zillabob

Between seasons 1 and 2 of SPACE:1999-remember that the first season was shot from 1973-1974 but wound up not appearing on US or UK TV until Fall '75 and season two started up in late 1976- Gerry Anderson was asked to make a quick Sci Fi show for NBC's SPECIAL TREAT (which was NBC's occasional answer to ABC's Afterschool Specials). The trick was it had to be a thinly veiled science lesson for the kids. In this case, it vaguely remakes the LOST IN SPACE concept, this time about two distinct family units on a spaceship that is to accelerate to light speed, to journey to the star Alpha Centauri, but then, due to a mishap , they get sucked into a black hole and taken to another universe. Brian Blessed and Nick Tate-both SPACE:1999 veterans play the elders. Tate drops his Aussie accent in this show so he'd be easily understood by US kiddies, and, to not come across like his Alan Carter character. They use some rather flatly lit spaceship sets from Year 1 of SPACE:1999(the inside of The Ultra Probeship from Dragon's Domain) very crudely re-dressed. The costumes seem a thrown together affair as well. All the money seems to have been spent on a new model of the spaceship "The Altares" however, it's poorly photographed, even by the standards of SPACE:1999(which at the time were quite good). Too many strange lens flares are used and the black hole looks like a really cheap effect(unlike the rather good matte painting from the Space:1999 episode "Black Sun"). The music score, not done by Anderson regular Barry Gray, was done by Derek Wadsworth who did the electronic jazz theme music to Season 2 of Space:1999. It further makes the effort seem quick and cheap.

The best attention is paid to the science, which is explained in correct, but expository dialogue that lets us know this is a science lesson, in fact.

The quick, hour long film is known as THE DAY AFTER Tomorrow in the US and, INTO INFINITY in the UK. It was filmed very quickly, in something like 9 days before SPACE:1999 Year Two had geared up. It was in fact longer with extra footage in foreign markets as it was sold to Europe as a feature length film. Fanderson-the Gerry ANderson Fan Club-issued the film on VHS and eventually DVD, a few years ago exclusively through them.

This was one of those films that got a ton of play on the airwaves in the early 1970's, usually on the "4am Movie" or one time, on the 7:30 PM "Channel 6 Big Movie" and still another on Creature Double Feature.WHen local channels used to run movies as part of their local programming(mostly gone today in favor of infomercial time) It was of the time. A couple of low-rent Abbott and Costello wannabees(Frankie Ray and Robert Ball) are in a platoon of soldiers(half a dozen guys in Army Surplus remainders) who are sent on field maneuvers to look into some strange radiation, and wind up encountering extraterrestrials. They first go into Bronson Canyon to what would be later the famous Batcave on BATMAN, and encounter the remains of a dead "carrot monster". Later, in the cave they're chased by a living carrot creature-basically a guy in black suit and paper mache head, with sparkly things on it and ping-pong ball eyes. Two of them-complete geeks,Ray and Ball-are captured and wake up tied to tables and are being "examined" by space amazons-Dr Poona(nooo kidding!) and Professor Tanga who are stunningly beautiful and even moreso in their skimpy bikini "uniforms". We were too young at the time,to realize what later bondage and fetish scenarios this "examination" scene would more than suggest. Turns out that the two gals and their carrot monster, are stranded on earth with a ship that's well hidden and are trying to return to their world.

The film was made as a total comedy with varying degrees of taste but remember this was of the time when Eric Von Zipper and his crew from Frankie and Annette's films, were the height of B-film, drive-in comedy.So it only seemed a natural to jump on the bandwagon for some quick bucks.

For some reason I only thought I'd imagined seeing this film to start with. No, I really saw it. And when it was released on "restored" DVD I was assured in my memory. The comedy goes from mildly funny to just plain stupid, but whatever.The budget is non-existent, which, is a minor miracle when you think about it, that it even got made and we can talk about a "restored" version here and now-over 40 years later. The payoff is the girls who want to learn about "love" and "kissing" and, the upshot is the geeks-which all of us were- get the girls and love wins out. It's just goofy and silly and for the locations, has nostalgic significance.

After Godzilla had retired in 1975, Toho had used their SFX dept to work on disaster films. This is one of them, indeed made by Toho. THE SUBMERGENCE OF JAPAN(1973)(TIDAL WAVE-US 1975) PROPHECIES OF NOSTRADAMUS(1976)(LAST DAYS OF PLANET EARTH-US 1978) and this film which was released in the US as HIGH SEAS HIJACK. The plot is basically, an oil tanker is hijacked and will be rammed full speed into a fuel depot in Tokyo Bay thus causing a massive uncontrolled fire, unless terrorists get what they want. The film was picked up by UPA/Henry G Saperstein and after a limited theaterical release around 1979, it was released directly to TV, showing up on late nights and most recently, on AMC(before they changed their format). It's rife with stock footage from past Toho films including THE SUBMERGENCE OF JAPAN and, oddly, GODZILLA VS HEDORAH(some exploding oil tanks footage) and to confound it further, newly shot footage of Peter Graves and some other caucasians was filmed in what appears to be a very 1970's office as he "monitors the situation" which like inserting Raymond Burr into GODZILLA, it was a way for a familiar face to narrate what's going on for the audience. This makes it a mishmash of a film. It intends to be something really big and, it's not. Even action on board the ship looks very set-bound and poorly lit. Not bad but, not that good.