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.

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 1959 at the cusp of a new and exciting decade Richard Condon wrote a book that is largely described as a political thriller. And it is a political thriller. But it also fits neatly into my concept of science fiction. To learn more about what is and isn't science fiction you can head to the heady days of the first episode where the topic is discussed with science fiction scholars Lisa Yaszek and Glyn Morgan. (Please do excuse the fear in my eyes.)

Just a few years later a film was made by John Frankenheimer, starring Frank Sinatra, Janet Leigh and a brilliant and manipulative Angela Lansbury.

The 1960s USA is in peak cold war fears, and the CIA is undertaking covert operations of their own, with the MKUltra programme, testing on humans to discover whether they can be manipulated and brainwashed.

Although this film continues many themes from the 1950s it is definitely a product of the new age as culture shifts and a new batch of Hollywood directors take cinema in a different direction.

I am lucky to have two brilliant guests to talk us through the themes and context of this film.

Ian Scott is a Professor of American Film and History at The University of Manchester. He has written extensively about politics and film in Hollywood including the book American Politics in Hollywood Film.

Sherryl Vint is Professor of Science Fiction Media Studies at the University of California, Riverside. She has written/edited many books about science fiction.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

02:23 New Hollywood Directors

04:57 Richard Condon's novel

07:00 Mind control in science fiction

09:40 Cold War in the Far East

16:57 The brilliant brainwashing scene

25:28 Raymond Shaw the unlikely hero

29:17 Frank Sinatra as Marco

33:17 Angela Lansbury as Eleanor

37:54 Janet Leigh

44:04Eisenhower and the legacy of conspiracy films

48:31 The remake

52:29 Recommendations

The recommendations this week are the films Suddenly (1954) and Seconds (1966). I will be covering Seconds in the near future so you can get ahead by watching it if you like!

NEXT EPISODE!

Next episode we will be discussing the Roger Corman film X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes from 1963 starring Ray Milland. 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.

There are spoilers ahead for all versions of The Day of the Triffids and also for the film Signs.

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 had been edited down to a more digestible length of under an hour but a longer (audio only) version is available for Patreon subscribers (alongside the shorter option).

We are doing things a little differently and discussing the 1963 film along with the source material which is John Wyndham's 1951 book The Day of the Triffids.

The Day of the Triffids film was released in 1963 after reshoots were required to add a whole new arc in the story and bring the time to a more suitable length for a feature.

The film has many of the hallmarks of a 1950s science fiction film but seems to be reflective of the Golden Era of science fiction very much coming to its end.

The film is (very loosely) based on John Wyndham's first successful novel but seems more dedicated to the tropes of a 1950s sci-fi marketed for a mass, US leaning audience. The book is chockful of themes that are touched upon throughout the story which have very little (if any) presence in the film.

I have added a list of the characters we discuss below as well as a quick overview of their roles in the book and the film.

As usual I have two insightful guests to help us understand all of this.

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.

Adam Stock is a senior lecturer in English Literature at York St John University and author of the book Dystopian Fiction and Political Thought: Narratives of World Politics.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:30 John Wyndham's first hit

05:23 The concept of the cosy catastrophe

08:43 Wyndham's Britain: post-colonial triffids coming home to roost

14:48 The 1963 film: Wells, end of the golden age and marketing

20:04 The lighthouse sequences: Karen vs Josella

23:06 Weed killers in The Silent Spring era and WW2 imagery

25:17 The role of the Triffids

30:37 Bill Masen the hero

34:37 Coker's missing role

37:11 Women!

40:27 The ending

46:51 Legacy

53:57 Recommendations

Bill Masen:

Hero in both the book and the film. In the book Bill is English and works for the triffid farm where he has been almost blinded by a triffid sting. His colleague begins to suspect the triffids are indeed sentient and able to communicate. This brings up questions around exploitation and enslavement. In the film Bill is American and works for the US Navy who help save the hero and other survivors at the end of the film.

Josella Playton:

The heroine from the novel is not present in the 1963 film. Josella comes from a wealthy family (one with servants) and has written a notorious book titled Sex is my Adventure.

Coker:

Coker has a large role in the book and we meet him as an advocate for the newly blinded masses when many of the few sighted people left are attempting to save themselves from the threat of a disintegrating society. He is a strong public speaker from a working-class background who had learned to speak in a way that is more amenable to the intelligentsia and upper classes. His strongly held beliefs (of forcing the sighted to serve the blind) change through the book to become less idealistic and more practical.

Coker in the film is an old man with a very minimal role who dies early in the story form a triffid attack.

Susan:

Is a young girl who is rescued by Bill in the film after a train crash and ensuing chaos. In the book Bill takes in Susan whose family have died. She is a capable young child who develops an understanding of triffid behaviour from observing them as she guards the home that Josella and Bill stay in for many years.

Miss Durrant:

In the film Miss Durrant is the beautiful heroine that Bill meets in a large house in France that is caring from blind survivors of the meteor shower. In the book, Miss Durrant is a religious minded woman who is appalled at a man named Beadley's attempts to rebuild society through polygamy. She seems to purposefully mislead Bill who is trying to track down Beadley because he thinks Josella will be with him.

NEXT EPISODE!

Next episode we will be speaking about The Manchurian Candidate from 1962 by John Frankenheimer. A film that may not fit the definition of science fiction for many people but by now I think we know how ambiguous those definitions can be!

You can find the film on streaming platforms including Apple TV. The Just Watch website is a good resource to find where the film is available online 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

There is a trigger warning for discussion of rape in this episode. I have marked the beginning of that part of the discussion with a beep and the discussion lasts for four minutes and four seconds after the beep if you wanted to skip past it.

Last week we told you "Don't Panic!" but this week we focus in on the panic.

Panic in Year Zero was directed by and stars Ray Milland and is about a father taking his family on the road to do some camping. One the way there a nuclear bomb is dropped on Los Angeles and the world starts to fall into disarray. Not because of the bomb causing devastation or radiation but because of how human s are absolute nutters given the slightest chance.

This film has a very 1950s sensibility but with a Jazz laden soundtrack that hints at the unruly decade ahead.

The Federal Civil Defense Administration in the US in the early 50s was set up by President Truman to educate and prepare the public in case of an attack on US soil. The short film mentioned in the discussion The House in the Middle can be viewed on YouTube here.

This episode we talk not just about the film but the human fascination with apocalypse. I have the perfect guests for the task.

Steven Schlozman is a psychiatrist and a writer of books including the novel The Zombie Autopsies which was being adapted to film by George Romero before his death in 2017.

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 Introduction

01:52 The non-nuclear nuclear film

07:10 Nuclear drills in schools

10:07 USA nuclear prep: Civilian education and CONELRAD

16:33 Jazz music and sociopaths

20:05 Daddy's gaze

26:39 The fun of Armageddon

32:02 The developmental stage of apocalypse fantasy

37:35 Ann is always wrong

39:21 Sexual violence

43:27 A pre-cursor to zombie apocalypse

48:25 Legacy

52:45 Recommendations for the listener

Recommendations

Steven: The Day After (1983) is a made for TV film.

John: The book Every Home a Fortress: Cold War Fatherhood and the Family Fallout Shelter by Thomas Bishop

NEXT EPISODE!

Next episode we will be discussing The Day of the Triffids! Although we will be using the 1963 film as a starting point there will be a lot of discussion about the original novel and the differences between the theme heavy book and the fun 50s style scifi of the film.

The film can be found on Fubo, Roku, Pluto and Plex and a few other online streaming platforms in the US and UK. The Just Watch website is a good resource to find where the film may be available in your region.