Get Smart – Pheasant Under Glass (1969)

Pheasant Under Glass is the 1^st episode from the 5^th and final season of the long running and much loved American TV show; Get Smart.

Get Smart was a spoof of that staple of 60’s fiction; the secret agent genre.  In its opening scene, that has nothing to do with the plot and everything to do with Neil Armstrong, Max and 99 go to the moon for one of their mission briefing with the Chief who’s already there and waiting for them.

The Chief tells them that it will probably be the last time that they’ll meet there as it’s about to become very busy.  Max says that at least they had a good four years using it.  The show aired September 1969 just a few months after the Eagle had landed.

And when returning to Earth, Max offers the Chief a lift back but apparently he’s not going that way!

It still made me smile and I’m watching some four decades later but maybe I’m easily pleased.

Anyhow, these are those space suits that were first seen in Way... Way Out, then; In Like Flint and, after a whitewashing for Escape from the Planet of the Apes, went on to put in an appearance at the Mos Eisley Space Port.  Interestingly, I’ve a notion that the helmets were also seen in the Star Wars cantina too but we’ll look into that when we get to there. 

It’s also interesting to note, because it’s very easy to see in these pictures, that there is a subtle difference between the helmets seen here, with Don Adams’ having a smaller, rounder visor which is particularly noticeable when viewed sideways on.

Steve

In Like Flint (1967)

In Like Flint is the 1967 sequel to the previous year’s; Our Man Flint and is a further parody of the spy genre.

In this one Derek Flint is called back into action to thwart a conspiracy of feminists that are planning to depose what they see as America’s ruling patriarchy.  To achieve their plans they must kidnap the US President, discredit the Z.O.W.I.E. Intelligence Agency and finally - and this is where the spacesuits come into it - commandeer a space platform armed with nukes.

Not unsurprisingly, the film ends up with Flint in space, dispatching the villain, saving the day and ending up in the loving embrace of a couple of Russian cosmonauts, defrosting the cold war, one Commie chick at a time.

And the space suits are the ones first seen in the Gerry Lewis film Way... Way Out.

Steve

Way... Way Out (1966)

Set sometime in the future but being more sixties than you can shake Austin Power’s Mojo at.  Way... Way Out is a Gerry Lewis film about America’s moon-base and how it has to keep replacing its crews all the time because of the male astronaut’s unspent frustrations causing them to go a bit mad in the head.

The obvious answer, for the sake of the films plot, is to send a ‘couple’ up but in order to avoid impropriety they insist on them being married first.  And that’s the whole set-up really.  You just have to chuck in the unmarried Russians from a neighbouring moon-base, who pop round to flaunt their godless un-American ways, and you have a comedy of sexual politics set firmly in the midst of the cold war regardless of how far in the future it would like to imagine its self being.

But let’s talk space suits

I’m going to hazard a guess here and say that these particular suits were made for this film as original costumes.  They’re seemingly inspired by the silver NASA Mercury suits although they aren’t exact copies. 

There are at least four of them seen in one scene, as well as a possible fifth suit belonging to the Russian which has a red (well it would wouldn’t it) helmet.  Although it’s highly possible that this could be one of the other suits doubling up with the helmet repainted.

What’s hard to see from these pictures, having come from a blurry old video, is that there’s a slight difference within the helmets design and those worn by the film’s two leads have visors that are a little larger and allow their features to be more visible than the other two cast member.  Logical I suppose but why not make them all the same?  Maybe it’s just one of those things or is that the infamous Lewis ego at work!  We’ll probably never know nor should we really care.

Anyway depending on which order you read these posts in you may or may not know that this is the starting point of a very interesting journey that ends in a galaxy far, far away.  Follow the Way Out Spacesuit link below.

Steve

The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets - 20 Minutes of Oxygen Video (2011)

This is new and thrown in my general direction by The cellulord.  Thank you John.

Never heard of them until about twenty minutes ago but its a good song, a great little video and because it's got a spaceman in it, I'm duty bound to blog it here.

It's been made on the cheap but its hugely effective with a cheeky little nod to Stanley Kubrick in regard to the practical effects.

Lovely backpack!

Steve

Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)

Escape from the Planet of the Apes is the third in the Apes cycle and in a cunning about turn sees the Apes arrive on the planet of the humans.

Cornelius, Zira and Dr Milo escape the destruction of the Earth, as seen at the end of the second film, by salvaging Taylor’s spaceship from where it crashed in the first film, repairing it and piloting their way back through the timewarp to modern day Earth.... well, Earth of 1971 or thereabouts.

This has to be one of the best openings of any film, ever.  At first it seems as though some of the astronauts lost in the previous two films have managed to find their way back home and are about to be welcomed back to Earth right up until they reveal that they are not who or even what they appear to be.  It’s a great shock moment as the helmets are removed and the three chimpanzees are revealed.  And the rest of the film is just a good and continues to shock and surprise all the way to the end.

Interestingly, I‘ve read that these spacesuits were once the silver Mercury type and are the same ones that appeared in such shows as Get Smart but as real world spacesuits shifted colour to the Apollo white so too did their fictional counterparts.  This will need a bit of research but what is a fact is that at least one of these ape suits ended up in the Mos Eisley Cantina on the  back of a Star Wars alien.... but then didn’t quite a few of the things we’ve been looking at over the last few months.


Steve

Something for the Weekend 6

It's been a busy week or so and I've neglected to post anything simply through being elsewhere and doing other stuff.  So here's a little something for the weekend, a late night treat to make the most of the last half hour of Sunday night.

From Space 1999 season 2, (1976-77) Catherin Schell as Maya and Barbara Bain as Doctor Helena Russell

Goodnight and sleep tight.


Steve

The Mouse on the Moon (1963)

The Mouse on the Moon is the 1963 British film adaptation of the novel by Leonard Wibberley and the sequel to The Mouse that Roared. In this one, the people of Grand Fenwick, an independent micro state within England, take themselves off to the moon in a rocket propelled by exploding wine.

Rather than being a farce, though, the film is actually a sly satire on the space race and the cold war.

Following the discovery that it’s only export has a tendency to combust, the Prime Minister of Grand Fenwick asks the American Government for financial support but rather than telling them the truth he says it is to fund Grand Fenrick’s space program.

Little believing that the duchy’s attempts will amount to very much, they give them the money and more, for the positive publicity of the act.  Not to be outdone in the propaganda stakes, the Russians respond by gifting them an old rocket.

The PM’s plan is to explode the rocket on launch, thus hiding the fact that most of the funds have been spent on updating the plumbing of Grand Fenwick.  It's to this end that Professor Kokintz, the local scientist, is charged with setting up the pyrotechnic display.  However once Kokintz hooks up with Vincent Mountjoy, the Prime Minister’s son, and discovers that he has aspirations of becoming an astronaut, the two of them plan to make the rocket space worthy and genuinely set their sights on getting to the moon.

Which is why, on the launch day, before delegates from America, Russia and Britain, the rocket unexpectedly ascends into the heavens to begin its three week trip to the moon.

Potentially humiliated, the Super Powers are then forced to rush their own space programs forward, intending to still win this very literal space race with their faster ships.

Unfortunately for them, Kokintz and Vincent arrive much quicker than anticipated and are on hand to greet both the superpowers upon their arrival, even inviting them back to their ship for tea to discuss who gets to claim ownership of the moon

Realising that the real victory will actually be in whoever returns home first, the Americans and Soviets both race back to their ships only to end up burying themselves into the deep lunar dust in their haste.  And so when Kokintz and Vincent return to Grand Fenwick during their own memorial service, it's with the hitch-hiking astronauts from  the other two countries.

I remember watching this one years ago and being entertained by the silliness without actually being old enough to understand what it was saying.  I would love to see it again now but it seems to have become somewhat of a forgotten classic.


Steve