Translate

Monday, March 31, 2025

Devil Girl From Mars - A Female Darth Vader



It's hard to believe that Devil Girl From Mars may have once scared the pants off baby boomers of the mid-1950s. The plot of the film has many similarities to the 1951 classic The Day The Earth Stood Still.


Martian Nyah, played by Patricia Laffan, is a sex starved, female version of Darth Vader who comes to earth to find men to take back to mars for breeding purposes. She comes dressed in a tight black outfit and cape, and carries a deadly ray gun. Her spaceship crashes in the hills of Scotland.

Joining Nyah is her oversized robot shaped like a kitchen appliance with a police light on top. The robot zaps anything and anyone in his path with an atomic ray, including humans who do not obey Nyah. He walks with a pace slower than a common snail, making it easy for victims to get away.



Nyah projects an invisible ray around a local Scottish Inn to keep the occupants contained while she decides which men to take back to mars with her. The occupants make several attempts to stop Nyah, but are unable to foil her plot. One of the occupants, an escaped murderer from a local jail, agrees to return to mars with Nyah in exchange for sparing the lives of the remaining inn occupants. While onboard Nyah's ship, he is able to destroy it, spoiling any future plans to return to earth for more men.



Most 1950s sci-fi films portray women as helpless victims while the men are busy being the heroes and saving the day. Devil Girl From Mars, however, reverses this formula a bit. Nyah is an evil queen from another world who has come to terrorize male victims. Was this a bold feminist statement for the 1950s? Perhaps. But only if Nyah had been successful in her attempts to bring back men to mars. Nevertheless, this is what makes Devil Girl From Mars unique from so many other 50s sci-fi flicks. Enjoy, and happy viewing!

-- Steve D. Stones

(The newspaper clips are courtesy of David Grudt, of Long Beach, Calif. From the top: Long Beach, Calif. Independent, Tuesday Aug. 9, 1955; Long Beach, Calif. Independent, Saturday, March 16, 1957; Long Beach, Calif. Independent TV listing, Sunday June 1, 1958; and below, a shocking news story about a young moviegoer who was burned while watching the film in a theater. From the Oakland, Calif. Tribune, Thursday July 12, 1956.)




Monday, March 24, 2025

Journey to Freedom a flawed by compelling Cold War drama from cult filmmaker Stephen C Apostolof



---

Review by Doug Gibson


Most cult film genre fans know the late Stephen C. Apostolof  as the director of the mid-‘60s Ed Wood-scripted “nudie-cutie” film “Orgy of the Dead,” with ponderous, pontificating Criswell, shot in a Hollywood graveyard, with very, very long poorly choreographed nude dances. Those deeper into cult genre know Apostolof, later in his career, hired Wood to script, act, and generally just help out in several more soft-core films the Bulgarian-born director made in the ‘70s.


But Apostolof, who died a generation ago, was a fascinating, charismatic man with an intensely interesting life story. The biography, Dad Made Dirty Movies, by Jordon Todorov and Joe Blevins, is a book that merits more sales success. There is also a film documentary on Apostolof’s life and career.


At the age of 18 Apostolof, a lifelong anti-communist, was imprisoned by the communist party that then ruled Bulgaria. He eventually managed to get out of that country, and  -- with many adventures – moved his way through Istanbul, Paris, Canada and eventually to the United States, where the now-married Apostolof settled in Los Angeles for decades.





A man of many jobs, Apostolof was interested in making a semi-autobiographical film detailing, with some license, his experiences eluding communism. The 1950s were a decade with anti-communist films. Bigger-budget films included “The Woman on Pier 13” and “I was a Communist for the FBI.” But there were lower-budget efforts too, including “The Beast of Budapest” and “Escape from the Iron Curtain,” which starred a young Theodore Bikel. Apostolof consulted with a friend, Herb Niccols, to write a screenplay based on Apostolof’s life.


Apostolof formed SCA Productions, managed to get $47,000 in funds, and made the 60-minute “Journey to Freedom,” which RKO eventually agreed to distribute.


How good a film is “Journey to Freedom?” Well, I like it, but I love cult films. I love those low-budget, ragged puppies of movies made on a wing and a prayer. “Journey to Freedom” is a very personal film. It details the escape from communism of Stephan Raikin, (Jacques Scott) a mild-mannered pianist/writer who escapes prison with two friends. Raikin gets a job playing piano in an Istanbul bar. There he encounters a monster of a man (Tor Johnson) who hates Bulgarians and beats up Raikin. Alone now, Raikin takes off for Paris and falls in love with a beautiful woman, Nanette (Michele Montau). Their romance has potential but the communists are still trying to kill Raikin, who is now interested in working for Voice of America. The pair break up. Raikin makes it to New York City. Injured there, he falls in love with and marries his nurse, Mary (Eve Brent). They move to Los Angeles, have a child (played by Apostolof’s real life child, Polly) and began an idealistic life, in a happy home, going to church, and Raiking writing for Voice of America. But the Bulgarian secret police won’t stop pursuing him, and the climax involves one more attempt to ruin the immigrant dissident’s life.


The plot sounds interesting, but it needs a better script and budget. Frankly, to encompass the plot, the film needs 30 extra minutes. But due to budget strains, it’s episodic, with abrupt plot changes, plot twists that seem contrived, and just passable dialogue. The film has lots of stock news footage, which is interesting.




The film is either enhanced, or lowered (depending on the viewer’s opinion) by the unique inclusion of a Bulgarian communist secret police member who narrates much of the film. This is done to move the plot along and increase awareness of the ongoing danger facing Raikin. I found this initially fun although it started to wear out its welcome later. The narration is very campy, sort of told in an accented “Snidely Whiplash” type of manner.


The crew and cast is a cult genre fan’s delight. Director Robert Dertano directed ‘50s cheapies “Girl Gang” and “Paris after Midnight.” He was also an assistant director in “Orgy of the Dead.” The cameraman was Ed Wood’s favorite, Bill Thompson, who filmed “Plan 9 from Outer Space.” Tor Johnson does a rare speaking part in Journey to Freedom. He also had dialogue in “Plan 9 From Outer Space.” Don Marlowe, a former agent of Bela Lugosi with a rascally reputation, has a small role as a detective. Apostolof has a small cameo in a scene where he wears a beret.


The cast is not bad. Scott was the son of a British ambassador. His best role was in the Jack Lemon, June Allyson film “You Can’t Run Away From It.” Montau was a working actress. Her best role might be “The Devil at 4 O’Clock,” with Spencer Tracy and Frank Sinatra. The best-known actress in the film is Brent, who had a very long career. Today her face is recognizable because she was so ubiquitous in TV and films. In the big-budget film, “The Green Mile,” she had a substantial role. Her career was still young in “Journey to Freedom” and she bears a resemblance to Shelly Winters.





It’s easy to tag these 1950s anti-communist films as an element of the McCarthy era. But that’s not really fair for films dealing with oppression in Europe, such as “Journey to Freedom” or “The Beast of Budapest.” The treatment of dissidents, even peaceful ones, was uniquely cruel. My father in law, a labor leader in Hungary who supported the unsuccessful ’56 revolution, was imprisoned and tortured. Scores of thousands were murdered.


Apostolof was certainly proud of the film. But it bankrupted him. He only earned a small percentage of his investment back. Yet, he was resilient, and enjoyed long success making soft-core films with the moniker A.C. Stephen. His career -- and family life -- make for fascinating reading in “Dad Made Dirty Movies.”


Currently, “Journey to Freedom” can be viewed (free) on Amazon Prime. It’s part of the streamer MGM+ offerings. It’s definitely worth an hour of your time. And buy his biography. (I think Max or Netflix, etc. could make a fascinating multi-part series of his life, but what do I know?)


Plan9Crunch thanks David Grudt, of Long Beach Calif., for unearthing these several newspaper clippings of the film. From top to bottom, the sources are: South Bend Tribune, South Bend Indiana, Oct. 17, 1957; Anaheim Bulletin, Anaheim California, Jan. 19, 1957; The Bellingham Herald, Bellingham, Washington, Nov. 13, 1957; Los Angeles Evening News, Hollywood, California, Dec. 3, 1957; The LA Times, Thursday, December 1, 1960 (already on TV).






Wednesday, March 19, 2025

Further Thoughts On Nosferatu 2024: Radical Ecofeminism, Jungian Shadows, and Robert Eggers' Commentary Track


 

By Joe Gibson

 

Previously, here on Plan9Crunch, Doug Gibson and I compared our thoughts on Robert Eggers' Nosferatu 2024 in this video on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9tFhlQzbg8

 

We based our discussion on the two twin blog post reviews we released upon seeing the film for the first time, which you can read here: https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/12/nosferatu-2024-is-near-classic-great.html

https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/12/nosferatu-symphony-of-misplaced.html

 

Having watched the film since, we convened again for another YouTube discussion: https://youtu.be/nWB7Lh8BFgA?si=vX23UcIUk8Guciqg

 

And now, it is time for this post, where I shall share some more finalized thoughts and evaluations of the film, informed by two additional watchthroughs of the film, one of which with the commentary track by Robert Eggers.

 

Syphilis vs Bubonic Plague 

 

So, one of the largest points I raised (in word count and overall pervasiveness) was that this film functions necessarily within certain subtextual contexts that, this being a Nosferatu movie, are supposed to link back to the bubonic plague but, this being a Dracula story, can very easily lend themselves to syphilis. I elaborate more on that in my original blog post (https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/12/nosferatu-symphony-of-misplaced.html). Robert Egger’s feature commentary track (we will be looking more closely at it towards the end of this essay) claims that Orlok was just scarier as a rotting corpse than as an old man (implicitly, Eggers thinks that the rotting naked corpse was the scariest possibility, not just the scarier one of two options, to which I do not agree but I respect the viewpoint). A rotting corpse representing a character’s sexual regret may have potent folkloric implications, but this is an adaptation of a 19th century story set once again in the 19th century, and neurosyphilis is uniquely suited to explain the delusion of Herr Knock and Mr. Renfield. You need to be very careful reintroducing syphilis into a story where it had to be deliberately removed and replaced with a different ailment.

 

Technically, with syphilis cases ballooning in the last half a decade, there is a valid artistic exigence to include syphilis subtext. I just think it detracts from the plague imagery in this ratio (you do not have to agree; I can fathom alternative viewpoints). I also think that the syphilis imagery was unintended, merely the intersection of the Dracula IP with Robert Egger’s instinct to draw from folklore about vampires, sexual demons and the Death and the Maiden motif. I think that weakens the thematic unity (you do not have to agree). That said, I do have to acknowledge that I missed the major piece of plague imagery that serves to balance this scale somewhat.

 

 

According to https://dianadagaz.substack.com/p/symbolism-in-nosferatu-2024, the shot of Nosferatu unleashing the plague across Wisbourg through his hand is established and codified plague imagery based on a popular painting (“A Giant Hand Roaming Through the Dark Streets of London, People and Rats Try to Escape Its Grasp; Representing Bubonic Plague” by Richard Tennant Cooper, circa 1912). Incidentally, this image is by the same artist as the syphilis image I shared last time, which makes it at least as relevant but probably more so since the bubonic plague image was actually referenced in the film. Once I realized this image existed, I had to include it here and concede that I was wrong about the film being lopsided (though there absolutely is superfluous syphilis in this film). For what it is worth, according to Eggers, the shot in Nosferatu 2024 was referencing a different Murnau film that also carried plague subtext.

 

While we are on the topic of Orlok’s shadowy hand imagery as a motif, in our most recent Nosferatu video on the channel, my dad and I discussed the cover art for the official Blu-Ray release of this film and how it consists of Nosferatu’s hand grabbing Ellen. In the original movie, Orlok’s grotesque proportions translate into its most memorable imagery, especially when the shadows on the wall (shadows always have similarly warped proportions) literally become Nosferatu and vice versa. But while the new movie uses that very well for the full body shots, I feel the original did it a lot better in regard to the hands to where it did not put in the work to make Nosferatu synonymous with dark mysterious hands the same as the original film.

 

For an example, you can look at the recent Legendary Godzilla films. One of the main posters for Godzilla 2014 unveiled just his dorsal fins (they were trying to hide the full body design), but people complained because not only were those dorsal fins so different from the original Japanese ones, but the films had not come out yet to code Godzilla’s appearance through those slate peaks. The movies came out and used his dorsal fins to create and shape the imagery (Godzilla swims with those dorsal fins sticking out of the water and often glowing), so, by the time Godzilla vs Kong’s main poster came out showing a monkey squaring off against those dorsal fins, people knew what it meant. The films had to earn the use of the symbol through repetition and focus.

 

 

I suspected the deleted scenes could help in some of my criticisms, and, indeed, the first deleted scene has another major moment of the image of Orlok’s hands, even as shadow grabbing Ellen in the window, a very iconic scene that justifies the cover art entirely. (There are other moments with the hand across Ellen’s face in the movie, such as when Orlok’s rats feed on Anna but none as striking as that deleted window scene.) 

 

Now, it is not fair to hold the marketing of a film against the film itself, because different teams make that, and the access that the marketing and product design teams have to the film varies, so it is not a mark against the film but a detail that confused me and now makes sense. That is the point of this tangent, to try to understand this film in great detail, because if I can argue how and why the film did what it did, then I have a hope of being able to articulate if the film did what it did well or not.

 

There is another consideration to glean from the cover art’s emphasis on just the two figures: the grotesque hand and Ellen. As my father said (and I am prone to agree), Ellen, in this movie, has a far greater emphasis, role and strength, and that contributes to a very specialized feminist lens one can analyse this film through.

 

Radical Ecofeminism

 

 

Again, I am not talking about whether or not movies in general should or should not have feminist messages; I am just saying that I think, somewhat obviously, this film was always going to be a little feminist with Ellen as the hero (when Mina was not the one to kill Dracula) and that specifically there is a very tenable radical ecofeminist reading.

 

One of the most important ideas in feminist theory is the restrictive patriarchy. Some forms of feminism aim to work within the patriarchy to solve it, while the more radical forms posit that growth can only be done outside and to overthrow the system. If, for instance, this film had a wealthy male character who is ineffectual to the point of failing to protect his family and who seems devoted to keeping Ellen in her place, labeling her premonitions as hysteria, that would be a pretty textbook character to represent the patriarchy. 

 

The character I just described is Friedrich Harding by the way; I just wanted to lay out the feminist reading of him before I said who. Harding's wife, being a woman complicit to her husband's patriarchy mistreatment of Ellen but also a character that Ellen can innately connect with, touches on ideas in radical essentialist feminism. Von Franz literally tells Ellen that, in a society more accepting of her feminine instincts and gifts, she could have been a religious leader, connecting to the radical feminist concept of a matriarchy being superior to a patriarchy. We must also consider that the nuns know the best, even better than Von Franz, what is going on and are able to treat Hutter to the point where he recovers almost completely after just a couple days of being home (while in that same time frame, Harding, who relies on the patriarchal hegemony of science and reason falls ill and dies).

 

Ultimately, the reason I think radical ecofeminism as the specific feminist lens most suitable here is because Orlok, an immortal agent of the patriarchy and Hutter, an unwitting instigator, cast Wisbourg into an ecological nightmare with the plague that only Ellen can stop (if I lost you with Harding, you have to admit that Orlok is a man using his higher standing to persecute and dominate Ellen, and Orlok is also specifically mistreating the environment through his same Ellen focused patriarchal actions. That is already the bare minimum for ecofeminism in a story). Despite the men holding all the power in the society, they are impotent by the end of the movie (Orlok has lost the chess game the moment he enters Ellen's embrace, Harding loses his mind and dies during necrophilia, and Hutter is not fast enough to save his wife), and the movie seems to be implying that it always takes a woman to kill a vampire (that is not to say that the vampire hunting ritual of virgin girl on a white horse is feminist liberation but that Ellen is reclaiming the power in a situation forced upon her by society). 

 

Ellen also voices opposing ecological perspectives from Hutter when she takes issue with him killing the beautiful flowers. I cannot speak to any intent (all of the specifically ecofeminist subtext could have been built accidentally from needing to follow the Nosferatu plot points but wanting to show more nonspecific feminist concepts), but I think it works. The only thing that gives me pause is that Von Franz (a man of high status) and Ellen are on the same page about the environment (the film connects their attitudes explicitly and through their shared love of cats). I think it's simple enough to say that Von Franz being revealed to have never killed a vampire and being shown to accept the natural order of feminist vampire slaying (and being a disgraced scientist, thus cast out of the patriarchy) keeps this reading intact, but Von Franz is also an odd character that I think I am only beginning to grasp.

 

Von Franz Is Not Van Helsing

 

 

Dr. Albin Everhart Von Franz is the Van Helsing character in 2024’s Nosferatu. The original Nosferatu had its own Van Helsing called Professor Bulwer, but he did not factor into the action. According to Egger’s commentary, he likes the Van Helsing archetype and wanted to include him, naming him Von Franz due to the naming scheme of Harker being similar to Hutter and Sievers being similar to Seward. I would argue, however, that Von Franz’ treatment has more in common with Friedrich Harding.

 

Harding is the Arthur Holmwood of this story, the upper class wealthy beneficiary of the fellowship with his own love interest that is doomed to die. As I already wrote about in my first article on this film (https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/12/nosferatu-symphony-of-misplaced.html), Harding is a subversion, inversion or perhaps downright deconstruction of Arthur, which you can see especially in Arthur’s moment in his family’s sepulchre. Whereas in Dracula, Arthur stakes the vampirized Lucy, Harding commits necrophilia with the dead Anna and then dies himself. Harding, like Arthur, follows in his own father’s footsteps occupationally, but there is not a title change to Godalming and no other fatherly connection to the Van Helsing of this version.

 

Von Franz is an enigmatic character. He has moments implying psychic precognition similar to Ellen and talks about the different psychic extents to which people can operate and be acted upon by demons. While he has the ethos, pathos and logos of the traditional Van Helsing, he is messier in his approach, stabbing Ellen to prove she feels no pain in trance and cackling like a lunatic while setting locations on fire. I was incorrect when I previously said that prayer is shown to be in vain in the movie; the nuns and Dafoe do employ it and advocate for it to good effect. It just is not the final authority, and neither is Von Franz at least compared to the now mythologized vampire hunter Van Helsing (https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2025/01/opinion-van-helsing-has-outlived-his.html). 

 

According to the commentary track, the writings, beliefs, attitudes and symbology of Dr. Carl Gustav Jung are very important to understanding Von Franz. I have only a passing knowledge of the man and his thoughts, but Ellen’s question to Von Franz “Does evil come from within us or from beyond?” seems coded to Jungian thought, pertaining to an external quote Jung included in his own writings, “Those things we call evil, then, are defects in good things….” Von Franz even later says that the fight against evil is about finding it in one’s self, which brings to mind the Jungian idea of the shadow, the unconscious undesirable traits or implications of one character, often embodied by an antagonist, but essential for every man to identify and overcome in order to become conscious and aware.

 

Even though the design of Orlok in this movie was mostly to be a period accurate Transylvanian nobleman, I find striking similarities to the design of Von Franz that I will qualify in a moment, but doubles relationships, the self and shadow, are intrinsic to Jungian thought, so Nosferatu and Von Franz are allowed to be deep foils.

 

Nosferatu, The Shadow of Von Franz

 

 

When Hutter enters the room for negotiations with Orlok, the latter is dimly lit with a feast on the table. So too do Sievers and Harding find Von Franz in a dimly lit room where he offers them drink. Orlok speaks in a dead language, and Von Franz too is babbling incoherently until he recognizes Sievers. Most notably, they are dressed to match: a stupid hat (or nightcap), a stupid coat (or nightgown) and stupid mustache for both. Orlok has skin dislocation due to being a walking corpse, but you can also see in a key moment that Von Franz has discoloration of his fingers due to his pipe smoking. This is deliberate; it has to be. None of this is intrinsic to book Van Helsing, and the movie already has a penchant for warping the book characters. Willem Dafoe has played Nosferatu before. This is intentional shadow symbology per the Jungian ideas present in the character. And in case you doubt that, explain to me why else (according to the commentary track) it is the Nosferatu theme song that plays when Sievers and Harding first encounter Von Franz in his home.

 

When you rewatch with this in mind, certain key details take on new importance. Orlok lives in the company of three or so wolves as well as rats, while Von Franz lives with cats. So does Ellen. We’ll get back to what that means but not only should you keep in mind the cat and mouse and dog and cat dynamic but that Von Franz is coded this way even stronger due to having at least double the amount of cats Ellen does and having a close connection to her cat. Most importantly, for Ellen to protect her husband, she has to go behind his back and make a pact with this devil Orlok to condemn him, but, before she can do that, she takes Von Franz aside and makes a pact with him that she will do that.

 

So what is the point of this? Why posture Orlok and Von Franz as Jungian foils other than the idea it is neat? I cannot speak to the intent outside of just following that string of the animals a little deeper. When Orlok is in the castle, he is at his most potent and virile, surrounded by wolves and able to control Ellen. Wolves are more powerful than cats. But when Nosferatu comes to Wisbourg, he comes with rats, which cats feed on, and Nosferatu is unable to save himself from Ellen. I would not think that significant except that Ellen also relocates to the Hardings’ and takes her cat with her. Now, cats per Jung, represent femininity and intuition, but the film is already telling us that because Ellen’s cat is named Greta after the original actress of Ellen (who is a character defined by feminine intuition). 

 

If it seems weird to you that Jungian Von Franz is being associated with feminine animals you must keep in mind that Jung delineated male and female strength and that truly aware conscious people must accept their own inner woman (if they are a man and vice versa). Eggers talks on the commentary track about the deepening relationship between Ellen and Von Franz, and, truly, based on my own watchthroughs he sees her as a source of strength he grows from. Orlok underestimates her and seeks to control her, and she kills him, but the first thing Von Franz does to Ellen is tell Sievers to untie her, and the last thing he does in the movie is lift up her cat, the symbol of their victory.

 

Not every detail is going to be too important to this overall reading. The connection of Orlok to wolves is meant to communicate his predatory nature and ravenous lack of self control (as well as the vestigial connection of vampires to wolves in Bram Stoker’s book and the folklore). The presence of multiple wolves does not indicate that Nosferatu intends to build a harem or army, and the fact that the wolves do not try to eat Hutter until after he wakes is not meant to communicate that they do have self control actually; it is either Eggers or Orlok allowing Hutter to live (there are some indications that Orlok does not want to kill Hutter, so either he gave the wolves very confusing instructions to give Hutter a chance to live or this was the best way Eggers could think of to keep Hutter in peril but alive while asleep with ravenous wolves in the room)

 

Does The Commentary Fix My Issues

 

Robert Eggers seems to me like a genius visionary director. Listening to Eggers describe the set, performances, and filming down to minute details shows the specificity of his approach in this movie. All that said, commentary tracks are often slapped together not prepared with the same scope, editing and cogent final cut that the films are provided. Often times, commentary tracks are cut down by the studio, resulting in a director’s words on one scene being transplanted to a different scene (Adam Wingard’s Godzilla vs Kong commentary track is one such example), so it would be bad faith and quite possibly hypocritical for me to complain about the way a director discusses their movie. They will have forgotten some ideas that were very important at the time, some moments in the film will be relics of previous drafts and plot considerations that got cut (such as much of Ellen’s sleepwalking getting cut but the film still referring to her as a somnambulist per Eggers), and sometimes the director did say literally everything but the studio trimmed it down arbitrarily. That said, while this commentary track does serve to clarify authorial intent within some of the scenes I take issue with, it does not for others.

 

Per the commentary track, the Romanian man that laughs at Hutter and the Roma camp is the vampire hunter from later on and played by a Romanian pop star. This raises more confusion to me whether or not the vampire hunters are Roma or Romanian (but that should be easy enough to figure out by comparing the extras in the crowd whether or not they were in the Roma camp or the inn). This does not clarify whatsoever where the other vampire came from, why it was possible to kill this vampire without the death of the pure maiden and why Hutter never told/Von Franz and Ellen never listened to this firsthand account of a proven way to kill a vampire that would not have sacrificed Ellen.

 

It is a massive coincidence that Thomas crosses paths with a different vampire if it has nothing to do with Orlok, but the film gives us nothing to explain how that vampire was made, which we need to know to fully understand the stakes of facing Orlok (if what Orlok brings is not exactly the bubonic plague, but he is the “undead plague carrier” as Von Franz says, then at what point does his infection entail vampirism if there also exists a lower class vampire in practically his backyard considering how far his control can extend?). Also, if other vampires are still active around the world, it becomes that much less likely that Willem Dafoe would never have found one or that the Romanian vampire hunter would not have already launched a full scale assault on Orlok’s castle. (It does help to justify, however, why the nunnery had such efficient undead plague treatments). For the worldbuilding to be seamless, we need to either know that Orlok did and could create other vampires if he wants to or that he had nothing to with that and can’t be killed by the same methods because he is explicitly a different type of vampire (though that would make it weird again that the nuns were able to treat Hutter’s symptoms so well).

 

Based on the way Eggers articulated his authorial intent in the commentary track, moments like the driverless carriage were different in part because all other adaptations show Dracula in some form driving the carriage but also because it was more mystical and magical. (Again, giving him the benefit of the doubt, he probably also considered how it would interplay with the script, and we are not seeing that part.) Just in terms of what I can see, it gives Orlok much greater magical power than any other Dracula, as we can also see through his admittedly somewhat limited mind control of Ellen an entire ocean away. Now, actually, the overseas control of Ellen has an explanation in this commentary track. Because other adaptations keep it just to the presence or lack of a photograph of Ellen/Mina/Lucy, this film incorporated a lock of Ellen’s hair that Orlok can smell to seem more viscerally creepy, but, also, having a piece of Ellen’s body in his possession helps him to influence her. I could not find any exposition of that in the film, but, it is after he procures it that he is able to influence her sleepwalking, so we can accept it within an interpretation focused on textual evidence.

 

Authorial intent is all well and good, and I would argue it is important, but, at the end of the day, we have to judge a film by what is in the film. It is possible I am mistaken on certain details and have an incorrect understanding of the other vampire’s implications on the story. You would use the film to prove me right or wrong, not the author's statements after the fact. My issue is with the film for not exploring the question. If there were an answer in the commentary track, I would still have an issue with the film, but it would be for not showing the answer they explored behind the scenes. Failure to consider one’s own plot is not exactly the same as failure to communicate those considerations, and, when applicable, it is in the best faith to analyze whatever instances of both that we can find.

 

There was not really another section to put this criticism, but I take issue with Knock’s escape from solitary confinement. He tipped over the chair and started foaming at the mouth, which resulted in an orderly untying his left hand and starting to loose the restraints on his back to the chair. Knock bites into his neck and somehow kills the man with just his jaw and one hand, then somehow escapes the rest of his restraints. I cannot describe what actions he would have taken, and I do not really accept the blanket statement of “a mad man’s strength” because either he was restrained proportional to his strength to begin with (likely after he already attacked his captors) or he was lying in wait the whole time, which I do not buy for Knock at this moment because he grows more and more unstable throughout the runtime and thus would not be able to keep a secret this long. It changes very little in the long run except that Knock would have to escape in different circumstances and would not die if he failed to escape altogether.

 

Conclusion

 

 

In conclusion, this is a very dense and rich film in its detail to a self indulgent degree. I think, for the most part, it earned its decadence of detail, because it is a consistently deep exploration of its themes and characters, especially where there are differences with the original Nosferatu and the source text Dracula. Eggers constructed an impenetrable tone of dread through the consistent application of powerlessness, fog, moody lighting, intense physical acting by Lily-Rose Depp and a subtle but effective score.

 

Eggers has gone on record multiple times about the unique utility of Nosferatu (as opposed to Dracula) as a modern fairy tale in its presentation and structure. Some people may use that as a deflection against analysis that relies on plot cohesion and consistency. People never question why the Mother and Father Bear sleep in separate beds in the Goldilocks story because it needs to be that way for the structure of the story to remain intact. I understand and even respect the impulse; I just cannot do that myself. And that is because there was a very good reason in the original version of the Three Bears story that they slept in different beds: they were three bachelors rooming together until that got changed by people unaware what they were affecting by making that change (the bear’s marital dynamic). 

 

So fairy tales can pass scrutiny in select versions, and here is where I would pose a question to you if you believe that Nosferatu being the fairy tale version of Dracula makes it immune from criticism. Is this film not already fleshing out the characters of Ellen, Hutter, Harding, Sievers, Von Franz and Orlok to make them more believable and realistic characters? The film itself seems to think it has the capacity to improve on the original and make it make more sense (whether it succeeded is a different thing, but it definitely tried by making the motivation of Ellen through a pseudo love triangle the focal point), and I would argue it should follow that through to not only characterization, technical aspects and tone but also in plot and worldbuilding. You do not need to agree, but I do not really understand the argument that the film does not need to make sense.

 

Though I am presenting myself as somewhat of an authority on this film and its surrounding topics, I am not, and I do lack clinical precision in many of these criticisms. I think I have conducted a fairly good literary analysis here, but I am alternating between different theories, not sticking to any particular style guide, and applying this analysis to a movie where Bill Skarsgard grinds a prosthetic penis on a cowering Nicholas Hoult (this prosthetic penis winding up in Hoult’s possession after the movie came out). If you can offer any alternative thoughts and reflections, I would invite that and thank you for reading this far. If you can offer corrections to any errors I have made or perpetuated, I would thank you all the more. Until such time as anyone else at Plan9Crunch shares their further thoughts on Nosferatu 2024, that’s a wrap.

  

Saturday, March 15, 2025

Rocketship X-M – An early 1950s space travel feature


--


The early 1950s brought moviegoers a number of space travel features – Destination Moon (1950), Rocketship X-M (1950), Project Moonbase (1953), Flight To Mars (1951) and Conquest of Space (1955), just to name a few. Rocketship X-M was the first to be released of all these features and has always been a favorite of mine of these early space travel films. The film was also entitled Expedition Moon and Rocketship Expedition Moon. Rocketship X-M stars a very young Lloyd Bridges and Danish beauty - Osa Massen


In a race to establish a military base on the moon, a group of scientists led by Dr. Karl Eckstrom (John Emery) blast off on the first space expedition to the moon but are veered off course during a meteor shower and land on Mars instead. Other members of the expedition include Colonel Floyd Graham (Lloyd Bridges), Dr. Lisa Van Horn (Osa Massen), Harry Chamberlain (Hugh O’Brian) and William Corrigan (Noah Beery Jr.). A romance between Graham and Van Horn eventually surfaces.


As the entire crew of Rocketship X-M explore the planet Mars, the group discovers an ancient civilization that was likely destroyed long ago by atomic war. They encounter damaged buildings and sculptures left behind by the Mars inhabitants. The scenes of the explorers on Mars are filmed with an interesting sepia tone of brown and red. The entire planet appears to be a dry desert climate void of any life.


The crew of Rocketship X-M later encounters a group of primitive cavemen who run around with animal loin cloths and carry bludgeons. One close up shot of the only cavewoman in the film reveals that she wears lipstick and make-up and has well-groomed hair. Even Martian cave women want to look beautiful for their cavemen. Three of the crew members of Rocketship X-M are attacked by the cavemen and later die from their injuries.




Dr. Lisa Van Horn and Colonel Floyd Graham race back to the rocketship carrying injured Harry Chamberlain with them. The Mars cavemen are on their trail. As the rocketship blasts off the planet Mars, Van Horn discovers that the ship does not have enough fuel for it to land safely back on earth. Van Horn and Graham embrace each other, knowing they are going to die on their return trip. They reveal their attraction and love for each other in their final moments before the ship crashes back on earth.


The sepia tone sequences in the film of the surface of Mars may have been an inspiration for the 1959 Ib Melchior film – Angry Red Planet. In that film, a gimmick known as “cine-magic” is used, which is a red, pinkish filter used for scenes on the planet Mars. This seems appropriate for the film, since Sidney Pink was the writer and producer of the film.


Academy Award winners Dennis Muren, Bob Skotak Tom Scherman, Mike Minor with film historian and archivist Bob Burns, produced three minutes of new footage inserted into Rockship X-M in 1978. This new footage replaced existing stock footage and special effects. This 1978 footage can be seen in the Wade Williams volume four Science Fiction Gold – Englewood Entertainment VHS print of the film released in 1997.


Although Destination Moon is a color feature space travel film released just a month after Rocketship X-M, and later won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, I find Rocketship X-M to be a more entertaining film. Its plot is much simpler and the entire film had a budget of only about 15 percent of Destination Moon, but the result is a space adventure feature that manages to entertain the viewer. Happy  viewing.


Steve D. Stones