Architects of Fear

Production Order #05

Broadcast Order #03

Original Airdate: 9/30/63

Starring Robert Culp, Leonard Stone, Martin Wolfson, Geraldine Brooks.

Written by Meyer Dolinsky.
Directed by Byron Haskin.

A group of Star Chamber scientists decide the best way to avert a global holocaust is to get countries of the world to unite against a common enemy. Allen Leighton (Culp) draws the short straw and is selected to be transformed into a Thetan. As is to be expected, such a decision is destined to have a negative impact on his marriage.

JS: Wow. Where to begin. A killer concept, well executed. Robert Culp is fantastic as Leighton who, even after discovering his wife's infertility issues are resolved and that he's going to be a father, doesn't deviate from his task at hand.

PE: Do you think Culp had it in his contract that he had to wear the same white tennis shoes and high water pants in every role he played?

JS: I want to know what happened to the Thetan after Leighton sets him free. Did he crawl back into his cage all on his own? I'd like to believe there's a deleted scene where all the scientists are chasing the little rascal around the lab (with fake mustaches and cigars? -PE). And speaking of the little critter, despite only being seen in shadows or silhouette I immediately recognized him from my youth. He had, of course, been rechristened as "Suckerman." Tell me that the resemblance is not uncanny.

Thetan, or Suckerman?

I vote Suckerman.

PE: I was thinking he may have been of Zuni origin.

JS: The transformation make-up on Culp is extremely effective, and his performance ratchets up as he becomes more "Thetan" and less human. The resulting Thetan monster suit is chillingly effective (in no small part due to the way it was shot).

PE: Agreed! I think Culp is, like in most of his early to mid-60s TV work, dynamic and interesting. Remember that Culp cut his acting teeth on TV westerns. Looking at those intense and determined eyes, you can see why he excelled in that genre. I can think of several stand-out performances off the top of my head, most notably Hoby Gilman in Trackdown for two seasons (for my money, aside from Sam Peckinpah's The Westerner, Trackdown was the best half hour western show and spun off Steve McQueen's Wanted: Dead or Alive). Culp was a chameleon, able to drift from one genre to another, be it the western (in addition to Trackdown, he also guested on Rawhide, the aforementioned The Westerner, Outlaws, and The Rifleman), suspense (Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Naked City), espionage (the old-timers among us remember Culp best as Kelly Robinson on I, Spy), comedy (the youngsters among us will no doubt know Culp as Debra's dad on Everybody Loves Raymond), and, of course, science fiction (his three legendary appearances on Outer Limits). Culp was also an accomplished writer and director. As a matter of fact, my favorite Culp role is that of Frank Boggs, the disheveled detective of Hickey and Boggs, a project that Culp directed and reunited him with good friend (and I, Spy co-star) Bill Cosby. Here's a little-film-that-could that deserves to be re-examined by today's audiences. Can you tell I'm a big Robert Culp fan?

JS: I think the IMDB just threw up in our blog. (all of that information came straght out of my encyclopedic brain. -PE) And yet somehow you managed to omit his role as Bill Maxwell on The Greatest American Hero?

PE: That's 1980s TV, youngster, so it don't count.

JS: Do you think the scientists built their own rocket or borrowed one of the Flash Gordon jobbies off the Universal lot?

PE: An early prototype of Jim Danforth's Penile Rocket from Flesh Gordon, perhaps?

JS: I thought it was interesting that rather than recoiling in terror, Leighton's wife (Brooks) gives the Thetan a sultry look when she runs into the him in the lab. Before she even realizes that it's Allen, her eyes appear to be saying, "Your planet or mine?"

PE: Definite "Outer Limits Babe of the Week." I really dug our first shot of the Thetan. coming out of his ship and into the tall reeds. If I'd seen this on its initial run as a five year old tyke, I'd have needed to change my Batman underoos swiftly. It's a very creepy scene cut too short by pesky hunters (led by Billy Green Bush, who went on to have a respectable career as a character actor) and their damn guns! I guess these brilliant scientists never thought about hillbillies and their possum-whompers.

JS: Do you think another Thetan would have taken one look at him and said, "Cheee-Cheee Cheeum Chum" (translated to English: "Jeepers-creepers he's a biggun!")? When all is said and done, the scientists plan has gone awry, Leighton is dead, and his wife is left to raise their child alone (and one wonders what kind of child it will grow up to be). It's a pretty somber moment, and it's extremely powerful thanks to the performances of all involved.

PE: That is his arm sticking up, isn't it?

JS: Nice. Way to spoil the mood, Enfantino.

JS RATING:

PE RATING

David J. Schow on "The Architects of Fear":

From The Outer Limits Companion, Copyright © David J. Schow, 1986, 1998. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission and by special arrangement with the author.

Next Up...

Tourist Attraction

Production Order #04

Broadcast Order #13

Original Airdate: 12/23/63

Starring Ralph Meeker, Henry Silva, Janet Blair.

Written by Dean Riesner. Directed by Laslo Benedek.

John Dexter (Meeker) comes to Latin America for a fishing expedition with his beautiful assistant Lynn Arthur (Blair) and his resident marine biologist, Tom Evans (Jerry Douglas). While testing out new sonar equipment, the crew stumble on a sea monster. Capturing the creature, they prepare to export it back to America, raising the ire of the tyrannical General Juan Mercurio (Silva). Mayhem ensues.

 PE: I could have easily gone another 49 years without seeing Ralph Meeker in a speedo.

JS: Perhaps he thought they were only shooting him from the waist up. Honestly though, do you really think it would have been any better if it were Richard Carlson? He is playing the Carlson role, right? (I thought he was playing Carl Denham but you could be right. -PE)

PE: Obviously there’s something wrong with Dexter’s eyesight. Despite having a clear picture of the monster swimming up to the camera and waving at him, he tells Tom Evans (Jerry Douglas) he “didn’t get too good a look at it but it has hands and feet.” And really big teeth. He must have missed that.

JS: Yeah, but for what it's worth, that could have just as easily been handled offscreen. At least this way, we got a good look at the monster without having to sit through two reels of exposition first.

PE: Sometime around 1963, Dean Riesner (who’d been writing mostly TV westerns) happened upon a stack of old monster movie scripts and Marvel monster comics at a garage sale in Hollywood. That’s my only explanation. Of course, a few years later Riesner more than redeemed himself by becoming Clint Eastwood’s favorite screenwriter (Coogan’s Bluff, Play Misty For Me, Dirty Harry, and The Enforcer) as well as writing the classic Walter Matthau film, Charley Varrick. Perhaps most famously, for genre fans, he created the Vampira persona for then-wife Maila Nurmi.

JS: You know what, at one point I honestly forgot I was watching The Outer Limits and thought I was watching a low budget 50's monster movie. And what a nice surprise it was to see master thespian Henry Silva at work again. I love when he demands his photo op with the seemingly dead creature.

PE: You just know that when the Professor (Jay Novello) shows Paco the thermostat that keeps the monster frozen and says “Paco, ah no touch!” there’s gonna be trouble. Obviously, Paco and his checkers-playing compadre were vacationing in Denmark a couple years previously when Reptilicus similarly thawed out. These two incidents can’t be coincidence. And, can someone tell me where all that water is coming from when the beastie is thawing?

JS: Yeah, why is it the most important security jobs always land on the shoulders of the lowest paid employee?

PE: My laugher for the show comes when the creature torches his way out of the freezer with his “concussion force.” You can clearly see the outline the torch will follow. This weapon (as Tom calls it, “a super sonic impulse concentrated into a beam”) can also knock the legs off tables and make old men grab their faces.

JS: He was clearly using a jigsaw. He just set it aside before popping out of the freezer.

PE: Most critics have stated that The Outer Limits is a science fiction show, but based on “Tourist Attraction” and “The Human Factor,” I think it goes much deeper. It’s about women who just want a little love out of their stone cold men. Eventually, they find that love.

JS: And therein lies the fiction. I have to say the whole love story bit was the one element that didn't work for me. Okay, that and the title. Okay, that, the title, and the Control Voice interludes. But despite all that, this is still my favorite episode thus far. It was nice (oscilloscope notwithstanding) to have an episode free of most of the hard science gadgets and machinery. Just good old, South American monsters, and plenty of 'em! Taken out of context, I do think the monster suit looks rather silly. (Taken out of context??!! It looks freakin' silly in context! -PE) But within the episode, I was willing to buy it hook-line-and sinker. Sure, it's no Creature From the Black Lagoon, but most of Roger Corman's monsters have got nothing on this guy.

PE: The suit for the fish monster is really not that bad. What’s unfortunate is when several of the suits are needed at the same time. Obviously, there wasn’t the budget for more than a couple of these “elaborate” suits and a full-scale dam collapse in the same episode. Something had to give. Jim Danforth and crew give it their best. There’s actually a shot of one of the monsters at the bottom of the dam that appears to be nothing more than a shell without arms and a big, blood-shot (!) eyeball.

JS: Did you ever consider that maybe it was just molting?

PE: Tom Evans listens to the sound of the army of sea monsters at the dam and declares, “I think they’re going to try to rescue him!” while the Professor continuously adjusts the same two knobs.

JS: Clearly he was trying to tune in the Outer Limits sine wave. Let's talk about the Dam breaking for a second. Fish-boy's monster pals come to the rescue, humans cut him loose; episode's over, right? Wrong. Apparently someone realized that they needed to tie off the loose ends of the General's story. So insert narration, bust the dam open, and clean up the mess it made. At least Henry Silva got a few more seconds of screen time for lying face down in the mud. Can I also add how nice it is to see a process shot framed with both passengers in a car fitting on the screen without the passenger having to sit in the driver's lap, Thriller-style? (You think it might have been handled differently if Tom Evans had been in the car instead :> -PE)

And let's not forget today's lesson, kiddies, "North American men don't like to be touched."

JS RATING:

PE RATING

David J. Schow on "Tourist Attraction":

From The Outer Limits Companion, Copyright © David J. Schow, 1986, 1998. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission and by special arrangement with the author.

Next Up...

Spotlight on "The Human Factor"

by Peter Farris

First, I’d like to begin my commentary by stating that my next tattoo will read TABU: TOTAL ABANDONMENT of BETTER UNDERSTANDING. Where I put it is another issue entirely…

You had me at “snowbound outpost.” It’s a setting I fell in love with as a kid, watching John Carpenter’s The Thing (my favorite horror film of all time) and later reading Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness.

Despite the alluring set-up, The Human Factor seems to tiptoe around greatness, never quite putting it all together—no surprise considering this episode features a one-and-done director and writer in Abner Biberman and David Duncan.

Holy shit, it’s a black dude! Okay, I’m kidding. But as I looked up who played Major Giles (foolishly thinking it was Tony Burton of Rocky fame), I learned that indeed the actor was Ivan Dixon, who had a truly remarkable film and television career both in front and behind the camera. A little later in the marathon we’ll get to enjoy Dixon’s talents alongside Robert Duvall in The Inheritors two-parter.

There really should be a drinking game for The Outer Limits based on great Conrad Hall moments. I guarantee you’d be half in the bag by the end of The Human Factor.

Amazing shot as a wild-eyed Harry Guardino emerges from the bunker and walks right into the camera… DRINK!

Of course, just when I thought Major Roger Brothers was going to glimpse some tentacle-mouthed eldritch from Cthulhu Land, or a monstrous ice-bound alien… instead we get a human sundae. Meet Private Gordon. AKA some dude covered in spackle and plastic icicles. AKA the Ghost of Baking Soda Volcanoes. 

Okay, I confess the Private Gordon hallucination is one of my favorite “bears” in the series, even if he only appears briefly and—when compared to Bryon Haskin’s “Chill Charlie” statue—seems the inferior choice visually. He’s certainly the more grotesque and goopy of the two, with stand-in William O’Douglas Jr.’s eyes blacked out and, for a specter, photographed beautifully during his three fade-ins (DRINK x 3). Although Major Brothers has been driven insane with guilt and that madness drives the episode, part of me wishes Duncan, Stefano and company had worked the material a little differently. I feel like there is a great ghost story in The Human Factor just begging to get out… a ghost that happens to look like an upended Slurpee. 

Yet Guardino’s character just has to blow something up with the atomic thinga-ma-jig, and we’ve got that great mind probe to get to… but first…

SALLY KELLERMAN! 

I’m just going to say it: Kellerman is a total babe. I should also admit that I was eight years old when I first saw her as Rodney Dangerfield’s love interest in Back To School. (Nice to know us Outer Limits fans get a free refill when Kellerman kills it as Judith Bellero in the excellent The Bellero Shield episode.)

Is it just me, though, or has she not aged… uh… rationally?

It’s also pretty unbelievable that Kellerman’s character would fall for Gary Merrill. He’s twice her age and looks like something you’d find on the floor of a barbershop.

Another great "Human Factor" moment as Merrill’s Dr. Hamilton explains with you’ve-got-cancer seriousness the basics of the mind probe to Ingrid, all while wearing what looks like an old jock strap on his head and the red-yellow-white A/V inputs of a Sega Genesis plugged in for good measure. Outré camera angles a-plenty, too. DRINK!

I absolutely love the sound design as the first experiment/demonstration cranks up (and later with the almost Lynchian ice splintering). I’m a sucker for scientific apparatus as only Daystar Productions can build: knobs, buttons, levers, meters, blinking lights and stuff that goes beepity-boop-bop, plus the two urine stains merging into one mind on the “progress” screen. Maybe it’s quaint by today’s EFX standards, but I appreciate how practical these visuals are, even if the premise is a bit preposterous. If I was a kid in 1963 watching "The Human Factor," I would have been floored.

Of course we learn the dangers of the mind probe technology right away. Ingrid totally wants to go for a ride on Doc Hamilton’s centrifuge… and all he wants to do is search for truth and apparently never groom his eyebrows. 

“You don’t need a woman or a wife… you need a haircut.”

Anyone else notice how gaudy the MP’s uniforms are? Is there a military parade out on the glacier scheduled for later that day? The Army sure is a stickler for pageantry… even on those remote underground secret military installations.

And now’s about the time we realize Major Roger Brothers’ name is just a little bit too on the nose.

Everybody: “Round the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran!”

Who else is craving sunflower seeds? Much like Major Brothers, I chewed them habitually during my screenings of "The Human Factor," as a means to keep my mind and body pure while writing this commentary. My living room floor now looks like the Atlanta Braves dugout after a four-game homestand. 

Anyone else wonder what actors are scribbling (when required) during a scene? Are they writing in character? Jotting down a grocery list? Dirty limericks? Sketching their agent hanging from a hook? The NY Times crossword puzzle?

Gary Merrill and Harry Guardino really carry the episode with their performances, particularly after the botched probe when we get to watch each actor impersonate the other’s character. Guardino really sells it, and one of my favorite scenes (DRINK!) is when Ingrid quizzes the incarcerated Major Brothers (with Hamilton’s mind), the body-swapped Doctor imploring her to look into his eyes through the service slot, as if—gulp—they were windows to the soul.

Anyone catch Ingrid ripping the 1911 from Brothers as Hamilton’s hand? Yeah… he totally drops it.

Ugh! Secure the weapon first, folks! 

Another moment worth studying… Gary Merrill’s inexplicable facial expressions after the climactic mind-swap. As the ghost of Private Gordon fades from view (presumably to haunt the brain of Brothers before he expires), Merrill makes the weirdest damn I-just-had-my-milk-and-cookies-and-mommy’s-gonna-read-me-a-bedtime-story face. I have no other explanation than Gary Merrill and/or Abner Biberman thinking your mind, upon return to its home brain, would be as comforting a sensation as getting tucked under your favorite blankey on Christmas Eve. I’ll chalk it up to a creative decision and move on…

I’d also argue that no single episode in television history has the word crevasse spoken with such authority. As when Col. Campbell (played by Joe de Santis) says: “I would have gone down there into that crev-AHSS…”

Nitpicking aside, "The Human Factor" is one of several episodes in the series supported by great performances, photography, lighting, mood and that intangible Outer Limits thing that made even the adequate and mediocre stories worth watching. 

I’d gladly give it 2 ½ Karloffs,  3/5 Zanti Misfits, 6/10 Schows and an ECK! for effort.

Peter Farris is a novelist and screenwriter from Cobb County, Georgia. His screenplay You Don't Scare Me (co-written with John Farris) has been optioned for film. His short story “The Couch” appeared in More Stories From The Twilight Zone, an anthology celebrating the show’s 50^th anniversary and edited by Carol Serling. Peter’s debut novel will be published by Tom Doherty Associates/Forge Books next winter.

The Human Factor

Production Order #03

Broadcast Order #08

Original Airdate: 11/11/63

Starring Harry Guardino, Sally Kellerman and Gary Merrill.

Written by David Duncan.
Directed by Abner Biberman.

Stationed in an arctic base on watch for possible attack on the U.S., Major Brothers (Guardino) is convinced there's a creature in the snow that has to be destroyed. After he attempts to blow it up, he's sent to see Dr. Hamilton (Merrill), a psychiatrist who has been working on mind-linking experiments that so far have only allowed him to find out his assistant Ingrid (Kellerman) has feelings for him. When an earthquake causes an accident mid link, Brothers' mind ends up in Dr. Hamilton's body, giving him the ability to follow through on his mission.

JS: Okay. For the record, we get a bear (albeit an imaginary bear) and a babe (Kellerman) this time out, so it's a definite improvement over "The Borderland." And who doesn't get excited about the mysterious goings-on at an arctic outpost? Why, I think I could even hear Godzilla during one of the earthquake montages, which I'd say places this episode near the opening of King Kong Vs Godzilla.

PE: I think the sound you heard was Dr. Hamilton gasping when he looked into Hot Lips' mind and saw donkeys and rubber trousers.

JS: Is it just me, or did anyone else think, wow, they're in a remote arctic outpost, but they can still tune into The Outer Limits! I'm beginning to think that sine wave is going to find its way into every episode.

PE: Who does Kellerman's hair? Is there an arctic outpost salon on base?

JS: Props to Dr. Hamilton, who develops a machine to find out a gal likes him before risking embarrassment by just asking her out. We're even treated to a romantic melody to go along with their little mind reading tryst. One can only imagine what sordid image of himself Hamilton found in Ingrid's mind. You can almost hear him gulp before he tears off his headset.

PE: I so bought that a babe like Sally Kellerman would dig an old scientist with a comb-over. In the final scene of the episode, she actually looks like she's about to go in to Merrill for a kiss and thinks better of it.

JS: I always loved Harry Guardino as Lt. Bressler opposite Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry and The Enforcer, and was pleasantly surprised to see him doing something so much more dynamic in his role as Major Brothers. He and Merrill both do a fine job when it comes to selling their role reversal. And nice to see Colonel Sangriento himself (Joe de Santis) from Thriller's "The Bride Who Died Twice" as Colonel Campbell.

PE: By 1970, Guardino had learned he didn't have to yell his lines. I thought it very cool that when Guardino and Merrill switch brains (Holy Kirk Cameron!!), Merrill does the yelling. Now that's acting. And just in case viewers couldn't tell that the brain switching was going on, we get an elaborate MRI showcase.

JS: Again, we're treated to a very nicely shot episode with decent production values.

PE: Yeah, John, how much do you think that emergency escape hatch cost?

JS RATING:

PE RATING

David J. Schow on "The Human Factor":

From The Outer Limits Companion, Copyright © David J. Schow, 1986, 1998.  All Rights Reserved.  Used by permission and by special arrangement with the author.

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