The first science fiction, horror or fantasy film to open theatrically in the 1950s! This distinction goes to Mikel Conrad’s The Flying Saucer.
Not only does Mikel Conrad star in the film (as Mike Trent), he was also the director, shared the producer credit with attorney/investor Morris M. Wein and credited with the “original story,” while Howard Irving Young provided the screen adaptation.
Flying Saucers and the End of the World
Since we get this — The Flying Saucer — as the starting point, you also have to factor in several other background events that will weigh heavily on genre films of the 1950s (and beyond).
“Flying Saucers” (nine of them to be exact) entered the public awareness on June 25, 1947 when aviator Kenneth Arnold (of Boise, Idaho) reported seeing nine “flying saucers” while flying for the United States Forest Service in search of a missing plane between Mount Rainer and Mount Adams in Washington.
He was so convinced of what he had witnessed that when he landed he retrieved a topographic map of the area and triangulated the speed of the nine saucers he clocked covering the distance between the two mountain peaks. 1,200 miles per hour was what he came up with and that was well beyond anything that we had in the air at this point in time.
The story was picked up by wire services and ran in newspapers coast to coast. This was quickly followed by the “Roswell Incident” of early July, which culminated with the banner headline in the local paper on July 8, 1947 that the military had actually captured a “Flying Saucer.”
Empires may have fallen throughout recorded history, but life went on. With the bomb and the rapid rise of technology — from jets, television, mass communication, the ENIAC and more — the end of the world was now a reality.
Egg Men, Floating Studio and the First Trip to Alaska
According to the piece the film was “made entirely on location in the Okefenokee swamp region of Florida.” By the time it was finally released theatrically on March 22, 1947, the name had been changed to Untamed Fury.
Here is where you get those powdered eggs. During World War II, the Danches — brothers Abe, Ralph and George — made a fortune in supplying the military with powdered eggs and now that the war was over they were looking for something to spend that money on. In addition to running a nightclub in Florida (Ciro’s), the trio decided to get into the movie business.
This swamp adventure turned out to be a very profitable undertaking for the brothers, who may have known the egg business from shell to yolk, but “Hollywood” was something totally new. However, when you hit it big as a beginner … why not more?
Now that the war was over, he was itching to return to Alaska. Scott apparently had a deal to do just that with Universal, but Abe, Ralph and George had other ideas.
They purchased a military surplus patrol boat measuring 104 feet in length for the bargain price of $40,000, christened it the “Dansco Junior,” painted one side white and other side black (so it could double as two boats), outfitted it to be a floating studio and sailed from San Diego on May 17, 1947 with their 17 member film production company, a crew of 12 and Captain Crabtree in charge as the skipper of this sea-going studio for the Danches Bros. Productions second foray into movie-making.
The Dansco might just have been the first sea-going studio, complete with technicians (director, sound, editing, camera crew, etc.) and actors. If there was a similar set up in the 1930s and 40s we’ve been unable to find such an operation.
This would be the first of three trips to Alaska leading up to the eventual production of The Flying Saucer. From May until September, Scott and his self-contained production company shot whale footage, helped an Eskimo village in distress and transported two of their oomiaks for a walrus hunting outing in the Cape Lisburne area — netting them some 26 tons of meat — shot seal footage in the Pribilof Islands and then headed down to Skagway to shoot interiors at several locations.
During this five-month excursion in Alaskan waters, Arnold would spot his flying saucers in the Mount Rainer area, the “Roswell Incident” would hit the news, the Truman Doctrine was established and columnist Walter Lippman’s book titled “The Cold War” was published. During this five-month trip to Alaska the world changed in so many ways.
The voyage itself was not without incidents.
Actor Ernie Mischens — who was cast as Red Dorsett the “heavy” in the film —while shooting scenes at an abandoned Kodiak Island whaling station tumbled through a rotting staircase and shattered his jaw. He was replaced by James Cardwell (he made his film debut in 1944 as one of the Sullivan Brothers in director Lloyd Bacon’s The Sullivans) and all of Mischens footage had to be done over.
Scott crushed several of his toes while shooting the seal footage at the Pribilof Islands location, but soldiered on and completed the film.
The Beverly Hills-based Bliss-Hayden Theatre (an acting school) noted that five of its students were signed for the picture — Lee Elson, Alex Sharp and Ed Hinton all ended acting in the film.
Newcomer Farron Bromfield — whose stage name was John Bromfield (Sorry, Wrong Number, Rope of Sand, The Furies, Revenge of the Creature, etc.) — kicked off his film career with his performance as Michael Shand in Harpoon.
And a mystery woman by the name of Patricia Garrison made her film debut in this Alaskan-based adventure as well. Much like Mikel Conrad in Untamed Fury, she simply appeared out of thin air with no background publicity and landed a leading role as Christine McFee.
Remember Garrison’s name, she will be a major participant in the production of The Flying Saucer.
Back to Alaska, Trip Two
The original deal with Universal may still have been on the table when Ewing Scott and Mikel Conrad joined forces and flew up to Alaska in March of 1948 and began shooting footage for their film tentatively titled Northern Cross. They had a Navy cameraman with them by the name of Kay Norton or W.K. Norton and the trio filmed in and around Fairbanks, sold footage shot of the ice breaking up on the Tanana River to Paramount News to help with costs and then went back through Nome on the way north to Point Hope in mid-May.
While Ewing Scott is gone on this second trip to Alaska in the spring of 1948, the egg men still do not have a distributor for their $400,000 production of Harpoon. This would not take place until October when they finally landed distribution through Screen Guild Productions. That was the end of the movie business for brothers Abe, Ralph and George as Harpoon failed to cover its production costs.
According to Los Angeles Times writer Edwin Schallert’s article on Nov. 4, 1948, Universal-International’s William Goetz announced that the studio had acquired the footage shot by Scott and Conrad and would be financing the production now titled Arctic Manhunt, with Scott directing and Conrad in the lead role.
The Alaskan gamble had played off, which was detailed in AP columnist Howard C. Heyn’s Happenings in Hollywood column (likely a Universal-International publicity-pitched piece in support of the release of Arctic Manhunt). The trip was self-financed, according to the piece, noting stops in Tigara (a village near Point Hope) and Point Barrow, with the working conditions described as being that of “endless hardships” (40 to 60 below zero).
Third Trip to Alaska … Let’s Get Our Story Straight
With this “stunt,” Mikel Conrad had graduated to the big time with a leading role in a studio-produced film and Erwin Scott had a nice payday as his filmmaking career was winding down. But more importantly, this may have planted a seed in Conrad’s mind to go back to Alaska the following spring and shoot more footage, only this time for his own film production.
The first press news of the film surfaced in late August and that the title of the production spawned from Conrad’s trip north would be Alaska USSR. What does that have to do with flying saucers?
Enter Morris M. Wein and the Birth of Colonial Productions
On July 6, Edward Schallert’s “Drama” column in the Los Angeles Times reported that: “With George Tobias signed for a top character role in a picture as yet untitled Morris Wein, president of Colonial Productions, independent concern, and Carl Post are en route to Arkansas and Oklahoma to confer with Governors of both States about production of a postwar story concerning a GI, who yearns for a life as a farmer.”
The piece continues: “He is persuaded by a girl while abroad to embark on a farming venture, which results in various complications. George Milburn, who wrote “Flannagan’s Folly,” is preparing the story.”
George Tobias was a well-known actor, Carl Post made a living as a press agent and George Milburn did write the novel, “Flannagan’s Folly” in 1947, which was optioned by producer Albert S. Rogell, but nothing came of it. This looks to be a planted story in Schallert’s gossip column … no such movie was ever made.
Carl Post was busy doing what a press agent does for his client, Colonial Productions.
On July 10, a one paragraph blub appears in the Los Angeles Times on the movie page: “Colonial Productions, headed by Morris Wein, eastern motion picture man, plans three pictures this year, the first with a farming theme, which may be shot in either Oklahoma or Arkansas while on location. George Tobias is tentatively set for a leading role.”
The next time we hear about Wein and Colonial Productions is once again in Schallert’s “Drama” column on Sept. 10: “Mikel Conrad will launch ‘The Flying Saucer’ Sept. 26 with Patricia Garrison in the feminine lead and Swiss actor Hans Von Teuffen as the heavy.” The piece concludes, “The new film is being made by Colonial Productions, with Morris Wein, eastern attorney, as Conrad’s associate, without release as yet.”
Aline Mosby’s syndicated U.P. column runs four days later nationwide with complete details on Conrad’s film. During his trip to Alaska he was able to shoot extensive wilderness and establishing-shot footage of himself, Patricia Garrison and Hans Von Teuffen and he claimed that he also scored some 900 feet of “flying saucer” footage!
Here are a few of Conrad’s quotes from the piece, which claims that “the actor got this colossal idea, he says, while on location in Alaska last winter for Universal-International’s movie, Arctic Manhunt.”
The first: “I heard about flying saucers there so I went back last summer with a crew from Whitehouse and two players, Pat Garrison and Hans Von Teuffen.”
He continues: “I found a saucer, I’m not telling how” and then Conrad is quoted as saying, “I have scenes of the saucer landing, taking off, flying and doing tricks. The saucer is not created in miniature or by trick photography. It is a mechanical, man-made object.”
Interesting that Conrad (in his quote) uses the phrase “man-made object.” It was just a few weeks before these two September stories ran that his production was titled Alaska USSR and now suddenly there is an elaborate backstory about flying saucers.
Finishing The Flying Saucer and the Theatrical Launch
On September 26 studio work began with the Alaskan footage married to the studio set material. Conrad may even have had some of the left over Arctic Manhunt footage at his disposal … the whale breeching scene comes to mind.
Foley work, dialogue for the silent footage, music cues and the use of studio sets were all in place to piece his “flying saucer” tale together. In early October the film was completed and Frank Eng’s Los Angeles Daily News column had a short blub on Oct. 5 saying “Colonial Productions now negotiating for a release for its first independent melodrama, ‘The Flying Saucer,” is preparing to roll its second on the Hal Roach lot. Mikel Conrad’s ‘The Legend,’ with a Florida Everglades setting, is the property, and Morris Wein is Colonial’s president.
Colonial Productions was able to make a deal with Joseph Bernard’s Film Classics, Inc. (headquartered in New York, with a West Coast office on Sunset in Los Angeles) to handle the theatrical distribution of The Flying Saucer.
Film Classics actually did a masterful job of launching the film. They skipped the crowded Christmas season (the film has a 1949 copyright) and waited until the first week of January in 1950 to avoid competing with the big studio holiday-season rollouts.
A nice size ad (perhaps the entire advertising budget) was placed in the New York City newspapers announcing the film’s exclusive debut at the Rialto Theatre in Times Square on January 4.
They even placed a full page ad in Boxoffice Magazine in January of 1950 to herald the availability of the "Timeliest Picture of the Century!"
Wanda Hale of the Daily News said of the film, “There isn’t much story to “The Flying Saucer,” and action is slow, but there is a lot of magnificent outdoor scenery that passes for Alaskan backgrounds.”
It then got ugly on Friday, January 20, when Ezra Goodman published his piece in the Los Angeles Daily News detailing Conrad’s publicity hype surrounding the film, “… purportedly incorporated authentic scenes of flying saucers obtained in Alaska.” According to Goodman, Conrad’s claim of government involvement could not be confirmed and two different publicity firms that were hired and then quit made claims that “there was no basis of truth in the stories they had been sending out about the picture.”
He then goes on to reference the Hollywood Reporter and its trade review of the film, saying that “the saucers were really trick studio “miniatures” and that the picture was “contrived.”
There is a saying that all publicity is good publicity, but this publicity was pretty bad.
On Wednesday, January 24, the film opened as the lower half of a double bill in five theatres in the Los Angeles area. The Flying Saucer was now second-billed to Film Classics’ release of The Pirates of Capri. The same combo also opened in the Brooklyn on January 24. Second billed … put a fork in it!
Darr Smith’s review on January 26 in the Los Angeles Daily News called the film “a collection of scenic film shot in Alaska and pieced together here to make some sort of a story.”
The piece goes on to name the publicists — Jo Brooks and Jules Fox — who had planted stories about the film based on word from an FBI agent by the name of Mr. McKnight, who confirmed that the footage was locked up tight in a local bank vault. When Brooks and Fox discovered that Mr. McKnight was a stooge hired by Conrad and that there was no footage, they quit.
It is entirely likely that Conrad was trying to duplicate the payday of Arctic Manhunt by doing Alaska USSR, a Russian spy film in Alaska that had nothing to do with flying saucers — that only came later — and since it was “anti-Soviet,” The Worker was hell-bent on exposing the fraud.
But the distribution deal with Film Classics got done, The Flying Saucer was launched and, surprisingly it actually played out in various markets over the next six years. These would have been mainly “flat rental” play dates ($15, $25 … $50 depending on the market and number of days).
Since the film had very limited exposure beyond the limited Los Angeles and New York City initial theatrical runs it was “brand new” (especially in the smaller markets) and with its title and the number of much better genre films released in the interim it certainly seemed to have had some “commercial” appeal as part of a double-feature trip to the local cinema.
Mobsters, Bingo and Bribery
This would normally be the end of it, the story of the making of a bad movie that just happened to be the first science fiction, horror or fantasy film to open theatrically in the 1950s. However, the backstory is ten times more interesting than the film itself.
The Los Angeles Times, for example, screamed: “Hallner Indicted In Bribery Case.”
According to Los Angeles City Attorney Roger Arneberg, Herbert Hallner, an investigator for the State Bar of California, was offering bribes related to the legalization of gambling in Venice.
Guess whose name pops up as being a grand jury witness … Morris M. Wein, Conrad’s attorney/investor partner in Colonial Productions. If there were no flying saucers as promised in the publicity for the film, why should we accept “attorney/investor” at face value either?
It seems that between 1946 and late 1949 bingo, or what was commonly called “bridgo” games (a rigged kino/bingo variant), flourished in the Venice Beach area of Los Angeles. It was dubbed “Bridgo Row,” which was home to a dozen of these establishments that were reportedly pulling in $50,000 a day collectively.
The June 28, 1949 edition of the Los Angeles Mirror went so far as to list the various operators of these “bridgo” parlors and several names pop out.
Irving G. Glasser, as the paper pointed out, was “one of the city’s leading bail bondsmen.” Continuing, “Gambling Czar Mickey Cohen is among his clients.”
Julius Wein was also on the list (the operator of Capitol Bridgo) … Julius Wein, as it turns out, is Morris' brother. Sallie B. Fylling was also listed by the Los Angeles Mirror as being one of the “Bridgo Row” operators (more on her in a moment).
On September 30, 1949 these operations were shutdown when Police Chief William A. Worton raided them. They didn’t go quietly and tried different legal shenanigans to get their very lucrative businesses back open, but they stayed shut, at least in Venice.
By November of 1950, the “Kefauver Commission” was in town and had set up shop at the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles to hear testimony about organized crime and bookmaking. Called as witnesses before the committee were none other than Mickey Cohen, Jimmy “the Eel” Utley and bridgo operator Irving Glasser (small world).
The same committee was back in town in February of 1951 and Glasser was back in front of the committee and they had more questions for him about his bridgo establishment, The Fortune.
As to the Hallner bribery trial, with all of the legal maneuvering it doesn’t actually get going until March 23, 1955.
The six week long trial makes for fascinating reading, but the gist of it is, the prosecution did not believe that Hallner had the means to finance the proposed bribery schemed and became convinced that there must be someone behind it.
That someone took the form of Jimmy “the Eel” Utley, who was notorious for being part of the local criminal element, a rival of mobster Mickey Cohen and when Police Chief William H. Parker, in his grand jury testimony, claimed that Morris M. Wein was Utley’s nephew, Los Angeles City Attorney Roger Arneberg had all he needed to make the connection and was off and running.
Be Careful What You Wish For
While the larger man held a gun on the restaurant crowd, the smaller man proceed to use a blackjack to beat Utley to within an inch of his life.
It was front page news, but Utley never said who beat him despite having had his skull fractured. He knew the rules. Only years later, in John Buntin’s 2010 book, “L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America’s Most Seductive City,” was it revealed that the “smaller man” was Mickey Cohen.
If Utley wasn’t going to rat out Cohen, what chance did Arneberg have of getting him to spill the beans about what was going on with efforts to reestablish the bridgo racket? And beside, by the time of the trial Morris M. Wein had fled to Chicago (if that’s where he actually was) and efforts by both the prosecution and defense to subpoena him proved to be fruitless.
His grand jury testimony confirmed that he had been a bridgo game operator from 1946 until the games were shutdown in 1949.
He claimed, in his grand jury testimony, that his relationship with Utley was “shirt-tail” in nature, meaning yes related, but more like a cousin.
The long and the short of it … without Wein to establish the Utley connection, the first trial ended in a hung jury and the 1956 re-trail was an acquittal for Hallner.
End of the Line
Bridgo operator Morris M. Wein, seeing that the authorities were hell-bent on closing down “Bridgo Row” in the summer of 1949 began looking for other “opportunities.”
Colonial Productions was born and press agent Carl Post was hired to put chum in the water to see what movie-making deals might be put together.
This took the form of funneling money into Conrad’s movie. Bingo money (or bridgo cash) financed the first science fiction, horror or fantasy film to open theatrically in the 1950s. The source being that of a former attorney who had a “shirt-tail” relationship to a known crime figure.
After his grand jury testimony in 1953, Wein disappears from the Hollywood scene and it is only until his obituary is published in The Day (New London, Connecticut) on October 31, 1966 that we learn that this "movie producer" died unexpectedly on Saturday, October 29 while vacationing in Ohio.
Jimmy “the Eel” Utley was hauled in several times over the years by the Los Angeles police in connection with the murders of several of Mickey Cohen’s “associates,” but was never charged. He also had an ironclad alibi when Cohen’s home was bombed. Instead he was convicted in 1956 of running a back alley abortion mill and sentenced to a ten-year jolt in Folsom Prison … he died of a heart attack while still in prison in October of 1962.
Mickey Cohen did four years in prison (1951-1955) for tax evasion, retired from a life of crime and died in 1976.
As for Mikel Conrad, he starred in director M. Merle Connell’s 1952 film, Untamed Women.
In April of 1957, he announced that he had completed two films, Reincarnated Madman and Monster Island, and was going to begin production on four more films — South Sea Fury, High Yellow, The Leper and White Fury. None of these six movies were ever produced, instead Conrad was indicated on seven counts of grand theft for bilking a number of individuals out of money in a phony film production scheme.
He was scheduled for arraignment on December 26, 1957 … but nothing further is heard of him. His film career was over.
And that's how Mikel Conrad’s The Flying Saucer became the first science fiction, horror or fantasy film to open theatrically in the 1950s!
No comments:
Post a Comment