Noirsville Noir Art

Kim Cogan?

Unknown

Ernest Lawson

Jos. Rankin

Ilya Glazunov

Provincetown Evening - Paul Schulenburg 

Night Watch - Gavin E. Calf

Bernard Leemker

96th Street Station - Daniel E. Green

Signed  above

Movies 5¢ - John Sloan

Morning Mood - Pat Kelly

 

Noirsville Bonus - The Outer Limits - (TV Series (1963-65)) The Noir Episodes (Part 1)

"There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image; make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat, there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to... The Outer Limits." (Control Voice)

This was four years after The Twilight Zone's debut. 

After a commercial, you'd suddenly get popped down into a random preview clip from the evenings episode first. Once over, The Control Voice introduced the shows with the familiar lines above. The black  screen had a white dot that began to extend into a white line that became a hypnotic oscilloscope,  oscillating a line in space. I still remembered the words. We'd see a blurry moon scape sharpen to crystal clarity. It was a grabber. The shows filled an hour time slot but the actual length was 51 minutes. 

By 1963 I was already tuned into the Visual Style of Film Noir by all the Classic Hollywood Noir that played on NYC's local stations as content. Fer instance Million Dollar Movie played on WOR-TV channel 9, starting in 1955, it was the same feature film every day of the week and twice a night. With weekend matinees. It's how I first saw quite a lot of The Maltese Falcon, Murder My Sweet, Double Indemnity, Pursued, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Devil and Daniel Webster, etc., etc. On public channels you'd occasionally see a foreign film and some of them were Noir.

Then include all the various Noir-ish episodes of Mike Hammer, Peter Gunn, Johnny Staccato. etc., etc., and on top of that, there were also the various anthology live dramas with their theatrical stagecraft optics reflecting back to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and German Expressionism.

In addition in the '60s brought us the Transitional Noirs, Blast of Silence, Carnival of Souls, Cape Fear, Experiment in Terror, and The Manchurian Candidate. 

The Outer Limits was quite similar to The Twilight Zone with the major difference being all the episodes were long form, 51 minutes. and the majority of those episodes tended to be science fiction based. The Zone's tales were more varied, a boiling stew of science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, and psychological drama.

The Outer Limits was created by Leslie Clark Stevens IV, the son of a US Admiral. He was more interested in writing. He sold an early play The Mechanical Rat, to Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre.

He threw tradition to the wind and joined the US Army Air Force during WWII. After the war he became successful at writing, producing plays, and producing and directing films (The Left Handed Gun, Incubus, and Transitional Noir Private Property. 

Through his production company, Daystar Productions, Stevens created the television series The Outer Limits which he supervised as executive producer. He also wrote or directed four of the episodes, including the pilot The Galaxy Being. 

The majority of episodes were directed by Gerd Oswald (14 eps.) who directed Noirs A Kiss Before Dying, Crime of Passion, Screaming Mimi, before segueing into TV. 

Other directors of note, were Byron Haskin (6 eps) who directed Noirs I Walk Alone, Too Late For Tears, Charles F. Haas (4 eps) directed mostly TV, Laslo Benedek (3 eps) directed Noir Port of New York, and cult film The Wild One then to TV. Paul Stanley (3 eps) Cry Tough, John Brahm (2 eps) directed Noirs, The Loger, The Locket, Hangover Square, The Brasher Doubloon, and TV The M Squad TV Series, Alan Crosland Jr. (2 eps) Peter Gunn TV Series, Robert Florey (1 ep) directed The Face Behind the Mask, Lady Gangster, The Crooked Way, The Twilight Zone TV Series. 

The Cinematography for 25 episodes was Kenneth Peach (Sons of the Desert and other Laurel & Hardy shorts, Chicago Confidential, then mostly TV). Conrad L. Hall (15 eps) directed Transitional Noirs Wild Seed, Harper, In Cold Blood, and Neo Noirs Fat City, Electraglide In Blue, Black Widow),  John M. Nickolaus Jr (9 eps) (Rawhide TV Series), and Fred J. Koenekamp (1 ep) (Beyond the Valley of the Dolls). 

The main theme Music was composed by Dominic Frontiere (who also provided the music for 31 eps), other composers were Harry Lubin (17 eps), and Robert Van Eps (2 eps).

Many episodes had Classic Noir Vets. John Hoyt, Ted De Corsia, Kent Smith, Vaughn Taylor, Gary Merrill, Vera Miles, Lloyd Nolan, Simon Oakland, Robert Webber, Ruth Roman,  Skip Homeier, Howard Da Silva, Stephen McNally, Ron Randall, Jeff Corey, Constance Towers, Richard Jaeckel, Warren Stevens, Nina Foch, Ralph Meeker, Arthur Hunnicutt, Jay Novello, Gloria Grahame, and Whit Bissell. 

In this examination of The Outer Limits, I weeded out the 12 episodes that tip Noir. For me, the series threaded a fine line "On The Cusp Of Noir" because of one of my personal tipping factors was tied to the predominantly science fiction nature of the series. 

The occasionally almost too goofy nature of the special effects has the tendency to negate or drain away  the Noir atmospherics for me. They especially overdid a lot of the "aliens / monsters" encountered in a material that looked like slimy, quivering. jello blobs. 

There were 49 episodes of The Outer Limits, 12 tip Noir for me so actually very  similar to Twilight Zone's percentages, about 25% are in Noirsville.   

THE NOIR EPISODES

Season One, Episode 1 - aired Sep 16, 1963

The Galaxy Being 

Written and Directed  by Leslie Stevens, Music by Dominic Frontiere, Cinematography by John M. Nickolaus Jr.

The episode stars Lee Philips as Radio DJ Gene 'Buddy' Maxwell, Jacqueline Scott as Carol Maxwell, 

Cliff Robertson as Alan Maxwell, Burt Metcalfe as Eddie Phillips, and William Douglas as the Galaxy Being.  

This was actually the first episode I caught, the premier on Monday evening, September 16th 1963. Outside it was "Light Rain, Smoke” recorded on Monday, Sep 16, 1963. It was twilight, temp around mid 50s. I was about ten years old. I was in my favorite spot. I had a kitchen table chair angled towards the steam radiator, a pillow as an additional seat cushion that raised me enough to be able to have both feet up on the warm radiator cover. My cozy corner. 

I was watching ABC on our portable GE model 14S208 Two Tone turquoise and white TV. 

After a commercial we got the iconic grabber, we see a small white dot in the middle of a black screen, the Control Voice announcing that "There is nothing wrong with your television set..."

Story

Alan Maxwell a microwave wiz and his brother Gene 'Buddy' Maxwell a Radio DJ own radio station  KXKVI outside of Los Feliz. Their government broadcast license allowed frequency, power output, amounted to a two hundred square mile territory. 

We first meet "Buddy" and Carol discussing the big award bash that the chamber of commerce is throwing for Alan. 

Lee Philips as Radio DJ Gene 'Buddy' Maxwell and Jacqueline Scott as Carol Maxwell

Here we find out through Buddy and Carols convo that Alan spends all his time at the transmitter further up the hill, tinkering with microwave experiments.

Cliff Robertson as Alan Maxwell

Alan is becoming increasingly obsessed and alienated from his wife Carol. He's also defrauding the stations sponsors by stealing half the stations allotted wattage for his microwave transmission experiments. Alan feels he's justified because he feels he's on the verge of something important

Alan has created a devise to make microwaves 3 dimensional. We come upon Alan at the moment he's tuned in a microwave signal coming from beyond the solar system. 

Carol walks up to the transmitter. She interrupts Alan and reminds Alan about the award party. Alan tries to blow her off with his ecstatic explanations of a new discovery. Carols reacts as if she's heard this all before, and she is getting more frustrated by the minute. 

She finally has to threaten Alan warning him that if he doesn't come to the party she'll bring the whole party to the transmitter. Carol tells him she'll bring his suit up to him, just before its time to go.

When Carol departs Alan is able to zero in on the transmission and he is able to pull a 3d image of a blue glowing alien whose head appears to have only two circular eyes.

Speaking into a microphone Alan asks "Who are you? Can you hear me? Can you see me?" No response but the alien seems to be scoping out Alan's workshop. Alan asks "Where are you?" 

Alan figures out that he can use his computer to translate binary pulses into words and he's able to communicate with the alien. 

He's from the Great Spiral Andromeda. The alien tells Alan that he's from a solar system with 31 planets. He also warms Alan not to increase the power because they are forbidden to communicate with planets beyond the central system. Like a Star Trek prime directive, lol. The alien doesn't have a name just a four dimension number. He's also nitrogen cycle as opposed to earth's carbon cycle based life.

Alan has to attend the party. He explains to the alien that he will be back in an allotted period of time. Alan then walks down and stops at the studio and explains to the guest DJ  who replaces Buddy to keep the power level if it drifts. 

It all goes Noirsville when the guest DJ decides to impress his girlfriend who he phones between records.. He tells her listen to this and increases the transmission to full power. This sudden burst of energy pulls the alien out of Alans contraption and onto the Earth.

Noirsville

Burt Metcalfe seated, as Eddie Phillips

William Douglas as the Galaxy Being.

This one easily tips noir for the series intro alone. There's a few low and high angle shots in the mix but the Galaxy Being and his thunderous, flickering light effects steal the show.

Originally produced as the pilot for the series and originally was titled "Please Stand By" (as was the series itself before ABC requested the title be changed).

The original pilot version contained several short scenes that were cut for the broadcast version including: a threat by the Galaxy Being that his people might destroy Earth, Allan shaking sense into his hysterical wife after she sees the creature, and a woman screaming at the sight of a dead man. (trivia from IMDb)

Season 1, Episode 3 aired Sep 30, 1963

The Architects of Fear

Directed by Byron Haskin, written by Meyer Dolinsky, Cinematography by Conrad L. Hall, Music by Dominic Frontiere,

The episode stars Robert Culp as Allen Leighton, Leonard Stone as Dr. Phillip Gainer, Martin Wolfson as Dr. Herschel, Geraldine Brooks as Yvette Leighton, Hal Bokar as Bert - Third Hunter, Billy Green Bush as Hunter, Clay Tanner, as Fred - Second Hunter. 

Story

A secret group, The Advanced Biological Studies Group, of top surgeons, biologists and scientific geeks come up with a crackpot, cockamamie scheme. They figure that the way to avoid another World War is to unite all the races of man by creating the threat of an alien invasion. 

Leonard Stone as Dr. Phillip Gainer

Martin Wolfson as Dr. Herschel

Robert Culp as Allen Leighton

They are also constructing a alien spacecraft and are going to have an "alien" land outside the United Nations and threaten an invasion of Earth.

They have all agreed that one of their members, chosen by chance, will agree to reconstructive surgery and be made into an inhabitant of the planet Theta. They have a sort of large covered cat box where a Thetan is squealing gibberish on a side table.

(Note: Its never mentioned where they got a hold of this Thetan in the first place).

They hold the lottery using names on slips of papers placed in a hat. The un-lucky winner is Allen Leighton. Allen is resigned to carrying out the plan for the good of mankind. The plan is to send Allen off on a fake top secret expedition to South America and declare that that the plane was lost over the Andes. 

Allen will be declared dead and Yevette his wife will be provided for. 

Geraldine Brooks as Yvette Leighton

However, Yevette who unbeknownst to Allen is now, surprise, surprise, unexpectedly pregnant. after five years of trying to no avail. Of course things are more complicated now for both. 

When Yevette is told the news of Allen's death, she doesn't believe it, and keeps hanging around the labs to the consternation of the other group members. 

There're quite a few sequences of the actual surgeries and procedures to change Allen from an oxygen breathing human to a nitrogen absorbing Thetan. Other sequences cover Allen's hallucinatory reactions to the drugs and changes in his body, and still others of Yevette's premonitions and feelings of anguish.  

What could possibly go wrong....

Noirsville

This entire episode is exceedingly dark and moody. and the goofy dead eye-monster special effects factor is minimal. 

Season 1, Episode 4 aired Sep 30, 1963

The Man with the Power

Directed by Laslo Benedek. Written by Jerome Ross, Cinematography by Conrad L. Hall, Music by Dominic Frontiere. 

The episode stars Donald Pleasence as Harold J. Finley, Priscilla Morrill as Vera Finley, Fred Beir as 

Steve Crandon, Frank Maxwell as Keenan, John Marley as Dr. Sigmund Hindeman, Paul Lambert as Dr. Henschell, James McCallion as Dr. Tremaine, Harry Ellerbe as Doctor, Edward Platt as Dean Radcliffe, 

Anne Loos as Emily Radcliffe, Paul Kent as Detective. 

 From this episode forward, the opening monologue by the Control Voice is shorter.

"There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can change the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to... The Outer Limits."

This was the first episode to have a teaser clip before the opening monologue by the Control Voice.

The teaser clip shows Edward Platt (most will know as The Chief from Get Smart) playing College Dean Radcliffe getting fried alive in his bed by a sort of dark energy cloud.  

Then came the shorter Control Voice opening (above). 

Harold J. Finley, a mild mannered professor at a small college devised an implantable focusing devise that gives one the ability to harness massive amounts of power, the energy of the universe, by thought. He believed in this so much, that he himself had it implanted in his own frontal lobe. 

Story

Harold driving to the college and finding his short cut route blocked by a bucket truck for a tree trimming operation. 

Harold annoyed and impatient starts to honk. The tree trimmers tell him to go the other way. Harold tell them its 12 miles longer. Slightly peeved, Harold drives off.

Donald Pleasence as Harold J. Finley

However a dark cloud forms into a sort of ball of dark energy and fries the Bucket truck and all the workmen. 

Harold's subconscious mind is reacting in force.  

We soon discover through Harrold's convos with his shrewish wife, that Harold is moonlighting on a secret government project that was created to address the eventual shortage of rare materials used for nuclear energy.   

The goal of the project has been to tap the asteroid belt for rare elements and bring them back to earth.  

All the problems are obvious, how to mine an asteroid, how to create the equipment able to mine the asteroid, them how to transport the materials back to Earth. 

Well Harold seems to be the answer. At a meeting where its been announced that lacking any progress, funding is being pulled and the project is being closed down. Keenan, project manager, protests declaring that they have made a breakthrough. 

Frank Maxwell as Keenan

Keenan puts on a display with Harrold. On a pedestal is a small meteor weighing a few tons. Harrold is able to levitate the meteor and move it gently around the meeting room with the focusing device in his brain controlling enormous forces. 

When Harold lets go with his mind, the meteor falls through the floor. Impressive.

The government now agrees to continue the project. With one of Harrold's devises panted in the frontal lobe of the astronaut, that man can actually bring an asteroid close enough into earth orbit to make the rare element project feasible. 

John Marley as Dr. Sigmund Hindeman

One of the project scientists, Dr. Sigmund Hindeman warns Harrold that the powerful forces he is able to control consciously could be released also by his subconscious.  Basically the same scenario from Forbidden Planet with the forces (mind controlled there too) available to the ancient Krell.

What could go wrong. 

Noirsville

Some nice Noir stylistic shots mixed with Noir style closeups of Donald Pleasence doing his mind control sequences juxtaposed with his introspective ones. 

End of Part 1