Saturday 15 October 2011

Riders to the Stars

1 comment:

eon said...

Thank you, David. What a nice way to spend a Saturday morning. ;-)

A few interesting(?) trivia notes about this film;

1. The production team at Ivan Tors Productions who did it was later the production staff of the "Science Fiction Theatre" syndicated TV series.

2. Curt Siodmak, the writer, was also the author of "Donovan's Brain", probably the most-often-remade-as-a-movie SF novel in history, even beating out Richard Matheson's "I Am Legend". (But it only was given the original title once.)

3. This 1954 film is the only known movie directing credit for actor Richard Carlson, of "It Came From Outer Space" fame. A year earlier, he had starred in "The Magnetic Monster" for Tors, along with King Donovan, and directed by RTTS writer Siodmak.

4. On p.146 of the "Overlook Film Encyclopedia- Science Fiction", edited by Phil Hardy, you can find a rare publicity shot from RTTS, showing William Lundigan in the spacesuit he wore in the film, and lovely Martha Hyer in a very fetching skintight black catsuit. Exactly why, no one knows, but it is rather a pity that it couldn't have been worked into the film somehow. ;-)

cheers

eon