As always there are spoilers ahead!

You can follow the podcast on social media on Threads, Instagram and Bluesky.

If you would like to be a patron of the podcast you can join Patreon and for £3 or $3 a month you can get ad free version of the show. https://www.patreon.com/everyscififilm

Apologies in advance for my butchering of Italian pronunciation during this episode.

Although we mentioned in the Planet of the Vampires episode the copycat nature of Italian cinema in the 1960s, The 10th Victim by Elio Petri does not fit that mould. The film has a definite style that may offer commentary on Italian film, comics and culture but looks to set a new mould for films coming out of Italy. Cultural change in Europe and America in the 1960s came in many different flavours and with different driving forces. My excellent guests help to unravel the cultural context of this stylish cult classic.

Stephen Gundle is a Professor of Film and Television at the University of Warwick. He has a special interest in Italian cultural history.

Leon Hunt is a retired Senior Lecturer of Screen Studies at Brunel University with a special interest in Italian Genre Cinema.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction.

01:17 Collectively written script

04:02 Italy in the 1960s

05:19 Marcello Mastroianni Commedia all'Italiana and global fame

09:33 Echoes of La Dolce Vita

15:02 Style over substance?

17:03 Gender roles

20:38 The violence of man

23:28 The gun bra, design and pop art

26:17 Comic book culture in Italy

32:46 Religion and belief systems

36:55 Changing Italian culture: American influence, economic growth and celebrity worship

45:52 Legacy

51:07 Recommendations for the listener

Recommendations:

Danger Diabolik (1968) directed by Mario Bava

Modesty Blaise (1966) directed by Jospeh Losey

La Dolce Vita (1960) directed by Federico Fellini

NEXT EPISODE!

You have two weeks to find and watch Seconds (1966) by John Frankenheimer as we finally head into 1966! The film is available to rent or buy on Apple TV in the UK, and for free on Kanopy in the US. You can check the JustWatch website for details of where it's available in your region. (Waves frantically at new global listeners!)

As always there are spoilers ahead!

You can follow the podcast on social media on Threads, Instagram and Bluesky.

If you would like to be a patron of the podcast you can join Patreon and for £3 or $3 a month you can get ad free version of the show. https://www.patreon.com/everyscififilm

Despite a failed pilot Star Trek made it to TV in 1966. Creator, Gene Roddenberry's vision of a future that was beyond the contemporary struggles of civil rights and racism and global Cold War tensions but very much aligned with the style of the 1960s. As a diverse crew faced alien planets and tackled ethical questions audience numbers dwindled and cancellation loomed. The show was finally axed in 1969 but a growing fanbase aided by syndication meant what could have been a small part of TV history actually became a huge phenomena.

My amazing Trekkie guests discuss the origins of my favourite franchise.

Julian Chambliss is a scholar and a professor at Michigan State University. He has taught Star Trek as part of his Media Race and Culture classes.

Carey Millsap-Spears is a professor of communications/literature at Moraine Valley Community College. She has written extensively about Star Trek including the 2023 book Star Trek Discovery and the Female Gothic.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:36 Gene Roddenberry's pitch and the pilot episode

04:29 A new kind of frontier

08:34 The fans

11:06 Woke and the 1960s

17:26 The gothic in Star Trek

20:39 Captain Kirk as Casanova?

26:09 That kiss and Uhura

30:42 Utopia!

36:47 Propaganda

39:24 The Alien others

44:08 Technology, NASA and Nichelle Nichols

47:29 The Next Generation

51:52 Why do we love Star Trek?

54:32 Recommendations

Recommendations

The Centre Seat: 55 Years of Star Trek (2021)

StarTrek II: The Wrath of Khan

NEXT EPISODE!

You have two weeks to find and watch The 10th Victim (1965) by Elio Petri. Another Italian film (like last episode's Planet of the Vampires) but a very different feel. Although coupld contend with Mario Bava's Danger Diabolik (1968) for the most 60s film ever made! The film is available to rent online in many places. You can check the JustWatch website for details of what it's available in your region.

As always there are spoilers ahead!

You can follow the podcast on social media on Threads, Instagram and Bluesky.

If you would like to be a patron of the podcast you can join Patreon and for £3 or $3 a month you can get ad free version of the show. https://www.patreon.com/everyscififilm

Planet of the Vampires was directed by Mario Bava and released in 1965. American International Pictures had made money with Italian films such as Black Sunday (1960) but would often need to oversee many changes to make the films suitable for an American audience. Their solution was to provide a script and co-produce a film so they could control the content.

The film had a small budget of around $200,000 and although it definitely has its fair share of Schlock, Bava had a reputation for doing a lot on a small budget.

My guests unravel why Mario Bava's reputation and love for this film continue to grow.

Scott Higgins is Professor of Film at Wesleyan University as well as being the Curator of the Wesleyan Cinema Archives.

Russ Hunter is an Assistant Professor in Film & Television Studies at Northumbria University. He has a special interest in Italian genre cinema.

Scott says Eugenio Bava (Mario's Father) invented the Schüfftan process before Eugen Schüfftan after whom it was named. You can read more about this here: https://dcairns.wordpress.com/tag/schufftan-process/

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

01:46 AIP involvement

04:14 Italian cinema in 1965

09:01 Dubbing

14:31 Names changes and US appeal

17:28 Mario Bava

21:51 Scott's love for this film

27:12 Bava and Barry

29:22 Special Effects and the Schüfftan process

33:39 Production and Set Design

35:21 Style over coherence

38:33 The alien

41:35 Influences and origins

43:40 Vampires in name

44:20 Legacy

49:06 Recommendations

Recommendations:

The Green Slime (1968) by Kinji Fukasaku

Tu Vuo' Fa' L'americano by Renato Carosone

Danger: Diabolik (1968) by Mario Bava

Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark by Tim Lucas

NEXT EPISODE:

As we approach 1966 on the podcast it is time to talk about my favourite franchise which will be 60 years old this September! A little detour into the beginnings of Star Trek in two week's time.

As always there are spoilers ahead! (And the podcast is much more fun if you've seen the film first.)

You can follow the podcast on social media on Threads, Instagram and Bluesky.

If you would like to be a patron of the podcast you can join Patreon and for £3 or $3 a month you can get ad free version of the show. https://www.patreon.com/everyscififilm

Jean-Luc Godard is potentially the most prominent of the French New Wave directors. In the mid-60s his mind turned to science fiction and the result was a visually striking, choatic film about a dystopian world in which logic rules and love is punished.

If you find the film confusing you are not alone and I have two brilliant academic brains to help us out.

Roger Luckhurst is a Professor at Birkbeck, University of London. He has written/edited numerous articles and books on cultural history and film.

Douglas Morrey is an associate professor of French at the University of Warwick. He has a special interest in the French new Wave on which he has written extensively, including the 2005 book Jean-Luc Godard.

CORRECTION: In the podcast I mention Roger citing Alphaville having an image from Chris Marker's La Jetée but the image is actually Marker's photograph which is in the credit sequence but doesn not feature in La Jetée.

The book of poetry in the film Capitale de la douleur (Capital of Pain) is written by Paul Elouard.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:40 French New Wave in 1965

03:38 Godard's influences for Alphaville

11:31 Eddie Constantine: The illogical Noir hero

16:43 Lemmy Caution and fascism

18:05 Alienation and confusion

25:52 Godard's technique and budgets

30:07 Sound design

32:30 The swimming pool execution scene

39:26 Love, poetry and Godard's divorce

47:00 Godard and women

49:30 Legacy

53:57 Recommendations

Recommendations:

• The Trial written by Franz Kafka and made into a film by Orson Wells released in 1962.

• Weekend (1967) by Godard.

NEXT EPISODE!

Next episode we will be talking about Planet of the Vampires, the low budget 1965 dubbed delight by Mario Bava. The film is campy (and for me quite hilarious) as well as being famed for inspiring Alien (1979). (Perhaps a little overstated in this regard?) You can find the film to rent on Amazon, Apple, Flixfling and may find it on free platforms with ads in your region. You can check the JustWatch website for more details.

As usual there are spoilers ahead!

You can follow the podcast on social media on Threads, Instagram and Bluesky.

If you would like to be a patron of the podcast you can join Patreon and for £3 or $3 a month you can get ad free version of the show. https://www.patreon.com/everyscififilm

This episode we track the birth of one of the longest running franchises. Dr Who was first broadcast in 1963 and with the help of some exterminating aliens a film was produced just a couple of years later. I speak to my wonderful Whovian guests about the origins, the hallmarks and the 1960s context of the infamous Doctor including the colourful and shiny 1960s feature films.

Paul Booth is a professor of Media and Pop Culture with a special interest in fandoms on which he has written extensively. He is co-editor of the book Adventures Across Space and Time: A Doctor Who Reader.

Lee Arnott is the co-host if the Problematic Gaze podcast. He is a social historian who is currently researching the the social history of Britain since the 1960s through the lens of Doctor Who.

Although Australian composer Ron Gainer wrote the music for Dr Who it was Delia Derbyshire at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop who produced the theme.

You can see the Delia Derbyshire clip I mention on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsRuhCflRyg

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

01:41The BBC origins of the series

04:45 The first episode, changes and differences on the big screen

09:40 The Daleks and Dalekmania

13:20 WW2, Nazis and nuclear fears

19:37 More Daleks

23:33 The Doctor

27:33 What is canon

29:21 The Companions

35:13 The Tardis

38:05 Design

42:02 (The best ever) theme tune

45:46 Legacy

49:22 Success and favourite doctors

53:04 Recommendations

Recommendations:

Lee recommended The War Game (1965) and Paul recommended the book Dr. Who & The Daleks: The Official Story of the Films by John Walsh.

NEXT EPISODE!

Next episode we will be discussing the 1965 French New Wave science fiction film Alphaville by Jean-Luc Godard. It is easy to rent on main streaming platforms as well as other places in the US including Mubi and Kanopy. To find the film in your region you can visit the Just Watch website.

As always there are spoilers ahead!

You can follow the podcast on social media on Threads, Instagram and Bluesky.

If you would like to be a patron of the podcast you can join Patreon and for £3 or $3 a month you can get ad free version of the show. https://www.patreon.com/everyscififilm

First Men on the Moon was written by HG Wells and serialised in The Strand Magazine beginning in 1900. The book was published in 1901 a year before Georges Méliès kicked off science fiction cinema with La Voyage dans la Lune in 1902. (You can learn more about that film in episode number 2 The First Science Fiction Film Ever.)

Then in the swinging 60s as the space race was heating up a collection of brilliant sci-fi filmmakers go together to make a story about a Victorian British scientist going to the moon with his anti-gravity material Cavorite! And yet even the amazing Ray Harryhausen stop motion special effects were not enough to make this film a success. My amazing guests break down the origins and outcomes of this mid-century oddity.

Keith Williams is a Reader in English Literature at the University of Dundee where he runs the science fiction programme. He has a special interest in the pre 1945 period and is the author of the book H.G. Wells, Modernity and the Movies.

Matthew Rule-Jones is a senior lecturer in film studies at the University of Exeter and author of the book Science Fiction Cinema and 1950s Britain: Recontextualising Cultural Anxiety.

At 6:09 Keith is about to explain the contraption that Robert William Paul was planning based on HG wells Time Machine. I interrupt him as we've covered this in two episodes priot. You can access more information about that on episode 37 The Time Machine: HG Wells' Legacy in 1960s Sci-Fi at timecode 23:07 or in episode 9 The Invisible Man Exposed at timecode 38:29.

Chapters

00:00 Intro

02:23 HG Wells, selenites and Georges Méliès Trip to the Moon

06:57 Balancing act: Producer Charles Schneer vs Writer Nigel Kneale.

12:44 Box Office flop

15:12 Dreams of Empire and international cooperation

19:40 Steampunk sensibilities

22:26 The backdrop of the Space Race

26:58 Bedford and Cavor

33:20 Ray Harryhausen

37:50 NASA and the moon landing

41:12 Ant colonies and sci-fi

46:42 Legacy

50:10 Recommendations

Recommendations:

The First Men in the Moon (2010)

The Stone Tape (1972) available to view on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHgcpzzZspw

NEXT EPISODE!

The next episode will feature two films: Dr Who & the Daleks (1965) as well as Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966). These films are available to buy or stream on mainstream platforms like Apple and Prime as well as subscription services. The Just Watch website is a good resource for finding where films are available in your region.

I am very sorry but I have been unwell this past week. (But I am on the mend!)

Multiple visits to the hospital mean that although I have the next episode recorded I have not been able to edit it.

I've heard many podcasts serve up older episodes in this circumstance. Maybe an annoyance to those who have already heard all the episodes but for those who haven't since it is 2026 it's probably a good opportunity to watch Metropolis (1927) as this year is the year it was set. I have two remarkable and engaging academics speak about it.

Sonja Fritzsche is a professor of German Studies and an author/editor for many books about science fiction. She has taught courses on science fiction, utopia and Metropolis.

Noah Isenberg is a film historian and best-selling author. He is a professor at the University of Texas and editor of the book Weimar Cinema: An Essential Guide to Classic Films of the Era.

This episode was originally released in April 2024 and was episode 5 of the podcast.

I will hopefully be back in great health soon and the new episode on First Men in the Moon will be edited for release in two weeks.

As always there are spoilers ahead!

You can follow the podcast on social media on Threads, Instagram and Bluesky.

If you would like to be a patron of the podcast you can join Patreon and for £3 or $3 a month you can get ad free version of the show. https://www.patreon.com/everyscififilm

In 1958 the Peter George novel Red Alert was published about the dangers of nuclear war. A few years later when Stanley Kubrick was looking to make a (serious) film about the topic he was recommended the book.

Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb was the resulting film. The film takes aim at military strategy, rhetoric and the people involved to give us one of the most famous satires in cinema.

It would be quite easy to double the length of this episode, but we've tried to fit as much as we can into the hour with my two remarkable guests.

Mark Bould is a professor of Film and Literature at the University of West England, Bristol. He has written/edited extensively about science fiction cinema.

Rodney F Hill is a Professor of Film at the Lawrence Herbert School of Communication at Hofstra University and has written extensively about film.

This is the article I mention by Eric Schlosser: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/almost-everything-in-dr-strangelove-was-true

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:12 Source material

03:12 The threat of Lumet's Fail Safe

05:35 Herman Kahn, winnable nuclear war and the doomsday machine

08:25 Nazi scientist Wernher von Braun and Operation Paperclip

13:55 Nuclear policy and the Cold War

17:23 Doomsday comedy

25:51 Masculinity, techno-eroticism and bodily fluids

33:21 Peter Sellers

38:04 1960s satire boom

40:11 Production design of Ken Adam

41:25 Music

43:27 The changes to the film

46:32 Legacy

54:34 Recommendations

Recommendations: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Fail Safe (1964).

NEXT EPISODE!

Next episode we will be talking about First Men on the Moon (1964). The film is based on the HG Wells novel and features stop motion animation by Ray Harryhausen.

It is is available to stream and rent from Apple. The Just Watch website can give you a list of where the film is available in your region.

Time for another detour! An introduction to Afrofuturism with two magnificent guests.

You can follow the podcast on social media on Threads, Instagram and Bluesky.

If you would like to be a patron of the podcast it would be greatly appreciated! You can join Patreon and for £3 or $3 a month you can get ad free version of the show. https://www.patreon.com/everyscififilm

The symbol mentioned in the podcast a few times is the Sankofa symbol which is a recurring symbol in Afrofuturism. It represents the idea that there are things that you go back for (and things you leave behind). You can read more about it on this wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankofa

Julian Chambliss is a scholar and a professor at Michigan State University. He is the author of multiple books including Mapping Afrofuturism: Understanding Black Speculative Practice

Ytasha Womack is a filmmaker, cultural critic and author of the books Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture and The Afro Futurist Evolution: Creative Paths of Self Discovery.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

01:18 Afrofuturism origin story

08:04 Afrofuturism and science fiction

11:44 Retro Afrofuturism: Of One Blood by Pauline Hopkinson

16:37 The diaspora and Afrofuturism

19:53 Dance and the individual as a nexus of time and space

23:24 Ancestry in Afrofuturism

25:32 Moving away from dystopia: Slavery as apocalypse

29:55 Optimism for the future

33:03 Holistic utopias and protopia.

35:43 Mystical frameworks

38:15 Alternative realities and the multiverse

41:38 Theory, practice and interconnectedness

46:21 Recommendations

Recommendations:

The Afro Futurist Evolution: Creative Paths of Self Discovery by Ytasha Womack

(I would also thoroughly recommend her book Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture.)

Agharta by Miles Davis

Blake; or The Huts of America: A Tale of the Mississippi Valley, the Southern United States, and Cuba by Martin Delany

Space is the Place by Sun Ra

Lee "Scratch" Perry

George Clinton

Mothership Connection by Parliament

Pedro Bell and Overton Loyd

Beyond the Black Panther exhibition at MSU

Rise podcast by Julian

Infinitum by Tim Fielder

NEXT EPISODE!

Next time we'll be talking about Dr Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and love the Bomb (1964)! You can watch the film pretty much anywhere and it is readily available to buy or rent online from many platforms. I would also recommend watching Fail Safe from the same year because it is excellent, affected the production of Dr Strangelove and due to their similarities.

As always there are spoilers ahead!

We've discussed Czech scifi before with Karel Zeman's gorgeous steam punk offering from 1958 Invention for Destruction (dubbed into the English language The Fabulous World of Jules Verne) and we've also covered Communists in Space with 1960s The Silent Star (AKA First Spaceship on Venus).

The Czech Ikarie XB-1 (1963) has connections to both of those films but also offers an aesthetic that seems to directly inspire Kubrick for 2001: A Space Odyssey. The year is 2163, communism has won, and a crew of 40 are sent to find life on the white planet in Alpha Centauri with a journey fraught with sociological, psychological and physical challenges.

I have two amazing academics to help give insight into the film.

Evan Torner is an Associate Professor of German Studies and Niehoff Professor of Film & Media Studies at the University of Cincinnati.

Simon Spiegel is a lecturer of Film Studies at the University of Zurich. He has written extensively about Science Fiction and Utopia and has just released the book The Fear of Knowing about spoilers in film and media.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

01:11 Stanislaw Lem's The Magellanic Cloud

04:28 Czechoslovakian New Wave and film industry

09:49 The striking introductory scenes and Kubrick's 2001

13:05 Cabin fever in spaaace!

15:13 Music by Zdeněk Liška

16:57 Communist utopia in spaaace!

20:57 The draw of sociological stories

26:19 A utopian party and a red alert

28:15 The capitalist ship and the 20th century

32:47 Putting science into sci-fi

39:30 Evan's Dark Matter Shenanigans

42:21 Post Stalin faith

43:41 The ending

45:39 The US edit

47:27 Legacy

52:18 Recommendations

NEXT EPISODE!

I will be taking a detour next episode to talk about Afrofuturism which I've been wanting to discuss since the very early days of research before I launched the podcast. Almost two years late but I hope you enjoy it. After that we will be discussing Dr Strangelove and I would recommend you also watch Fail Safe (also 1964) if you have time.

As always there are spoilers ahead!

You can follow the podcast on social media on Threads, Instagram and Bluesky.

If you would like to be a patron of the podcast you can join Patreon and for £3 or $3 a month you can get ad free version of the show. https://www.patreon.com/everyscififilm

Roger Corman produced hundreds of films in his lifetime and directed dozens. X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes is a colourful, psychedelic, 1960s extravaganza with aspirations of transcendence.

If you wanted to join in, you can watch the film X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes from 1963 first. DVDs of the film are available, but it is also available to rent and watch online on Apple TV and many other platforms. You can check the Just Watch website to see where it is available in your region.

Oscar winner Ray Milland (we heard a bit about him in the Panic in Year Zero! episode) stars as a mad scientist who creates a serum that will help him understand the secret of life itself. A serum that unlocks the 90% of the visible spectrum that is beyond our realm of vision. The film is fun and pacey and the tone is once again firmly in the 1960s.

I have two excellent guests to help us unravel the minds and life's mysteries around what could be Corman's magnus opus.

Barry Keith Grant is professor Emeritus of Film Studies at Brock University Canada. He has written/edited numerous books, articles and essays about science fiction cinema.

John Wills is a Professor of American Media and Culture at the University of Kent. He has written lots about popular culture including 1950s American and Nuclear film.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:57 Barry's experience of watching the film on release

03:48 Eyeballs and vision

08:58 The body in sci-fi

10:57 Mad science and closing in on the Gods

12:20 Science in the 60s

15:56 LSD

17:18 A film of two halves

19:18 Diane's romantic arc

21:57 Hays Code & the Nudie Cuties

25:35 Roger Corman's 2001: A Space Odyssey comparison

31:17 Special Effects

32:41 Gurus incoming

34:48 Blunt honesty of Xavier

37:36 The music of Les Baxter

39:59 Stephen King and the ending

44:23 Legacy

51:21 Recommendations

CORRECTION: We refer to the female scientist as Diana but her name is Diane.

NEXT EPISODE!

Next episode we are heading back to the Eastern Bloc with the Czech 1963 scifi Ikarie XB-1.

In terms of watching it, the American version is titled Voyage to the End of the Universe and is a different edit.

Although Just Watch advertises the English language title it seems to not differentiate which edit is available. The original is available on The Criterion channel and also cultpix.com.