MovieChat Forums > The Tunnel (1935) Discussion > I'll be the first

I'll be the first

posted 17 years ago by parkpunk
37 replies | jump to latest

This is one of my favorite sci-fi "old time" movies. The storyline is very interesting. I believe it's set in the 40's, but it's made in the thirties. So, it's a movie set in the "not to distant future" from their perspective. The acting is pretty wooden, and very English. The overall concept is so intriguing, especially for the time that it was made. I think my favorite things are the video phones and gyro transports. There's something about past futuristic predictions observed from a future viewpoint (ours) that I find insightful of the time. This is pre-WWII so there's simply the feeling of knowing that something is on the horizon. There's talk of arming the nations of the world and so on. It makes me think of movies made before 911 or the fall of the soviet union. I'd like to know if anyone else has a fondness for this very old film.

[–] Boaz357 16 years ago

Saw it long ago.Turner classic movies is showing it on the 26th of march.Rarely shown film.

[–] Kd5000 16 years ago

Did I hear correctly, "first time shown on tv?"

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Boaz357 16 years ago

Well, first time on TCM at least.I like it.Could have sworn it was shown back in the seventies.Maybe not.

[–] kimpunkrock 16 years ago

I loved it!!!
TCM rules for finally playing it.

-
kim

http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/index.jsp?cid=186977

The Truth is out there.

[–] andrewwjohnson 15 years ago

................I remember seeing this movie on PBS in the late seventies.
True genius is a beautiful thing, but ignorance is ugly to the bone.

[–] escalera-2 14 years ago

...to see it...maybe.

This is another one of those titles that Forrest J. Ackerman would pepper his publications with from time to time (along with F.P1 Doesn't Answer! -- 1932) and I could never find listed on broadcast TV schedules.

Ah, well. It gives me something to look forward to.

[–] hobnob53 13 years ago

Funny running ito you here, esc! (And I like your retitling of the thread.)

Anyway, I just posted a new thread as to this film's availability from Sinister Cinema. They also carry F.P. 1 Doesn't Answer, which isn't bad.

Until I saw this film I never realized that Richard Dix had constructed the Channel Tunnel in 1940, as well as that other successful subaquatic edifice, the Miami-Bahamas Tunnel...or as C. Aubrey Smith pronounces it, "Mee-ah-mee".

SinCin just ended their latest sale but another should be coming up in a couple of months (they're pretty frequent), so if you're interested wait a bit longer to order. Plus they have new titles coming in September.

Everything A-OK, my friend?

[–] escalera-2 13 years ago

So, we meet again, Pennypacker!

Thanks for the information on the availability of this and F.P. 1 Does Not Answer. Both productions were frequently mentioned by Forrest J. Ackerman in his magazines and they certainly have intriquing titles.

(TDF asks about you from time to time and he'll be glad to know that you are sounding well)

[–] hobnob53 13 years ago

Yes, I owe TDF an email, which I keep neglecting.

Were you (mainly) referring to the infamous Famous Monsters of Filmland? Great mag. I think I may have vague recollections of Forry mentioning TT but not FP1. Both based on German films of a few years earlier.

Pennypacker? As in The Remarkable Mister? One PA resident citing another! But I can't recall where the line comes from. Maddening! Illuminate my darkness, that I may see the tunnel.

(Speaking of which, would Richard Dix qualify as one of the "ancients" who knew the secret of such things...as in the infamous tunnel known only to the mutants in Captive Women? Even though it didn't do them much good!)

We should do a festival of tunnel-themed films: Transatlantic Tunnel, Captive Women, The Deadly Mantis, Tunnel of Love, Daylight, Von Ryan's Express, Avalanche Express, Bhowani Junction...there are certainly more.

[–] sonofindiandelta 13 years ago

Funny that we only recently have developed similar looking drill tech

[–] escalera-2 13 years ago

I wonder how much of a market there is for that kind of equipment. The demand or rather a lack of it may have held up the development.

[–] hobnob53 13 years ago

Ah, but think of the military applications. Um, er, I mean, the peaceful applications of such equipment. Radium is such a safe element to use, is it not? World Peace, here we come -- at 55 MPH beneath the ocean floor.

[–] escalera-2 13 years ago

I know about The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker, but the line actually comes from a popular TV show from the 90's, Seinfeld. I don't know why they used that name in the show.

Yes, Famous Monsters of Filmland, Monster World and Spacemen, the wonderful Warren Publications, apart from some ditto sheet fanzines, there was little else out there that gathered that sort of special interest material.

He used everything to fill space, many photos from Metropolis, Just Imagaine and Woman on the Moon. Backin those days, such titles were rarely ever shown full length, usually only snippets. He kept the fires going for years with his stills from those wonderful productions.

[–] hobnob53 13 years ago

Forry seemed a fun guy. I saw a partial tour of his house on TV once and it was loaded with memorabilia, to the ceiling. Private tours only, I understand. Don't know what happened to his collection after he died. He had a cameo as the President in the opening "Amazon Women on the Moon" segment in that film. He's also the one who found a complete copy (albeit dubbed in Italian) of Deluge, the 1933 disaster film from RKO whose highlight is the destruction of Manhattan. It was long thought lost but Forry turned it up in some studio vault in Rome over 20 years ago. Wade Williams brought that one out on VHS too, but so far no DVD has materialized.

[–] escalera-2 13 years ago

I suppose much went to auction. There was a lot of his stuff on e-Bay. I hope it all found a good home and not some landfill.

[–] hobnob53 13 years ago

I'm sure all that stuff did find good homes (especially if it was paid for!), but the shame is that the collection was broken up. Had I known of the sale at the time and it had occurred to me, I might have bid on something myself. I believe he had a model of "Spaceship Luna" from Destination Moon which I would have liked to have (in my dreams!). But I'm sure he never had the "radium drill" model from TT.

Incidentally, to get back to this here film, if I recall it's based on a film on the same subject written by Curt Siodmak for a 1932 or so German film. I have to look this up and see what's what. FP1 Doesn't Answer was another originally German film. In the early days of sound they sometimes made simultaneous versions of a film in different languages, such as SOS Iceberg, but one which I've always wanted to see is Atlantic, a fictionalized 1929 film about the sinking of the Titanic. It was filmed in both German and English versions, and maybe French as well. It sounds intriguing.

Addendum: My mistake -- I found no record of Siodmak's involvement with a previous version of the movie or of a 1932 version of this film. There was a German film called The Tunnel made in 1915 (!), on which this movie is apparently based, but I didn't see any plot synopsis on IMDb. I'll keep looking. But the 1915 film -- which must certainly be lost -- might be an interesting curio.

[–] escalera-2 13 years ago

Still some stuff up for grabs, hob http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_kw=forrest&_kw=j.&_kw=Ackerman. Some stuff is affordable, mostly glossy stills from his collection, that is.

[–] escalera-2 13 years ago

And just for fun: http://www.fantastic-plastic.com/Giant%20Classics%20-%20Masterpiece%20 Models.htm

[–] hobnob53 13 years ago

Thanks, esc -- haven't had a chance to check them out yet but will do so. Where do you find this stuff?!

Wonder if they'd put the transatlantic tunnel itself up for bids on E-bay?

Sorry. That was poor. Watered-down humor.

[–] escalera-2 13 years ago

hobnob53: The True Son of Ackerman!

(Here's a nice Double Feature for a Winter evening: http://cgi.ebay.com/Transatlantic-Tunnel-Things-Come-DVD-NEW-/25085974 7227?pt=UK_CDsDVDs_DVDs_DVDs_GL&hash=item3a6867f79b

[–] hobnob53 13 years ago

Indeed: World Peace meets The End of the World.

Actually, both films' visions of the future are rather sterile and severe. Much like an English boarding school.

[–] escalera-2 13 years ago

"So, you see, Passworthy, we have no choice. No choice at all...."

(Since I have not seen The Transatlantic Tunnel, I have nothing of any note to add to this page. However, it's been swell chatting with you, hob, as always)

[–] hobnob53 13 years ago

And so, I return this thread to its original title.

And to you, my good friend, I can say only...

"Get on with it, Pennypacker! See Transatlantic Tunnel, Passworthy! Which shall it be? A life lived amid the depths and pressures of despair, taking its toll, without having watched this film about a big tunnel...or all the universe after having seen Richard Dix dig his way out of yet another [traffic] jam? Which shall it be, E-Z Pass-worthy? Huh? Huh? Which shall it be?"

Meantime, will catch you later, esc, by one internet means or another! Best.

[–] escalera-2 13 years ago

Praiseworthy.

[–] escalera-2 13 years ago

I read an article on the 12 episode Republic serial King of the Rocketmen (1949) that said that the 12th chapter, Wave of Destruction, used footage from Deluge, notably the Manhattan sequence you mentioned.

(The title's IMDb TRIVIA section says as much)

[–] The_Dying_Flutchman 13 years ago

I own that serial in dvd, but so what, right?

Let it be unsaid: insignificance is the locus of true increpation.

[–] escalera-2 13 years ago

You can view it again with a renewed interest.

[–] The_Dying_Flutchman 13 years ago

Was it U who deleted the next message or some passing miscreant with a bagpipe?

Let it be unsaid: insignificance is the locus of true increpation.

[–] escalera-2 13 years ago

The message was entered twice so I dumped it. Hardly worth the effort.

[–] The_Dying_Flutchman 13 years ago

Yes, but I actually owned Brooklyn Gorilla at one time. Somebody with more class has it now. There was even an interview with Larry Jewess type guy on it.

Let it be unsaid: insignificance is the locus of true increpation.

[–] hobnob53 13 years ago

I gather that somehow this thread drifted over to Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla, starring Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo, as well as Charlita and Ramona the Chimp, not to mention the titular Bela, but that, alack, these references were somehow deleted?

Talk about far-flung cultural icons. Of course, in this case, I believe it was Ramona who did the flinging.

Sammy Petrillo died a couple of years ago (at least I think it was him; maybe it was Mitchell; what's the difference?), and he got a fairly sizable obit in the NY Times, detailing the duo's "career" and the lawsuit filed by Martin and Lewis agin' 'em. Sammy did bear an uncanny resemblance to JL but otherwise lacked the latter's subtlety and restraint. I don't know what disease he worked for. Undescended testicles, perhaps.

How ever could you give your copy of BLMABG away? This is the movie that finally forced Lugosi to take stock of his plummeting career and opt to step up to Ed Wood and a better class of drugs.

Bevare!

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] hobnob53 13 years ago

True, though only a portion of the sequence. (Like TDF below, I also own that serial, and we all care very much.) The feature version of that serial, Lost Planet Airmen, was the first place I ever saw that scene, decades ago. For a long time that culled footage was thought to be the only remant of Deluge still existing.

Ned Mann did the FX, the same man who later went to England to do Things to Come, but I don't think he did The Tunnel. He was a very talented and acclaimed special effects artist in his time but is today largely, and unjustly, forgotten.

Lost Planet Airmen, as well as TT and TTC, are available from Sinister Cinema.

[–] escalera-2 13 years ago

Thanks for bringing that name up. Most pioneers are being forgotten since that type of work must seem passé or -- worse -- corny.

[–] The_Dying_Flutchman 13 years ago

Lost Planet Airmen, in my part of the world, was affectionately subtitled "The Men who Always Keep Their Hats On" as a referrence to the hats staying on the heads of those who were constantly involved in fist fights.

Let it be unsaid: insignificance is the locus of true increpation.

[–] escalera-2 13 years ago

Quite a Special Effect in itself!