Tag Archives: rod serling

“UFO’s – It Has Begun” (1974) – The question is: Will there ever be an answer?

An engaging 1970’s era documentary that examines reports of strange flying objects from ancient times up until the present which was 1974 when this documentary was made. Cool recreations of eyewitness accounts are interspersed with actual pictures and films taken by pilots, military personnel, NASA astronauts and civilians alike.

The whole shebang is hosted by the great Rod Serling, the creator of “The Twilight Zone” and MC of “The Night Gallery”. It appears as though his recorded segments were filmed among the remains of his “Night Gallery” set: spotlight on Rod, and various illustrative props given a bit of highlight but everything else draped in black. Cool, economic staging technique! Throw in some guest narration by Burgess Meredith, Jose Ferrer and Jacques Vallee, and you’ve got a very interesting tapestry of UFO reports.

Yet, all these years later, the lingering questions remain: What are these unusual objects which behave so abstractly and randomly and do the Powers That Be have a grasp of what they can be or how we are going to deal with them? Of course not. Expect to be in the dark and helpless for another 1000 years.

I loved this show. Give it a shot!

PLANET OF THE APES – 1968 – TRAILER

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Classic science fiction film starring Charlton Heston as an astronaut stranded on a planet where apes rule and humans are slaves/brutes hunted for sport and used for medical experimentation.  The proceedings move along at a fairly steady pace thanks to Franklin Schaffner’s able direction.  Ground breaking makeup work by John Chambers and a pun-filled, satiric script by Rod Serling.  This movie caught the public’s imagination and four sequels, each weaker than the last, were spawned as a result.  Very striking beginning to this film as Heston is the last astronaut to enter hyper sleep and the space ship passes through star fields and time before entering the Planet’s atmosphere.  The scenes with the three astronauts traversing an arid landscape in search of water and any signs of life are marked by visuals of spectacular vistas of vast emptiness.  Very haunting.  My favorite film of the “Apes” series.