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Encyclopedia Introduction |
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Acknowledgements
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SIODMAK, CURT (1902–2000). German writer and director.
Wrote and directed: Bride of the Gorilla
(1951); Curucu, Beast of the Amazon (1956); Tales of Frankenstein
(tv series pilot) (1958).
Co-wrote with Ivan TORS and directed: The
Magnetic Monster (1953).
Wrote, produced, and directed: Love Slaves of
the Amazon (1957).
Film based on his work: F.P.I. Doesn't Answer
(Karl Hartl 1932); The Lady and the Monster (George Sherman 1944); Donovan's
Brain (Felix Feist 1953); "Donovan's Brain" (1955), episode of Studio
One; The Brain (Freddie FRANCIS 1963); "The Brain of Colonel
Barham" (uncredited) (1965), episode of The Outer Limits; Hauser's
Memory (tv movie) (Boris SAGAL 1970); Ritual (Avi Nesher 2001).
Appeared in: Metropolis (uncredited)
(Fritz LANG 1926).
The problem may have been a matter of timing. In the early 1930s,
when horror films had large budgets and featured talents like director
James WHALE and actors Boris KARLOFF, Siodmak
was still in Germany, writing novels and films that are rarely examined
today. By the time he made it to Hollywood to escape Adolf Hitler,
horror movies had become cheap B-movies, directed by obscure journeymen
and, more often than not, saddled with inept stars like Lon CHANEY,
Jr. and John CARRADINE. In this situation,
it largely became Siodmak's task to keep moribund horror franchises
alive, by means of increasingly inane contrivances, until they had
been entirely debased and could be fittingly handed over to Abbott
and Costello.
If that was the hand that Siodmak was dealt, it must be said that
he played it as well as could be expected. Unlike earlier efforts,
his horror films at least seemed like they were actually taking place
in Europe, and not some Hollywood backlot, and he could embelllish
senseless plots with evocative moments, like that memorable poem about
werewolves in The Wolf Man, which would have been Siodmak's
masterpiece if someone other than Lon Chaney, Jr. had been cast in
the lead. Instead, to close the Curt Siodmak Film Festival, one would
have to turn to the haunting I Walked with a Zombie, one of
the best zombie movies ever made (which, admittedly, is not saying
much). Also worth watching are The Invisible Man Returns (with
Vincent PRICE, before he became insufferable)
and The Beast with Five Fingers (with Peter LORRE's best performance
in a horror film), and even Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
isn't as bad as its title would suggest. But only masochists would
waste their time on the likes of Son of Dracula, Invisible
Agent, The Climax, and House of Frankenstein.
In the 1950s, horror was out and science fiction
was in, and Siodmak adjusted to the change with characteristic enthusiasm
(although a few efforts, like Bride of the Gorilla and Creature with
the Atom Brain, did recall the horrific 1940s); Siodmak also garnered
occasional directing assignments, though without particularly distinguishing
himself in that arena. The active imagination that had enabled Siodmak to
repeatedly get the Frankenstein monster and the Wolf Man back from the dead one
more time was now being employed to create science fiction movies that were
unlike any of the others then being churned out; if quality wasn't always the
result, Siodmak usually earned points for originality. Consider the unique titular
menace of The Magnetic Monster, the bizarre mission to grab meteors that
animates Riders to the Stars, or the generic confusion of Creature
with the Atom Brain. And Earth vs. the Flying Saucers—probably the
best film he was involved with in the 1950s—now seems derivative only because
so many films have imitated its tropes.
As the 1960s approached, Hollywood was undergoing
another sea change—the shift to television as the major employer of writers
and directors—and Siodmak made a few tentative efforts to work in this new
medium before leaving the industry to write a few more novels. Still, Siodmak
has remained an enormous influence on science fiction film and television—not
because of any of his screen works, but rather his novel Donovan's Brain
(1943). Its story of a man's brain scientifically kept alive after his death
which gradually turns evil and tyrannical proved irresistible to filmmakers,
who have produced several official and unofficial adaptations (including some,
like They Saved Hitler's Brain [1964], which don't quite belong in
Siodmak's filmography but nevertheless are obviously indebted to him). Since
Siodmak bequeathed many ideas to horror and science fiction films which are
still observed today, one might also say that Siodmak's brain lives on, even
though his body has passed away.
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