Science Fiction America: Essays on SF Cinema

289 Pages·2011·37.601 MB·English

by  David J. Hogan (editor)

SCIENCE FICTION
AMERICA
ALSO BY DAVID J. HOGAN
Dark Romance: Sexuality in the Horror Film
(McFarland, ¡986; paperback ¡997)
S F
CIENCE ICTION
A
MERICA
Essays on SF Cinema
Edited by David J. Hogan
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
The present work is a reprint of the illustrated case bound
edition of Science Fiction America: Essays on SF Cinema,
first published in 2006 by McFarland.
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
Science fiction America : essays on
SF cinema / edited by David J. Hogan.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-66¡2-2
softcover : 50# alkaline paper
¡. Science fiction films—United States—History and criticism.
I. Hogan, David J., ¡953–
PN¡995.9.S26S275 20¡¡ 79¡.43'6¡5—dc22 2005004743
BRITISHLIBRARYCATALOGUINGDATAAREAVAILABLE
© 2006 David J. Hogan. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Cover image © 20¡¡ Index Stock
Manufactured in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 6¡¡, Je›erson, North Carolina 28640
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For Kim
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Chuck Anders, Ron Borst ofHollywood Movie
Posters, Bob Burns, Tom Conroy ofMovie Still Archives, David Del Valle,
J.D. Lees and G-Fan, Donnie Pitchford, Mike Vraney and Lisa Petrucci of
Something Weird Video, and Dr. Chet Walker for all oftheir help. Thanks
also to the contributing writers who provided photographs and other
images.
vi
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vi
Introduction: Science Fiction and the Actual
DAVID J. HOGAN 1
1—High Treason: Great Expectations
JOHN T. SOISTER 7
2—Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931): Science, Society, and Sexuality
BRYAN SENN 17
3—Cartoons and Technocracy: Disney’s The Mad Doctor and
Fleischer’s Dancing on the Moon
LEONARD J. KOHL 24
4—Flash Gordon Conquers the Great Depression and World War
Too! The Flash Gordon Serial Trilogy
LEONARD J. KOHL 40
5—Atomic City, Atomic World
DAVID J. HOGAN 57
6—Where Do Little Green Men Come From? A Speculative Look
at the Origins of a Pop Culture Icon
VINCENT DI FATE 69
7—In Them We Trust? Fear, Faith, and It Came from Outer Space
JERRY YAMAMOTO 94
8—Secret Identity, Fragile Identity: TV’s Superman in “Superman
on Earth,” “The Stolen Costume,” “The Face and the Voice,”
and “Panic in the Sky”
DAVID J. HOGAN 104
9—The Atomic Kid: Radioactivity Finds Andy Hardy
TED OKUDA 120
vii
viii Table of Contents
10—Godzilla vs. the Military-Industrial Complex
ALAN DIRK LESTER 130
11—Cosmic Frames and Cover-ups: Invasion of the Saucer Men and
the UFO Conspiracy of Silence
LYNDON W. JOSLIN 138
12—The Cold War in Orbit: Two Films of Aliens, Arsenals, and
Interventions
LYNDON W. JOSLIN 151
13—Scenes from a Marriage: The Sexual Politics of I Married a
Monster from Outer Space
MARK CLARK 166
14—Two Faces of Voyeurism: Nude on the Moon and “X”—The Man
with the X-Ray Eyes
CHASE WINSTEAD 176
15—The Satan Bug: Some Nightmares Are Quite Inescapable
ALAN DIRK LESTER 188
16—“Conclusion of All Our Yesterdays”: The Jungian Text of
The Omega Man
RYAN BAKER 196
17—The Sport of Violence: Death Race 2000 and Rollerball
BRYAN SENN 207
18—Logan’s Run to Relevance
ROBERT TINNELL 217
19—Entropy in B-flat; or, Disordered Thoughts on The Black Hole
GARY D. RHODES 225
20—Pets or Meat: Alien, Aliens, and the Indi›erence of the Gods
MARK CLARK 233
21—The Brave New World of Starship Troopers
KEN WEISS 246
22—The Iron Giant: A Gun with a Soul
JACQUE DAY ARCHER 256
Contributors 269
Index 271
Introduction:
Science Fiction and the Actual
DAVID J. HOGAN
Science fiction illuminates our public faces and our secret lives.
All right: Here’s a visual narrative that comes to me occasionally, not as a dream
and not even as an idle daytime fantasy, but as specific images that unspool as if I
observe them on a movie screen: A shadowed suburban street on a summer night,
viewed from 20 or 30 feet above ground level. No people are about. The houses are
dark. One, perhaps two, cars are parked at the curbs. A sigh of wind rustles the
branches and leaves ofa mature maple tree.
My camera “eye” begins to descend, looking rightward, toward the quiet houses,
then left, toward a thin shaft oflight that falls across a patch ofgrass and onto a side-
walk. We’re looking at a school—old brick and ofsubstantial size, probably a high
school. We begin to move toward the yellow light.
The scene dissolves, and we are inside the school, our vantage point eye level
or lower, moving slowly through the dim corridors. There is no sound, and once again
there is no light. Classroom doors are closed. We round a corner. At the end of the
corridor is the gymnasium.
The gym doors open before us and as we move forward we see the horror inside:
townspeople ofevery age and gender, gathered in knots dotting the corners and side
walls, attended to by terrible tentacled things in bubble helmets. Aliens. Extrater-
restrials. Invaders. Gross features and puckered, pitted limbs; creatures that suggest
words like cilia, pedicle, bulbous, and mucous. The gymnasium is dim but the clear
helmet worn by each creature gives o› a sickly green glow, so the vast room has the
quality ofan undersea environment where phosphorescent fishes light the murk.
In one corner a gathering of monsters toy with a terrified middle-aged man,
snaking their limbs around his body, pushing and shoving him between them. In a
dimmer corner a clot of monsters surround three teenage girls, one of whom has
lost halfher T-shirt. The young women react to their alien suitors with open fear.
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