L.A. Connection wrote on May 15^th, 2013 at 3:22pm:


Its attached to the CHILDRENS MENU?!?

"Debbie look! It's a galaxy in outer space!"

All in all though an interesting find.

Yup, children's menu! You gotta wonder if anybody at Ho Jo's even saw the film before agreeing to the campaign! I'm sure there were a few confused kids who went expecting something like STAR TREK or even LOST IN SPACE and got 2001 instead! Then again, a couple might have gotten their minds sufficiently blown that they ended up working for NASA or something!

And, I actually was a bit surprised to see the 'spoilers' explaining the alien connection and all. I bet one or two kids pointed that out to their confused parents: "See Dad, it's simple, the moon signal was sent by aliens!"

WIZARD OF SPEED AND TIME came up on a cool blog: http://rupertpupkinspeaks.blogspot.com/2013/06/favorite-underrated-comedies-aj-h...


Found the original 3 minute short on youtube. I think some of the shots were used in the feature as well. It captures the charm of the movie in just a few short minutes. Too bad, Jittlov seems to have dropped off the face of the earth.

I actually spoke with Mike Jittlov a couple of times after the marathon (he was in the phone book!). But, you could sense his nervousness and privacy, so we didn't stay in touch.

According to IMDb, Jittlov did some effects work for a few years. He has one of those 'zombie' websites (wizworld.com) that hasn't been updated in years. I know some folks who have tried to get in touch with him, but, he seems to be one of those tortured artist types.

But, his WIZARD OF SPEED & TIME short and feature live on. One of the nice hidden nuggets in Marathon history, too.

P.S. The theater in the trailer, The Clinton, is long closed, but it used to run double features, including the most bizarre one I ever saw:

Michael Caine's Oscar Nominated performance in the sweet EDUCATING RITA

with.....

Lucio Fulci's gory horror film, THE BEYOND (aka Seven Doors of Death)!

Have NO idea how that double feature came about...

Here's the great trailer:



da_Bunnyman wrote on Jun 8^th, 2013 at 7:32pm:

L.A. Connection wrote on Jun 9^th, 2013 at 3:09pm:

can someone find angelique pettyjohn in this? she was the bikini clad throll in "gamesters of triskellion"

Behold!
The SF2 marathons famous lost film.
Lost in the sense it seems to have vanished and no prints can be located for a DVD or cable release.
God knows we've had enough films lost in transit TO the marathon, this is one that vanished afterwards and now shows up on lists of lost films.
Maybe not as high on the lists as London After Midnight or Convention City, but it's there.

Behold "Hu-Man"



The only film I can remember being treated as a sneak preview at it's showing, we were asked to fill out comment cards on it.
It never opened in the Boston area for a regular run and from what I've read played very few cities ever.
Today it might go over at the festival but was way too arty for the thon.
Particularly annoying was its habit of a characters dialogue being repeated in a screaming whiny voice as a time distortion effect (I guess.)

Interesting source article here.
http://io9.com/5877874/lost-films

This year's lineup promises lots of excitement!
Just like the 38 years before it....well, almost.



By the way, who was it that talked Garen into running "Terminal Man"?

L.A. Connection wrote on Feb 27^th, 2014 at 9:03am:


It’s a terrific movie and one of the chief reasons why I attended my first marathon, SF3.  I missed seeing this one in my youth and was determined to catch up with it as the look of the aliens always fascinated me.  I have watched it dozens of times since then and I like to say that had Douglas Sirk directed a science fiction movie it would have been much like IMAMFOS. 
***********SPOILER****************
An alien race has lost its’ females and they are looking for a way to carry on the race by attempting to mate with earth women.  They slowly begin to abduct and impersonate the human males through a combination of a weird cloud and some sort of transference device that allows them to copy the humans.  They take over the body of a character (played by Tom Tryon). He is engaged to marry the heroine (played by Gloria Talbot – stalwart 50’s science fiction female lead).  Their plan to propagate the race through human females is not working.  They are unable to get the earth women pregnant.  Gloria Talbot’s character soon catches on that something is very wrong and her alien husband reveals the plot to her.  She tries to get help but quite a bit f the town has been duplicated.  Themes of sexual repression, frigidity and rape are touched upon but never explored (after all, this was the 50’s). 
The town itself is populated with all manner of sordid and unsavory types.  There is a cheapness and squalor in the downtown area.  Nasty, angry men and women all on the make for something or other populate the town.  Underneath the shiny suburban exterior, this is not a pleasant burg, by any means.   
The plight of the aliens is not ignored either and there is a touching moment wherein one of the aliens in its’ true form is looking through a store front window at a child’s baby doll and you can sense the desperation in the race as they approach extinction. 
The cast is uniformly solid in this low budget affair.  The budget is low but the few effects are mostly well done.  The ray guns and transmitter devices are very effective as are the devices that hold the hosts in suspended animation.  The lighting is top notch for setting the mood.  The entire town feels unfriendly and folks appear cold and calculating.  The sense of formless fear and menace is palpable.