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Universal-International made a pile of money in the Fifties with their horror and sci-fi films. In fact, profit from those films helped keep the studio afloat back then. The question thus arises: So why didn't they make more such films? The answer is: They did, or at least they tried to, as you'll see in...
Artwork by GEOFFREY MILLER. Text by RENFIELD. After HORROR-WOOD revealed that Hammer Studios, Universal Studios, and American International Pictures all have released information and marketing material concerning horror film productions begun but not completed, that star-crossed corporate coupling known as Universal-International (U-I) of the Fifties has finally opened its confidential files. No less than six--count 'em, six--unfinished horror and sci-fi film projects have come to light, thanks to the diligent squealing of yet another former employee of the studio whom wishes to remain anonymous. This employee provided researchers from HORROR-WOOD with posters and production notes on these half dozen stillborn flicks. "You see, old U-I was making money hand over fist on these monster flicks," the former employee said in an interview held at his refrigerator box townhouse in an alley in Passaic, New Jersey. "The brass didn't like those kind of movies, but they liked the money. So they planned a lot more than they made. Say, you don't have any spare change on you, huh?" After assuring the former U-I movie mogul that we don't have "spare" change, the latter admitted that U-I didn't give a "rat's patoot" about him letting the cat out of the bag now. "Those young punks who run Universal...they just wanna make a buck off everything they can. They can't do anything with these old treatments or they would've used 'em by now, believe me." The following are the pre-production "spec" posters that U-I commissioned for each of the six unfinished film projects, along with what information still exists about them. Due to budgetary limitations (local wine shops had again boosted the price of Thunderbird), HORROR-WOOD was unable to secure all the stolen documentation in the possession of the unnamed source.
Journey To Earth (1954). After the success of 1951's The Day The Earth Stood Still, RKO Studios rushed to purchase the rights to the sequel from 20th Century Fox. In his usual manner, RKO's goofy dictator Howard Hughes then proceeded to sit on the project for years. Finally outing the wacky billionaire, the RKO management team, desperate fro revenue, sold the Project to Universal-International. "Yeah, U-I was all a-quiver over this one," the source cracked. "They were finally gonna do a prestige sci-fi flick." However, the former doorman who played the robot, Gort, in the original film wanted to be paid this time around and that didn't fir into the film's budget. "Greed's a terrible thing," the source sighed. "Anyway, we were stuck with that This Island, Earth project and this one kind of slipped through the cracks. Too bad. We planned to have Ma and Pa Kettle have a cameo in the flick, too."
The Hideous Sun Demon Stalks L.A (1959). "This was kind of a weird one," the source said. "This one-time bit contract player at RKO, I think his name's Clarke, came to us 'cause he heard we were wanting to do another monster flick series that would make as much money as The Creature From The Black Lagoon did. He brought in some makeup shots of himself in this scaly green suit and said it would be the next Creature sensation. We kinda liked it, but Clarke wanted to play the lead. No way! We just planned to give him a percentage of the net profits, which meant he'd get nothing after our bookkeepers got to work. But the bum insisted on acting in the thing, so we showed him the door." When reminded that a version of the "Sun Demon" film was made, the source shrugged. "Yeah, but the bum still didn't make a dime on it, anyway. At least we would've let him eat in the commissary for a while. Amateurs shouldn't make movies, period."
Gunslingers From Mars (1959). U-I entered the cross-genre game with the vampire Western Curse Of The Undead in 1959. This inspired the U-I studio brain trust to prepare the first sci-fi Western. According to pre-production notes, John Agar was slated as the lead. "But he'd done some real crummy films for those independent hacks like Bert Gordon, so he had to be dropped," the source explained. "Then we tried to sign that Eric Fleming again 'cause he did Curse Of The Undead and he was too expensive 'cause that TV show of his, Rawhide, was going great guns back then. Imagine that--a show with that stiff in the lead and that lousy two-bit contract actor we bounced, Clint Eastwood, being such a success. There's just no justice, you know? Then one of the bean counters pointed out that Curse Of The Undead was no gold mine and another sci-fi Western, called Teenage Monster, or something, had already stunk up the box office. So we dumped the project." According to the unnamed source, the projected film would have had such highlights as ray-shooting six guns and mutant cowboy sidekicks.
Invaders From Skorpiex (1955). "This coulda been a real money-maker," the source confided. "Paramount had made a mint off War Of The Worlds and we thought we could get its star, Gene Barry, and trick the boobs into thinking this picture was gonna be just like that picture and cleaned up." Alas, Gene Barry, who disliked his role in War Of The Worlds, evidently told U-I not only no but hell no. "Prima donna!" the source sniffed. "And where did he end up? On the boob tube!" Production notes indicate that the story's author, one E. W. Wood, proved an embarrassment to U-I. "He came to a production meeting in women's clothes!" the source said. "And this jerk, Wood, wanted us to use that washed-up old ham, Bela Lugosi. You know how Universal feels about that character! The front office heard about all that and the whole thing ended up in the toilet." History records that the author later took his story idea, dropped the scaly aliens (to save money) and produced the film himself. Since Mr. Barry still refused to star in it, Dudley Manlove was hired instead.
The Delta Star Horror (1955). "Now, this was all our own creation, no stealing from the other studios," the source commented. "This was going to be a cruncher! A giant spider with an evil guy's brain going around raising hell. This one would've laid them in the aisles." Pre-production notes indicate that Jack Arnold, tapped to direct this picture, had one problem with the titular monster--he wanted to know how the audience would know the mutant spider could think. "That guy was always a nit-picker," the source insisted. "I wonder how much nit-picking he did when he was directing that lousy Gilligan's Island a few years later?" Studio brains suggested that a voice-over narration could reveal the monster's thoughts to the audience." So we shot a test reel and used that guy who did the voice of Francis the mule, you know, Chill Wills." The test reel was a disaster, raising far more hilarity than horror. "So that guy, Arnold, tosses our beautiful script in the round file and get some hack to do another script for him. Okay, okay, that picture did okay, I'll admit," the source added. The picture that did get produced was, of course, Tarantula (1955). The test reel has never been seen again.
The Deadly Beetles (1955). Since big-bug movies were boffo box-office at the time, U-I planned to have Burbank, California, invaded by giant water beetles. "I made a joke at the time that we shoulda made this in El Cajun--you ever seen how big the beetles are down there?" the source commented. As mentioned previously, actor Gene Barry had no love for genre films and he was the first actor to be dropped from the project. "I sure he got more artistic freedom doing Burke's Law," the source cracked. No problem, though, since Sonny Tufts was immediately hired to replace Mr. Barry. "After he did Cat-Women Of The Moon (1953), we hired him for peanuts," the source explained. Unfortunately, the "insect wrangler" the source hired to handle the thousands of live beetles got drunk and allowed a disaster to occur. "So I saved a few bucks and hired this guy off Skid Row. How was I supposed to know he was such a bum?" The beetles escaped the studio's backlot and ended up invading a high-level luncheon held by studio executives trying to woo Marilyn Monroe for a picture. "Well, we didn't get Marilyn, Joe Dimaggio punched out our legal counsel, and I blamed it all on Sonny Tufts and escaped the axe." The picture didn't though. The unnamed source is philosophic about his own career downfall. "Hey, you make a bunch of turkeys, the brass starts thinking you gobble, too," he explained. "So I got sacked and no one else wanted me. It got so bad that that Wood guy offered me a job. Me! Well, I told him I didn't think I could find a pair of panties that would fit me, and that ended that. But I'm not through yet. I'm always working on projects. For example, I was wandering through this dumpster behind the public library and I found this dog-eared paperback copy of that book, Planet Of The Apes, and I thought, hey, we oughta remake that flick. But someone beat me to it, and..." It has come to our attention that some folks have the audacity to question the validity of our investigative reports. Those folks are probably the same ones who said the killer bunny rabbit flick we dug up a while ago was a hoax, too. We refuse to lower our dignity to reply to such impertinent statements. (Heh-heh!) Artwork copyright © Geoffrey Miller, text by Renfield |
