Science Fiction/Double Feature

Welcome to a new series, Science Fiction/Double Feature, in which I watch and review all the movies listed in the theme song from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

If you’re not familiar with The Rocky Horror Picture Show, well, I can’t help you. But if you haven’t, as I have, committed the theme song to memory, I can give you a hand. It’s an homage to the Golden Age of Sci Fi Movies:

Michael Rennie was ill the day the Earth stood still
But he told us where we stand
And Flash Gordon was there, in silver underwear
Claude Rains was The Invisible Man
Then something went wrong for Fay Wray and King Kong
They got caught in a celluloid jam
Then at a deadly pace it came from Outer Space
And this is how the message ran:
Science fiction double feature
Doctor X will build a creature
See androids fighting Brad and Janet
Anne Francis stars in Forbidden Planet
At the late night, double feature, picture show

Okay, so most of these movie titles are self-evident: The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951); Flash Gordon (1936); The Invisible Man (1933); King Kong (1933); It Came From Outer Space (1953); Doctor X (1932); and Forbidden Planet (1956). (The “Brad and Janet fighting androids” line doesn’t reference a real movie; Brad and Janet are the protagonists of Rocky Horror [or antagonists I suppose depending whose side you’re on] and sadly, they do not fight any androids.)

On to the second verse:

I knew Leo G. Carroll was over a barrel
When Tarantula took to the hills
And I really got hot when I saw Janette Scott
Fight a Triffid that spits poison and kills
Dana Andrews said prunes gave him the runes
And passing them used lots of skills
But when worlds collide said George Pal to his bride
I'm gonna give you some terrible thrills
Like a...
Science fiction double feature etc

Here we have Tarantula! (1955); The Day of the Triffids (1962); Curse of the Demon (1957), the only movie title that isn’t referenced directly; and When Worlds Collide(1951). (All the names of people in the song refer to actors or directors of the adjacent movies.)

The Golden Age of Sci Fi movies had a profound impact on the people who grew up with them, and, by proxy, an impact on me. (See Stephen King’s On Writing or Danse Macabre for how this era of films shaped him as a writer; I grew up on Stephen King books.) I feel toward these movies the way you might feel towards some great aunts or uncles that your family always tells funny stories about but who died before you were born.

But the nice thing with movies is that, unlike dead relatives, they’re still around and you can get to know them! Get to know them with me, starting with The Day The Earth Stood Still–Coming Soon!