JULES VERNE
One Toke Over The Lunar Line
By: Mike Marino
It was a time long, long ago, before George Lucas took us to a galaxy far, far away. It was a time of sci-fi innocence, before Allison Hayes sensuously attacked, and obligingly outgrew her ample bra size as the stunningly attractive and erotic 50 Foot Woman. It was a time before Scotty was beaming up Vulcans, and ET was just an alien egg waiting to be fertilized. Sci-fi was a pubescent celluloid experiment in the pre-Kubrick era of monoliths and monkeys, apes and aliens, and Space Balls was just Space Bull at the time.
The man in the moon was a dream of the dreamers, as they looked skyward at night. Lunar lunacy for lunar lunatics, and heresy by heretics! Kepler and Copernicus, along with the mighty Michaelangelo, advanced theories of orbiting bodies in the galaxy that one day might be visited by earthbound mankind. Jail and stake burnings usually were usually dished out for such galactic blaspheme. In time, as it marched on, as time will do, science began to overcome superstition in the race for space, real and imagined, and in 1969, mankind finally left it's spaceboot mark on the grey dusty soil of the Earth's moon. Luna, Luna, Luna!
Science fact had prevailed in the long run, but there was a time when science and imagination were having a lusty romp in the hay with fiction and romance. In the end, this terrestial bound tryst gave birth to a delighful family of orbital and novel novella's, and burst forth with the power and energy of the cosmic orgasm of a super-nova on the silver screen. The age of Sci-Fi had arrived, and we owe it all to the maestro of 'magination, Jules Verne.
Jules of the family Verne, was one of the most planetarily prolific writers of the ages. From the time of his birth in Nantes, France in 1828 to the year 1905, when his orbit of life in the literary cosmos ceased to spin, he had written over 80 books. Taken in their totality, it was a galactic goldmine of a collection of literary adventure that took us on voyages aboard amazing ships that plyed the oceanic world beneath the waves of the Neptunian kingdom...large colorful balloons that carried man in flight around the world in 80 days...to a world of helicopters, and even mentioned the vast wasteland of culture to come embodied by the small screen of the television. Jules Verne had veritable wet-dreams over all of these inventive by-products of progress, but the most mentally cannibalistic and consuming of all the ideas, was the thought of actually launching gravity defying rockets to accomplish lunar landings on the barren, grey surface of Earths silent satellite.
Jule's parentage consisted of a father who was a barrister, and a mother who was the daughter and grand-daughter of a seafaring family of sailors and ship buildiers. Education and a love of adventure combined to pique the scientific curiosity of young Mr. Verne, and by 1864 he had written and had published, a fantastic tale of inner terrestrial exploration that found a team of scientific types entering the very bowels of the planet in "Journey to the Center of the Earth". In 1870, he set sail on the ocean of literature and created the mythical and mystical voyages of Captain Nemo in "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", but, it was the publication of "From the Earth to the Moon" in 1864 that not only established Jules as a dreamer extraordinaire, but set the stage for the celluloid collision and creative collusion of sci-fact and sci-fi that would burst brightly, and explode like a renegade super nova of pop culture whose effects have only intensified over the course of time.
The denizens and citizens of the 19th Century were bedazzled and bombarded with new and exciting scientific discoveries and once Verne's book was released it wasn't long until sci-fi donned it's theatrical top hat and cane, and took to the Parisian stage with a passion. Verne's story was recreated, repleat with grease paint by independent groups of thespians in the1870's that ran on stage to packed houses for two years. Jules himself produced his own version of his story of lunar lunacy in 1879. The plays for space were all the rage, and it was cutting edge theatre to say the least. Shakespeare in a Spacesuit meets Othello in Orbit!!
Although many attended the Parisian productions, there were some in the audience, Georges Melies for one, and the Lumiere brothers for two, who viewed the plays and would figure prominently in the very near future as the world of movie making was about to dawn. Along with the dawn of science fiction, add the magic of movies, and you a marriage made in space heaven. Lets face it, when it comes to finesse for film and flair, no one can beat the finicky French!
The Brothers Lumiere were among the pioneeric first to illuminate a movie screen, and dazzle a movie audience, by projecting magic lantern images to a delighted theater full of panting Parisiens in 1895. Also in the audience, and equally as fascinated by what he was witnessing, was Georges Melies, a local "now you see it, now you don't and watch me pull a rabbit out of the hat" magician. He had begun his own experimentations with "film" and had made one of his first "projection" stories in 1897 with the release of a film called "The Clown and the Automaton". Not just any old sci-fi first either, it was the first generation of a genre of "gadget flicks" where a "robot" was seen on the silver screen flexing his/her/it's bionic muscle, pre-dating Robbie the Robot by decades!!
Melies, French-born in 1861, is today known as the Godfather of science fiction film. It was his use of actual plots and storylines, sprinkled gingerly with accidentally learned special filmic effects that made the 400 or so Melies films transcend the mere terra firma of other theatrical releases of the day. These films were turbo-charged for the day, and infused with enough high-octane imagination and imagery, that the films themself were carried aloft in series of fanciful flights, bourne high on the graceful, yet gravity defying wings of science fiction.
The audiences were captivated, and willingly signed on for this fantasy filled magical mystery tour of a carpet ride to the stars. His ultimate film creation, and celluloid collaboration with the cosmos however, lept from behind the dark curtain of chemical processing in the film lab, for the darkened smoke filled caverns of the crowded pedestrian theaters in 1902. It illuminated the screen with the eruptive energy and force of an errant volcano. The planets were perfectly aligned and the time was right to unleash the beast of the Melies produced, and Jules Verne inspired, "La Voyage Dans La Luna", or roughly translated, "Voyage to the Moon".
Ever the Rennaisance man, Georges, not only produced with paternal affection the first big screen sci-fi tale of moon travel, but also, fathered the script, directed the film, designed the sets with a certain amount of savoir lunar flair, and made damn sure there were plentiful amounts of skin baring costumery to prove that even sci-fi can be sci-sexy! He even imersed himself in the the lead role of Professor Barbenfouillis. Those sexy cannoneers in scantily clad dress were actually pirouetting ballet performers from the Parisien stage, and the role of the Lunar Selenites were played by a group of French stage acrobats from the Folies Bergere! Finally, high culture had met high camp on the level playing field of the lunar surface.
The film had it all. Exploding volcanoes, tripped out aliens, giant mushrooms and lots of long, lanky leg and thigh to amuse and titallate. However, the most infamous scene of all is the facial sequence of an unbemused Moon, scrunching and grimacing in absolute uncharacteristic cinematic pain as the lunar bound rocket embeds itself smack dab into the satellites surface with the punch, power and rush of a street junkies needle jammed deep into the arm...ouch! That's gotta hurt!
The film industry literally left the launching pad from that point on with it's sci-fi sword held high, leading the charge. Edison Studios even ripped off the Melies film concept, and gave it a new treatment, and consequently, a new desitnation..this time Mars was the galactic target in 1910. The sci-fi times were a changin' and Jules Verne had passed on to the next solar system in the sky in 1905.
Georges Melies retired from rogue rocketeering on the silver screen in 1911, destroying many of his early works, and would not re-emerge until some of his early films, that had survived his inner wrath, were rediscovered in the 1920's by members of the French realist art movement. At the time of this creative re-birth, he had a kiosk schlepping candy and toys n the streets of Gay Paree, and now that fame had found him once again, he was awarded the French Legion of Honor Medal in 1931. Considered an "artistic" hero, the French government gave him a rent free apartment in Paris to live out his final years until his death in 1938.
Georges had sucessfully launched the sphere of sci-fi into elliptical orbit in the solar system of the silver screen at the very turn of the scientifically inquisitive 20th Century. Movies continued to depict the twisted-sister future of mankind in a cornucopia of cinematic expression. Some were humorous, and some were humorless, but, the stage was now set for the pre-eminent cold as steel test tubian presentation of the future yet to come. Today, that nightmarish, yet fanciful "futurama film" stands as the pivotal cult classic in the annals of big screen frightnight fun...Fritz Lang's 1927 production of "Metropolis".
First recipe for social fear? Take the soul crushing force of dehumanization clamping down tightly on a human workforce by the cold, calculating efficiency of the machines and assembly lines of the industrial age. Blend your various garden variety -ism's together in a pressure cooker of schism's and divisions. Communism, Facism, Socialism and Anarchism. Now, add a dash of post-war trauma visited on the species by the heretofore unimaginable damage and destruction done to city and psyche, all created by new breeds of mechanized death machines. Combine all that with the explosive mixture of the art and limitless imagination of Fritz Lang, and you have the makings for a bonafide cinematic nitro glycerin laced classic!
Fritz Lang was born in Austria in 1890 and studied fashion design and architecture, which in his later years as a filmaker came in handy and whose influences are quite prevelent in a fine film display of artistic expression with exaggerated sets and costumery. Near the end of the Great War, in 1917, Fritz began making films and along with his wife Thea, created memorable masterpieces that hold their own even today. The first "commercial" winner for Fritz was the 1922 creation of "Dr. Mabuse", but in a little under 4 years, his masterpiece manifique would come to silver screen fruition.
"Metropolis" debuted quite theatrically and quite artistically in Germany in 1926. A loosely based lobotomized love story, ala Romeo and Juliet, with mechanical gadgets and ballbearings substituting as genitalia. It is the tale of a robotically correct future society of underclass human workers controlled by a captain of the military industrial complex in the year 2026, and of the lovely Maria, daughter of an underground worker, who champions their cause and causes the son of the Capitalist pig, Freder Fredelen to fall in love with her.
One day while frolicking with one of his daily daliances in the Garden of Pleasure, he happens to see Maria and follows her underground where she lives to pursue her. Today, yeah, that is considered stalking but put that aside and we'll continue with our tale.
Maria's influence among the workers is realized so the "controllers" make a machanical robot Maria to take her place. In one of the more erotic scenes the "metal Maria" engages in a lusty nude dance that even gave gizmo's a gadgetery erection at the time. Soon, the fake Maria is found out and she is captured, burned and deep fried. Humanity rocks and rules, once again!
The rise to power of Adolph Hitler in the cesspool of Facism caused Fritz to flee Germany in 1932, while his wife and Nazi sympathizer, Thea stayed behind to watch the rise and fall of the Third Reich from a grand stand seat. They were divorced in 1934 and Fritz continued to make films in America until 1960, when after making over 30 classic films during his career, his eyesight began to fail. He died in Los Angeles in 1976.
The big screen had been strapped to a booster rocket from then on and we were introduced to atomic lizards, giant ants and spiders, along with giant women with an attitude and a score to settle. The small screen would yield a show hosted by a cigarette smoking intellectual who would point you in the directtion of the "Twilight Zone" which on the map, is next door to the "Outer Limits". We'd go on a trip with Capt. James T. Kirk where "no man had gone before" and before you knew it we were having "Close Encounters" with "E.T." types wanting to phone home.
Kubrick's Hal would have a mental meltdown and malfunction in the year 2001, and that in and of itself would leave Dave out in the cold. Dave's not here, man. Yikes! It's Yoda! ..and there was no dearth of Darth Vaders to send out the RSVP to join them on the Dark Side...and if you look closely C3PO is a distant cousin, or the equivelent of an feather boa mechanical female impersonator in it's resemblance to Fritz Langs Evil Maria. The sci-fi spawn had taken over like a field of cinematic cannibis and we inhaled it as if there was no tomorrow.
Mr. Verne is certainly the father of modern sci-fi. He light the fuse of space travel with stage presentations in the 1870's which inspired Georges Melies film adaptations of the turn of the century to Fritz Langs Freudian Freaks in "Metropolis". Ed Wood, Rod Serling, Ray Bradbury, Gene Rodenberry, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. All giants and all related the the Family Jules!
Classic Cars, Rock n' Roll, Elvis, Drivein Movies & Route 66! Kerouac, The Beats, Haight Ashbury, Easy Rider & Vietnam!
The Roadhead Chronicles goes from the Cold War Fifties Pop Culture of classic cars and rock n' roll to the spaced out Spare Change Sixties of Vietnam and Hells Angels. Not the usual look at the era, instead It's written by someone who lived it and spent a life of being on the road from his beach bum days in Honolulu to the glitz and dangers of the Sunset Strip in LA, and his purple hazed and double dazed days in North Beach and the Haight Ashbury in San Francisco. The Roadhead Chronicles also looks at the history of Route 66, Roadside Neon Culture and old diners and dives!
Mike Marino writes in an offbeat and irreverant style with a beat and a cadence that is all his own. His writing style has been compared to John Dos Passos, John Steinbeck and Terry Southern and one reviewer likened him to Frederick Lewis Allen on acid! Readers and critics call the book "wickedly wonderful", "delightfully weird" and "automotively sexy."!!
THE ROADHEAD CHRONICLES BOOK By: Mike Marino