Gordon Douglas
20 connections found
View:
Connections, in both directions
It's the recombinant offspring of all those science-fiction pictures of the 1950s and '60s in which exposure to atomic radiation (often referred to as both "atomic" and "radiation") or hazardous chemicals (sometimes also radioactive) results in something very large and inhospitable: "Them!" (giant ants), "Tarantula" (giant spider), "Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People" (giant fungi), "The Amazing Colossal Man" (giant bald guy), "The Giant Behemoth" (giant behemoth -- both giant and a behemoth, but more precisely a radioactive ocean-dwelling Godzilla clone), "Frankenstein Conquers the World" (giant Frankenstein's monster atomically regenerated from the beating heart of the original monster after the A-bomb is dropped on Hiroshima), and so on.
This South Korean box-office monster is an overlong but lively descendant of such antique beastie features as "Godzilla," "Them!" and "Monster From the Ocean Floor" (all from 1954, the launch year for irradiated cinematic mutants).
We all remember the many mutant monsters created by atomic radiation in films of the 1950s, the best of the lot being the giant ants in "Them!"
These are [ extremely movie critic voice ] quite dank movies, but the one horror film that feels like the greatest inspiration for the basic premise of Us is Them!
So there’s no way he named his Get Out follow-up without self-conscious reference to Them! , the 1954 sci-fi film in which a nest of giant irradiated ants threatens Americans from tunnels beneath New Mexico, a recompense (a voiceover at the end tells us) for the hubris of the atomic age.
In one scene Herzog records them watching the 1954 movie Them!, in which the scientist-hero, beleaguered by giant radioactive ants, cries, "We may be witnesses to a Biblical prophesy come true, where the Beast will reign over the Earth."
The subtext, which bubbles to the surface in amusing fashion when Herzog films a team of biologists kicking back to enjoy a screening of the sci-fi environmental disaster flick Them! , is that when the earth decides to take its revenge, it won't be pretty.
A sort of updated cross between the movie version of "M*A*S*H" and the 1959 classic "Operation Petticoat," "Down Periscope" also sends up just about every submarine movie you can name from "Up Periscope" and "Run Silent, Run Deep" to "The Hunt for Red October" and "Crimson Tide."
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
influenced by Lady in Cement (1968)
One wishes some of the other set design’s imaginary Dalton posters were actual realities (including a delightful looking Jigsaw Jane headlined by Suzanne Pleshette), peppered amongst the marquee titles of actual films ( Lady in Cement , Pretty Poison , and Friedkin’s The Night They Raided Minsky ’s all dance across the screen).
There’s Frank Sinatra’s Lady in Cement on a drive-in sign.
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
Directed by Jay Roach
influenced by In Like Flint (1967)
James Coburn's In Like Flint and Dean Martin's Matt Helm are the most famous of these.
Pride of place would go to “Them!,” the mysterious 1954 movie about ants in New Mexico that grow as huge as horses after a nuclear test; the stridulation of unseen creatures in the desert makes music—a high, wavering whistle—that you cannot wipe from your mind.
That said, Ant-Man winningly conjures the days of The Incredible Shrinking Man and Them! , cheesy science-fictions, for the young atomic age, that likewise played with scale.
Captain Marvel (2019)
Directed by Ryan Fleck
influenced by They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970)
Dialogue
Carol, see, was a human but is now Kree because reasons, leading to the whitest inspirational declaration I have ever heard when she says, summoning would-be iconic gravitas, "My name is...Carol!" (It's no "They call me Mister Tibbs!", but it's destined to be memed whenever some soccer mom calls the cops on a renegade lemonade stand going forward.)
Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
influenced by In Like Flint (1967)
Themes
Vaughn and Co. name-drop Bond, Jason Bourne, and Jack Bauer (while invoking the sophistication of John Steed from The Avengers), but really they should be comparing their oh-veddy British efforts to In Like Flint and Matt Helm, American spy-movie spoofs that similarly tried to toe the line between humor and homage.
Guy Ritchie’s feature film version doesn’t so much capture the exact way the TV show was (at all, really), but it does offer the most stylish movie depiction of 1960s spies in a mixture akin to From Russia with Love and In Like Flint.
Ocean's Thirteen (2007)
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
influenced by Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964)
Plot
In that respect, Ocean's Thirteen is more like the original film's 1964 sequel-in-spirit, Robin and the 7 Hoods.
According to the end credits, the filmmakers used stills from “The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms” (1953) and “Them!” (1954).
A direct rip-off of Them! (1954) (with locusts replacing ants), this Z-grade atomic-creature flick has everything you would expect in such a film — including an inevitable romance between a beautiful heroine and a handsome hero; laughably simplistic explanations of the science behind the animal mutations; and crowds running from super-imposed images on the screen.
Beginning of the End (Hen’s Tooth) – Bert I Gordon, the kitsch master of nature gone giant cinema, created this bargain basement spectacle of supersized locusts eating their way through Illinois to Chicago as his answer to the atomic ant classic Them!
Its production was a direct outcome of the success of Them![8]…
And after the success of Them! , who else but Burt I. Gordon to make more giant bug movies?
In this way, Falcone’s Thunder Force shares more in common with the films of the Atomic Age like Them! (1954), It Came From Outer Space (1953), or, in a more recent example, The Vast of Night (2020), though the execution of the narrative has a flavor of action-comedies Blankman (1994) or The Meteor Man (1993).
Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)
Directed by Drew Goddard
influenced by Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964)
Stir in Psycho, Rashomon, John Huston's Key Largo, a whiff of Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel, and a smidgeon of Huston's Beat the Devil and assorted other what-the-hell buddy pics, notably Rat Pack items such as the original Ocean's 11 or Robin and the 7 Hoods.
Japan gave us “Godzilla” (1958) and “Mothra” (1961), but American filmmakers also capitalized on the nuclear hysteria by cranking out plenty of minor box-office hits—like “The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms,” (1953), “Them!” (1954), “It Came from Beneath the Sea” (1955), “Tarantula” (1955), “The Blob” (1958), “The Tingler” (1959), and this mad scientist classic, “The Fly” (1958)—which posters proclaimed was “The monster created by atoms gone wild!”
True, many 1950s horror and science-fiction movies tried to suggest their radioactive bugs and resurrected dinosaurs were more apocalyptic than comic-book; the most famous example of this occurs in 1954's "Them!," when scientist Edmund Gwenn, dumbfounded by the presence of giant ants, intones: "We may be witness to a biblical prophecy come true -- 'And there shall be destruction and darkness come upon creation, and the beast shall reign over the Earth.' " Even so, there's something particularly wonderful and shameless about Corman linking the Western World's most sacred text to his cut-price tale of crustacean telepathy and carnage, as if an Old Testament context might actually cause the Saturday-sinnin', Sunday-forgiven teens at the local drive-in to react with awe rather than guffaws when Corman's giant prop crab claw swings into the frame.
He had no shame when it came to borrowing ideas; this Big Bug movie rips off Them! just as had his Beginning of the End from the year before -- it even has the same writer, George Worthing Yates.
This complete reduction of an initially sympathetic and intelligent character into a snarling, feral “beast” demonstrates the mercenary surrender of the returning produce-writer-director Bert I. Gordon toward sacrificing his initially sympathetic character into a useful substitute for the already used giant soldier ant or octopus (it probably didn’t help employing screenwriter George Worthing Yates who enjoyed a career surge in writing the same damn giant monster movie over and over again, including contributing to the referenced “Them!” and “It Came From Beneath the Sea”, as well as “The Amazing Colossal Man” itself) whose only method of communication is a truly unnerving, gargling roar (kudos to the sound effects technician who braved the proximity of what sounds like Elizabeth Taylor swallowing an all-you-can-eat fried chicken buffet for that invaluable bit of aural bestiality), removing the possibility of the film emerging as anything but a giant-monster-on-the-loose programmer (the sev…
Like The Third Man's Harry Lime, the main characters are the focus of the film, but still haven't shown their faces forty minutes into the film.