FANTASIA OBSCURA: This Story of Human Replication Was Andy Warhol’s Favorite Film
There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.
Sometimes, just like our bodies, it all comes down to packaging.
The Creation of the Humanoids (1962)
(Dist.: Emerson Film Enterprises; Dir.: Wesley Barry)
Sometimes, you’re just oh so close…
You can have an interesting idea, maybe a few points worth going over, maybe a few clever ways you come up with on how to really get that all out there. And even with all of that, you’re parsecs away from getting the best possible version of your vision to your audience.
Case in point:
(Fair warning, there are some fairly heavy spoilers in this piece.)
It’s a few years after nuclear war has broken out, which we watch in detail as tons of footage of desert nuclear tests plays under the opening credits in bright Eastman color (a rarity for most films back then, let alone genre pictures).
We get a brief infodump on how the last war lasted 48 hours and killed 92% of the planet’s population, which necessitated the creation of artificial assistants that are in our shape (if not our image) in order to help and support us.
After about 32 iterations, they get a model that looks a lot better than the earlier ones, with no facial or head hair and silver eyes but otherwise much better able to interact with humans.
These humanoids have become more ubiquitous in the humans’ lives to the point where relations between man and machine are being sanctioned, which with the human birth rate still dangerously low is probably a great release valve for many.
It’s also a sore spot for human bigots, who have formed the Order of Flesh and Blood and sport a style of clothing that suggests uniforms worn by the Confederate States of America. Their rising star, Cragis (Don McGowan), is alarmed when he discovers that the humanoids have been working in secret with a Doctor Raven (Don Doolittle) to upgrade themselves to pass for humans.
He informs his bund buds of this, who ask him to get his sister Esme (Frances McCann) to dump her humanoid companion Pax (David Cross), but on the way he meets and falls hard and fast for Esme’s friend Maxine (Erica Elliott), starting a whirlwind relationship that gets interrupted as —
It probably needs to be pointed out before we continue that what makes the film worth recalling at all. Some of the elements of the story and directorial choices do draw the viewer in for the most part. Humans becoming so dependent on their humanoids was certainly a major concern back when automation was spreading; in our time when we can talk about “iPhone Separation Anxiety,” we’re inclined to lend a sympathetic ear.
The idea of humans getting creeped out by their creations being handled in the way it is in the film, nearly 10 years before the concept of “the uncanny valley” gets coined, earns the production points as well. And giving the bigots uniforms that would have been appropriate to wear whether you’re angrily opposing Ulysses S. Grant or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. could be a sign of brilliance.
Or desperation, as maybe the gear was chosen because they happened to have access to the togs and just went with it. Because Barry’s direction is so shoddy, especially in scenes where intense meetings are staged like class president debates and dialog written by Jay Simms feels like a cold table reading for a radio drama, there’s damn little else to keep the balloon up as it pops at the end with a few “huh…” twists.
The way Ridley Scott handled the whole “Deckard is a Replicant” question? We don’t see anything approaching that here. And the effort to try and top that one with one of science fiction’s most overused tropes, the less said the better…
And it’s Barry’s inability to keep things going after a sympathetic start that does in the film. It’s demonstrated in the humanoids themselves. One of Jack Pierce’s last makeup jobs, having ended up here after working on most of Universal’s monsters during their heyday, they show the limits of having years of experience facing a thin budget. Perhaps Barry’s insistence on shooting the film in color so tested the production that nothing could make people love this film.
Well, most people…
The film had one strong champion, Andy Warhol (who passed away 30 years ago last week).
The film was his favorite, as stated in a review of one of his openings in The Village Voice from December 3, 1964, and it’s easy to see why: the themes of creation and replication, the inability to divide the natural from the crafted, certainly appealed to his aesthetic, and guided his vision through most of his artistic career.
Unlike Barry, Warhol could take the themes raised in the film and present them in a way that would resonate with the viewer. In his hands, how he tackled the questions raised by The Creation of the Humanoids became art. In Barry’s, not so much…
NEXT TIME: All of these people deserve to die; especially for what they’re wearing as they go into the swamp…
