- This is preceded by Part 1
Vernilak’s name does not appear on any films for almost five years. We can imagine him honing his craft and building strong relationships with the film-making community, especially that centered on the National School of Photographic, Cinematographic and Televisual Arts. (He spoke warmly of the School in his interviews.) He will no doubt be among the numerous uncredited contributors to TV public information messages and documentaries. Some informed commentators find it surprising that he is not listed in the extensive credits that normally followed the films of the era. He rose to prominence as if from nowhere, with the three films that constitute what came to be known (inaccurately) as the interplanetary trilogy. All of these films envisaged a national space program that was never to be; the national science and technology infrastructure never developed capacities for space flight (nor even for missile rocketry, let alone building aircraft for serious use).
Ad Astra (1954) was a great success, even in other Eastern Bloc markets, which opened the door to funding for the subsequent and more truly interplanetary films. Like Pal’s somewhat earlier Destination Moon (1950), there was a serious effort to represent the technology and challenges of space flight in as faithful and plausible war as possible at the time. It has been suggested that an imprisoned German rocket engineer was employed to provide technical consultancy for the film, much as German expertise was used in the USA. Unlike the American film, however, there is added Cold War drama. A spy of unknown origin, but who smokes cigarettes from suspiciously American-looking packets, tries to sabotage the mission, at first by tampering with some of the rocket components, then by tampering with the fuel system. He is discovered while trying to accomplish this, and dies from a fall after an exciting chase round and up a gantry. This melodramatic episode almost seems to have come from another film. Critics see Vernilak as here continuing the type of action adventure featured in Mystery Plane, and have argued that insertion of such a drama would have been a prerequisite for obtaining funding for such an ambitious film.
The real heart of the film is the hazardous flight to the Moon. The voyage is rendered more dangerous by the sabotage of key instruments. The crew of three manage to compensate for the breakdown of the system that was supposed to perform navigational calculations, using slide rules and mental arithmetic. Eventually a guess has to be made which, luckily, proves correct, and the Moon landing is made safely. The film culminates with a shot of the space craft blasting off on its return to Earth, leaving the national flag planted by the cosmonauts in the rocky and barren foreground of the scene. The special effects were rough but fairly effective in the main. This was one of the first color films to have come from the national studios, which may have contributed to its success. There is little characterization of the cosmonauts, but their captain, Prosper Herge, was played by Gyorg Drabbon, who went on to star in the rest of Vernilak’s trilogy. His outstanding scene involves a spacewalk, where his sweat-drenched face is visible through his helmet’s visor, as Earth swims in the void – at first apparently above him, then below as his orientation changes. His desperation to retrieve a wrench that has slipped out of his grip, and is drifting away out of reach, is captured intensely.
In Mars: Red Republic (1958), Herge is now chief pilot of an expedition to Mars. The space craft is more futuristic. The film begins when we are already en route to the red planet. We are provided brief shots of events back on Earth, when it is vital for scientists there to provide solutions for a problem that emerges as spacecraft components misfunction under conditions of high vacuum and a micrometeor bombardment. There is no sabotage this time – there are some brief incidents of peril and courage during the journey, but the main drama comes from another source, as Mars turns out to be populated by an intelligent species, the Vrilli. After some initial shocks and tension, it transpires that these creatures are not hostile. This is particularly fortunate, since the cosmonauts need to remain on Mars for some months, before (unspecified) alignments will be optimal for their returning to Earth. This contingency means that the voyagers have come in a large craft, and are carrying plenty of food of various kinds and even some hydroponic equipment.
Mars is portrayed as an ageing planet whose civilisation has had to retreat underground and abandon heavy industry. Delany and others have seen the Vrilli as inspiration for Star Wars’ Ewoks. As well as their love of exuberant music, both creations are diminutive, furry beings. But it is more likely that both derive from the popularity of teddy bears and monkeys – and of course the small brown bear is Vernilak’s national animal. Though agrarian cave dwellers, the Vrilli society is portrayed as in many ways a socialist utopia, albeit one labouring under resource constraints. Labor is indeed portrayed in the film, as hordes of Vrilli emerge from their tunnels to plant, tend and harvest their crops, singing lustily. (The alien singing was created by manipulating recordings of children singing patriotic work songs, with some speeding up and slowing down, and elements played backwards, and then adding unusual instrumental accompaniments using specially made glass flutes and steel drums. This was quite a feat given the primitive tape recorders available at the time.)
Earth food is a source of great pleasure to Vrilli (more singing!) and joy abounds when the pips of an apple are made to sprout. A range of grains from Earth is left for the Martians to rejuvenate their agriculture, while some of the interesting red plants from Mars are to be transported back to Earth. In contrast to the meticulous depictions of the space flight and Martian surface, the underground cities of the Vrilli are rather obviously mainly represented by background paintings; though imaginative, these are far too static and two-dimensional to be convincing. The Vrilli political system is shown in segments of the film illustrating two sessions of the communal decision-making forum, where hundreds of Vrillli gather together in a council to decide upon important issues. Consensus is reached through debate and voting. In the first of these they determine how the visitors are to be treated – expelled or welcomed. In the second they discuss a treaty to govern future relationships with the Earthlings. It is here that what became the most controversial scene in the film appears. Captain Herge displays the national flag, and a portrait of the glorious leader, to the aliens. They burst into spontaneous applause and cries of happiness – or praise – culminating in a dance which Herge is pressed to lead (carrying the flag and picture). The ecstasies of the Vrilli are so over the top that it is tempting to view them as satirical, but we should remember that films that Vernilak will have grown up with would frequently feature scenes of this sort where “savages” (and even freed slaves) are concerned.
In viewings of the film in other countries, this scene, which is followed by brief shots of the spaceship’s departure and the cosmonauts’ journey homewards, was the source of some hilarity, some anger about propaganda. It was actually excised from many Western showings of the work. The general consensus is that Vernilak needed to play it very safely in the oppressive political situation in the late 1950s, when artists of all kinds were having to watch their step. A display of fealty to the state and its leader was commonplace in movies, works of fiction in general, and even in supposedly academic studies. In retrospect, we could interpret the scenes of political debate among the Vrilli, however tame, as an implicit criticism of the authoritarian system that Vernilak worked in. Toeing the party line was the only acceptable form of public discourse, and the airing of various opinions among the Vrilli may have been a breath of fresh air.
The great leader himself is reputed to have loved the film, evidently seeing no satirical intent. He is believed to have arranged a private viewing and a lengthy tete-a-tete with the director. We can only imagine the conduct and substance of this meeting: it is quite possible that the filmmaker retained awe and respect for the man who had led the national liberation struggle against the Nazi invaders and their collaborators. The endorsement of the film from the highest level explains the effective disappearance from the records of a highly critical early review that denounced the portrayal of socialism as a form of managed decline (“no true socialist state would have allowed its planet’s resources to be depleted in this way! the capitalists who must bear responsibility should have been condemned!”); we only know of it through the newspaper cuttings assembled by a young fan of local SF.
The hagiography of Mars – and its portrayal of benign socialism – is a recurrent element of the current denigration of Vernilak in his own country, on the few occasions when he is mentioned at all. He is portrayed as a propagandist lackey of an oppressive system. This assertion has never been so effective a means of dismissal as it is at the present moment, when the right, and the far right that is now at its core, is again resurgent in national politics. Those who minimize or discount the well-attested Nazi atrocities are ready to write off practically all of the achievements of the postwar period. Yes, there were grey housing blocks, orchestrated political denunciations, numerous imprisonments, and not a few executions even into the late 1950s. But there was also a massive expansion of education and higher education, near-abolition of extreme rural poverty, and considerable progress in the role of women. The ethnic tensions that have bubbled up so viciously were barely visible.
Not all his compatriots dismiss Vernilak’s work completely – there is some grudging respect for the scientific visionary of his earlier work, and for the ambiguous humanism of his later films. Hints of subversion and critique in his early studies are unearthed, and the hagiography is interpreted as ironic (“the portrait is carried upside-down!”, “the Vrilli are treated as laughing stocks!”). But these points of view are rarely expressed in the popular press, and are confined to intellectual journals and the few film scholars who still practice freely in the Universities.
While Mars was less successful commercially than Ad Astra, at least on international markets, the blessing from utmost levels meant that Vernilak was now given much more substantial resources to pursue his next projects. The last member of the interplanetary trilogy shows the technical benefits of an increased budget, with even more impressive special effects and crowd scenes. But, while the first two films are well-grounded in contemporary scientific knowledge and a grasp of technological possibilities, this was to be a far less plausible and serious piece of work. Prisoners of Perelandra (1962, known internationally as Voyagers to Venus, The Green Planet, and Escape from Perelandra) is aesthetically a very different beast from the two earlier films. Though the borrowing of Perelandra as a name for Venus (from C.S. Lewis) might lead us to expect a spiritual or even theological flavor – which was to characterize several of Vernilak’s later films – Prisoners is by far the most melodramatic and action-oriented of the interplanetary trilogy. It is generally regarded as the weakest, and most dated, of the three. Speculations abound that Vernilak was trying to write to suit the great leader’s tastes , wishes, or instructions, expressed in their private meeting(s). Evidence of these tastes is seen as attested by the apparently arbitrary operation of censorship of foreign films, as well as in the recollections of several members of top government circles. He favored, for example, US Westerns, British historical dramas (but not romances), and action adventures that steered clear of Cold War politics. The romantic subplot is also arguably attributed to Vernilak being in the middle of a deep heterosexual relationship with the leading lady, Alexi Elvira. All evidence is that this was a sincere and passionate relationship. His detractors in the 1970s denounced this as a cover for a mainly homosexual orientation, though others point to a considerable bisexual appetite. Another explanation is that a leading lady and romantic subplot marked an effort to reach a wider audience beyond those to whom the earlier films mainly appealed – veterans and young would-be technocrats and engineers. A new generation of well-educated young women was now packing the cinemas, which faced little competition from the monotonies of national TV.
Three spacecraft are sent on the first expedition to Perelandra/Venus, one piloted by Herge (played again by Drabbon) and one by Elvira’s character (Astra Radice), the third by a character known only as Brodsky (played by Igor Spitzer, who had featured in minor roles in earlier films in the trilogy) These craft are much less realistic than the ships of the earlier films – they are “flying wing” types of vehicle, carrying only the pilot, and with only just enough internal space beyond the cockpit to carry a passenger if necessary. Such a design is hardly suitable for a voyage that must have taken weeks, if not longer; but the space travel is not really the subject of the film. The true focus is the adventures that take place on a fantastic Venus.
The evening star is largely a lush jungle planet, with many monstrous dinosaur-like creatures posing threats to anyone who ventures into the wilds. Improbably, it also hosts an advanced civilisation, whose futuristic cities occupy extensive high plateaux that tower above the wild green rainforests. The Venusians – called Perelandrans in the film (we do not know what they call themselves), are bald, green humanoids, wearing uniforms of some rubber-like material, and almost all sporting a metallic headband. These headbands come in different colors, and it emerges that these correspond to the social role of the individuals – and that they are instruments of mind control. The society is a totalitarian system, where rule is enforced through a system of radio communications that shape loyalty and suppress subversive thoughts and practices.
The idea here resembles that in the Strugatsky Brothers’ Prisoners of Power, but that book did not see publication until the early 1970s (a magazine version appeared in the late 1960s, but there is no records of drafts circulating clandestinely before then). Mind control by an alien invader does feature in earlier books and films, however, including a 1956 Roger Corman move, It Conquered the World, and the 1957 Quatermass II, though there is no sign that Vernilak has seen these. A more plausible influence is from the Dan Dare series in The Eagle comic, which in the 1950s and 60s featured bald green Venusians (the Treens) whose ruler (the Mekon) was sometimes able to exert mind control methods, notably in the course of an invasion of Earth. The notion of mind control through radio or other means is one that has emerged frequently, not least among sufferers from paranoid delusions – and it is in some ways a simple extrapolation from the use of radio for propaganda purposes, and the broadcasting of patriotic slogans and messages through loudspeakers in public places. The advanced technology featured in Prisoners can easily be read as a critique of such totalitarian trends.
There is a ruling council of Perelandrians, led by the Empress, a heavily-muscled green female of enormous proportions (quite unlike the Mekon!), green and bald like the others. The aliens must be mammalian, because her gender is evident not just from her voice, but also from her clearly possessing breasts (unlike some of the other council members). The council members themselves do not wear the otherwise omnipresent headbands. When our heroes are captured, they are brought before this council by armed guards, who are shown responding both to verbal orders and instructions communicated to their headbands. While Radice remains in orbit, Herge and Brodsky have landed on the planet – they first touchdown in a jungle clearing, where they soon find themselves attracting attention from fierce reptiles. Fortunately, the monsters are as preoccupied with fighting among themselves as they are in pursuing the humans. Brodsky is rescued from danger by Herge, but his craft is destroyed in the course of a battle between two tyrannosaur-like creatures. they both manage to escape using the remaining spacecraft, which is as maneuverable as an airplane (and apparently never requires refueling). As they fly over a nearby plateau, they are pulled down by a pair of rays, that catch the spaceship in a pincer motion. Forced to land in a city square, they are captured by the Venusians.
While there are several twists and turns in the plot, the essentials can be summarized briefly. Brodsky and Herge are fitted with headbands but Herge is able to resist the mind control and tear his off after some rather well-acted mental strife. He frees his companion; the two fight their way back to the spaceship; Brodsky is killed by a ray weapon and Herge recaptured. Radice comes to the rescue, subverting the standard trope in the films of the period (that of a male hero rescuing the love interest). Through a mixture of skill and guile she defeats the Empress in one-to-one combat and the two escape in their ships. Herge crashes in the jungle, due to damage occasioned by his ship, there is yet more dinosaur action, Radice again comes to the rescue, and the two finally escape Venus in her craft. In the final scenes of the film, as their voyage back to Earth begins, a voice-over asks if we should return to Perelandra – and there is an image of dinosaurs storming the Venusian city. Though this scene is not properly explained, nor integral to the story, Vernilak was reluctant to drop what looks like a vestige of an alternative plot, or uncompleted appendage to the plot. Perhaps it was deemed unacceptable to show a totalitarian regime continuing to flourish.
In a comment several years later, Vernilak demonstrates his strong attachment to the monster elements of the film. This was in the face of many of his fans seeing this as an excursion into rather overdramatic and sensationalistic territory, distracting from the more serious efforts of his earlier film. He also stated that he wanted Harry Harryhausen to work on the animation of the models which provided the monsters for the film, but was blocked in this, more on financial than political grounds. Fortunately, rather good teams working with stop-motion modelling (as well as conventional puppetry and cartooning) had been established to feed children’s TV programs with both humorous and more naturalistic animal models. (A few of these programs gained international success – older readers may remember Scorchy, the Electric Dragon being shown on Australian, British and Canadian television, and of course these shows were pervasive in the Eastern bloc.) The team was delighted to have the opportunity to work on material that was less cuddly and anodyne, and gave them an opportunity to be edgy and to portray realistic violence. They far excelled expectations, and went on to develop more adult-oriented TV programs in subsequent work, including a satirical program that is said to have inspired the viciously satirical puppetry of Spitting Image in the UK in the 1980s. The monster elements of the film were well-received in both national and international audiences, and the film has retained something of an ironic cult status in the West. But this was not a great commercial success, with the monster and alien adventure aspects of the film being regarded as poorly integrated. The general tone is widely dismissed as somewhat juvenile and outdated. The emerging romance between the two lead actors is well-handled. We are left to speculate about what they could have been able to get up to in their cramped quarters on the journey home. Perhaps this is fortunate, given the accounts of tensions between the actors, and between them and their director.
As for the serious questions in Vernilak’s work, Prisoners may not have been as scientifically accurate as the earlier films, but it still manages to address issues of social and political organization. Who actually are the prisoners? Is it the space pilots who are captured and, in the case of Herge, rescued – or the Perelandrians, imprisoned in ideology and a repressive state, with its instruments of mind control? The scope for the latter interpretation, as a veiled critique of the state socialism of the Eastern bloc, seems to have only slowly dawned on the authorities. When Vernilak was subject to frequent official condemnation in the later 1960s and 1970s, his earlier work was subject to intense critical analysis, and this film was often selected for such scrutiny. The gender politics of the film – featuring both a female villain and a heroine who twice comes to the hero’s rescue, and is always depicted as brave and resourceful – would sometimes be sneered at as another sign of subversive intent or deviant sexuality. (“He has reversed the national crest, with Andromeda rescuing Perseus rather than vice versa.”)
- Continued in Part 2
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