Five (1951)

0 Kudo

Forum Jump

Author	Comment
Bill Warren		#21	[-]
(02/15/08 2:45 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	Oboler was very lonely, though. You know the old saying--gnome man is an island.
Eric Huffstutler		#22	[-]
(02/15/08 6:27 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	Bill has been watching too many Travelocity commercials!
zogstar67		#23	[-]
(02/29/08 4:06 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	TCM is running this on Friday, May 9.
TomWeaver999		#24	[-]
(05/08/08 6:18 PM) Vazec Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	TCM is having kind of an "end of the world" night tomorrow night, with the little-seen FIVE as the prime-time offering.
Eric Huffstutler		#25	[-]
(05/09/08 8:57 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	Sure would like to see this on a legit DVD release. I have a grey market copy that pulsates and drives me crazy watching it. Also would like a legit DVD release of MGM's "The World, the Flesh, and The Devil" Thought being a Harry Belafonte movie that it would have been released long ago? Eric
cingramaol		#26	[-]
(05/09/08 10:14 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	In addition to Five and World/Flesh/Devil, TCM is airing On the Beach tonight. I'm a fan of all things post-apocalyptic, but find W/F/D and OTB increasingly unrealistic because of the total absence of bodies -- it's as if all the dead just walked away, or vanished into thin air. Five, although filmed on a smaller budget than the other two, seems more credible in this area. C.
HalLane	Eenie, meenie ...	#27	[-]
(05/09/08 12:24 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	zogstar67 wrote: TCM is running this on Friday, May 9. TomWeaver999 wrote: TCM is having kind of an "end of the world" night tomorrow night, with the little-seen FIVE as the prime-time offering. And Monster Kid/Dr. Who/Sarah Jane Adventures fans with single tuner DVRs get a sobering dose of hard choices.
cingramaol		#28	[-]
(05/09/08 9:01 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	Just watched this on TCM, and while it was interesting to see again, the film didn't hold up as well as I'd hoped. It has some striking moments, but hit me as preachy and unsubtle. I guess fifty-plus years can date a film, not to mention the experience of seeing Threads and other graphic nuclear-war films that followed in its wake. C.
HalLane	"Are you immune to corpses piled up like cordwood?"	#29	[-]
(05/09/08 10:29 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	I just watched it and had exactly the opposite reaction -- it's a perfect example of something from nothing : a house, a camera and lots of imagination. And made all the more 'realistic' for it's simplicity : no three eyed mutant or Statue of Liberty needed. Sure the characters were, shall we say, archetypal ( the regular guy likes hamburgers, the sensitive girl dreams of the more dainty strawberries and cream, and it's spare ribs for the black guy), but it got us right to the point with a minimum of dialog, showing what I thought was a lot of restraint coming from a radio writer. Compares very favorably to the work of a certain Twilight Zone scribe too. Michael and Roseanne were suitably ordinary, Charles friendly and pragmatic. And in a rather subtle bout of un-preachiness, only Eric the jerk seemed to notice that Charles was black. All in all a pleasant surprise. And a wonderfully crisp print to boot. Hope TCM runs it again soon. Last Edited By: HalLane 05/09/08 10:32 PM. Edited 1 times.
cingramaol		#30	[-]
(05/09/08 10:59 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	I agree -- it was an excellent print. And not to take anything away from this being one of the first post-apocalyptic films (if not the first); I just found it a bit stilted, especially in the dialogue. Oboler did make the most of what was obviously a miniscule budget. I thought the visit to the deserted city, where the woman learns the fate of her husband, was suitably haunting, but Harry Belafonte had it beat in the next film aired on TCM, The World, The Flesh, and The Devil (which in its second half seemed very preachy and unsubtle, but was no doubt quite daring in 1959). C.
TomWeaver999		#31	[-]
(05/09/08 11:26 PM) Vazec Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	Susan Douglas (the leading lady ... now married to Jan Rubes, the villain in DEAD OF WINTER) watched it again before she talked to me, and one of the things she did, very humorously, was pick it apart ("How come all the dead people turn to skeletons in the time it takes me to walk home?", "My character survived because she was pregnant and getting an x-ray. Pregnant women don't GET x-rayed!", etc., etc.). For the scene where she's running, stumbling, falling as she carries her baby, the crew handed her a REAL BABY that she wasn't quite sure where they got, for her to run around and fall with. I really enjoyed getting her stories.
HalLane	And baby makes SIX	#32	[-]
(05/09/08 11:56 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	Man, I thought that baby looked very realistic! And very still, too (!). Haven't seen this movie in years, but that beautiful print gives me a whole new appreciation. The behind the scenes stories sound fascinating -- where abouts did your interviews appear, Tom? And happy belated birthday to Bill Phipps!
cingramaol		#33	[-]
(05/10/08 12:20 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	TomWeaver999 wrote: Susan Douglas (the leading lady ... now married to Jan Rubes, the villain in DEAD OF WINTER) watched it again before she talked to me, and one of the things she did, very humorously, was pick it apart ("How come all the dead people turn to skeletons in the time it takes me to walk home?", "My character survived because she was pregnant and getting an x-ray. Pregnant women don't GET x-rayed!", etc., etc.). It does seem unlikely that everybody would be "skeletized" in such a short period of time, but the "science" falls down in so many of these movies. In World/Flesh/Devil, the planet is encircled by radioactive dust (from "sodium isotopes") which is lethal for around five days. Why didn't everyone just take shelter for a week? Why isn't there a single corpse in all of Manhattan? Alas, if one analyzes too closely, the fun of these films falls apart. C.
TomWeaver999		#34	[-]
(05/10/08 8:16 AM) Vazec Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	<< The behind the scenes stories sound fascinating -- where abouts did your interviews appear, Tom? << The Phipps and Douglas interviews both appeared in STARLOG. The Douglas one had a sidebar in which I talked to the FIVE crew member who got punched in the face and all cut-up by Oboler one day, when he (Oboler) went wild over an insult. (A different crew member started making fun of the talky movie they were making, and said it might win the Peabody Award for radio!) Phipps and Douglas are also in two of my McFarland compilations. My interview with Phipps, who loves to act gruff but is really an old pussycat, was in the early '90s, and he's been calling me several times a month since, just to chitchat, and still hasn't run out of stories. It was he who got Charles Laughton to consider Robert Mitchum for THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (Laughton was thinking of Gary Cooper!). It was fun hearing Robert Osborne talking about Phipps after FIVE last night; I hope Phipps was watching.
HalLane		#35	[-]
(05/10/08 11:58 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	Thankee kindly, Tom Yeah, it was a kick to hear Osborne's remarks about Bill Phipps -- while the end credits rolled, I'd done the math and thought to myself "aaw, these actors HAVE to be all gone by now.....".
TomWeaver999		#36	[-]
(05/10/08 12:47 PM) Vazec Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	Susan Douglas is "only" 80. I just looked at IMDb to see if she's done anything lately, but in their usual way, they've got her credits spread out over three names and it's a complete mess.
cingramaol		#37	[-]
(05/10/08 1:45 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	I seem to be out of my depth here. You folks appear to be professionals and interviewers, whereas I'm just a fan, with no real stories to tell. Enjoy, and best wishes. C.
pcvin.radiationtheater	Five Just Released on DVD.	#38	[-]
(04/03/09 12:43 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	Arch Obler's Sci-Fi epic - FIVE from 1951 The man known for his classic radio show "Light Out" hit the big screen in 1951 with this post-nuclear war science fiction film. Five survivors of nuclear war hole up in an amazing, futuristic house (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright). But, conflict, tension, and thrills could lead to the extinction of the remaining five people on our earth! Finally released to DVD, this was in theatre the same time the other early science fiction film was - THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD. Get FIVE (1951) today in our New DVD Department here at Creepy Classics.
Grant		#39	[-]
(04/03/09 1:09 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	Speaking of "archetypes," I have one problem with the Eric character that's no fault of the movie, and that's that he reminds me of that lame "Euro-Trash" stereotype that became so popular along the way. I always expect him to say "You stupid Americans!" in a thick accent!
Andrew Kidd		#40	[-]
(09/16/09 9:03 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite	I finally got the chance to see this for the first time. The first and last twenty to thirty minutes are pretty good, what comes in between is pretty talky and interminable, but it's overall pretty interesting, the closest thing to a neorealist science fiction film that I've seen.

<< Previous Topic Next Topic >>

Add Reply

Yuku free message boards

Five (1951)

Quick Reply