More movies watched out of alphabetical order, but soon we’ll launch into the L’s…

Master of the World (1961)

Three men and a dame have been kidnapped by Captain Robur (Vincent Price), a madman in a flying ship. And this is no Cessna, it’s the size of a yacht, held in the air by dozens of propellers aimed at the heavens.

Jules Verne wrote the book (two books, actually), and Richard Matheson (Duel, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Somewhere in Time) wrote the screenplay.

The film is an ordinary family-friendly fantasy of its era, except that Captain Robur’s motivation is to end war, by any means necessary. Toward this goal, he hovers over an American warship on the ocean, broadcasts a warning that its crew has twenty minutes to abandon ship, and then drops bombs, destroying the ship. That’s something you don’t often see at the movies.

If that’s not radical enough, one of the men held prisoner on the airship is the world’s leading weapons manufacturer, and his character is written and played as almost always in a rage. Another prisoner is Charles Bronson, young, impossibly hunky, and determined to stop Robur and keep the world safe for war.

The effects, models, and especially the film’s greenscreen work are subpar even for their time, but everything’s colorful, like reading a comic book. Master of the World is no masterpiece, but it’s quaint, cool, kooky, and the IQ sometimes peaks over 100.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

21-87 (1963)

A 10-minute black-and-white short, in which unidentified people have heady conversations about life and death and religion, while other unidentified people are seen on screen doing whatever they do – models on a stage, man with a camera, astronauts being spacey, a horrible burning death, people walking downtown streets, a funhouse mirror, circus acts, old men at a horse race, people riding an escalator…

Arthur Lipsett made this, and it’s interesting enough to recommend, and I do. Interesting enough that I’m going to see more of his work.

George Lucas found 21-87 absolutely fascinating. It inspired elements of his early films you & I have never seen, and some we have, including THX 1138 and Star Wars, where Princess Leia is held prisoner on the Death Star in cell 2187. Now that he’s old and rich and probably insufferable, Lucas has built the football-and-frisbee-shaped Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, where one of the permanent exhibits is 21-87, playing on a loop.

Verdict: YES, which brings us to…

♦ ♦ ♦

THX 1138 (1971)

THX 1138 evolved from a short George Lucas made, while he was a film student at USC. His pal Francis Ford Coppola hired him to remake it with a bigger (albeit still tiny) budget as Lucas’s first feature.

It’s set in a future where boinking, baby-birthing, and being anything but bald are against the law. Drugs of all kinds and colors are required, cops are androids, and confession with a video Christ is mandatory for everyone except the androids.

Instead of names, people have what sound like old-school phone numbers, and our main character is THX 1138. He decides to go illegally off-drugs, after which he notices that his platonic wife LUH 3417 is a gorgeous bald babe. As previously mentioned, Thou shalt not, so THX 1138 lands in prison, where he plots an escape from this dystopia.

Visually, it’s remarkable what Lucas accomplishes without much money for special effects. Some of it’s brilliant design, such as the unforgettable white-on-white sequence, but someone also found the perfect industrial locations, like a phone switching center that looks like a data center. The universal baldness is disconcerting, too.

The story moves slowly and the script offers no hints explaining its freaky future, but that hardly matters — the look of the film keeps you watching.

Robert Duvall and Donald Pleasence star, with Ian Wolfe, comedian Marshall Efron, and beloved weird character actor Sid Haig. Music by Lalo Shirfrin.

As is his way, Lucas reworked and augmented the film years later, same as he did with Star Wars, rendering the original version unavailable. But I haven’t seen THX 1138 dozens of times and don’t have it memorized, so I noticed none of the changes. Specific sets and shots were all I remembered from having seen this at least twice before tonight, and probably they’re all I’ll remember in a month.

George Lucas frittered away his talent post-Star Wars, but he was sizzling here.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

The Unsung: Vincent Vega’s bowels in Pulp Fiction

Dustin Hoffman, on surviving The Graduate

Random film trailers from a year of your choice

Logo illustration by Jeff Meyer.
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If you can’t find a movie I’ve reviewed, or if you have recommendations, please drop me a note. And I mean it — if you ask, I will get you the movie.
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No talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff.