According to Richard Fleischer, the public had indicated it preferred the Bible to Rita Hayworth
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Richard Fleischer’s entrée into Hollywood was that he was the son of animation legend and studio boss Max Fleischer, whose studio produced cartoons like Betty Boop and Popeye the Sailor.
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But Richard went on to have a successful career as a film director. He worked in a variety of genres, including the sci-fi of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea in 1954, the musical Doctor Doolittle in 1967, and the sword and sorcery epic Conan the Destroyer in 1984.
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In a Province story that ran on Aug. 14, 1954, he made a bold statement: that movie fans were “shelving” Hollywood’s “glamour girls” in favour of religion, adventure and fantasy.
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Sun Spots
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According to Fleischer, the public had indicated it prefers the Bible to Rita Hayworth, Robinson Crusoe to Terry Moore and weird science-fiction to Jane Russell.
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“People want to escape and the ones who don’t want escape want information,” said Fleischer. “They want to learn about the unknown. They’re not curious about sex because they feel they know all there is to know about that.”
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That is not the kind of thing you’d normally hear from Hollywood, particularly in the 1950s. The anonymous writer said Fleischer “had found it necessary to turn to squids, sharks, submarines and bearded heroes to keep up with current public taste.”
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It noted that the only female in his film of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea was a seal named Esmerelda.
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“This is the ideal fare for the present-day audience,” said Fleischer.
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“We have passed through the phase of social themes, new musicals, 3D, widescreen and historical sex appeal. Now we are entering the realm of informative — but exciting — feature length-film.”
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The Province chose to illustrate the story on the end of glamour girls with a photo of Hollywood star Esther Williams. There was also a cheesecake pic of “Miss Portland of 1949,” Colleen Miller, who was starring in a movie called Playgirl.
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One of the cool things about going through old newspapers is finding giant ads for movies you’ve never heard of. Case in point: Christmas Day 1921, when the William Fox spectacular Queen of Sheba hit the Allen Theatre.
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One hundred years ago, work started on the first feature film shot in British Columbia by a B.C. director.
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Fleisher’s version of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea proved to be a hit, and won two Academy Awards. Hollywood also did do very well with biblical epics in the 50s, when movies like Ten Commandments (1956) and Ben Hur (1959) were released.
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But his prediction that glamorous female stars were on the outs didn’t pan out — Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor were both huge stars at the time.
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The trend in Vancouver theatres the week Fleisher spoke was horror films. The biggest ad on Aug. 14, 1954 was for a 3D movie of the Edgar Allan Poe classic Phantom of the Rue Morgue, featuring a shadowy monster whose gnarly fingers menace a woman screaming in terror.
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Billed as “Adult Entertainment,” it was playing The Strand at Georgia and Granville.
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The Paradise Theatre, meanwhile, had its own scary double bill, Mystery From The Ocean Floor (“Undersea thrills in a savage fight to the death with a giant octopus”) and Cat-Women of the Moon (“You’ve never seen anything like it, they’re fiery! Fearless!”).
