Fellow Svengoolie SvenPals everywhere will be jumping for joy/celebrating the New Year with his big broadcast of a classic mammoth Warner Bros. sci-fi/creature/fantasy masterpiece.
“Svengoolie” presents his first 2022 big broadcast of “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms” (1953)
“They couldn’t believe their eyes!” LatterWarner Bros. VHS cover art for the 1953 Ray Harryhausen–Eugène “Gene” Lourié production of “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.”
The legendary Berwyn/Chicago-based sci-fi/creature feature film host will present his big New Year’s broadcast/first big broadcast of 2022 of “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms” (1953), this Sat.; New Year’s Day, Jan. 1 at 8 p.m. Eastern/7 p.m. Central on Me-TV.
The classic mammoth 1953 sci-fi creature/fantasy masterpiece production of “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms” for Warner Bros. was directed by veteran production designer/director Eugène “Gene” Lourié.
In his motion picture career alongside “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms,” Lourié also worked on the cult classic mammoth Allied Artists (the former Monogram Pictures) sci-fi creature/fantasy-thriller masterpiece production of “The Giant Behemoth” (1959). Veteran stop-motion effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen worked on the stop-motion visual effects for his “Rhedosaurus” beast creature featured in “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.”
Veteran entertainment promoter-turned-film producer Jack Dietz produced the 1953 Harryhausen-Lourié-Warners production of “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.” Four years after “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms,” Dietz produced the classic Edward Ludwig–Wah Chang–Willis H. O’Brien-Warner Bros. sci-fi creature masterpiece production with Richard Denning and Mara Corday, “The Black Scorpion” (1957). “The Black Scorpion” was which was later riffed on “Mystery Science Theater 3000” in 1990. Veteran producers Bernard W. Burton and Hal E. Chester served as co-producers with Dietz for the classic mammoth Harryhausen- Lourié sci-fi creature/fantasy masterpiece production of “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.” Burton later worked as an editorial supervisor for the classic Four Star Productions/ABC television western masterpiece series with Barbara Stanwyck, Linda Evans, Richard Long, Lee Majors and Peter Breck, “The Big Valley” (Burton worked as an editorial supervisor on 77 episodes of the series from 1965-68). Hal E. Chester also worked as a producer for several Monogram/Allied Artists “Joe Palooka” feature film adaptation series, ranging from “Joe Palooka, Champ” (1946) to “Joe Palooka in Triple Cross” (1951).
The screenplay for the 1953 Harryhausen- Lourié-Warners production was written by Fred Freiberger and Lou Morheim. Freiberger later created the short-lived Neanderthal adventure TV series for Hanna-Barbera Productions (one of the few live-action productions that William Hanna and Joseph Barbera produced) with Burgess Meredith’s narration, “Korg: 70,000 B.C.” (1974-75). Morheim later produced 12 episodes of the Freiberger and Morheim’s screenplay was inspired by veteran sci-fi author and longtime friend of Harryhausen, Ray Bradbury’s sci-fi fantasy story for the Saturday Evening Post, titled “The Monster From Beneath the Sea.”
Original Warner Bros. lobby card featuring the concept art for the 1953 Ray Harryhausen–Eugène “Gene” Lourié production of “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.”
According to Ray Bradbury’s recollections with Harryhausen that he mentioned in Richard Schickel’s documentary on Ray Harryhausen’s classic mammoth stop-motion creature/visual effects feature film masterpieces, “The Harryhausen Chronicles” (1998); Bradbury had a meeting with Harryhausen and producer Jack Dietz. The veteran producer asked the author if he could re-write the screenplay that was written by Freiberger and Morheim for the Harryhausen-Dietz production of “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.” During their meeting, Bradbury finally realized that Freiberger and Morheim’s screenplay was similar to his Saturday Evening Post creature story. Dietz was stunned at Bradbury and later bought the screen rights to Ray Bradbury’s aforementioned Saturday Evening Post story in order to film the production of “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.”
This will mark Sven’s fourth big coast-to-coast broadcast of the 1953 Harryhausen- Lourié-Warners stop-motion fantasy sci-fi creature masterpiece production of “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms” on the airlanes of Me-TV. He previously showcased “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms” (1953) as a coast-to-coast big broadcast premiere back in June 2019, a coast-to-coast big broadcast in Dec. 2019 and a coast-to-coast big broadcast in Nov. 2020.
According to IMDB in Sven’s home area of Berwyn/Chicago, Illinois; Sven in his WFLD/Chicago days as the “Son of Svengoolie” previously showcased the classic mammoth Ray Harryhausen-Eugène “Gene” Lourié-Warner Bros. stop-motion creature-fantasy/sci-fi masterpiece production of “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms” (1953) as a Chicago/Berwyn big broadcast premiere back in July 1981. A snippet from the 1953 Harryhausen- Lourié-Warners sci-fi stop-motion creature/fantasy masterpiece was featured in the 1981 WFLD/Chicago “PM Magazine” interview on Rich Koz and Koz’s portrayal of “Son of Svengoolie”/Sven at the 0:46 mark; according to Berwyn/Chicago television archivist Rick Klein’s official FuzzyMemoriesTV YouTube channel.
Sven in his WFLD/Chicago “Son of Svengoolie” days also showcased “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms” (1953) as a Berwyn/Chicago big broadcast in 1985, according to the official YouTube site for Obsolete Video Services and Rick Klein’s official FuzzyMemoriesTV YouTube channel.
Who was in “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms” (1953)?
The players who appeared in the Ray Harryhausen-Eugène “Gene” Lourié-Warner Bros. production of “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms” (1953) were Paula Raymond (as Lee Hunter), Paul Christian (as Prof. Tom Nesbitt, Christian’s name was used as a pseudonym for his real name of Paul Hubschmid), young Lee Van Cleef (as Cpl. Stone), young Merv Griffin (in an uncredited role as a radio announcer), Cecil Kellaway (as Prof. Thurgood Elson), William Woodson (in uncredited dual roles as the opening narrator and additional radio announcer), Alvin Greenman (as the first radar man), Kenneth Tobey (as Col. Jack Evans),Steve Brodie (as Sgt. Loomis), Paula “Mary” Hill (as Miss Ryan), Michael Fox (as an emergency doctor), Frank Ferguson (as Dr. Morton), Ray Hyke (as Sgt. Willistead), King Donovan (as Dr. Ingersoll), Jack Pennick (as Jacob Bowman), Ross Elliott (as George Ritchie) and Donald Woods (as Capt. Phil Jackson). Paula Raymond appeared in numerous productions throughout her acting career, including episodes of Warner Bros.’ “Hawaiian Eye” detective TV series from 1959–62.
Silver Screen Reflections 