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HASKIN, BYRON (1899–1984). American director.
Haskin was at his worst in directing stories of groups
of men who are engaged in collective projects, since these tend to become
stilted and slow-paced, filled with long speeches and expository dialogue,
and overly reliant on contrivance, rather than character or conflict,
to keep the plot in motion. This would be a good description of his two
dullest films, Conquest of Space and From the Earth to the Moon,
the latter perhaps qualifying as the worst adaptation of Jules VERNE's
works ever filmed. To an extent, these flaws are also surprisingly evident
in The War of the Worlds, surely the most overrated science fiction
"classic" of the 1950s. While the special effects are colorful and dynamic,
the film is otherwise a strangely lethargic and undramatic account of
an alien invasion of Earth, with an added subtext of religious piety that
would have been repugnant to the story's original author, H. G. WELLS.
At the other extreme, Haskin excelled in directing a
type of film that is often problematic and awkward: the story of a solitary
hero, struggling against natural forces and inarticulate foes, who must
communicate his story with voice-over narration. Although evidence of
Haskin's skill with such stories first surfaced in The Naked Jungle,
the thrilling saga of a jungle-bound Charlton HESTON battling against
ferocious ants often cited as an influence on science fiction film, his
two finest efforts along these lines were Robinson Crusoe on Mars
and "Demon with a Glass Hand." The former convincingly depicts a marooned
astronaut's grim effort to survive in a harsh alien environment, and clever
casting makes it an effective tale of role reversal. In the opening scenes,
handsome Adam WEST is the confident commanding
officer while homely Paul MANTEE is his inexperienced, unsure subordinate.
But West is killed, and the surviving Mantee must now prove his own abilities.
After finally finding water, his bath in a pool is a baptism rite, as
he is purged of self-doubt, and West's appearance in a nightmare as a
voiceless zombie emphasizes his new confidence. Then, when he recruits
the alien Victor Lundin—who closely resembles a swarthy West—as his
Man Friday, the reversal is complete: the underdog is now the master.
Yet the film still shows some nagging signs of directorial indifference:
for such a somber story, the colors are too bright and cheery, as would
be more appropriate for a mindless entertainment like Harry LEVIN's Journey
to the Center of the Earth (1959). And the brief scene that reveals
the malevolent aliens to look just like humans is unnecessary and thoughtless—it would have been far better to leave the aliens unseen and mysterious.
As for "Demon with a Glass Hand," Haskin directs this fast-paced, claustrophobic
story intelligently and intensely; even the ever-unhappy Harlan ELLISON
had only a few mild complaints about his direction.
Falling somewhere between these extremes is The Power,
a film with effective moments that never really rises to the white heat
of frenzied paranoia that the story demands and is handicapped by a meandering
pace and the miscasting of an insufficiently passionate George Hamilton
as its star. As a director, Haskin undeniably had the Power, but one wishes
he had chosen, or had been prodded, to exercise it more often. |
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