Dr Frank C Baxter, professor of English at the University of Southern California gets up from his desk and fills us in on various theories of how the Earth might be hollow and inhabited.
Great review, Doc.I've always had a soft spot for this one. I first saw it when I was about nine or ten, and I remember loving the lecture on the history of the Hollow Earth theory.
I'm not sure about the alleged fear of violating the Hays Code rules regarding miscegenation, though. The Code, to the best of my knowledge, only explicitly forbade sexual relationships between Whites and Blacks, with the Studios themselves choosing to extend the ban to relationships between Whites and East Asians.Middle Easterners*, like Latin Americans (that is to say, White Latin Americans like Ricardo Montalban, Carmen Miranda,and Maria Montez), were allowed to engage in romantic relationships with White characters.
*Note the part Egyptian character played by Zita Johann in the 1932 MUMMY film. Although it was pre-Hays Code, I don't recall hearing anything about it being recut for post Code re-releases.
I suppose the prologue with Dr Baxter was tacked on to bring the film up to 70 minutes. Too bad other drive-in flicks didn't bring him on at the beginning, I enjoyed his presentation.
Cynthia Patrick said her character originally survived and Universal made her come back to shoot the scene where Adal gets squashed. Probably they were being too cautious. I've read somewhere that a big production like LOVE IS A MANY-SPLENDORED THING had real trouble with the censors because Jennifer Jones was playing a Eurasian. I don't know what the details were on what was acceptable... maybe implied romance could get by, but nothing serious that could lead to marriage and children? A tragic death in the final reel was often a convenient solution.
I think it may also have been the studios worrying about loss of ticket sales as much as direct censorship. A campaign against a film because of its 'immorality' would cut into profit.
Visiting Your Old Digsbaron_wasteMarch 1 2013, 10:06:02 UTC
[That's a triple-word-score entendre, there, given the subject of this review post…]
War of the Worlds had been released what, four years earlier. It would have been more interesting for Adal's death to come about for the same reason the Sumerians would have lost any such 'uprising' (they've never faced one before? Oh no, you can bet Procedures were In Place), the real reason why Cortez and his boys won, indeed the cause of more deaths in military history than any sword or gun - disease. What Europe did to almost every other culture in the world, these surface dudes would have done for the Neomesopotamians tout de suite.
Poor Adal would have lasted about twelve hours before succumbing to tuberculosis, influenza, measles, tired blood and the heartbreak of psoriasis.
[The lame time-waster What Waits Below did at least work this in: The team of outsiders were extremely aware of the frozen-spiderweb fragility of the subterrenes they'd encountered, and the real possibility that they'd just killed them all. Jack Vance's bitter post-WWII
( ... )
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Criswell wasn't available that month?
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I'm not sure about the alleged fear of violating the Hays Code rules regarding miscegenation, though. The Code, to the best of my knowledge, only explicitly forbade sexual relationships between Whites and Blacks, with the Studios themselves choosing to extend the ban to relationships between Whites and East Asians.Middle Easterners*, like Latin Americans (that is to say, White Latin Americans like Ricardo Montalban, Carmen Miranda,and Maria Montez), were allowed to engage in romantic relationships with White characters.
*Note the part Egyptian character played by Zita Johann in the 1932 MUMMY film. Although it was pre-Hays Code, I don't recall hearing anything about it being recut for post Code re-releases.
Reply
Cynthia Patrick said her character originally survived and Universal made her come back to shoot the scene where Adal gets squashed. Probably they were being too cautious. I've read somewhere that a big production like LOVE IS A MANY-SPLENDORED THING had real trouble with the censors because Jennifer Jones was playing a Eurasian. I don't know what the details were on what was acceptable... maybe implied romance could get by, but nothing serious that could lead to marriage and children? A tragic death in the final reel was often a convenient solution.
I think it may also have been the studios worrying about loss of ticket sales as much as direct censorship. A campaign against a film because of its 'immorality' would cut into profit.
Reply
[That's a triple-word-score entendre, there, given the subject of this review post…]
War of the Worlds had been released what, four years earlier. It would have been more interesting for Adal's death to come about for the same reason the Sumerians would have lost any such 'uprising' (they've never faced one before? Oh no, you can bet Procedures were In Place), the real reason why Cortez and his boys won, indeed the cause of more deaths in military history than any sword or gun - disease. What Europe did to almost every other culture in the world, these surface dudes would have done for the Neomesopotamians tout de suite.
Poor Adal would have lasted about twelve hours before succumbing to tuberculosis, influenza, measles, tired blood and the heartbreak of psoriasis.
[The lame time-waster What Waits Below did at least work this in: The team of outsiders were extremely aware of the frozen-spiderweb fragility of the subterrenes they'd encountered, and the real possibility that they'd just killed them all. Jack Vance's bitter post-WWII ( ... )
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