From Zombos Closet

JM Cozzoli

A horror and movie fan with a blog. Scary.

Professor Kinema: The Jeff Morrow Interview
Part 4

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the giant claw movie

Mara Corday, Jeff Morrow, and Edgar Barrier in The Giant Claw

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This interview, conducted by Professor Kinema (Jim Knusch) with actor Jeff Morrow, originally appeared in Psychotronic Video magazine (Fall, 1993). Professor Kinema expands on his article for Zombos’ Closet. Photos and illustrations are from Professor Kinema’s archives.

Jim: The second movie on your Universal contract was Captain Lightfoot.

Jeff: Yes, that was shot on location, being set on a little Irish seacoast town. In the appropriate roles local actors were utilized. I played a pleasant Roman gentleman. The one element of working on location I remember was the sight of the poor Irish children I observed early in the morning picking through the garbage. However, all involved made it a pleasant experience.

Jeff Morrow next appeared in World in My Corner (1956) with Audie Murphy and The First Texan (1956) with Joel McCrea playing Sam Houston. Pardners (1956) came next. This ironically titled film featured Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis who were to make one more feature, Hollywood or Bust, before breaking up completely.

Jim: Was it, sort of, a solid rumor that Martin and Lewis were on the road to breaking as a team during the making of Pardners?”

 

Jeff: Yes, I believe so. I remember Jerry Lewis would occasionally go a little wacky  on the set, in front of and behind the camera. He had a habit of trying to distract off-camera. In Pardners I had a bar room fight scene. I remember Jerry Lewis being knocked into a dark closet and suddenly emerging an excellent fighter (as Dean Martin).

Jim: Also that year, 1956, came the third Creature film, The Creature Walks Among Us. This was the last of the series, the only one not filmed in 3D. Also, it was the only film in the series in which the creature doesn’t die at the end.

Jeff: Yes, that’s right. I hadn’t seen the previous two Creature films but I was aware of them. My Universal contract was still in effect and there wasn’t another film property that they could use me in at the time. It wasn’t a bad script and I made the most of it.

Jim: Significantly, you were teamed with This Island Earth co-star Rex Reason. Do you have any recollections of any of the others in the cast?

Jeff: Leigh Snowden, I thought, was a beautiful ingénue. I remember there were both Ricou Browning and Don Megowen as the Creature, in and out of the water.

Jim: Yes, I believe that was the case in the first two Creature films. In the water the Creature moved with a balletic grace as he glided through the clear waters of the Black Lagoon. Once he is confronted on land it takes on the personality of the lumbering beast.

Jeff: I thought the Creature costume, both before and after the burning incident, was convincing. There was a scene that takes place on a balcony where I was being pursued by the Creature. He picks me up to toss me over. In the final cut a dummy goes over, yet for a moment before the director yelled “Cut!” I thought I was going over for real.

Jim: Were there any locations other than the back lot used during production?

Jeff: No, we never left Hollywood. I remember the scene where the Creature was set on fire was shot on one particular night when we were working quite late.

Jim: The next year, 1957, you appeared in two sci-fi- films,Kronos and The Giant Claw. Both films were produced on low budgets, both were concerned with a giant alien menace who possessed a powerful other-worldly power. Kronos, however, was relatively well made and possessed a sound scientific premise while The Giant Claw is generally regarded as one of the prime turkeys of the 1950s.

Kronos movie scene

Kronos

Jeff: (Laughing) Yes, that’s unfortunately true. The Giant Claw seemed to initially have a sensible premise as well as a good storyline. The concept of antimatter was a plausible scientific theory at the time and attempting to depict it on the screen wasn’t far beyond the realm of believability. We were told that the giant bird was supposed to be a sort of streamlined hawk that could travel at supersonic speeds. We weren’t shown any sketches of it. The first time I saw the film I was in a theater with friends, I believe, in Westwood. During the screening all was going well until that big bird first appeared on the screen. The audience was howling. Every time it reappeared I just sank lower and lower into my seat. Whenever I attended a film that I appeared in with family and friends it was customary to gather in the lobby and discuss it afterwards. In the case of The Giant Claw I couldn’t face anyone and discretely slipped out one of the rear exits.

Jim: Well, I’m sure that no one in attendance thought that you, the star of the film, was responsible for the less than stellar special effects?

Jeff: No, no one did, but still it was embarrassing.

Jim: Yet films like The Giant Claw prove to be as fondly remembered as the larger and more prestigious productions like This Island Earth.

Jeff: Yes, I believe so. At the time we hoped that such films like The Giant Claw would run their course and quietly fade into oblivion, never to be seen again.

Jim: Well, and I say this as an aficionado of bad films, fortunately they do surface and find new audiences who view and even cherish them with different sensibilities. Do you have any memories of Kronos ?

Jeff: Yes, I believe we worked on that for about four weeks. Again, because of the limited budget, the special effects couldn’t live up to the potentials of the premise of the story.

Jim: Yet, visuals of a gigantic rampaging simplistically designed automaton from outer space was easier to ingest than a gigantic buzzard from outer space – with flaring nostrils, no less. However, one interesting fact is that the story of Kronos was concocted by special effects artists Irving Block and Jack Rabin. Block worked on Forbidden Planet (1956) and the team worked on films like The Invisible Boy, Roger Corman’s Viking Women and the Sea Serpent, War of the Satellites, and The Thirty Foot Bride of Candy Rock, Lou Costello’s final film.

Jeff: Anyway, with Kronos I wasn’t compelled to quietly slink out of the back door of a movie theater after my initial viewing of it. I enjoyed working with Kurt Neuman, co-players Barbara Lawrence, George O’Hanlon, and Morris Ankrum. I had worked with Morris on The Giant Claw and found him…being old. John Emery was an old friend. We both appeared in a New York stage production of Saint Joan.

Jeff Morrow’s next several screen appearances ranged from big budget large screen productions like The Story of Ruth (1960) (reuniting him with The Robe director Henry Kosher) and smaller productions like Harbor Lights (1963) (in which the title doesn’t have the remotest connection with the story.). Also appearing on television he helped build Union Pacific (as star of the series), was in residency in The New Temperature’s Rising, and guested on several other major series. In Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone he appeared in a memorable episode titled Elegy (written by Charles Beaumont and aired 2/19/60). In it he is one of three astronauts who find themselves on a strange planet where people are frozen amidst various settings. They eventually meet a kindly old gentleman who turns out to be the caretaker of what they find out–too late–that the planet is a cemetery.

Jim: Do you have any memories of The Twilight Zone episode, Elegy?

Jeff: Like it was, working in virtually all television production of the time, the shooting schedule was rushed. My co-stars were Don Dubbins, Kevin Hagen and Cecil Kellaway. What I remember most about Cecil was of him being sly. When he was off camera he was always doing something to distract whoever was on camera. Also, when he was in a scene with other performers he was busy doing some sort of business so that he would dominate the action in the scene.

Jim: Do you have any memories of Rod Serling?

Jeff: He was a real friendly and talented person. He wasn’t too actively connected with Elegy while it was being shot. We were all genuinely saddened when he died so young.

Jim: Now the last two film titles I have to ask you about are Legacy of Blood from 1971 and Octaman from 1973.

Jeff: Like The Giant Claw and Copper Sky earlier in my career, my agent tells me to do it, Legacy of Blood, take the money and run. No one will see it and it should be quickly forgotten. The only significant element of Legacy of Blood would be is that I was reunited with Faith Domergue. I don’t consider it one of my better efforts at all. On bad nights I would probably have a nightmare about it. With Octaman I was a friend of the screenwriter, Leigh Chapman, and the director, Harry Essex (a writer of the first Creature film) who asked me as a personal favor to appear in what amounted to little more than a cameo. I worked for three days and was in a short scene with Kerwin Mathews. The other leading player was Pier Angeli, who committed suicide during production, I believe.

Giant Claw

Jim: For the record, the official reason for her taking her own life was that she couldn’t face life after the age of 40. Did you encounter the young Rick Baker who created the Octaman at all?

Jeff: I had little to do with him in the three days I worked on the picture. I remember Octaman looking a bit on the silly side. It’s fortunate, though, that Rick continued to persevere and go on to create some fabulous makeups and win awards.

Jim: Do you stay in touch with any of the people that you’ve worked with? What of Rex Reason and Faith Domergue?

Jeff: No, I haven’t been in touch with Rex and Faith in recent years. Rex, I believe, went into real estate. He had stayed active in TV doing guest shots in various series and commercials for a while. His brother Rhodes Reason I know stayed professionally active. Faith? I lost contact with her. The last I heard was that she was moving to Italy.

Faith Domergue did in fact live and make a few films in Italy in the 1960s and 1970s. She passed away on April 4 1999 in Santa Barbara, age 74.

Jim: Have you saved much from the old days?

Jeff: I have photos. When you work on the stage and in movies you have many photos that have been made up for promotion and publicity purposes. I also have many posters. Unfortunately I don’t have the wall space to display them.

 

exeter drawn by jeff morrow

Exeter by Jeff Morrow

 

 

Jim: You’ve also had a career as a commercial artist?

Jeff:  About 95 percent of all who work as a performer have some sort of back up work that pays the bills in between acting jobs. I’ve done illustrations for magazines, technical drawings, organizational charts, progressive charts, flow charts. That kind of work.

Jim: In the MagicImage Filmbook of This Island Earth there is an excellent rendering of yourself as Exeter by you. What have you been doing these days?

Jeff: My wife, Anna Karen, who was an actress, started a real estate business about eight or nine years ago. Being a member of the Academy [of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences] we attend many screenings of current films throughout the year and generally stay in with the film folk.

Jeff Morrow passed away Dec 26, 1993 in his home in Canoga park at the age of 86.

jeff morrow

Professor Kinema: The Jeff Morrow Interview
Part 3

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jeff morrow in twilight zone episode

Jeff Morrow (right) in the Twilight Zone episode, Elegy

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This interview, conducted by Professor Kinema (Jim Knusch) with actor Jeff Morrow, originally appeared in Psychotronic Video magazine (Fall, 1993). Professor Kinema expands on his article for Zombos’ Closet. Photos and illustrations are from Professor Kinema’s archives.

 

This Island Earth (1955), a major studio-produced true science fiction epic, has been described as “a Science Fiction pulp cover brought to life.” Screen immortality was achieved with the appearance of Exeter, emissary from a planet in a distant galaxy called Petaluma. In appearance he stood tall and gaunt topped with a high forehead sporting a crop of puffy white hair. Curiously, none of the other resident Earthly geniuses under his tutelage questions or even seemed to notice these physical eccentricities. Two characters take the time and effort to render two accurate portrait drawings of Exeter and his assistant Brack and comment only on their forehead recesses.

This Island Earth01Yet this alien, under orders from a beaten and desperate exterrestrial governmental force exude a dignity and humanness rare in science fiction films of any era. These qualities, absorbed from living among Earthlings, proved to be his fatal undoing, while at the same time the saving grace of the two protagonists. While most cinematic visitors from the Cosmos come here to conquer, issue some sort of ultimatum for peace, or in some way do grievous harm, Exeter emerged as the true hero of This Island Earth. This unique quality was infused in this character by the actor, the very Earthbound Jeff Morrow. Perhaps the only other movie alien in the very Earthbound science fiction cinema that was more prominent on the screen than Exeter was Michael Rennie’s Klaatu from the original The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).

In the history of science fiction films, mainly those with aliens from other worlds, the aliens are almost always depicted as strangely shaped humans. Some are completely humanoid in appearance (as if to enhance Van Dannikan’s theory that all life in the universe spawned from a common ancestor), partially humanoid, or grotesquely shaped. However, they all seem to be able to function in Earth’s environment,  breath our air, and, in the case of The Thing From Another World, thrive on the blood of Earthlings. Most even speak our lingo, mainly English.

More recently, the film Avatar utilized advanced CGI to depict aliens as well as humans morphed into aliens. But again, all seemed to be infused with very human personalities adorned with long blue bodies and tails. Two films stand out as examples of depiction that were convincingly alien (at least to me):  The Andromeda Strain (1971) and 2001, A Space Odyssey (1968).

The former film presented a life entity that took the form of a virus that became very deadly when exposed to Earth’s atmosphere. However, like a true virus (albeit, Earth born virus), it mutated into something benign. In the Stanley Kubrick opus, the aliens were presented in the very last scenes. Over the actions of the hapless space traveler (Kier Dullea) in the elaborate room is heard their voices, presumably commenting on the action and humanity’s future (or demise).

The Giant Claw with Jeff Morrow

Publicity for The Giant Claw 1957

Other 1950s aliens that come to mind are those in War of the World‘s, The Man From Planet X, The Phantom From Space, The Devil Girl From Mars, the pop-eyed Killers From Space, the Venusian mushroom creature of It Conquered the World, the alien vampire of Not of This Earth, Eros and Tanna (plus, of course, the Ruler) of Plan 9 From Outer Space, and the long dead and never seen Krell of Forbidden Planet.

The list could definitely go on. The bulk of this alien invasion population had far less than kind intentions for Earthlings. Morrow’s Exeter character was presented as being assigned to systematically kidnap Earth scientists expressly for his home planet’s needs. Evidently, his far advanced planet thrives on the identical science and technologies that can be found on Earth.

His acquired alien-humanness surfaced at the point in the film’s story when he defies the supreme ruler’s direct order to subject Rex Reason’s and Faith Domergue’s characters to the brain transformer (an other-worldly lobotomy) device. As they make their escape from the doomed planet, Exeter’s ship uses up all its rocket fuel (no similar fuel could be found or somehow manufactured on Earth?)  returning them to Earth. With nowhere else to go, no fuel, and no one of his race left, Exeter commits suicide by crashing his ship into the ocean.

In a case where an actor’s persona infuses with his on-screen character’s and creates a truly memorable performance, such is Jeff Morrow’s contribution to This Island Earth.

 

Jim: Now we come to This Island Earth.

Jeff: I had just signed a contract with Universal for two pictures a year. I was offered the role of Exeter and read the script. I liked the story very much and thought that the Exeter character had much potential…with a few changes. My contract didn’t start for a few weeks so I was under no obligation to accept the role. I had a conference with the screenwriter, Franklyn Coen, and suggested the changes in the character. The producer, Bill Alland, then got in on the conference.

Jim: Would you recall what the changes were?

Jeff: Exeter as written was more of a two-dimensional character. By the end of the story he emerged a sort of self-sacrificing tragic hero. Specific points of the script that were revised I can’t recall but had to be concerned with Exeter as a scientist, his dedication to his home planet and civilization, and ultimate realization of the futility of it all.

Jim: This would contrast with the Brack and Monitor characters. Both of them were coldly dedicated to the mission and seemed to not care about any of the Earth scientists, or even for the entire Earth population for that matter.

Jeff: Yes, that’s right. These subtle script changes were shown to the front office and they unanimously approved them. Franklyn Coen made the comment, “Great! I’ve been trying to sell them on similar changes for the past several months.”


Faith Domergue10Jim: There is one line in the script that was spoken by you (as the Exeter character) toward the end of the film that I believe will be remembered as the immortal line of This Island Earth. You, Faith Domergue, and Rex Reason are confronted by an injured Metalunian mutant, which stands about 7 feet tall. They ask, “What is it?” You answer, “…actually they are quite similar to the insect life on your planet…larger of course, with a higher degree of intelligence.”

Jeff: Yes, (laughs) that’s right.

We both shared a laugh at this point.

Jim: Do you remember how long your involvement with This Island Earth was?

Jeff: Yes, four, maybe six weeks. I remember six day weeks and long tedious days. I had to be at the studio at 6am to be made up and on the set by at least 8am.

Jim: So presumably the “2 and 1/2 years in the making” that figured in the film’s promotion was taken up by elaborate set building, miniature set building, special makeup, costumes, and the highly impressive special visual effects. Do you recall any of the set-ups of any special effects scenes that involved you?

Jeff: I do remember being in front of a sort of process screen gesturing to off-screen actions.

Jim: It has been established that Jack Arnold was involved in the latter part of This Island Earth. Do you recall working with him?

Jeff: What I do recall is that Jack was originally scheduled to direct This Island Earth but, I believe, was pulled off the project and assigned to something else. Joseph Newman handled the bulk of the direction. I do remember Jack at work during the sequences that took place on Metaluna.

Jim: This was because Newman’s footage proved to be inadequate so Arnold was recalled to reshoot it, being a director who could more effectively handle aliens, BEMs, an intergalactic war and a fiery return by a UFO to Earth.

Jeff: Yes, that’s true.

 

This_island_earth_poster_11Reportedly, the budget for This Island Earth was something like $800,000, a hefty sum for any studio in the early 1950s. In modern times such a property would run up a bill in the tens of millions. Universal had the advantage of having personnel on salary and owning the facilities used.

One of the largest material costs was the mutant suit at $20,000. People who worked on the suit were Jack Kevan, Robert Hickman, Chris Mueller and Millicent Patrick. The creature was first played by Eddie Parker, who left after a salary dispute, and then Regis Parton. Parton is listed in the credits.

The suit is generally well designed with a few glitches. The face is almost totally immobile drawing attention to the fact that it is a full head mask. The pants are eccentric. Censorship laws of the day were such that even a creature from outer space couldn’t be caught on screen without pants. The belt buckle has an atomic symbol on it and, most strange, the bottom of the pants become the mutant’s feet. An alien being wearing only extraterrestrial-style pants also turns up in I Married a Monster From Outer Space (1958). The mutant’s arms telescope into a section extending out further than a man’s would. Unfortunately, they flop around loosely. One can only wonder what kind of menial work they were bred for (according to the story).

 

Jim: Do you have any memories of working with your co-stars: Rex Reason, Faith Domergue, Russell Johnson, and Douglas Spencer?

Jeff: They were all pleasant to work with. I know Faith hadn’t made many films beyond the ‘6os. Rex, I know, continued in films for a while and, like myself, did TV shows and commercials. Russell Johnson, I know, continued an association with Jack Arnold which rolled into TV’s Gilligan’s Island.

Jim: You were reunited with Faith and Rex in later movies?

Jeff:  Right. Rex I worked with again in The Creature Walks Among Us the following year. Faith I worked with again in 1973 in Legacy of Blood.

Jim: It’s interesting to note that to further add to the feel of 1950s cinema sci-fi, two of the actors who appeared in This Island Earth had also been in The Thing From Another World. These two were Douglas Spenser and Robert Nichols.

Jeff: Yes, I didn’t realize that.

…

Professor Kinema: The Jeff Morrow Interview
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