January 23, 1954, were there spotlights above neon Hollywood? Were there long lines of black limousines pulled to curbs, mobs of thrilled crowds and flashbulbs? The RKO theater boomed with: “Soledad Flats, Nevada. The time 6:15 AM…Climax arduous planning, Operation A Bomb Test underway.” The narrator’s strict observation of time and place, the military stock footage, the feel of a cracked newsreel…this is the opening of Killers From Space.
As with the previous year’s Phantom From Space, W. Lee Wilder is once again intent on stressing the reality of the unfolding picture. Yet it is a sort of cardboard and tin approach to how his brother Billy Wilder explained filming Double Indemnity:
We had to be realistic. You had to believe the situation and the characters, or all was lost. I insisted on black-and-white, of course, and in making operettas I’d learned that sometimes one technical shot destroyed a picture . . . I tried for a very realistic picture--a few little tricks, but not very tricky . . . It was a picture that looked like a newsreel. You never realized it was staged. But like a newsreel, you look to grab a moment of truth, and exploit it. (4)
The Wilder brothers may have discussed such commonality, but Billy’s advice was received by string-can telephone.
Another observation worth noting is W. Lee Wilder’s disregard for the dangers of radiation (a reflection, of course, of American culture that continues to this day). In Phantom From Space, the scientists and police casually handle the Phantom’s radioactive suit with bare hands. And now, as an atomic bomber nears Detonation Minus Two Minutes, “Military personnel from buck private to top raking grad . . . men from research and news services move into position” setting up folding chairs or standing in trenches before the blast. They wear sunglasses, one man in a cowboy hat, “ready to record the radioactivity from the closest possible vantage point.” That’s when Doctor Martin enters the picture, in a ghostly silver model jet, spiraling on a wire in the clouds.
With the explosion, only four minutes into the film, the jet goes into a nosedive in a sequence that is the height of radio suspense-theater. If there is one glaring thing that distinguishes this from Wilder’s last film, it is Action!
“Mayday, Mayday . . . Search for Tarbaby Two . . .” A distraught wife, a framed photo of Ike. “It’s Dr. Martin! Call the base hospital!” “I remember the controls froze, the next thing I saw was the main gate of the base.” A scar over the heart. The FBI enters, accepts a cigarette, “Did you ever stop to think that perhaps this Dr. Martin isn’t really the Dr. Martin?” Fingerprints check. Home. Eyes glare through the window slats. Insomnia, after 3. “I wondered if there were any last minute orders on another atomic test?” “You go put the coffee on while I get dressed.” Another Atom Bomb Exploded. “Me? A security risk? My current state?” The hand of time again. There is an echo of Billy Wilder’s memorable scene in Double Indemnity where Barbara Stanwyck hid behind a door from Edward G. Robinson.
Presenting the Wilder/Robinson aside: W. Lee Wilder’s son Myles remembered when his uncle Billy Wilder “brought me together with Edward G. Robinson’s son, Eddie Robinson Jr., who was already a full-fledged sneak thief and before he was sixteen he was living with an older woman, and drinking a bottle of whiskey a day. That was the kind of playmate Uncle Billy got me.” (5)
“Another woman?” Bronson Canyon. “Code 4.” Phone booth, pneumatic tubes. Eyes! “They’re here . . . They’re going to destroy us . . .” “What did you give him?” “Truth serum. It will deprive his mind of any imagination.” “It was my own heart.” Memory. Underground. “Here, in our machines magnetically propelled across the electron bridge we have created…We are accumulating the energy released with each of your atomic explosions . . . Our eyes developed to this state to combat the ever growing darkness.”
A word needs to come through from Harry Thomas, who created the Killers, “I knew that these types of pictures would be remembered for the makeup. It wouldn’t be for the hackneyed stories or the poor acting; it would be for the makeup.” Thomas revealed:
“The director wanted the space aliens to have large, protruding eyes. An optical shop said that it would cost at least $900 to make eight pairs of glass eyes for the movie. The producer rejected the cost right away, and then someone suggested using ping pong balls. I decided that I would not use ping pong balls for this. They're much too thin and they don't have the depth that I need for the sclera of the eye. I spent that night and most of the next morning wondering how I'd make realistic eyes for these aliens. I was almost completely discouraged when I went to get something to drink from the refrigerator and there was my answer—-a white plastic egg tray.
The plastic tray had the perfect shiny, almost translucent appearance that I was looking for. I yelled, I've got it, I've got it . . . laughing and dancing around like a fool. I sliced the bottoms of the tray off with a heated screwdriver, leaving me with half-spheres of plastic. I pierced the center of each one with the heated screwdriver, so the actors could see. Then, I painted Irises on them, and drew in some red blood vessels. The producers wouldn't give me enough time to make the eyes and the aliens effective . . . The director did allow me the time to create one effect. The director kept telling me to "hurry up, hurry up," I told him that this would only take a minute and he would love the effect. If you watch the head alien while he's giving his long speech to Peter Graves in the cave, you'll see his eyes move . . . just a little. I did this by placing a second set of eyes, thinner than the first set, over his original alien eyes. Then, I attached fine wires to the edges of each eye and very carefully moved the eyes for the camera.” (6)
Next page: "If there's one yeti, there must be a whole civilization"
