50 Years Ago on WPIX: Space:1999 "Space Brain"

Yes, this is the (in) famous Space: 1999 (1975 -1977) that sees Moonbase Alpha’s interior overrun with…soap suds. And you know what? I love it.

Despite a silly-sounding (and appearing) menace “Space Brain” by Christopher Penfold is still pretty great. This is so because the episode intimates an alien (and ultimately impenetrable…) order to the universe, and more-so, an alien hand influencing Alpha’s journey…and perhaps not for the better.

In fact, I was so taken with the sub-text and “under”-story aspects of “Space Brain” that my first officially licensed Space: 1999 novel, The Forsaken (Powys Media; 2003), might be interpreted as a direct sequel to this episode’s events, one that seeks to address some of the mysteries presented in the televised story. 

In “Space Brain” Moonbase Alpha’s routine is unexpectedly disrupted by the sudden transmission on every vid-screen of streaming alien hieroglyphs. Commander Koenig (Martin Landau) sends out an Eagle to investigate the transmission’s point of origin, but quickly loses contact with the craft. 

In short order, a second ship is sent out, but one astronaut, Kelly (Shane Rimmer) returns from a spacewalk as a changed man.  He is now the “programmed” vessel for a vast entity in space, one on a collision course with the Moon. 

Meanwhile, a small but incredibly-heavy meteorite crashes near Alpha.  Concerned about the impending collision with the larger obstacle, Koenig orders an Eagle filled with nuclear charges launched.  It is tagged to detonate at the center of the space-going entity.

As the threat progresses, Dr. Helena Russell (Barbara Bain) and Professor Victor Bergman (Barry Morse) seek to understand the threat better, and Bergman soon realizes that the meteorite is actually the crushed remains of the first eagle craft, destroyed by alien antibodies. 

At roughly the same time, Helena understands that Kelly is acting as an intermediary, relaying messages from Alpha’s Main Computer to the entity in space, attempting to avoid the collision.

After undergoing a dangerous mental symbiosis with Kelly, Koenig accepts that the entity -- the so-called “space brain” -- is a peaceful organism, and one that turns at the “center of a whole galaxy, maybe hundreds of galaxies.” 

But disaster looms when the eagle armed with the nuclear charges can’t be recalled, and the Space Brain begins to emit deadly antibodies so as to crush the Moon in the very way it crushed the first eagle spacecraft…

One of the arguments I universally make in support of Space: 1999 as a highly-visual science fiction initiative is that it functions (like Prometheus [2012], for example) on largely symbolic terrain, and its stories -- often criticized as being somehow confusing -- are crystal clear once the symbols are noted, studied and then thoughtfully interpreted. 

“Space Brain” is no exception, and in terms of both visuals and musical choices, this episode proves rather impressive, despite the onslaught of killer soap suds.

For instance, “Space Brain” opens with various scenes of Moonbase Alpha personnel relaxing off-duty, solving puzzles (and trying to beat a puzzle record).  One of the first such shots depicts Alpha’s commander, Koenig, completing a puzzle in his office. 

The puzzle itself depicts a painting by Jacque Daret (1404 – 1470), created circa 1435.  Called “The Visitation,” this work of art reveals Mary (with Jesus still in utero) visiting another pregnant woman, Elizabeth.  Art critics have interpreted Deret’s work to symbolize Mary’s role as intermediary between God and Man. 

This work of art, then, reveals, in a sense, Kelly’s role in “Space Brain” as the go-between for Alpha and the entity in space.  In both circumstances, there is indeed a “visitation” and a human being is transformed by what she/he carries within.  The shot of the painting also reveals what Koenig only learns later: that the space brain, like Mary’s God, is a benevolent one.  On a much more basic level, all the “puzzle-solving” suggests the modus operandi of the teleplay: Koenig, Bergman, and Helena must each put together a piece of the space entity’s puzzle, from the indecipherable hieroglyphs, to Kelly’s odd physical condition, to the true (and horrific…) nature of the meteor.

Late in the episode, the action is scored to Gustav Holst’s Planets’ suite, namely the movement titled “The Bringer of War.”  In terms of practicality, this music was likely seeded in to lighten the load on composer Barry Gray.  There’s a real world, production reason for its use.

And yet in terms of appropriateness and interpretation, Holst’s composition also fits in well with “Space Brain’s” themes. Specifically, Holst’s work is a seven part suite, and each part describes the “character” of that planet, and that planet’s influence on the psyche of humans.  Consider then that “war” ascends in Koenig’s mind as he prepares a pre-emptive strike with the eagle carrying nuclear charges, and only later realizes the errors of his ways.  The “Mars” composition is also scored to literal war, as Alpha falls under siege, nearly crushed by the killer antibodies of the space brain. 

Put the two artistic visions and ideas held together -- peaceful interaction or Visitation between God and man, and then all-out war --- essentially present the two main perspectives depicted in “Space Brain.” The entity wants peaceful contact. The Alphans prepare for war.  The entity opens with communication and an intermediary. Human-kind faces a puzzle (and a crisis) with plans for destruction.  The book end works of art in “Space Brain” -- Daret’s and Holst’s -- convey much of the narrative’s deeper meaning.  Ignore the imagery and the soundtrack, and you’re not getting the entire picture.

Also, I often laud Space:1999 in terms of another quality for which it is widely disliked: it’s refusal to explain every aspect of its narrative and spoon-feed the audience easy answers. 

“Space Brain” never satisfactorily explains, for instance, why the nuclear-charged Eagle remote-control guidance system should short-out, rendering the collision with the space brain impossible to avoid.  Koenig himself dismisses – in explicit dialogue -- the idea that the space brain is behind the act.  By inference, this could mean, quite simply, that a third, unseen hand, is at work in this episode.  And that hand desires the space brain destroyed for some reason.  Thus it is using Alpha as its vessel for that very purpose. 

Again, we must go back to the painting, and the idea of Visitation.  Is Moonbase Alpha being used or visited by another force, only as a bullet to the brain, for some unknown purpose?

That’s the plot-line of my book, The Forsaken. 

But clearly, Alpha’s destruction of the space brain at the conclusion of this episode must boast terrifying and cosmic ramifications.  The dialogue explains how thousands of worlds depended on the space brain.  Accordingly, I speculate that the entity was a kind of regulating factor, ensuring the stability of stars and other environments.  Thus in its absence, everything becomes unstable, unpredictable…chaotic.  If you’ve read my book, you realize that’s my explanation for the wild, out-of-control, action-oriented events of Space:1999’s second season.  The galaxy has descended into chaos, and all bets are off.

Like I said, that’s my interpretation, but it need not be anyone else’s.  What I love about “Space Brain” is that it leaves open these little intriguing mysteries, and the viewers can fill them in, interpreting the clues in a way that they see fit, and that seems to fit the facts.  I’ve done so, as I note above, but other viewers are also welcome to interpret the symbols in a different fashion.  I much prefer these open-ended, stimulating mysteries to “techno-babble” resolutions we get in latter-day space operas.

The biggest stumbling block, of course, for “Space Brain” is the visual depiction of the alien antibodies.  The foam or soap-suds don’t look like organic antibodies, but rather just like a washing machine has gone dangerously out-of-control.  I realize that this visualization is a deal breaker for some viewers, and I accept that fact, but it’s truly a shame because there’s a lot going on in “Space Brain” beneath the bloody foam attack in the last act.

Abnormal Fixation 2.1: "Wi-Fi Wife"

 

Abnormal Fixation crosses 1 million views on YouTube!

Every journey begins with a first step, right?  

The YouTube channel for our indie (and award-winning) mockumentary web series, Abnormal Fixation, just crossed one million views!

This figure doesn't count streaming, (we're on Fawesome and Relay at present,) but it's a good sign, I hope, that our audience is starting to find us!

Give us a watch when you get the chance!

50 Years Ago on WPIX, Channel 11: Space:1999 "Another Time, Another Place"

“This is the Earth.  But not the world we knew…Apart from us, it’s empty now.  A civilization once flourished here…another Atlantis, perhaps.”

-Victor Bergman describes a mysterious alternate Earth in Johnny Byrne’s “Another Time, Another Place.”

The Earth’s moon, in a region of distant space, passes through a strange, inexplicable phenomenon. The moon’s velocity increases as the Alphans experience dizziness, shock and double-vision. Dr. Helena Russell (Barbara Bain) gazes out of a window in Main Mission, and sees -- for a fraction of a second -- another moon, a duplicate, moving off into space.

Moonbase Alpha attempts to recover from this freak incident, but can’t. One Alphan technician, Regina Kesslan (Judy Geeson) begins acting strangely.  She exhibits signs of sun-burn, and seems to be living a past or future life in the present, one in which her husband, Alan Carter (Nick Tate) and Commander Koenig (Martin Landau) have died in an Eagle crash.

And then the news arrives that the moon has traveled into a new solar system, and is approaching…Earth. 

In fact, the moon will soon slip into the very orbit it left on September 13, 1999.  Hoping to learn if it is possible to settle on this strange Earth -- which seems almost devoid of all life -- Koenig, Russell and Carter encounters a group of Alphan colonists and realize that, in some strange way, the Moon has caught up with itself…or another version of itself…

But time is running out, for now there are two moons in the night sky…

For many humans, there is no more vexing problem to ponder, perhaps, than the one that goes: “What if I had just chosen to take the other path…” 

In ways poignant and profound, “Another Time, Another Place” explores this notion of paths untaken. The episode introduces the Alphans to a life that is simultaneously theirs and not theirs, one in which love has been acknowledged, and new destinies forged.  But it is also a world of death and despair, being both bleak and lonely.

Specifically, the Alphans encounter a version of themselves five years into the future... one that has settled on an inhospitable Earth.  Commander Koenig and Alan are dead, and Helena Russell is still in mourning over John’s passing.  In fact, part of the reason this episode remain haunting to this day involves Barbara Bain and her performance as the other Russell.  So often in cult-tv history we get “mirror” or opposite versions of characters, but Bain presents in “Another Time, Another Place” an older, sadder version of the character we all know. One who has found love with Commander Koenig, and then lost it…just as she lost her first husband, Lee. Now, she toils to keep the community alive, as John would no doubt want, but she’s lost, alone, and unhappy.

I had the great fortune to discuss the origin of the moody “Another Time, Another Place” with Space:1999 author and story editor Johnny Byrne (1935 – 2008) when I conducted a wide-ranging interview with him several years ago. “The idea of a doppelganger is something that is prevalent in my culture,” he informed me at the time.

“Growing up in Ireland, I didn’t have radio or television, so everything was imagination and history, and super[natural] history if you will. It wasn’t that we weren’t smart or educated -- I knew by heart everything Shakespeare had written by the age of 11. But to all of us, there was the real world and the other world.”

And the Alphans in “Another Time, Another Place” interface with a version of Ireland’s “other world,” but one relocated to the distant regions of outer space. 

“Well, the Irish believe there’s a very thin dividing line between fantasy and reality. In all Irish mythology there is an engagement with the other world, and people who come from that environment should have no trouble comprehending the kind of story I was writing for Space: 1999. It was the idea of leaving yourself, of discovering an alternative version of yourself.”

Specifically, Byrne based the space phenomenon which “doubled” the Alphans (and created doppelgangers) on an element of his everyday life. 

“One hundred yards up the road from the house where I grew up was this little church with a fantastic reputation. We heard that if you walked around the church sun-wise [clockwise] three times, you’d meet yourself coming out. That kind of legend was the core of “Another Time, Another Place." Our mythology is filled with situations in which a person stumbles into a mist and then emerges three hundred years later, or some such thing.  So I constructed a story around the experience of my upbringing.”

“Another Time, Another Place” goes further than that description suggests, however.  Commander Koenig must reckon with his corpse, with the possibility of a future in which he both marries Helena Russell, and then, because of an accident, loses her. The idea of coming face to face with yourself is one (terrifying…) thing, but the notion of going into the future and countenancing your corpse is of an entirely more bracing degree.

In fact, the specter of ever-present death hangs over this episode in a profound and disturbing fashion.  When Regina Kesslan is unable to reconcile the two universes that she inhabits, for instance the episode features a grim-reaper type-visage: a skull in a cloak. 

By the same token, Koenig and Carter visit a “dead” version of Moonbase Alpha, one gutted and salvaged for parts by the desperate Alphan colonists.

Even the Earth we see here seems haunted by the angel of death.  Man may have existed here, or never have existed at all.  But the trees appear to be dead and devoid of leaves, the soil is rust-brown, and night always seems to be falling.

Doppelgangers and Death beckon...

Another image of death, personal to Regina.

More Images of Doubles and Death.

A dead, twilight Earth.

It’s as if by splitting into two parts, the Alphans have entered a kind of twilight real, a place of half-life.  Thus the final, symbolic image of the episode -- Helena Russell clutching a groups flowers from the alternate Earth -- suggests two things simultaneously. The first is a kind of spring or re-birth: the flowers continue to live because the Alphans -- and the universe itself -- are made whole once more. 

Or, contrarily, the survival and thriving of these flowers could suggest visually that in some unknown way, the other Alphan community and its world also survived intact, though forever closed off from our consensus reality.  This notion harks back to Victor’s comment in the episode that there is an order to the universe, and ultimately the Alphans belong where they belong. The universe skips a track in this episode, and then restores itself, to state the matter bluntly.

I’ve always considered “Another Time, Another Place” a crucial piece in the Space:1999 Year One story arc, which Johnny Byrne confirmed was on his mind, even if, at times, he wasn’t always conscious of how it was working: “There was something deeply subconscious working all the time and none of us were aware of it,” he told me.  “And it only happened to those of us who were there all the time, because the writing of the individual scripts was only a step in the whole process.  We were in the planning of the episodes, we were seeing the dailies day-by-day, we were working ahead and looking at new stories.  We were at starship control, we were looking for those unidentified little blips – which were the scripts keying into something special.”

In terms of the story arc, we know that in series lore, the Alphans bring life to the planet of Arkadia in the final episode of the season (“Testament of Arkadia”), just as the Arkadians once brought life to Earth, and are therefore responsible for the dawn of man there. 

What if the planet Earth encountered in “Another Time, Another Place” is one in which this kind of symbiosis never existed? In which the Arkadians did not come to seed our world, and so life didn’t develop?

That’s just one possibility.  Another is that this is our Earth, only far into the future, when the memory of mankind is just that, a memory…like how we today think of Atlantis. In whatever way one chooses to interpret the multi-faceted ambiguities of this episode, “Another Time, Another Place” remains one of the most haunting installments of Space: 1999.

80 Years Ago: The Spiral Staircase (1946)

This 80-year old, elegantly made, deeply creepy film (with a screenplay by Mel Dinelli, based on the novel "Some Must Watch" by Ethel Lina White) is the harrowing tale of a small town dealing with a rash of brutal murders.

An unknown killer is methodically offing local women who possess some kind of imperfection. One victim is "mentally deficient," another bore a scar on her face. One of the first scenes in the film (and a truly terrifying one at that) involves a woman entering her hotel room - totally unaware of danger - only to be confronted with the fiendish murderer waiting in the closet. We witness the attack (briefly), but never catch the identity of the killer. Instead, we see only his hateful, rage-filled eyeball...

Who is the killer?

"Somebody in this town. Somebody we all know. Someone we see in this town everyday. Could be me. Could be you," suggests the Constable with more than a trace of paranoia. The police may not know the identity of the killer, but they suspect that the next victim may be Helen (Dorothy McGuire), a lovely young woman who went mute after a childhood trauma involving a fire.

Helen is one of many servants at the Gothic old Warren Mansion, a foreboding place surrounded by a black, wrought-iron fence. There, in one of the many bedrooms, Old Lady Warren (Ethel Barrymore) is bed-ridden and dying. Near-hysterical, she warns Helen to leave the house that very night...that dark and stormy night...lest she die.

"There was a girl murdered here, long ago," she warns. Significantly, Mrs. Warren keeps a pistol by her bedside...

Also residing in the grand old house is Stephen Warren (Gordon Oliver) a sarcastic playboy whose visits to America always coincides with murder. He's there with his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend, Blanche (Rhonda Fleming).

Stephen's brother (Blanche's former boyfriend), the erudite Professor Warren (George Brent), also lives in the home, but keeps mostly to himself. Finally, Helen's would-be husband, Dr. Parry (Kent Smith), promises to get Helen out of the house before she can be attacked, but then is called away into the pouring rain on important medical business, leaving the young lady to fend for herself in a house filled with secrets and a diabolical killer...

In its technical perfection and chilly, elegant story-telling, The Spiral Staircase looks and feels like a vintage Alfred Hitchcock film. It's from the theatrical school of filmmaking of its era, not the more naturalistic style we've become accustomed to in modern horror films. This means that characters are given to long expositional monologues and speeches with flourish, rather than reacting naturally as would expect in, say, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Nonetheless, the fear is palpable in this film, for a few critical reasons. Paramount among these is the central location: the entire film occurs during one long night, as a terrible storm rages outside the house (an externalization of the killer's rage,) The Warren house is a vast, dark place, with many places to die (including a dark basement) and the killer watches from the shadows. The final confrontation occurs on - you guessed it - a spiral staircase, as the killer begins to reveal the perverted labyrinth of his mind.

Beyond the claustrophobic setting, Dorothy McGuire's character, Helen, represents the perfect horror movie "final girl" because she can't even scream to warn others or to get help. Other characters are killed around her, and she must convey to the survivors what has occurred, but without the all-important ability to speak. We've seen blind characters in horror films before, like Mia Farrow in See No Evil (1971) or Audrey Hepburn in the classic Wait Until Dark, but this is something else entirely. Helen's dilemma is made abundantly clear during a "fantasy" wedding sequence wherein she imagines herself marrying Dr. Parry. It comes time for her to recite her vows, to say "I do," but she is helpless to say anything...and the fantasy becomes a nightmare. In another scene, she races to a telephone to call for help, but then can't utter a word, even as an impatient operator asks if anybody is on the line.

There's also a nice psychological underpinning here. Helen is mute because of a "mental trauma" from her past, and forced to confront these events by the Doctor. Sort of an aggressive form of psychotherapy.

But more unique is the mental instability of the killer. Thanks to Psycho and Alfred Hitchcock, we are all-too familiar with films in which the "mother" is the source of all the murderous rage and insanity. In The Spiral Staircase, it is a long-dead father who is responsible for creating madness in one of his boys. For this "Bad Father" derided weakness in his boys, and made them feel inadequate. One responded by rooting out weakness (imperfection) in women, and snuffing it out. 

But which one? That's the crux of the movie's suspense...

"Too many trees stretch their branches...try to get in...creep up to the house..." warns dying Ms. Warren, describing perfectly the insanity of one son (she knows not which). His mind has been infiltrated by twisted, gnarled thoughts; ones that creep up on his goodness and turn him mad.

Film comes in two distinct schools: the realistic approach and the formalist approach. Like all of Hitchcock's films (which attempt to manipulate reality so as to create strong emotions in viewers), Siodmak's The Spiral Staircase is formalist in the extreme; born of an age where theatricality was something to be proud of, and wherein extreme angles could symbolize the twisted mentality of a monster.

The Spiral Staircase remains a masterpiece of its day, and a terrific and early example of the serial killer in the cinema. I especially appreciated a self-reflexive scene early in the film. Mute Helen sits down and watches a silent movie unspool before her eyes, one entitled The Kiss. A woman plays a piano nearby, to the accompanying the images on screen. Because she's mute, Helen will be starring in a silent movie of her own before the night is through, not one about a kiss, but about a kill, instead...

50 Years Ago: The Six Million Dollar Man: "The Secret of Bigfoot" (February 6, 1976)

I watched The Six Million Dollar Man religiously – and I mean religiously – as a six year-old boy. But truth be told, I never much cared for the espionage stories, the ones with Steve going undercover to topple a foreign dictator or help an Eastern Bloc scientist defect to the West.

No, the stories I loved were the ones in which the bionic Colonel Austin (Lee Majors) battled nemeses that more than matched his unusual strength and power.  

Prime among such villains was the Bionic Bigfoot, first introduced in this two-part episode, “The Secret of Bigfoot.”  

As I’ve written before, the 1970s for some reason saw a Bigfoot or Sasquatch Craze on TV (In Search Of, Bigfoot and Wild Boy, etc.) and at the movies too. But no depictions of Bigfoot were more fun, in my opinion, than The Six Million Dollar Man’s.  

It’s one thing to contemplate the existence of the Sasquatch. It’s another to mark him as an extra-terrestrial. And then, of course, to make him a cyborg (like Steve) is a stroke of wacky brilliance.

In “The Secret of Bigfoot,” Steve and his boss at the OSI, Oscar Goldman (Richard Anderson) are assigned to the forests of the Pacific Northwest to provide security for two friendly seismologists testing classified earthquake sensors.  While deploying these new sensors, the scientists are attacked by a creature that appears to be the mythical Sasquatch (Andre the Giant).

Steve tracks the beast’s footprints, and comes face to face with the inhuman monster.  After Steve rips off one of the beast’s arms in a (slow-motion…) scuffle, he realizes the truth: Sasquatch is a bionic robot!  Steve follows the injured machine back into a mountainside, and falls unconscious in a strange, glowing tunnel. 

When Steve awakens, he finds himself the guests of an alien community, led by Battle for the Planet of the Ape’s Severn Darden (as Apploy). Steve promptly becomes friends with the colony’s physician, the lovely Shalon (Stefanie Powers).  He learns that Sasquatch is the creation of these aliens, and that the beast serves as the Colony’s “protector and defender.”  Austin also learns that each scientist is equipped with a device called a “TLC” which allows people to disappear from sight, and move at speeds undetectable by the human eye.  

While spending time with the E.T.’s Steven comes across another unique discovery: Time for the alien explorers passes more slowly than it does for humans, so while legends of Bigfoot go back some two centuries or more, the aliens have only been on Earth conducting their studies for a few years, their time.

The aliens sent out Bigfoot to sabotage the sensor equipment in the first place because they did not want to be discovered by mankind.  But this fear of discovery diminishes compared to another problem. Oscar plans to detonate a small underground nuclear device in the forest to forestall an upcoming earthquake. Unfortunately, the aliens’ mountain base will be buried, unless Steve and the Sasquatch can work together to prevent the apocalypse.

“The Secret of Bigfoot aired in early February 1976, and -- no exaggeration -- it was the TV event of the season for the primary school set. As a six-year old, I enjoyed every aspect of the two-hour program, from the camping to the aliens, to Bigfoot, to the bionic brawls.  As an adult, what I enjoy most about the episode is the fact that there really aren’t any overt bad guys or evil-doers.  Sasquatch is only a tool of the aliens and not malicious, and Oscar’s nuke plan -- though foolhardy -- is not intended to kill anyone.

Remarkably, the Sasquatch costume still holds up pretty well after all this time.  Director Alan Crosland goes out of his way not to reveal too much detail in the episode’s first acts. Instead, we are’ treated to suspense-maintaining P.O.V. shots from the Sasquatch’s perspective as he lumbers through the woods.  The episode also opens with views of the beast’s hairy legs and feet as they traverse the wild forest

Even the first big attack scene -- at about the nine minute point -- hides the creature’s face.  In a spectacular composition, Bigfoot steps out into the open in a low-angle shot, and the radiant light of the sun occludes his monstrous visage.  This saves the first full reveal for Sasquatch’s initial encounter with Steve.  We see during that sequence that the monster boasts glowing, inhuman eyes.  And to some extent, those glaring, bright eyes divert attention away from any inadequacies of the hairy costume.

The first battle between Steve and the Bionic Bigfoot is still spectacular too.  The slow-motion photography makes it seem that every punch, hit, and blow is earth-shattering, and the battle goes on and on for something like five minutes.   I noted while watching that there is virtually no dialogue at all in this lengthy interlude, just fight music, bionic sound effects, and fearsome animal grunts.  

This, my friends, is Bionic nirvana.

Another visual I remember from my childhood is the long, weird, glowing tunnel that leads into the mountainside alien base.  This tunnel was actually an attraction at Universal Studios called Glacier Avalanche, just re-purposed for the series.  In 1982, when I went to Universal Studios on a cross-country camping trip, I got to ride through this unearthly tunnel and my first thought was of The Six-Million Dollar Man.  The only disappointment in this scene is that, on DVD, it is all-too easy detect that the floor of the (spinning) tunnel is not rock, but earth-tone blankets draped across the floor.

The depiction of the aliens in “The Secret of Bigfoot” feels very 1970s today.  The aliens wear brightly-colored jump suits with bell-bottoms, and Stefanie Powers looks as though she’s crossed right over from the set of Charlie’s Angels.  Still, I appreciate the fact that the aliens aren’t malevolent in nature, and that cooperation with them is possible.

Today, perhaps the most horrifying aspect of “The Secret of Bigfoot” is the fact that OSI’s man in charge, Oscar Goldman, deploys nuclear weapons inside the continental United States as though they are just another run-of-the-mill fix-it too.  Could you imagine the PR disaster were it learned that a United States government agency were detonating nuclear bombs in an unspoiled forest?   

If “The Secret of Bigfoot” possesses any dramatic failing, it’s only that the story does not go much beyond entertaining escapism.  The Bionic Woman, by contrast, often featured overt social commentary in its tales, such as in the great two-part episode “Doomsday is Tomorrow.”

Bigfoot returned to The Six-Million Dollar Man on several more occasions, and even crossed over to Bionic Woman episodes as well.  After a while, however, the law of diminishing returns came into full effect and the great Beast (played in later incarnations by Ted Cassidy) lost some of his mystery, majesty, and menace. 

But “The Secret of Bigfoot” endures -- 50 years later -- because it handles its monster with restraint, and then, delightfully with affection.  

70 Years Ago: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

It was a turbulent, post-war world that saw the release of director Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers in 1956. Nazism had long been defeated in Europe, but the Red Menace (communism) represented by the Soviet Union and Red China was growing. In January of 1955, the United States Congress authorized President Eisenhower to defend Formosa from China. On May 14 of the same year, the Soviet Union and seven other communist nations joined forces under the Warsaw Pact. But these were only the most recent developments. At home, on the domestic front, there was a virtual red hysteria roiling.

Going back a few years to 1950, Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy launched his campaign to unearth Communists in the American government. McCarthy, later known to be an alcoholic, imagined "Reds" everywhere, from inside the upper echelons of the Truman Administration, to the U.S. Army to the State Department. Another, earlier (and arguably easier) target of the Communist witch hunt was the liberal entertainment industry itself. Specifically, the House of Representatives' investigative arm, called HUAC (House Committee on Un-American Activities) sought to root out communists inside the film industry.

Ironically, membership in the American Communist Party was not (and is not) a crime in the United States. Membership in various political parties is part and parcel of our democratic liberty, and yet here - with no sanction from the Constitution and no evidence of any actual crime committed, the American government began to oppress citizens. Actors, actresses, writers, producers and directors were regularly summoned to testify in Washington D.C. and name "names" in the hunt for commies and communist associations. Those who didn't submit to the will of HUAC were blacklisted and named in a pamphlet called "Red Channels."

Among those black-listed was a left-leaning writer and novelist named Daniel Mainwaring. He was the man who adapted Jack Finney's science-fiction novel, Invasion of the Body Snatchers to the screen. Given this background, one can begin to detect how an anti-McCarthyite message or sub-text runs through the science fiction film. 

Consider, for example, that those who join the alien pod "herd" develop a kind of mob mentality. Their first course of action, as we see in the film with the example of Becky (transformed in the last moments of the film), is to "out" or testify against those who are still human. This pointing of the finger is the equivalent of naming names to the Committee. Pointing out someone who is "different" alerts the boiling mob to their presence. The mob then seeks to stamp out those individuals who think differently.

Furthermore, the specific characters in the film are ones who may carry untrustworthy (communist?) backgrounds according to inquisitors like Joseph McCarthy. For example, Becky has just returned to the United States after five years in Europe (an invention of the screenplay, not the novel), and therefore her loyalties are suspect -- who knows how she's been influenced by the socialists of Old Europe?

Becky and Miles have both rejected the patriotic bedrock of marriage: they are divorcees, so they are outside social norms in 1950's America as well. And the other "targeted" character in the film is Jack Belicec, a writer. It is his occupation that's of paramount importance here: he is a representative, in a sense, of the under-siege entertainment industry. One of those damned, dreamy-eyed writers who might fall under the spell of socialists and communists, and begin spreading his godless ideas to innocent Americans who don't know better.

And really, that was the essence of McCarthy's argument: that Communism was Godless and should not be spread in the Christian States of America. Consider, it was on June 14th, 1956 that the words "under God" were officially added to the Pledge of Allegiance by law. It was on July 30th of 1956 that "In God We Trust" became the National Motto by law. Politicians - fearful of being labeled communists by Red Hunters bent over backwards to prove they were patriotic, Christian Americans. The message here, spawned by the red baiting inquisitors: conform! conform! conform!

Given Daniel Mainwaring's background and history, as well as proclamations from the cast (including Dana Wynter) it is easy to see how Invasion of the Body Snatchers might be interpreted as an anti-McCarthy film. One railing against the right-wing machine urging conformity of religion and ideology.  You know their type. They say the press is the enemy of the people, because don't like their malfeasence to be reported.

However, there is another side to this story too, one that is the polar opposite of what I've just described above. It is entirely possible to read Invasion of the Body Snatchers in a contrary way. That the film is -- in fact -- not about McCarthyism at all, but rather about the deadly dangers of the encroaching Red Menace. 

Let's gaze at Don Siegel for a moment, the director of the film. He was widely-known to be an ardent right-winger in terms of his politics, and his career began under the bailiwick of pro-government propaganda films like 1946's Hitler Lives! His films, including 1971's Dirty Harry, have often been interpreted as right-wing. Considering this background, and the fact that film in general is not - alas - primarily a writer's venue -- one can make the argument with some confidence that Invasion of the Body Snatchers '56 is an aggressively anti-communist diatribe.

Notice, for example, how late in the film, Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) is on the run and seeks help from his nurse and secretary, Sally. He goes to her house, peers in the window, and finds that she is hosting a gathering of the pod people. It is a secret meeting, a secret meeting not unlike the kind McCarthy imagined: communists and communist sympathizers working under closed door against the common good of patriotic Americans. 

Secondly, Invasion of the Body Snatchers in this incarnation, though extremely faithful in dialogue to Finney's novel adds a new word to Miles' diatribe against the aliens' emotionless gestalt. In the book, Miles complains that without emotions there is no ambition and no love. In the film, he tellingly adds "faith" to that list. Again, the fear of "godless" communism is apparent in the film, and the addition of the word "faith" to those qualities lost under pod-ism ties back directly to those acts of Congress I mentioned above, the ones re-establishing a Christian God as America's sponsor.

Also, the idea of being re-born into an "untroubled world" where "everyone is the same" seems to smack of an attack against Communism, not McCarthyism, no? 

A little more digging, and you can discern how this Invasion of the Body Snatcher views "collectivism," the group -think of the emotionless pods. It can't be a coincidence that the Grimaldi vegetable stand - once a very successful and thriving enterprise (under human ownership) - goes under when managed by the emotionless, communist pod people. In a world of collectivism, the film seems to be saying, capitalism dies.

So the question for us, as intrepid and questioning interpreters of this cinematic art, is, simply: what is this Invasion of the Body Snatchers attempting to say to us, or rather to the intended audience of mid-1950's middle America? 

Is it vehemently anti-McCarthy? Or willfully anti-Communist? 

I submit that the film is likely railing against both "evils"; that it is actually a movie about resisting group think or the mob mentality under any guise. 

After all, what is inherently the difference between rabid communists and rabid anti-communists? Both factions are extreme, and seek to impose their will, ideology, and philosophy on the unaligned. 

Extremism, in any form, is oppressive and undesirable. 

I don't know (yet...) if it's worse to live under a fascist dictatorship or a communist one, and in the end I don't think it matters. Whether you a far leftist or a far rightist, your ultimate goal is to push your dogmatic set of beliefs on those in small town America who just want to be free: free to work; free to love; free to be free from such rancorous divisions.

Miles' warning at the end of the film fits both interpretations of the material. It is delivered directly to the camera, in extreme close-up, and thus directly to us, the audience. 

"They're after all of us! You're next!"

I submit that's a warning that skews in both directions. If allowed, unabated, the HUAC hearings would continue the witch hunt into small towns and middle America. Contrarily, it could be a warning that the Soviet Union was not about to let freedom reign in America, and that subversive communists were already here, corrupting our country.

It is undeniable that this Invasion of the Body Snatchers is extremely faithful to the novel by Finney and so in seeking answers about the intent of this art, we must return to the source material. Entire passages of dialogue and narration have been lifted from the book for the film, and so the concept of personal alienation is also critically important to the film. That idea of personal alienation finds its greatest expression in a beautifully-staged moment that is absolutely and totally inconsistent with everything the film has told us. However, it is so important, I believe, that the filmmakers let it go.

Let me explain. Throughout Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the filmmakers carefully explain the life-cycle of the alien invaders to us. A pod, in close proximity to a human, expels a human-sized "blank" (an impression, the film calls it...). That blank then absorbs the mind and appearance of the nearby human while he or she sleeps. The original human body itself is then destroyed, reduced to "grey filth" and the pod body takes over without missing a step. The distinction I am trying to make is that the pods don't take over the human body. They inhabit duplicate bodies. The original body is...disposed of.

And yet, at the climax of this film, Miles returns to Becky after leaving her briefly to investigate the sound of music nearby (where the hills are alive, he hopes). In his absence, she has fallen asleep - the kiss of death, the period of duplication. Yet, in the same body, her eyes open, showing coldness and iciness. She says "I fell asleep and it happened, Miles," or some such thing, and that is absolutely inconsistent with the duplication process the film describes. She fell asleep, and the pods took over HER body. What should have happened, had the film been true to its own internal logic, is that her body should have dissolved away into dust, and another Becky should have sprung up nearby (wherever the pod was...). This is precisely what happens in the remake of the 1970's. Someone saw the inconsistency there and fixed it.

Yet, going out on a limb here, I would suggest that Siegel, Mainwaring and the producers were smart enough to know this, but that they wanted to get across the message of romantic alienation, the fear of "my wife isn't my wife anymore." 

How can I claim such a thing? Consider how, visually, this scene plays out as dramatized. Miles returns to Becky and she falls asleep right there on him. They fall over together, and he lands on top of her. They end up in an embrace in the mud.

Essentially, looking at them - this man and this woman are ensconced in the missionary position. Miles kisses Becky desperately and passionately, trying to wake her up, trying to rouse or stimulate her. This is the 1950's equivalent of making love on screen (you couldn't show much else.) 

Then, the film cuts to a first-person perspective, Miles' point of view, looking down qt Becky, his love. He expects her to return his affection, but this is not to be. It is from that first-person angle that we see Becky slowly open her eyes...and we know just from Wynter's performance that she is no longer Becky. This choice of angles, of mise-en-scene determinedly reveals to us the fear of romantic alienation. That the woman we love might one morning..suddenly not be that woman anymore. That romantic love can...slip away like a thief in the night, and we are left with something...cold, affection-less.

Critically, this message of alienation could not have carried across in this fashion if the filmmakers had stuck strictly to the "rules" of the pod people. We could not have been afforded -- literally -- an eye-to-eye look at romantic alienation. So yes, there is a huge inconsistency here, but this is one of those occasions, I submit, when breaking the rules is acceptable because there is an artistic purpose underlining it. If the message of the film is alienation, then the film needs this shot.

Much has been made over the years over the "framing" story of this Invasion of the Body Snatchers. If you've seen the film, you know it begins and ends with a raving, lunatic Miles in a hospital, trying to make a psychiatrist and a doctor believe his crazy tale of an alien invasion in Santa Mira (not the Mill Valley of the book). For years and years, I have read from genre reviewers how this framing device and the subsequent optimistic ending (the fight is joined!) sullies the message and intent of the film. It's received wisdom however, and I'm all for questioning received wisdom.

For one thing, the book-end framing of Invasion of the Body Snatchers allows us to hear Miles' recount the adventure in his own words and expressions, in voice-over. This is the film equivalent of the book's first person voice. Hence, it is true to the spirit of the book. 

Secondly, had the film ended merely with Miles screaming in traffic "they're here! they're coming after you!" it would have been a deliberately downbeat climax directly in contradiction to the upbeat ending of the book (which saw the pods head off into space). The movie book-ends featuring the doctors believing Miles after the discovery of the pods is actually closer in spirit to the novel than the more downbeat ending that many critics have argued for over the years. Maybe they didn't read the book. My point is that the story frame doesn't diminish the film; but actually brings the film in closer alignment to the source material.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, beyond the search for cultural subtext and meaning, is the visualization of the material, the careful staging. For instance, Siegel arranges numerous shots with an eye towards visually expressing entrapment. There are shots through staircase posts (bars of a sort), shots through grills in doors (another jail-like visual), even through wooden floorboards in an abandoned mine. The upshot is that we often view our on-the-run protagonists (Miles and Becky) through some kind of visual barrier...something preventing their escape. I believe that this approach helps to enhance the mood of hysteria and paranoia the film is so famous for generating. I hadn't watched the film in a good long while, perhaps eight or nine years, so I wasn't prepared either for the fact that Invasion of the Body Snatchers boasts two jump-out-of-your seat jolts in the first five minutes. This film was made over fifty years ago and those stingers still work. That's a testament to the technical skill of the film-making.

There seems to be a great deal to discuss about this film, its message and its implications, but I hope to leave some of that to you. I was thinking about writing about how, in some sense, this film is about the age of small towns in America (an age that has passed in history; I submit we're now in the Wal-Mart Age). And that in some fashion, this Invasion is about how foreign ideas can poison or an infect a small town.

Is Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1956 an anti-communist film? Or is it Anti-McCarthy? Or do you agree with me: is it simply a warning against extremism on either pole?