distortions of what people say, and your silly and childish demand that everyone actually has to acknowlege it when you're right about something. I also recall your various entries saying bizarre things such as "I banish you from this thread!", like an 8-year-old in need of medication. This is all part and parcel of your pathetic need for empty "triumphs" and the delusion that you're dominating others.

My post was lengthy -- as this one is -- because I chose to expound on some things. Not all thought is conducive to one-sentence-long, demagogic harangues. If you care to take that as being out of proportion or defensive that's your opinion, but it has nothing to do with my intent. Okay: I dislike colorization. Period. Brief enough for you?

One last time, and that's it: I was never "certain about the widespread colorization of film." Wrong. I was concerned that it might become more widespread, and luckily, it never did. Yes, it was getting widespread in the 80s on VHS but never took hold then. Who said otherwise? Me? Wrong. Never. That is a lie. I know the historical record as well as, and probably better than, you. "Hissy fit"? You know, one could characterize some of my reactions against colorization that way, if one is prone to abusive language, like you. Were you "right" about colorization back then? Frankly I don't remember, as neither the discussion nor you was at all important, but you probably were right. Feel better now?

Not that any of this makes any difference. You'll always have the need to be acclaimed as right about everything, you can never acknowledge your own mistakes, you just need to bully and spit and live out some infantile fantasies about yourself. The very fact that you're so obsessive about this topic that, years after our previous exchange, you grabbed the chance to raise it again, even going back and making claims about what I said and how brilliant you were, proves how immature, petty and insecure you are. Well, have at it. It's doubtless the only validation you'll ever get in life, false and meaningless as it is.

I also suggest that this board is not the place for such displays or "discussion", so if you have anything further to say to me, send a PM. But then, that would rob you of the audience you so desperately need.

Oh, and while we're nitpicking things, based on your post, I suggest you take a remedial course in grammar and spelling: "disportionate too", "wide spread", "hypocrisy's". Like most right-wing extremists, you have little regard for the niceties of literacy.

[–] OswaldshotKennedy 13 years ago

You showed that guy where to go hob. Good on ya mate!

"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston

[–] gary_overman 13 years ago

<gary overman; Yes, which coincides with the showing of the film on TCM this past Saturday (06/16/2012) and they still needed .45 Colts!>

I think that our heroes did just fine with their S&W Military & Police revolvers. And I just got my TV back yesterday, so I wasn't able to watch anything for quite a while.

Of course I am prejudiced on the S&W's. My avatar on the gun group in Kansas that I still belong to, shows my EDC. It is a S&W model 65 4" that I sent to Mag-Na-Port more than twenty yeas ago. They ported the barrel and rounded the butt.

But, to each his own.

[–] gary_overman 13 years ago

It seems to me that our heroes carried their extra cartridges loose in their pants pockets. Does anyone else recall anything differently?

[–] xerses13 13 years ago

gary overman; Just do not think that the S&W M&P is what they would have brought. Colts, M3 Grease Guns (2) and a couple of Semi-Auto Shotguns. At that time Remington or Winchester! Hump-Backs as John Browning designed.

Nothing wrong though with your choice of weapons. Never saw a S&W I did not like, but after my Brother's passing alot of the collection got purged. Just too much to keep up with. Though kept our 1917 S&W .45acp and others pre-1945.

I had a Old Model Ruger Super BlackHawk .44 Magnum. It was Mag-Na-Ported and been Armoloyed Hard Chromed. This was done in the mid 1970s'. The Mag-Na-Porting is very effective, though at high velocity loads you could feel the pressure 'blow-back' waft over you. As for the finish, being molecular bonded it was the most durable I have ever come across.

I had customized many Firearms. All have been sold off now. I hope their present owners get as much enjoyment from them as I did then.

[–] gary_overman 13 years ago

Went out and did some shooting today in honor of Independence Day. Took my Smith & Wesson Model 10 and a military web belt and flap holster and something to drink (non-alcoholic, of course) and had a blast. I thought of our good friend Naga the whole time.

Then I did a review of the revolver for a shooting forum that I belong to. All-in-all a good, fun day. Happy Fourth of July, everyone.

[–] gary_overman 10 years ago

WOW!! It's hard to believe that the first thread I ever started on IMDb is still around after almost eight years!! 

[–] Gary O. (1015) 8 years ago

This was the first thread that I started on IMDb. It's missing a few posts but it is good to see it.