Ted Newsom
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(6/30/05 9:53 am)
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Bill Warren
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(6/30/05 12:39 pm)
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Quote:
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On the other hand, if someone sees a similarity between two works, it's no crime to say so.
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I If that's what had been said, I would have had no complaints. But it wasn't.


Gil Ray
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(6/30/05 8:55 pm)
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Those Popeye goons scare me. Very much.
Gil


Rakshasa
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(6/30/05 9:42 pm)
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Great stuff Ted!


Kadoban
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(7/10/05 3:04 pm)
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I've got my asbestos suit on....

I've read many places that Ray Bradbury wrote the treatment for It Came From Outer Space, and I've heard much scoffing of David J. Essex when he says he wrote the treatment... (I"ve just read his interview by Weaver) isn't it possible that he *did*, but for the Bradbury ethos it can't be admitted?

I've never seen Moby Dick, did it bomb because of Bradbury's script or because it was a lousy directing job?


__________
"Get the antenna! Get the antenna! Get the other antenna! Get the other antenna!"


TomWeaver999
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(7/10/05 3:23 pm)
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Xerox copies of the Bradbury treatments have been available to fans "under the table" for years, and were recently published in a book on IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE, so he definitely did write treatments.

A big part of what Harry Essex did was write the dialogue. The dialogue Bradbury wrote ... is there a "holding-your-nose" emoticon?

Well, as Rod Serling said of Bradbury, he's "a very difficult guy to dramatize, because that which reads so beautifully on the printed page doesn't fit in the mouth -- it fits in the head. And you find characters saying the things that Bradbury's saying and you say, 'Wait a minute, people don't SAY that.'"

By the way, on the subject of Serling charging that Bradbury's dialogue was not lifelike: Mr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle!


Kadoban
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(7/10/05 3:56 pm)
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>>>on IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE, so he definitely did write treatments

Which I would get if it werent $125!!!!!

Hmmm, maybe I'll try ebay...
__________
"Get the antenna! Get the antenna! Get the other antenna! Get the other antenna!"


TomWeaver999
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(7/10/05 4:36 pm)
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<< Which I would get if it werent $125!!!!! <<

Don't spring for one unless you find one in the $25 range -- I really don't think it's worth much more than that. No photos from the movie, little or no Making Of info, badly edited (or NOT edited) -- just a conglomeration of all the ICFOS-related stuff that they could throw together withOUT having to give Universal a nickel. There's even a page missing from one of the treatments. As I leafed through the book, I thought to myself, "I'm not throwing my old Xeroxes of the treatments away until I compare 'em to this book page by page -- I don't have confidence that these guys didn't scramble things up." And I was right, they had.


Doc Savage
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(7/11/05 10:53 am)
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Let me jump in, Tom, and say thanks again for your great commentary on the DVD. You are a credit to genre film scholarship!


DrPaulArmstrong
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(7/11/05 11:32 am)
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<<I've never seen Moby Dick, did it bomb because of Bradbury's script or because it was a lousy directing job?>>

IMHO an underrated masterpiece. Here Bradbury's heightened dialogue fits beautifully. And Huston's direction is truly inspired.


Bill Warren
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(7/11/05 11:46 am)
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As for Bradbury's IT CAME dialogue--inasmuch all of it was written in his heightened style, I thought it worked very well. But in the 1950s, dialogue was generally just utilitarian, whatever was necessary to convey the story and establish the characters. Bradbury writes Bradbury-like dialogue--and you know what? The lines from IT CAME that people tend to remember ARE the Bradbury lines, as when Carlson talks about the desert, as when the sounds in the lines are discussed. It was Essex who wrote 1950s-okay dialogue; it was Bradbury who wrote excellent dialogue.


Rapfred
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>>Moby Dick?>>

>>IMHO an underrated masterpiece. Here Bradbury's heightened dialogue fits beautifully. And Huston's direction is truly inspired.>>


And the changes Bradbury made to the text were nothing short of brilliant (Ahab's beckoning hand, for one).

The DVD is a piss-poor representation of the film's original (in every sense of the word) look. The print at a recent theatrical screening was even harder on the eyes -- think Moby pink. Paging Harris and Katz... immediately.

Edited by: Rapfred at: 7/11/05 1:29 pm


DrPaulArmstrong
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(7/11/05 12:46 pm)
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<<The lines from IT CAME that people tend to remember ARE the Bradbury lines, as when Carlson talks about the desert, as when the sounds in the lines are discussed.>>

For me, that dialogue quite nicely complemented the haunting quality of the setting. Can't think of much more 50s scifi dialogue that's stuck with me.

<<And the changes Bradbury made to the text were nothing short of brilliant (Ahab's beckoning hand, for one).>>

<<The DVD is a piss-poor representation of the film's original (in every sense of the word) look. The print at a recent theatrical screening was even harder on the eyes -- think Moby pink. Paging Harris and Katz... immediately.>>

Yes, and yes. Saw a gorgeous print many many years ago in Boston. This needs a fix.


wellspacedout
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(7/22/05 12:08 am)
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Love this film a definate memory from when i was young, i rememebr the hug eye ball chasing the car that was awesome & definatlly wanna check it out in 3-D, one thats due on my list for sure


wellspacedout
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(7/22/05 4:17 am)
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huge eyeball i meant to type (spelling mistake)


Dragula
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(7/22/05 6:00 pm)
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One of the after school "Big Show" movies of my youth... absolutely loved it then, still do.....


ryanbrennan
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(7/23/05 5:20 am)
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I've never seen Moby Dick, did it bomb because of Bradbury's ***** or because it was a lousy directing job?

You should see it. It's well worth your time.

It plays at times like a horror film. There are some extremely forceful dramatic moments in the film. At that time director John Huston was in an experimental stage and shot the film in a muted Technicolor that is very pleasing. Gregory Peck, playing against type, makes a good Ahab and Richard Basehart's Ishmael is fine. The rest of the cast is up to the challenge, too, with Friedrich Ledebur, I think it is, a memorable Queeq-Queeg. The score by Phillip Sainton is also quite good. Bradbury's script, considering that he was adapting a revered literary classic, is good.

MOBY DICK made between $4.7 - 5.2 million. About the same amount that two other hit June, 1956 releases -- THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH and THE EDDY DUCHIN STORY -- made and the same rough box office for THE SEARCHERS and FRIENDLY PERSUASION. The big winner that month was THE KING AND I at over $8 million. In other words, MOBY DICK had a respectable showing.

Unfortunately, MOBY DICK cost about $4.5 million. However, I don't think the quality of the film kept it from grossing more. This was a year in which the top five hits were DeMille's spectacle THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, Michael Todd's travel adventure spectacle AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS, the sweeping generational GIANT, Cinerama's travel spectacle SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD and the musical (spectacle?) THE KING AND I. I'd say that Huston's dark study of an obsession just didn't really suit the public taste at the time.


Andrew Kidd
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(7/23/05 11:28 am)
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The clincher piece of dialog that is indisputably Bradbury is the sheriff's great monologue about people going crazy when it's ninety-eight degrees out. That's also the theme of Bradbury's stories "Touched by Fire" and "The Burning Man".

Regarding Rod Serling and Ray Bradbury, and their similar writing styles: although Serling admitted to being influenced by Bradbury, and included references to him in the TZ episodes "Walking Distance" and "A Stop at Willoughby", both Serling AND Bradbury named Norman Corwin as being among the greatest influences on their writing styles. Serling himself even named Art Carney's character in the TZ episode "Night of the Meek" Corwin after his hero.


Bill Warren
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Ledebur's MOBY DICK role name was "Queequeg." Ledebur turned up odd places--he plays the title role in THE MAN WHO TURNED TO STONE and is in Fellini's JULIET OF THE SPIRITS.

I've always thought Bradbury's writing style was an unlikely but workable combination of Thomas Wolfe and Ernest Hemingway, and mentioned this to him. Wolfe has a very descri ptive, almost poetic style; Hemingway wrote very terse, paired-down sentences. And Bradbury writes in descri ptive, almost poetic paired-down sentences. He admitted that those two writers were major influences.


TomWeaver999
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(7/23/05 2:24 pm)
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That 92-degree speech is in the Bradbury "treatments," absolutely. But Essex (or somebody) edited and improved it a little. Bradbury: "92 degrees ... Fahrenheit! People get itchy! Itchy! People get itchy! Hot! Cranky! Mean!"