The only way it could be improved would be to turn it over to Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Or maybe it was, if there is any cinematic justice.
and for those who must know my reasons, here are a few....
1) terrible writing: Deena: "only the ugly ones are dangerous." And how did they know it would be soon be dark before they knew what planet they were on? Another puzzling thing was why they were all firing pistols at their friend who's in the grips of the beasts in a fast motion struggle. Are you all such good shots that you're certain you're not going to hit the wrong one? Also firing guns out in the open, with spears being hurled at you...you really should be taking cover behind one of those fake rocks, the same rocks you'll be firing your makeshift bazooka at later. I didn't understand why they fired at the rocks in the first place and not at the beasts.
2) terrible acting: or maybe Mories' murderous rampage was supposed to look like he had never fought before. either way it was ludicrous.
3) Rod Taylor...I know he's Australian, but whatever accent he's trying to do, didn't sound aussie or british. it just sounded really fake and pretentious.
4) Hugh Marlowe...how could he have gone from All About Eve to this? whose dick was he sucking to be in that film?
5) the special effects, especially in the out of control space scenes at the beginning were so bad. I think Ed Wood could have done better.
6) Costumes...what was with the skull caps? and the girls outfits were obviously left over from The Queen of Outer Space, which by the way was Shakespeare by comparison. OOPS, sorry, I am mistaken QOOS came after this. It is still a breath of fresh air by comparison.
I like me some bad 50s sci-fi, the kind that are so bad they're good, but this was worse than that type of bad, and hence, NOT GOOD.
Well, I thought that the plot, cast and script were pretty good myself, but I do agree that the special effects were crude especially when compared to today's efforts.
Gary is, as usual, quite right that most of this is simply personal opinions (the OP's and ours), but with all respect, I strongly disagree with the OP's views, some of which I really find inexplicable. To take his points:
1) terrible writing: Deena: "only the ugly ones are dangerous." And how did they know it would be soon be dark before they knew what planet they were on? Another puzzling thing was why they were all firing pistols at their friend who's in the grips of the beasts in a fast motion struggle. Are you all such good shots that you're certain you're not going to hit the wrong one? Also firing guns out in the open, with spears being hurled at you...you really should be taking cover behind one of those fake rocks, the same rocks you'll be firing your makeshift bazooka at later. I didn't understand why they fired at the rocks in the first place and not at the beasts.
1) (I'm subdividing the OP's remarks here.) (a) Terrible writing? Compared to most medium-to-low budget sci-fi films of the 50s, World Without End actually has a very good script. It's logical within the film's context, developed sensibly, and in fact does not have the kind of silly or inept dialogue or narrative that truly poor films have. As for Deena's line (which actually is, "Only the ugly ones fight"), what's bad about that? It's perfectly in keeping with the character and plot background of the film. Even in this picture, I could come up with worse lines. This criticism, or the example given, I don't get at all. (b) They knew it would be dark soon because they could see the sun getting lower. Not complicated. Frankly I'd think a better criticism is that they don't realize it's a 24-hour day. (c) But a good point about the guys firing so close to their friend -- careless, to say the least. And they should have taken cover behind the rocks when the beasts attack -- only those weren't fake rocks. The scenes out in the open were shot on location and the rocks were real. (d) Firing the bazooka at the rocks instead of directly at the mutates makes far more sense in that the explosion would shoot shards of rock (and shrapnel) into the beasts, killing or injuring most of them and creating mass panic among the rest. If they fired the bazooka at the beasts themselves they couldn't hit more than one or two at most and would lose all the ancillary damaging effects hitting the rocks brings...assuming they didn't miss a targeted beast altogether, a strong possibility. Large, stationary rocks make much better targets and amplify the destruction.
2) terrible acting: or maybe Mories' murderous rampage was supposed to look like he had never fought before. either way it was ludicrous.
2) Again, a matter of personal opinion. Generally I think the acting was quite solid for this sort of film. Frankly I don't understand this business about Mories "supposed to look like he had never fought before". That's the point: he hadn't. None of them had. Actor Booth Colman (Mories) may have been a tad over the top but was still perfectly acceptable in a role that called for such a characterization. The other actors were likewise all professionals and perfectly fine in the film.
3) Rod Taylor...I know he's Australian, but whatever accent he's trying to do, didn't sound aussie or british. it just sounded really fake and pretentious.
3) I've also always been unsure what Aussie Rod Taylor's character's nationality was supposed to be. My wife, who's English, says he sounds English to her, so I bow to her greater knowledge in this area. But I don't find anything fake, or certainly pretentious, in his accent.
4) Hugh Marlowe...how could he have gone from All About Eve to this? whose dick was he sucking to be in that film?
Well, we'll set aside the juvenile and unimaginative second "question" and concentrate on the first. Hugh Marlowe had been a radio announcer and stage actor with a few scattered films under his belt when he was signed by 20th Century Fox as a character actor in 1949. He did some excellent films there (Come to the Stable, Twelve O'Clock High, All About Eve, The Day the Earth Stood Still, etc.), but after Fox dropped him in 1954 he found good roles harder to get and like most actors had to take whatever he was offered. Even big name stars have often been forced to accept lesser films at some point after the height of their careers, and Marlowe was never a big star. And he did later have important supporting roles in major films such as Elmer Gantry, Birdman of Alcatraz and Seven Days in May. I met him a couple of years before he died (a friend of mine was the writer of the daytime soap opera Another World in which Marlowe starred). He was a nice guy who had had a decent, lifelong acting career, which is more than many performers have managed.
5) the special effects, especially in the out of control space scenes at the beginning were so bad. I think Ed Wood could have done better.
Well, first, Ed Wood didn't do better, so that observation is wrong. But actually, there isn't all that much in the way of special effects in this movie, and all of that early on -- in space, the landing, plus the spiders. Now, it's true that some of the effects are dicey -- those pillow spiders in particular, which could have been much better. The shots of the ship going through the time barrier aren't all that great, but they're serviceable enough. On the other hand, the pre-barrier shots of the rocket in space are pretty good, and the depiction of Mars is downright terrific -- with mountains, valleys, a shaded and contoured landscape, not just some flat disc, probably the best such image in any sci-fi film of the era, and for many years after. Compared to most films of its time and budget, WWE's effects, while decidedly mixed in quality, are as good or better than its contemporaries.
6) Costumes...what was with the skull caps? and the girls outfits were obviously left over from The Queen of Outer Space, which by the way was Shakespeare by comparison. OOPS, sorry, I am mistaken QOOS came after this. It is still a breath of fresh air by comparison.
Yes, QOOS came two years later -- courtesy the same director and studio, and copping some of those effects scenes from WWE. The women's costumes here are the kind of thing you'd expect in a film of that era, and incidentally, they're not the same ones used in QOOS (which did, however, borrow and re-use the male uniforms from Forbidden Planet). The skullcaps? Yeah, all right, I guess it made the men appear (appropriately) older and weak, but what's the big deal? As to the two movies, QOOS is amusing to watch, but to me its silliness doesn't stand up against the admittedly serious but more involving WWE.
I like me some bad 50s sci-fi, the kind that are so bad they're good, but this was worse than that type of bad, and hence, NOT GOOD.
Like I said, it's all personal opinion, but in my opinion that observation couldn't be more wrong, and unfair. Allied Artists put some care and effort into this production. World Without End was the first science fiction film shot in CinemaScope, it was filmed in costlier color, it has a good cast and believable plot and characters. The shortcomings in its effects are due to budgetary constraints and the technical limitations of the time, which can't be held against the film, and in fact many of these sequences are pretty well realized. This isn't a so-bad-it's-good movie; most reviews were positive, in 1956 and since. Again, everyone's entitled to their opinion, but it's pretty hard to see how this film could be considered worse than the large number of truly cheap and poorly-made (if usually fun) sci-fi films of the decade.
To use a respectful variant of the OP's last comment: this movie is, hence, VERY GOOD.
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WWE is an enjoyable 1950's sci-fi flick. Saying that Ed Wood would do better is just trolling for the hell of it. Only Rod Taylor's weird accent was the only no-no in this imaginative space opera.
"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston
Was Rod's accent "weird", Os? "Weird" is a pretty strong word, I think. I mean, perhaps unidentifiable or somehow inapt, but as I said C thinks it sounds English (or at least more English than anything else).
However, I'll leave that dispute to the more knowledgeable people on the front lines of the Great Great Britain Linguistic Free-For-All, which I have no doubt will still be raging in 2508, King's English vs. BBC vs. Glaswegian vs. Geordie vs....pretty much everyone.
Or might that be the Queen's (of Outer Space) English?
(Incidentally, check SOTI for my Yma YouTube comment!)
Hey Hob, how ya been? Just thought I'd let you know that I got my book copyrighted a few days ago.
And FWIW, I don't think that the gentleman (the OP) was trolling. He was just expressing an opinion that differed from ours. That is, aside form his rather crude reference to Hugh Marlow.
As far as Taylor's accent, I think that I'll leave that issue to people that know what they're talking about. That isn't me.
Hey, g, I was wondering how you were too. Great news about your book! I was thinking of that project the other day as well.
BTW, my wife narrates audio books, so if you're ever looking for someone to do yours -- maybe an English accent (of indeterminant nature) would add a bit of class...you know, with a capital K. She's been getting a lot of varied work and your little doomsday epic would be a welcome change from some of that gooey love stuff she's been doing of late. Seriously.
No, I never thought the OP was in any way a troll, just a decent guy expressing his honest if demonstrably indefensible, illogical and counter-factually negative opinions about WWE.
Hey hob, The Pale Horse by yours truly is now available on Kindle. A word of warning, however: it might not be the right choice for you if you are easily offended, as some of the language and situations are extremely coarse.
I felt that I had to warn you because your ears are very pure and delicate. *
Why, you dirty-minded @&*)%#!)&^#(%##(&^!_?<>$!@?/[]%$!!!
As to your opus, I know what you're really anticipating -- that someone, sometime -- perhaps, oh, I don't know, maybe 495 years from now -- gets the chance to say:
"We will study the old books together. Books which are ancient to us, but which were the life of your times."
Of course, James was probably referring to The World Almanac, but still....