FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY

Fifty Years Ago Today was Saturday, October 6, 1973 … Egypt and Syria staged a surprise attack on Israel with an invasion of the Israeli-occupied Sinai peninsula and the Golan Heights, beginning the Yom Kippur War…. Born: Ioan Gruffudd, Welsh film and television actor known for the HORNBLOWER films and for FANTASTIC FOUR; in Aberdare, Mid Glamorgan …Died: Sidney Blackmer, 78, American stage and film actor, 1950 Tony Award winner for Come Back, Little Sheba, better known to the masses for ROSEMARY’S BABY (b. 1895);...Dennis Price, 58, English actor who ranged from Ealing comedies early to Jess Franco late, with some Hammer in between, died of heart failure following a hip fracture… Top song in the country was Cher’s “Half-Breed.” That’s all I ever heard…

                                Dennis Price having a bad day at the THEATER OF BLOOD

                                    Sidney Blackmer making life tough for Rosemary, baby.

Hey, I was actually doing a show at this time. We were right in the middle of our run of GUYS AND DOLLS in which I played Sky Masterson. I hadn’t wanted to do the show originally and was sort of trapped into it. Of course, I ultimately loved it and have wonderfully fond memories of it. This was my last non-Equity show, eight months later I joined the union and, against my wishes, was a fully professional actor.

I did see this movie 50 years ago, I swear I did. But I don’t remember anything about it. Not ANYTHING. Generally, even for a movie I don’t remember well, there will be a scene, or a single shot, or at least a feeling held onto from that viewing. But for this one--nothing. Nothing at all. It makes me think that, though the TV was on, and I was there in the room with it, maybe I wasn’t paying so much attention. I wrote the title down on my list, and I felt that I’d earned that, but that list and that small sense of satisfaction are the only evidences I ever had that I had actually seen…

THE FLAME BARRIER

Was this ever called BEYOND THE FLAME BARRIER? Because that’s what I wrote on my index card when I entered it into my files all those ages ago…

Some familiar names under the screenplay credit: Pat Fielder and George Worthing Yates…

The movie gets off to a great ‘50’s black-and-white, sci-fi start: Stock footage, a stentorian narrator and the gorgeous Kathleen Crowley…

Star Arthur Franz has been long noted, primarily based on first-hand testimony from co-workers, to have been a singularly sour, crabby man. Here he found his perfect role. This guy is sour and crabby to the max. Franz could have done this in his sleep…

There they are: Crabby, Pretty, and...who's that again?

This feels like the least familiar (to me) of all ‘50s s-f movies. It’s almost--actually more than “almost”--like watching a totally unknown, unseen flicker…

The look of this jungle reminds me of THE DISEMBODIED, while the endless walking reminds me of MONSTER FROM GREEN HELL. Not a couple of movies one cares to be reminded of. Especially since this one has neither giant wasps nor Allison Hayes as reward for my suffering…

From their meager backpacks they manage to pull out quite a bit, including a tent which, from the outside, looks to be a nicely spacious jungle camp tent. From the inside it looks like the Biltmore Ballroom, or perhaps the hangar for The Spruce Goose…

There’s way too much soap opera in the in-between stuff. Kathleen Crowley--not a bad actress usually--is reduced to arch, obvious, GUIDING LIGHT histrionics…

Non-scientist Franz, with no evidence to go on and with no previously exhibited intelligence, instantly knows exactly what’s going on and what to do with this evidently not-so-superior alien lifeform…

                                                 Here we see the scary, deadly thing from space. 

                                                        Whatever it was. Spooky, huh, kids?

The climax provides a bushel of fake and failed tension as a guy climbs a “dangerous” 12 or 15 feet of fake movie rock. Not tense, just dull and almost laughably predictable…

If memory serves (I’m too old and tired for research), the folks behind this turkey made three other low-budget s-f/horror movies during that same slim era in the ‘50s. The other three were MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD, RETURN OF DRACULA, and THE VAMPIRE. All three of those are nice, well-above-average ‘50s shockers. Each is fun and smart and well worth a Monster Kid’s time. So what the hell happened here? I can only assume that they had run entirely out of money, energy, ideas, and talent. Because this one is crummy, and not crummy in a fun, entertaining way. 

It’s a lousy movie, and I suspect that much of my displeasure here comes from having to spend over an hour with the terminally cranky Arthur Franz.

This was playing at the old hometown drive-in and I didn't attend. Hmmm.

Best guess: I was busy doing a show. And I had a fiancee not enamored of such flicks.

And, I'd already seen three of the four. Maybe THE FLESH AND BLOOD SHOW 

didn't seem worth the trouble.