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Imagination, v. 1, issue 3, whole no. 3, December 1937

Page 15

IMAGINATION! #3 Dec 37 15
Forrest J AcKerman's FANTASCIENCE FILMART
With Kuttnerian candor, Henry K reports re "4 FOREN PHANTASY FILMS & '4E'": At the outset I should like to state plainly that I'm writing this in English. Good English, too. My "thoughs" all contain "ughs" (ughs is rite! -- J), & I do not abbreviate "Magdalene" into "maudlin". If this script appears hasht into an unintelligible mass of Exasperanto, the reader must blame Forrest J Ackerman, or as his friends affectionately call him, "Belshazzar". (That's malicious gospel! -- Ack.) Another thing I want to know is why Forry took a pair of fieldglasses (not to mention the accompanying lasses!) when he attended the revival of DAS CABINET DES CALIGARI. On this unique program, preceding the famous Deutsch melodrama (which, someone informed the audience, has been running, as I remember, 7 or 8 yrs solid at one cinemansion in Paris!), were several unusual short subjects. A French surrealist bit called "The Château" consisted of a series of disconnected views of things which apparently went to make up a château, while a chorus croakt froggily in French, occasionally bursting out, "chachachacha Château", in order to pound the point home, so to pun. There was a fascinating cardboard mask, which alternately lookt glum & wickedly amused. Also, cardboard birds flitted fast past a fonêtre (window), & ink was spilt on a stairway. With a final cachinnation of "chachachacha Château", the novelty ended & Forry lowered his fieldglasses. KOMPOSITION IN BLAU was an effort to match colored geometrical designs to music. Small scarlet squares popt up on a blue background, grew hastily, & marcht about, until an oval of green sneakt on the screen & swallowed them. There was some attempt to match the higher tones with the liter colors -- yellow, for example, typified a piccolo, or squeak, while purple exemplified the hunting cry of a scientifictionist in pursuit of a 1926 April Amazing Stories ... The next number, known variously as THE CRAZY RAY, "Paris qui Doit", "While Paris Sleeps", was made 15 yrs ago. Run from a poor print, this epic of Parisian life was rather Apache film. Prof Crase invented a rat which retarded life. Save for a few aviators, & the Eiffel Tower's attendant, the entire city stagnated, with the aid of trick fotografy. Meanwhile, Prof Crase, with fine nonchalance, continued his studies til forced to turn off his ray, which he did after several hrs abstruse mathematicalculation ... & then reversing the controlever. Later the machine was misoperated, with the result the whole metropolis rusht madly about (after the manner of Wells' "New Accelerator") like Ackermaniacs after Mar-lain-eh Deet-rich's autograf... After that, CABINET OF DR CALIGARI. Filmed in 1919, this was intended to express the viewpoint of a lunatic. It begins with a garden scene showing a zombie-like creature telling his companion, with an air of deep secrecy, that there are spirits all around us guiding our destiny. "Ah," says the other ham -- "but have I told you my story?", & launches into the lunacyarn. Most notable feature about the film is the scenery, painted in a markedly Cubistic & futuristic fashion by a potential Esperantist. Apparently, the cast, too, was supposed to express the insanity attributed to them in the mad narrator's mind, out only 2 succeed -- Werner Krausse, as Caligari, & Conrad Veidt, as the Somnambulist. Krausse is a deliteful charlatan. His rubber face & magnificent tongue express every thing from insance malignancy to lecherous delite. & Veidt, with a chalk-white face & heavily painted lips & eyes, clad in a tight black garment, is effectively macabre. The plot deals with the murders committed by the Som at the instigation of Cal, who keeps his pawn in a coffin-like box. In the end the Som dies in a ditch, & we discover all is the fabrication of a frenetic; that the characters are the inmates of the asylum of which Caligari is the head, not a homicidal maniac. Forry put down his fgs. I am planning to spy on him at "The Golem", to see if he takes a telescope.

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IMAGINATION! #3 Dec 37 15 Forrest J AcKerman's FANTASCIENCE FILMART With Kuttnerian candor, Henry K reports re "4 FOREN PHANTASY FILMS & '4E'": At the outset I should like to state plainly that I'm writing this in English. Good English, too. My "thoughs" all contain "ughs" (ughs is rite! -- J), & I do not abbreviate "Magdalene" into "maudlin". If this script appears hasht into an unintelligible mass of Exasperanto, the reader must blame Forrest J Ackerman, or as his friends affectionately call him, "Belshazzar". (That's malicious gospel! -- Ack.) Another thing I want to know is why Forry took a pair of fieldglasses (not to mention the accompanying lasses!) when he attended the revival of DAS CABINET DES CALIGARI. On this unique program, preceding the famous Deutsch melodrama (which, someone informed the audience, has been running, as I remember, 7 or 8 yrs solid at one cinemansion in Paris!), were several unusual short subjects. A French surrealist bit called "The Château" consisted of a series of disconnected views of things which apparently went to make up a château, while a chorus croakt froggily in French, occasionally bursting out, "chachachacha Château", in order to pound the point home, so to pun. There was a fascinating cardboard mask, which alternately lookt glum & wickedly amused. Also, cardboard birds flitted fast past a fonêtre (window), & ink was spilt on a stairway. With a final cachinnation of "chachachacha Château", the novelty ended & Forry lowered his fieldglasses. KOMPOSITION IN BLAU was an effort to match colored geometrical designs to music. Small scarlet squares popt up on a blue background, grew hastily, & marcht about, until an oval of green sneakt on the screen & swallowed them. There was some attempt to match the higher tones with the liter colors -- yellow, for example, typified a piccolo, or squeak, while purple exemplified the hunting cry of a scientifictionist in pursuit of a 1926 April Amazing Stories ... The next number, known variously as THE CRAZY RAY, "Paris qui Doit", "While Paris Sleeps", was made 15 yrs ago. Run from a poor print, this epic of Parisian life was rather Apache film. Prof Crase invented a rat which retarded life. Save for a few aviators, & the Eiffel Tower's attendant, the entire city stagnated, with the aid of trick fotografy. Meanwhile, Prof Crase, with fine nonchalance, continued his studies til forced to turn off his ray, which he did after several hrs abstruse mathematicalculation ... & then reversing the controlever. Later the machine was misoperated, with the result the whole metropolis rusht madly about (after the manner of Wells' "New Accelerator") like Ackermaniacs after Mar-lain-eh Deet-rich's autograf... After that, CABINET OF DR CALIGARI. Filmed in 1919, this was intended to express the viewpoint of a lunatic. It begins with a garden scene showing a zombie-like creature telling his companion, with an air of deep secrecy, that there are spirits all around us guiding our destiny. "Ah," says the other ham -- "but have I told you my story?", & launches into the lunacyarn. Most notable feature about the film is the scenery, painted in a markedly Cubistic & futuristic fashion by a potential Esperantist. Apparently, the cast, too, was supposed to express the insanity attributed to them in the mad narrator's mind, out only 2 succeed -- Werner Krausse, as Caligari, & Conrad Veidt, as the Somnambulist. Krausse is a deliteful charlatan. His rubber face & magnificent tongue express every thing from insance malignancy to lecherous delite. & Veidt, with a chalk-white face & heavily painted lips & eyes, clad in a tight black garment, is effectively macabre. The plot deals with the murders committed by the Som at the instigation of Cal, who keeps his pawn in a coffin-like box. In the end the Som dies in a ditch, & we discover all is the fabrication of a frenetic; that the characters are the inmates of the asylum of which Caligari is the head, not a homicidal maniac. Forry put down his fgs. I am planning to spy on him at "The Golem", to see if he takes a telescope.