Himalayas on Permanent Hold

 

When producer Clarence Greene made a brief stop in Cincinnati in 1956, he apparently commented on some future plans which we were never to hear about again.  Writer/reviewer E. B. Radcliffe mentions yet another "investigation of the incredible" project by Greene, this time intended for the Himalayas.  If indeed profits from U.F.O. were expected to fund this venture, that idea was a non-starter as soon as Greene realized box office receipts were quite the disappointment financially.

Radcliffe's reference to the movie, The Well, an early drama involving race relations, reminds us that Greene originally wanted Tom Towers to play the lead as sheriff, but Towers' work obligations as an L.A. newspaper reporter caused him to decline the offer.  To confuse matters here, character actor Tom Powers is listed as appearing in The Well.



Cr:  Barry Greenwood

Examining the Script

Portrayed in the movie by actors, the real Albert Chop and his wife take a moment to check the script for "U.F.O." in this time-weathered photo from the Hollywood Citizen News of May 9, 1956. As we noted much earlier in this blog through a series of articles, the "final" script experienced a number of changes during production -- which I discovered when Tom Towers loaned me his copy, stored faithfully behind his sofa for years.

Cr: Barry Greenwood

From California to Hawaii

Though California seems to have set the record for mention of the movie among various news sources in 1956, which seems logical for the motion picture capital of the nation, newspaper articles steadily continued to pop up all over the planet.  A "local believer" in Hawaii, noted here in a letter to the editor, also had something to say.

(Cr: Barry Greenwood)

 

The Face You've Seen, the Voice you Know

We noted previously the voice-over role of late actor Harry Morgan, who played the role of military pilot "Red Dog One" during the famous UFO encounter over Washington, D.C. in 1952, but his was not the only famous disembodied voice to play a part in the movie.

Olan Soule (1909-1994) provided much of the off-camera narration for "U.F.O." Having started his career in radio in 1933, he quickly branched out to TV in its fledgling years and way beyond, and also had movie roles galore.  According to numerous sources, Soule was a deceptively thin 135 lb. bundle of energy whose "chameleon" voice was heard on 7,000 radio shows, commercials and TV cartoons.  He appeared on some 200 TV series and films, and chalked up roles in more than 60 motion pictures.  His authoritative narration in "U.F.O." seemed as essential as Ernest Gold's music score.

As long as we're discussing voices, another of the movie's narrators was actor Marvin Miller, who played the title character on TV's "The Millionaire" in the fifties.  Not to be confused with another series, this was the fictional one where Miller's character would give away one million dollars to a deserving person during every weekly episode, with the money donated by charitable multi-millionaire benefactor "John Beresford Tipton," who insisted strictly upon anonymity. Wouldn't you?  Miller's movie involvement is actually mentioned in his bio at the International Movie Data Base site.

Right Movie, Wrong Actor

A couple of articles from The Hollywood Citizen News during the course of one week in 1956 alerted movie viewers to the premiere of "U.F.O." in Los Angeles.  Tom Towers must have been aware, and likely amused, when one movie reviewer who should have known better listed him as "Tom Tryon."  I will assume the reviewer mixed Towers' name up with actor Thomas (Tom) Tryon, known for his appearance on a TV Western series, a starring role in a few motion pictures, and later appreciated for his fiction writing and work as a producer.

(Thanks to researcher Barry Greenwood for the articles.)