We've talked a lot about the importance of good screenwriting, especially in short format films, to make a story more complex and interesting. On that score, since the quarantine began I've been watching a lot of half hour episodes from some of the tv series I've purchased on dvd in the past couple years, among them "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "Tombstone Territory" and "Decoy" (starring Beverly Garland). The writing is exceptionally good on all three of these shows, and what I am noticing, in addition to the standard practice of keeping the scenes brief, is the amount of plot information contained in every sentence of dialogue. In a 30 minute format, you don't have time for anything non-essential, and in watching these three shows, I am so impressed with the writing, because in each one (and in so many other great series from the early tv era), it's all about story, story, story. With "Tombstone Territory" in particular, there's enough plot information in just 25 minutes (half an hour sans commercials) to fill a short format film, say 70-75 minutes. That's how good the writing is, that it could be stretched to fill a movie three times as long.
I mention all of this because with some of these low budget sci-fi flicks we've been watching, the films could've been infinitely better if someone had just managed to present a tight, well rounded script, one with "no fat" as we say, and at least some measure of complexity in the plot. Several of our recent movies have started out with an interesting story, only to go flat later on, usually around the halfway point. "The Snow Creature" is a perfect example and I detailed it last night. The first half of the movie presents a number of possible threads and conflicts that could be explored, but instead, the filmmakers gave up, and turned the remainder of the picture into a "monster on the loose" flick. Ho-hum, "gotta catch him, where could he be hiding"?........that's what the rest of the movie consists of basically, a game of hide and seek. For the life of me, I don't understand why this happens. If you can write a good first half of your script, why can't you write the rest of it to build and crescendo on what you've already developed? Then your low budget and cheap looking sets wouldn't matter as much, wouldn't detract from your film, because you'd have a killer story. Every episode of the tv shows I mentioned has, at the very least, a good story, and many are excellent. Again, what I notice is that the scenes are short (which keeps the story moving constantly forward), the threads of different characters are intercut to provide conflicting perspectives, and a truckload of plot information is delivered in each scene. That's how you do it; that's how you tell a tight & interesting story in 25 minutes.
I'm harping on screenwriting because once again we have a movie that begins with a strong premise, "The Incredible Petrified World"(1959). I must interject here, in case you are looking it up on IMDB as we speak, to say that I don't want to mislead you. This is not a good movie by any standard. It will turn bad even before the halfway point, so bad that it will become one of the worst films we've seen, but having said that - it does begin with an interesting premise, which means the writer had a good idea........
As the movie opens, an oceanographer (George Skaff) is giving a presentation to a small group of scientists, discussing the deep sea world which at that time remained largely unexplored. He's talking about all the unusual creatures that live at depths where no light penetrates. Then he mentions an unusual phenomenon his research has uncovered - there appears to be a "boundary layer" at which sonar signals aren't returned. What's more, this layer seems to be arbitrarily distributed, existing in some parts of the ocean but not others. What could be down there? Holes in the ocean floor? Honeycombed "hollows" inside the Earth? There's a way to find out, because John Carradine (hooray!) has just invented a diving bell that can withstand pressures at the greatest depths, enough to allow a research team to dive deep into the blackness and explore the hollow earth theory.
Sounds good, right? You've got some interesting science, regardless of how plausible it may be, and you've got the making of a "Journey to the Center of the Earth" type of adventure. This is basically given away by the title " The Incredible Petrified World". So after you see the beginning, and you know it takes place at the bottom of the ocean, you are expecting - due to the superlative in the title - to see something Incredible, a discovery along the lines of an a lost civilization, or a vast desert beneath the sea, or even a world of dinosaurs. Whatever the "boundary layer" might entail, it could be explored and an adventure would likely ensue, maybe even an "incredible" one, as promised.
Then the diving bell breaks down. Carradine is aggrieved ("damn those design flaws"!) but not to worry because his son (Joe Maierhauser), a Scientific Genius, is working on an even better bell that will be sent to rescue the first! Hooray again! Don't worry, John Carradine; everythig will be okey dokey. Your reputation as a Savior of Z-Grade Sci-Fi is safe. The mission will continue.
Annnnd..............that's more or less the end of the movie. At least, it should end there, because nothing else happens. Well, one thing does, but it's so ridiculous I don't even wanna mention it (alright, alright, I will, in a minute). With a broken cable, the first bell continues to sink until it hits bottom. The team sees light through the window. Where could it be coming from? They're at a depth of 16,000 feet! Now the levels on the bell's oxygen meter are rising......Holy Smokes, there's an atmosphere down here!
"I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm getting out of this sardine can"!, the leader intones.
The team crawls out of the bell and finds themselves inside a large cavern (shot at Colossal Cave Park, Vail, Arizona). It does look petrified, I suppose, but doesn't that term indicate something that's been turned to stone, like the wood of a tree? This cave is already stone. So if you were expecting a Petrified World, a bizarre place with all kinds of natural objects that've become stone, I'm sorry to disappoint you. Instead, there's just this cave, which is really big and has some stalagmites, but that's about it. There's nothing Incredible down here, no dinosaurs (though you do get five seconds of a Kimodo dragon), no hidden World, nothing.
Except a creepy old dude who looks like Charles Manson if he was a Cave Man. That's the Ridiculous Thing I was telling you about. As the other characters from the research team wander around the cave talking about nothing in particular, they stumble upon this guy, who speaks with a European accent. He tells them his boat sank and he's been down there 14 years! How he avoided drowning remains a mystery, but at any rate, he seems trustworthy at first. In the guise of helping them, he grills up a fish dinner and then points the explorers to an undersea volcano, through which they can climb back up to the surface! Now, all of this is far more exciting than it sounds, because the characters basically just yack some more about absolutely nothing, and decide whether to take the Volcano Route home, or to wait for potential rescue from the new and improved Second Diving Bell.
Meanwhile, the Old Man has other plans : to kidnap one of the women on the team. Turns out he was more like Manson than we anticipated.
I'm telling ya, this movie is so dumb, and worse! - so boring - that I dunno how I made it through the 71 minute running time. Credit John Carradine, I suppose. Something about that Baritone voice of his keeps you engaged. But yeah.......talk about taking an interesting premise and throwing it in the trash can! This flick is the primest example we've seen so far. At least with some of the other really bad ones, like "They Saved Hitler's Brain", there was nothing good to begin with, so we had no expectations. Which brings us back to the subject at the beginning of the blog, which was "if you can begin with an interesting idea, why can't you complete it by developing the plot threads you've opened up? I just don't get it. Why even write the possibilities to begin with if you aren't gonna use them? Sheesh, even "Bride of the Gorilla" was better than this.
Maybe from now on we can cut a deal : either write a good script or an entirely bad one, but please don't hook me with an Interesting Premise, only to take the rest of the night off as far as your screenplay is concerned. Just write a crummy movie from the get-go so I don't end up watching it. Is it a deal? Okay, thanks.
Two Thumbs Decidedly Down for "The Incredible Petrified World". There's no reason to see it unless you need a John Carradine fix and can't find a copy of "Vampire Hookers" anywhere. /////
That's all I know for the moment. Time for my Incredibly Petrified CSUN Walk. See you in a while at the Usual Time! :):)
Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
P.S. Elizabeth, regarding the selfie you posted yesterday, I think you look nice in hot pink, quarantine or no quarantine! :):) I know you've been branching out from your former wardrobe of all black to try different colors, and that is a good one. You look mah-velous as Billy Crystal would say. :):)
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