WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema: Dr. Cyclops 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:10.800 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:15.240 Hey, welcome to Weird How Cinema. 0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:16.560 This is Rob Lamb. 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:18.919 And I'm Joe McCormack, and today we're going to be 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:25.119 talking about the nineteen forty size related thriller Doctor Cyclops. 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:28.280 You know that line, that classic Hollywood line about how 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:32.360 I stayed big it's the pictures that got small. Well, 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:34.880 you can't say that about this movie, because this movie 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:37.360 is really truly about actors getting small. 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:38.280 That's right. 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:41.879 This is our first nineteen forties film. I mean barely 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:45.440 since it's a nineteen forty release. But yeah, this is 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:47.879 one I was not familiar with. I've never heard of it, 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:51.680 despite the fact that it has a pretty famous director 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:53.840 who we'll get into more about in a second. But 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:57.959 it's Ernest B. Showedsack, who if that name doesn't ring 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:01.000 a bell, I think his most famous film will for you. 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:02.480 It was, of course King Kong. 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:07.680 Yeah, this this movie I thought was a real firecracker. Like, 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:12.839 it looks great, it has amazing special effects. The story 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:15.959 isn't as complex as you might hope. But then again, 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:18.000 I mean, this was a I don't know, a horror 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:20.720 thriller of the of the nineteen thirties and forties, of 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:23.720 the of the Hayes Code era, so you can only 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:28.080 expect so much moral and intellectual complexity. But just as 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:32.120 a big special effects thriller, the kind of Transformers or 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:36.480 Independence Day of nineteen forty, it's it's fantastic. 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:38.240 Yeah, And I think that's also only the way you 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:40.600 have to approach it is a it is a nineteen 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:45.920 forty special effects fiasco, and the special effects very much 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:49.480 come first. And you know, by today's standards they might 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:52.760 not look as you know, as amazing. But if you 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:56.280 but that's again only if you're looking at it as 0:01:56.280 --> 0:01:58.720 a modern viewer and not thinking about the history of filmmaking. 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:00.400 Because I think if you, if you sit there and 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:03.520 watch the film in its entirety and keep reminding yourself 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:05.800 like this is nineteen forty, you know, this is what 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:09.560 had been done before with similar effects, and it will 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:10.120 impress you. 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:10.560 Oh. 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:13.519 I think the special effects in this movie do look fantastic. 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:16.480 I mean, I think they look so much better than 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:20.600 the quote realistic CGI that floods the films of today. 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:24.760 Well that's true, yeah, I mean, you know, it's very polished, 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:26.200 you know, using the tools of the day. 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:29.520 It creates I think some high quality visuals. 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:33.720 So this is We've talked about a number of mad 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:36.000 scientist movies, and I'm sure we will talk about many 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:39.440 more mad scientist movies in the future. Mad Scientists are 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:43.480 kind of the hub of the wheel of weird house cinema, 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:47.480 and this particular mad scientist is a mad scientist who 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:49.679 likes to shrink people with radiation. 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:54.880 Yes, the villainous doctor Thorkol. And yeah, he's pretty great 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:59.000 because he's you know, I guess his real defining characteristic 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:02.800 is he's a complete lamaniac. You know, he already feels 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:07.200 himself to be a giant among tiny people, and his 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:10.960 super science just enables him to make that, you know, 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:12.760 an objective reality. 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:16.120 Now, I think doctor Thorkel would probably shrink you to 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:18.320 death for the way he pronounced his name. Because of 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:20.400 the one of the funny things in this movie, So 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:24.120 his name is spelled t h o r k e L. 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:26.720 So I read that in like any other normal American 0:03:26.720 --> 0:03:28.359 English speaker, I would think Thorkele. 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:30.200 Yeah, if I had to go to an appointment with 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:32.399 doctor Thorkele, I would call and be like, yeah, I'm 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:33.799 a patient of doctor Thorkele's. 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:37.280 But the characters in this movie make a really special 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:42.440 effort to always emphasize the second letter. So it's like 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:46.240 Sar Dough, no mister, accent on the doe. Here we 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:50.800 get thor Kel, No mister, it's doctor accent on the kel. 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:54.520 Doctor thor Kel. Yeah, and in this picture you can 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:58.600 you can basically, well, here's the elevator Pitch, a mad 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:01.360 scientist working in the south of Maria and jungle miniaturizes 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:04.840 his colleagues when he feels his megalomania is threatened. So 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:08.960 it's basically it's apocalypse now, but with doctor thorp Kel 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:13.480 instead of Colonel Kurtz. Science instead of war, and miniaturization 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:14.840 instead of the horror. 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:18.560 Let's say that's about accurate. Yeah, and well, and instead 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:21.919 of Martin Sheen, it's a ragtag team of the world's 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:23.920 greatest scientists and a mule guy. 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:24.480 Yeah. 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:26.880 And instead of spending like a large portion of the 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.680 film about the journey, that journey is really quick in 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:31.840 this they just skiffy right through it. 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:34.400 Should we hit that trailer audio, Yeah, let's hear it. 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:41.640 Then a crocodile becomes as huge as a prehistoric monster. 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:46.080 A rifle as unwieldy as a siege gun, a. 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:50.880 Terrifying black cat whose jaws lee den a dog looms 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:52.719 larger than an elephant. 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:55.560 Then in the hands of a ruthless monster. 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:05.080 All right, So let's talk about the people involved here. Really, 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:07.400 the one we're going to spend the most time on is, 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:09.480 of course, the director Ernest B. Schodsak. 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:13.400 I know almost nothing about the life of Shodzak except 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:16.640 that he is involved with one of the great early 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:19.920 special effects and I don't know what you might call 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:23.840 it science fiction horror films of the big studio era, 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:24.880 which is King Kong. 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:29.520 Yeah, I mean really, King Kong, despite being very much 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:33.440 a genre film, it transcends genre like it is that 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:37.080 film is an icon of cinematic history itself. You know, 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:39.800 it's kind of it's kind of difficult to overstate its 0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:43.760 importance in the history of film. But he and certainly 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:45.880 I think you, mister you science Theater three thousand fans 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:49.520 would agree it is a great eight movie. But shod 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:52.400 Sack also directed another great eight movie, and that would 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:55.160 be Mighty Joe Young. So if you're not familiar with 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:59.080 King Kong for reasons unimaginable, then perhaps you've heard of 0:05:59.160 --> 0:05:59.920 Mighty Joe Young. 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:04.279 Did that get some kind of remake in the nineteen nineties. 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:06.680 Yes, it did. Goodness, I forget who was in it, 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:10.159 but they had. Mighty Joe Young is a is an 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:12.880 enlarged ape as well, but not nearly as enlarged as 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:13.479 King Kong. 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:15.640 It's a medium enlarged ape. 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:20.680 Yeah, and I think I've seen some comparisons. Just in 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:24.560 the same way that Godzilla keeps getting bigger and bigger 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:28.839 in films, King Kong also inevitably just gets bigger and bigger, 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:31.960 but Mighty Joe Young was always a smaller giant ape. 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:35.760 So some of this guy's big movies seem all focused 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:39.920 on changes in size perspective, either really big creatures or 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:43.560 really little creatures smaller than they're supposed to be. And 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:47.599 this is funny because I think there were This is 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:50.640 sort of the A list version of that kind of director, 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:53.320 but there were also B list versions of that kind 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:56.239 of director, because you get people like Bert Eye Gordon, 0:06:56.320 --> 0:07:00.160 who made B movies, almost all of which are about 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:03.840 creatures of unusual size, either like a person or a 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:07.039 creature that gets shrunken down or creatures that get blown up. 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:10.760 Real big Yeah, and you know, I think ultimately Bird 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:14.120 Eye Gordon was able to make some really interesting films, 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:17.600 but they're generally not put on the same pedestal as 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:18.160 King Kong. 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:22.240 None of them look as beautiful as Doctor Cyclops does. 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:24.880 Another thing that Doctor Cyclops really has going for it 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:27.280 with the modern release, especially or at least the blu 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:31.440 ray of it that we watched, it has three color Technicolor, 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:35.720 and the technicolor is gorgeous. The colors are just dripping 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:36.520 off the screen. 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:40.320 Yeah, in a similar way to Doctor X, though that 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:43.080 was not technicolor. That was what two tone technicolor. 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:45.000 Two color technicolor. Yeah, this is three colors. So this 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:48.000 is like the color you know, color films that would 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:48.440 come later. 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:52.360 Yeah, So there's a certain unreality to it, but it's 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:56.080 beautiful and it's certainly I mean, I find it more 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:58.320 engaging than a lot of black and light films of 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:00.880 the period. Just you know, Yeah, I guess it depends, 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:02.840 like you wouldn't want to see Mad Love and color. 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:05.480 Mad Love belongs in black and white, like that is 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:08.400 the world of that film, but this one really benefits 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:08.640 from the. 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:11.120 Color well and taking place in the jungle. I feel 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:13.440 like there are a lot of shots in it that 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:17.320 I wonder if they were only included to take advantage 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:20.800 of that beautiful three color technicolor. Like there are parts 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:23.160 where it will just cut away to some kind of 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:26.720 tropical bird that is squawking in a tree, and you know, 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:28.360 we see all of its beautiful feathers. 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:31.000 Yeah, yeah, sort of. You know before three D there 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:32.520 was there was technicolor. 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:33.080 Yeah. 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:35.480 Again, it's quite quite a beautiful looking film. So let's 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:38.800 let's talk about the director behind it again. 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:39.240 Ernest B. 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:42.920 Showed Zach who lived eighteen ninety three through nineteen seventy nine. 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:46.120 We're not going to really be able to touch on 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:48.559 his entire biography here, but if if you want a 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:50.640 good one, you know, you can go to the usual places. 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:54.200 I found Britannica had a nice one online. But here's 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:57.040 some of the interesting points, sort of the bullet points 0:08:57.080 --> 0:09:00.160 of his life that I think are with driving home here. So, 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:01.920 first of all, he ran away from home as a 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:05.880 teenager and worked as a surveyor in San Francisco. He 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:08.319 got a job as a cameraman from with help from 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:12.040 his brother in nineteen fourteen, and then during the First 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:14.720 World War he served as a cameraman in the Signal 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:18.240 Corps in France. He stayed in Europe. After that he 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:21.720 got involved in adventure filmmaking. So this is interesting because 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:25.679 it makes sense given the nature of films like King Kong. 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:29.600 But it also, you know, it seems to run against 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:31.760 the grain if you think about his success in fiction, 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:35.720 because earlier on it's less purely fictional. There's a certain 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:39.439 documentary aspect to it, like fictionalized documentary work. So he 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:42.880 served with the Red Cross in nineteen nineteen, helped refugees 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:47.440 from the Russo Polish War, and he also filmed this 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:50.800 conflict as well as the Greco Turkish War of nineteen 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:53.520 twenty one through twenty two, And in this he essentially 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:56.480 wound up working as a conflict journalist and was then 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:59.440 sponsored by the New York Times as a cameraman on 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:01.240 an around the world expedition. 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:02.120 Wow. 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:05.440 So he worked on this. He worked with a pilot 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:07.800 by the name of Marion C. Cooper, and they began 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:10.840 producing what they called natural dramas, which were a kind 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:16.640 of combination of travelog and drama. This is super fascinating 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:19.240 given what we've covered stuff to blow your mind before. 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:22.720 In nineteen twenty five, he joined William Beebe's expedition to 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:24.679 the Galapagos Islands as a cameraman. 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:25.640 Ah. 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:29.040 Now William Beebe was, if you'll recalled the was he 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:33.080 a marine biologist. He was a researcher who got down 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:38.600 into a basically a gigantic metal ball that just was 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:41.400 dangled down deep into the ocean to see what kind 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:43.960 of life could be observed through a tiny window in 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:48.960 this ball at depths that had never before been documented firsthand. Yeah, 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:53.800 the bathosphere horrifying because this ball had no means of 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:56.280 self propulsion. It was not a submersible, It was not 0:10:56.320 --> 0:10:59.880 a submarine. It was just a hollow metal sphere and 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:03.120 dangling by a chain. So if the chain breaks, you 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:04.880 just sink to the bottom of the ocean. 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:08.400 Yes, but he was as we discussed in past episodes 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:10.360 of Stuff to Blow your Mind. He was also notable 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:14.840 because he tended to surround himself not only with technicians 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:18.080 on these expeditions, but also artists like people who could 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:21.800 write about it, people who could illustrate what was going on. 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:26.199 And it turns out showed Saq was one of the 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:29.199 creatives that he brought a board to document the work. 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:31.000 At least on one of the expeditions. 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:33.360 Now, I think the bathisphere of observations were not in 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:36.000 the Galapago, so that was somewhere in the Atlantic of itself, 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:38.160 what Bermuda or somewhere in the Bahamas. 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:39.800 Yeah, I believe. So this would have been a Yeah, 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:42.280 this would have been a different journey. But still it's 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:44.559 wonderful how these two came together. I wasn't expecting him 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:47.959 to come up in this. So anyway, from here showed 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:51.520 Sack and Cooper. They go on to produce a natural 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:54.360 drama titled Chang, a drama of the wilderness from twenty 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:56.680 set in nineteen twenty seven. This earned a nomination for 0:11:56.760 --> 0:12:01.040 Best Picture at the very first Academy Awards. He then 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:03.840 directed The Four Feathers in nineteen twenty nine, based on 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:06.880 the nineteen oh two novel, shot in California and the Sudan. 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:10.600 And then he shot Rango in Sumatra, which is a 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:16.200 film about and this just sounds like super ambitious for 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:19.000 any filmmaker because it's about a boy and a rangutang 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:22.240 and a tiger, filmed in thirty one. Again, then he 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:24.800 shot The Most Dangerous Game in thirty two. 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:27.720 Oh, okay, wait, didn't we just talk about no We 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:32.120 talked about Ernest Dickerson's Survivor is it Surviving the Game? 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:33.160 Surviving the Game? 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:37.280 Yep, the Iced Tea movie, which is sort of based 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:40.800 on the similar concept the novella or novel The Most 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:43.480 Dangerous Game, which is about a human who hunts men. 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:46.360 Yes, and so it's been popular for a while. It's 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:48.640 one of those stories that's going to keep getting adapted 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:51.240 in one form or the other. Now, from here, Showtek 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:53.400 and Cooper moved on to what would be the most 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:55.880 famous motion picture that they worked on, and that was 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:59.160 King Kong of nineteen thirty three, and then they followed 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:02.199 this up with The Sun of Kong, which also came 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:06.679 out in nineteen thirty three, And then they did they 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:10.040 also did a movie titled Blind Adventure, which also came 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:11.400 out in nineteen thirty three. 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:13.040 So it was quite for these. 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:15.640 Two regular Roger Corman over here. This is like Roger 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:18.200 Corman's in nineteen fifty seven or whatever your year it 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:19.880 was that he made like fourteen movies. 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:24.240 Yeah, yeah, so yeah, an impressive year. They were really 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:27.680 just firing on all cylinders. Now, in nineteen thirty five, 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:30.600 they made a film titled The Last Days of POMPEII, 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:33.360 and this was ultimately, at least a commercially a failed 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:37.200 attempt at an historical epic. So after this, you know, 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:38.880 they were kind of I guess in some version of 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:43.040 director's jail. He ended up doing smaller pictures. But then 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:45.640 he got another shot at a big genre film, a 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:50.040 special effects feature, and that is nineteen forty's Doctor Cyclops. 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:53.959 And Cooper was an uncredited producer on this film. Now, 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:56.760 of course we'll get back to Selector Cyclops in depth here. 0:13:57.040 --> 0:14:01.760 But World War II broke out and Shoudzak was, like 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:04.040 a lot of people sucked into the war machine anew 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:07.880 and while testing photographic equipment at high altitude for the 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:11.640 US Army Air Corps, he suffered a severe eye injury. 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:14.840 I was trying to get like a firm account of it. 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:18.000 If there's a good biography about Shodzak, I wasn't able 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:20.600 to find one, like a you know, like a book 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:24.040 length biography. I believe what happened is he accidentally dropped 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:27.680 his face mask. And I'm a little foggy on the 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:31.040 exact nature of what the injury was. If we're talking about, like, 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:34.640 you know, some sort of a light blast based injury 0:14:34.680 --> 0:14:37.400 or of its pressure based, but the end result was 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:40.560 severely damaged his eyesight, and he only directed a couple 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:45.240 of additional films. Really only one notable film after that, 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:47.640 and this was Mighty Joe Young in nineteen forty nine, 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:51.040 which featured OSCAR winning special effects by O'Brien and Ray 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:54.640 Harry Housen. Oh god, yeah, yeah, so another big name. 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:58.280 And then he finally directed a portion of This Is 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:02.520 Cinerama in nineteen fifty two, uncredited to promote the Cinerama 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:06.240 widescreen projection process. But that was pretty much yet like 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:10.400 after this eye injury, you know, he just wasn't able 0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:12.600 and or you know, or didn't want to direct. I 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:14.720 think it was, you know, more about ability. And then 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:18.280 he died in nineteen seventy nine. Cooper died in nineteen 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:21.440 seventy three. He did a bit more work after Mighty 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:25.280 Joe Young came out, including serving as executive producer on 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:29.040 nineteen fifty six as The Searchers, directed by John Ford 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:30.720 and starring, of course John Wayne. 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:35.800 This is a fantastic coincidence how this story about his 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:39.320 damaged eyesight connects to the plot of Doctor Cyclops. It 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:41.480 almost makes me wonder do you know what exactly the 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:44.840 time of his injury was. Could it have been before 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:46.640 Doctor Cyclops or was it after? 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:50.560 I believe that's the weird thing about this. I've not 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:53.480 been able to find like a firm date for this injury, 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:55.920 you know, like a statement, you know, in this year 0:15:56.040 --> 0:15:58.840 or in this month, this is when showed Sack suffered 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:03.040 the eye injury. It's it's my understanding that that the 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:05.840 the eye injury occurred after Doctor Cyclops. 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:08.880 Wow. Because so we'll get into this a little bit 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:10.720 more when we discussed the plot, But one of the 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:16.080 main uh situation points of Doctor Cyclops is that the 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:20.280 the titular doctor uh doctor Thorkel is a is a 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:23.560 brilliant scientist, but he's limited by damage to his eyes. 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:26.360 He has got poor eyesight already and relies on these 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:27.520 really thick glasses. 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:28.240 Yeah. 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:31.040 So this is this is just mysterious to me, Like 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:35.080 it's either an amazing coincidence or I have it wrong 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:38.480 and there is more connective tissue here, like you know, 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:41.400 maybe he had you know, previously damaged his eyes in 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:43.840 some fashion, or his eyesight was already fading. I'm not 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:47.120 sure you know what the answer is here, but as 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:50.520 it turns out, like his actual biography and the and 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:53.880 some of the plot elements in Doctor Cyclops do line up. 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:57.920 Now, he did not write Doctor Cyclops though. 0:16:58.080 --> 0:16:58.800 Correct right. 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:02.200 Doctor Cyclops was and by a writer by the name 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:05.960 of Tom Kilpatrick who lived eighteen ninety eight through nineteen 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:08.760 sixty two, and you can look him up on IMDb. 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:11.520 But basically he wrote various crime in Western screenplays and 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:13.760 tell a plays, but nothing that really jumped out to 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:14.520 me personally. 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:18.439 I mean, the script here is not really anything to 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:21.240 write home about, except in the skillful way that it 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:26.080 string that it efficiently strings together excellent special effects set pieces. 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:29.280 But you're not going to like run into interesting character 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:32.200 development or like super witty dialogue in this movie. This 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:36.600 is a very much a sets and special effects driven film. 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:39.800 But I will give the script credit for connecting each 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:41.920 one of those things to the next in a very 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:44.159 fast paced and enjoyable way. 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:49.000 Yeah, all right, well, let's talk about Doctor Thorkel. In 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:51.399 this film, he is played by an actor by the 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:53.880 name of Albert Decker who lived nineteen oh five through 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:58.080 nineteen sixty eight. He was a Broadway star turn film actor, 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:00.560 and later in his life he served on the California 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:04.760 State Legislature and largely transitioned back to stage in his 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:09.240 later career. He often played aggressive characters, and this is 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:11.919 probably due to his great size. So he was he 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:15.080 was six two, which granted isn't like super tall, but 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:18.120 it's that's I mean, it's reasonably tall. I'm six two 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:20.320 or so, and I bought my head way too often. 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:22.240 It's big in this movie. 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:24.159 Yeah, And I think part of that too is that 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:27.320 not only is he six two, but he's he's got 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:30.760 kind of a thick physique, like not you know, not 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:33.080 obese or anything, but like he's he looks at he 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:35.119 has this kind of he looks kind of beefy, especially 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:37.200 for a mad scientist in a movie. 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:38.159 Usually they're a bit. 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:43.280 Scrawnier, and like doctor Thorkel looks like he could really 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:43.840 throw down. 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:47.200 You would not want to tangle with Thorkel, right. 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:51.959 So, yeah, this guy, Albert Decker played him. Notable roles 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.160 for him include roles in Kiss Me Deadly, and East 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:58.400 of Eden, which was fifty five I believe, as well 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:00.719 as his his last film role, which was in nineteen 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:02.880 sixty nine's The Wild Bunch. Ah. 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:06.239 Yeah, the hyper violent Sam peckinpah movie in which I 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:09.359 think he plays. He plays some kind of like railroad 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:14.560 policeman or like a railway detective. He's hunting the outlaws 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:16.280 in the movie. If I recall. 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:19.480 Ah, it's one that I have. Somehow I managed to 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:22.760 get through my twenties and thirties without seeing The Wild Bunch. 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:27.040 It is a dusty, dirty, nasty, violent movie. It makes 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:29.520 you need a bath. In fact, I would say the 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:33.200 full vibe of that movie is summed up in one exchange. 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:37.880 The outlaws arrive at the compound of this powerful guy 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:40.720 and the guy says to them, like, you're filthy, you 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:43.360 need baths. And one of the outlaws says, we don't 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:45.000 want baths, we want women. 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:49.119 It sounds delightful. 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:51.960 One sentence that communicates a lot. 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:57.400 All right, well in this film. Yeah, Like we've said, 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:01.440 he's delightful. He's got this wonderful, imposing physical presence. He's 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:04.440 got these you know, these scheming eyes that are accentuated 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:10.200 by his his his glasses, bald head in evil mustache. 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:13.280 And I have to say he was reminding me of 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:15.439 somebody as I was watching this, and I figured out 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:19.399 who it is. It's British actor Julian Barrett, who mighty 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:21.920 Boosche fans out there. You might recognize him as the 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:25.280 actor who played Howard Moon, but he also showed up 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:28.080 on Dark Place with Darth Morangi. 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:30.920 As a priest, okay, and he also. 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:33.360 Was in something recently he was. He was the titular 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:37.000 character in Mindhorn, which I've heard good things about. 0:20:37.280 --> 0:20:39.639 I never caught him in Dark Place, but I should 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:42.719 go back and watch that whole series again in one sitting. 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:47.040 It's ironically it is the ape heavy episode I believe. 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:48.360 Oh interesting. 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:54.160