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Post by telegonus on Jun 16, 2018 17:29:40 GMT
For some reason a good deal of thought, intelligence and talent went into the making of Them!. I love the movie. It's less the subject matter, which I enjoy as good pulp, than the execution, and the effort that went into it. Such outstanding performers, excellent, smart and sometimes witty dialogue! Yet there's humor in it, and with it, a humanity (think the drunks and the "make me a sergeant and charge the booze!" business in the hospital; it's funny, and it show the winos for what they are; and it doesn't moralize one way or the other about who or what they are). There's a depth of feeling in the film at times that maybe deserves a better, more realistic story, and yet I appreciate it all the same). Totally agreed, and that's well put. The writers didn't talk down to the subject matter, and that made all the difference. In fact, the script reminds me a bit of vintage Serling, in that a topic that could have seemed utterly absurd if handled by a lesser talent instead comes across as thought-provoking because an adult intelligence was applied to it. Thanks, Amy. The difference with Rod Serling in the writer's chair would be that if he wrote the script for Them! there would be more moralizing, less drama; and much less humor. There would be those pensive moments, talk of the loneliness (it's always loneliness with Rod, it seems) of the desert. Also, the "science talk", which isn't great in the movie as it is, wouldn't even be that good with Serling writing the script. Rod had a way of hammering home his points. Them!, as we know it, is a big bug movie with a heart. Some of the best stuff in the movie is rather pointless in itself and yet highly effective, often amusing, such as Fess Parker in the madhouse.
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Post by mattgarth on Jun 16, 2018 19:22:24 GMT
Another piece of fine writing and performing -- railroad watchman Dub Taylor defending himself from accusations that he may have stolen 40 tons of sugar:
"Is sugar a rare cargo? Is there a black market on it? Did you ever hear of a fence for hot sugar?"
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Post by telegonus on Jun 17, 2018 4:14:42 GMT
Another piece of fine writing and performing -- railroad watchman Dub Taylor defending himself from accusations that he may have stolen 40 tons of sugar:
"Is sugar a rare cargo? Is there a black market on it? Did you ever hear of a fence for hot sugar?"
That line, Matt,--and thanks so much for quoting it, I neglected to--is one of the best in the entire movie. Dub's delivery of it is sublime. Why I've so often confused him with Dabbs Greer I'll never know. (It could have been a young Dabbs, I suppose, but the older, scruffier Dub was better casting for that time).
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Post by amyghost on Jun 17, 2018 13:02:46 GMT
Totally agreed, and that's well put. The writers didn't talk down to the subject matter, and that made all the difference. In fact, the script reminds me a bit of vintage Serling, in that a topic that could have seemed utterly absurd if handled by a lesser talent instead comes across as thought-provoking because an adult intelligence was applied to it. Thanks, Amy. The difference with Rod Serling in the writer's chair would be that if he wrote the script for Them! there would be more moralizing, less drama; and much less humor. There would be those pensive moments, talk of the loneliness (it's always loneliness with Rod, it seems) of the desert. Also, the "science talk", which isn't great in the movie as it is, wouldn't even be that good with Serling writing the script. Rod had a way of hammering home his points. Them!, as we know it, is a big bug movie with a heart. Some of the best stuff in the movie is rather pointless in itself and yet highly effective, often amusing, such as Fess Parker in the madhouse. LOL, I'm afraid you may have nailed it with those points, re. Serling. He's still one of my favorites, but his hand was not always light when it came to the 'morality play' elements, and as you note, his science was generally pretty weak. But I still think he would have brought the same sort of mature sensibility to the film that makes it so notable today. I bolded your one line in particular, because it made me laugh; recollecting a late interview I'd read with him, Rod cited Hemingway as probably his chief writerly influence. He made the wry crack that "for years, everything I wrote started out with 'it was hot'."
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Post by telegonus on Jun 20, 2018 6:27:15 GMT
Thanks, Amy. The difference with Rod Serling in the writer's chair would be that if he wrote the script for Them! there would be more moralizing, less drama; and much less humor. There would be those pensive moments, talk of the loneliness (it's always loneliness with Rod, it seems) of the desert. Also, the "science talk", which isn't great in the movie as it is, wouldn't even be that good with Serling writing the script. Rod had a way of hammering home his points. Them!, as we know it, is a big bug movie with a heart. Some of the best stuff in the movie is rather pointless in itself and yet highly effective, often amusing, such as Fess Parker in the madhouse. LOL, I'm afraid you may have nailed it with those points, re. Serling. He's still one of my favorites, but his hand was not always light when it came to the 'morality play' elements, and as you note, his science was generally pretty weak. But I still think he would have brought the same sort of mature sensibility to the film that makes it so notable today. I bolded your one line in particular, because it made me laugh; recollecting a late interview I'd read with him, Rod cited Hemingway as probably his chief writerly influence. He made the wry crack that "for years, everything I wrote started out with 'it was hot'." Now THAT is funny, Amy. I had a classics professor (no kidding ) who made a parody quote of a Hemingway story in a class on, of all topics, the ancient epic, as an example of a certain kind of narrative device, (no, not Homeric) and it began something like "It was hot. Empty beer bottles lay everywhere in the sun. Food was scarce in Havana...").
Rod did seem to have a thing about heat. Issues? I dunno. A fair number of Twilight Zones are set in hot places, especially deserts and jungles; in hot times of year; or, in the case of The Midnight Sun during a very long heat wave. Them! might have been a good fit after all, given its New Mexico setting.
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Post by amyghost on Jun 20, 2018 11:54:59 GMT
LOL, I'm afraid you may have nailed it with those points, re. Serling. He's still one of my favorites, but his hand was not always light when it came to the 'morality play' elements, and as you note, his science was generally pretty weak. But I still think he would have brought the same sort of mature sensibility to the film that makes it so notable today. I bolded your one line in particular, because it made me laugh; recollecting a late interview I'd read with him, Rod cited Hemingway as probably his chief writerly influence. He made the wry crack that "for years, everything I wrote started out with 'it was hot'." Now THAT is funny, Amy. I had a classics professor (no kidding ) who made a parody quote of a Hemingway story in a class on, of all topics, the ancient epic, as an example of a certain kind of narrative device, (no, not Homeric) and it began something like "It was hot. Empty beer bottles lay everywhere in the sun. Food was scarce in Havana...").
Rod did seem to have a thing about heat. Issues? I dunno. A fair number of Twilight Zones are set in hot places, especially deserts and jungles; in hot times of year; or, in the case of The Midnight Sun during a very long heat wave. Them! might have been a good fit after all, given its New Mexico setting.
Rod was big into the psychodrama; the recurring heat/desert motif that runs throughout his stories likely deserves some sort of scholarly exegesis with a heavy emphasis on the real meaning of that. I sense Jung in the air, lol--perhaps we should get busy on writing this up while it's still fresh, assuming some grinder at the academic mill hasn't already beaten us to it, which they probably have. No doubt a Serling-scripted Them would have been a lot more serious, though intriguing in its way. Now hows about a Hemingway-scripted Them? Hemingway's style seems so easy to parody, this should come easily--and yet for the life of me, I can't imagine what it might sound like!
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