reiher%UCLA-CS@sri-unix.UUCP (02/06/84)
From: Peter Reiher <reiher@UCLA-CS>
As a footnote to the discussion of "best" sf films, I'd like to mention a
couple that may not be all that good, but are of some interest and don't
get shown much ("Dark Star" is playing on every street corner, by comparison).
If you know they exist, you'll be less likely to miss their rare appearances.
There's a little known Soviet sf film called "To the Stars By Hard Ways"
(it sounds a lot better in Latin). It was apparently someone's idea of the
Soviet answer to "Star Wars". Better they hadn't heard the question. A Soviet
space crew discovers a crippled space ship with one survivor inside. This
survivor is in suspended animation of some kind, which is finally broken.
World scientists discover some interesting things about her, and eventually
find out where she came from. It's a planet being threatened by ecological
disaster brought on by pollution. The generous Earthmen send off a ship to
investigate, discover that it's indeed true, and fight a final action involving
large quantities of slimey goo. I can't really recommend it on any grounds,
but it's sort of interesting that the Soviets are wasting their time on this
kind of trash. (There is a long history of Soviet sf film. A while back I
saw a Soviet sf/allegory film from the silent era, called "Aellia", or
something like that. Well, it had interesting costumes, at least.)
"Things to Come" is a fairly good sf film based on H. G. Wells novel. It was
made in the 1930s, in England, and has been mentioned briefly on the list.
Here's your chance to see the young Ralph Richardson as a militaristic
warlord. The effects are extremely good, for the time. See London terror
bombed, five years before World War II.
And let us not forget "Metropolis", Fritz Lang's silent classic of an
oppressive future society. Admittedly, it looks rather melodramatic (OK,
extremely melodramatic) today. None the less, the sets are fantastic and
the scenes of the creation of the robot are still impressive.
I have heard of, but not seen, a 1930s Hollywood film about digging a
transatlantic tunnel. I would appreciate hearing from anyone who has
actually seen it.
There are a few other early Hollywood SF films, including a musical, of
all things. Most of them are curiousities, true, but they show that science
fiction did not first enter film in the 1950s, as some believe.
Peter Reiher
reiher@ucla-cs