I was recalling the 1955 George Pal movie, 'Conquest of Space' recently and the fabulously retro spaceships it contained, especially the beautiful 'flying wing' type spaceship. But it also has a nice classic 'Von Braun' style space wheel station in the film, which is again extremely competantly visualised. While looking for suitable imagery, I came across the extremely comprehensive blog, by NZPete - which deals with the history of the matte shot, which made films like this possible, well before the advent of CGI. This is an area that our late friend Ken Holt worked in for MGM studios, on films such as Gorgo and Tom Thumb.
Space Wheel stations don't come much better than the massive model shown in 2001: A Space Odyssey, seen here in the production painting by Robert McCall. The interesting thing here is that the wheel is shown as still under construction, with the secondary wheel still in red girder framework. From the sublime to the ridiculous, but still very enjoyable, we have the station Gamma 7 from the Green Slime - a film with effects slightly below par compared to its contemporary Thunderbirds; using lots of models and pyrotechnics.
The model world is not without a fair showing of classic wheel shaped stations, such as the Strombecker model from Disney's 'Man in Space' and Lindbergs nice U.S Space Station, which was re-issued several times until fairly recently, along with the Mars Probe rocket kit.
Although Midori released the main ship (which we know as the Lunar Transporter) from Green Slime, there are a number of other notable models in the film, which have not found their way into kit form, including the main Rocket Transport.
"Wheels within wheels in a spiral array,a pattern so grand and complex;time after time we lose sight of the way,our causes can't see their effects".Quoting a little Rush ;)
ReplyDeleteVery good Brian, its lost on me unfortunately! Woodsy is the Rush man!
ReplyDeleteExcellent post! That design era was tops! I had the Lindberg Space Station for many years, both built-up (badly) and a newer reissue which I never got around to building and sold recently on ebay. I also had all of those wonderful retro ship models, by Lindberg, and Monogram, and Hawk, and Strombecker (and the Glencoe reiusses.) Conquest of Space is probably THE single coolest movie for beautiful retro spaceships - god I love that film. I have a built-up Man in Space Nuclear Space Station model, which I sent pix of to Woodsy long ago - and which he kindly posted - but if I can track down the pix again I'll send them along, in case you want to post them in honor of your "Retro Space Anniversary" theme. Its in pretty "safety yellow," and I think it might be my best overall paint job.
ReplyDeleteGlad you like it Zig! When you consider when Conquest was made, its remarkably well preserved and the FX are outstanding. My only issue is the theological moralising that goes on later in the film, but I just watch it for the craft! Ive got the Lindberg Star Probe re-issue, but its been hammered. Ill try and repair it enough to blog. I have got the Glencoe passenger Rocket too. If you could find those station pics, that would be cool. Im hoping for a big finale near the actual 50th anniversary!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you re: Conquest of Space's moralizing. I, too, just tune out the preachy screenplay to concentrate on the incredible visions of a future never to be. Wish I had saved the Lindberg Space Wheel but oh well, life's too short, and I got a good price for it. Plus, I still have over 50 other Space models (Japanese and other) in my pile to get to before I croak, so I don't think I'll have to worry about inventory for awhile. I will seek those Strombecker Space Wheel pix pix at home, and send them along. As for the miraculous Space Wheel from 2001, there is a new plastic model kit of this out (did you mention this already?) from Fantastic Plastic, which is supposed to be absolutely stunning. Its way too complicated (and pricey) for my tastes, but for the expert SF modeler its probably the holy grail!
ReplyDeletePS: Three other Japanese films, Battle in Outer Space, Gorath and The Mysterians, also have terrific era-specific space models in them... Pix should be available online...
ReplyDeleteFantastic Plastic make a good kit, but they are primarily prosumer end stuff, so mre suited to expert modellers like you, Scoop and Kevin. Ive got hands like feet and will struggle with card kits!
ReplyDeleteIve heard of the Mysterians, does Battle Beneath the Earth have any good vehicles in t ?
ReplyDeleteBattle in Outer Space and Gorath both feature some terrific space vehicles! Search for pix and lobby cards on the net and/or ebay. I own no movie material any more - used to have some nice stills from both films. If I can gather anything interesting online, I'll send them along. I had the 8mm home movie version of Battle in Outer Space for years, one of my favorite home movie digests!
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