Customer Reviews

Cheap Tricks and Class Acts: Special Effects, Makeup and Stunts from the Films of the Fantastic Fifties

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The book was written in the 70s, and from today's perspective, makes fascinating reading. Johnson writes of a time when special effects were totally analog. The movies he cites are mostly from the 50s and 60s, with a natural bias towards science fiction. For it was those which entailed the greatest need for special effects.

In the entire book, there is nary a mention of computers. It all had to be done by hand! Like hanging miniature models by near-invisible wires, to move them around on the screen. Today, such things would invariably be done in a computer.

McFarland has published many books on science-fiction films, and many of them are excellent, but this isn't one. Virtually the entire book consists of quotes from secondary sources, and because of the book's illogical organization, almost every quote is repeated twice! There is at least one place where a quoted paragraph is immediately followed by a paraphrase of exactly the same material... cut and paste didn't work. The bottom line of the matter is that the author really doesn't know what he is talking about. For example a section (pp. 297- 301) discusses how the models in THIS ISLAND EARTH were hung from trollys and moved past a stationary camera, while the model in FORBIDDEN PLANET was stationary, and the camera panned past on an "endless" screw. But this is illustrated by a photo (p. 300) showing the ISLAND EARTH saucer stationary and the camera panning past on an "endless" screw! I found literally nothing of value or interest in the book and it is totally unreliable as a reference.