The Noble Experiment is indeed a science fiction/fantasy movie about a brilliant amateur scientist who creates a "get-along" pill that makes everyone who takes it instantly happy. It's a 35 mm color film shot completely independently in Orange County, California between 1954 and 1955. The only known print is now at the UCLA Film and Television Archives for restoration. And just like Graeff's second feature, Teenagers from Outer Space, it was shot with all the dialogue pre-recorded and then lip-synced by the actors on set.

There aren't 10 jillion competing factors working on Graeff projects. There are two projects: a documentary about the making of Teenagers from Outer Space and a book-length biography of Tom Graeff. I'm writing the book. Nothing was known about Graeff aside from an article in Scarlet Street in the 1990s until about three years ago when I started researching his life and discovered more fllms Graeff had made, contacted surviving friends and acquanitances, and was given access to a large cache of scripts, film prints, and other rare possesions of Tom's. Now, he's being seen as something besides an obscure footnote to 50s science-fiction films. His story is as crazy and fascinating as Ed Wood's.

Check out the Teenagers from Outer Space thread for information about an evening of Tom's films being screened at UCLA on May 17, 2009.

Jim Tushinski
The Tom Graeff Biography Project
CineGraeffia ~ Tom Graeff on YouTube