Leonard Katzman Movies
Leonard Katzman left his native New York to move to Los Angeles in his teens. He got his start in the film industry working as an assistant director on the serials Batman, Superman, and Brenda Starr for his uncle Sam Katzman, a producer. Katzman later became a television director during the medium's early years. He later spent 20 years working with the CBS network on such series as Gunsmoke, The Wild, Wild West, and Hawaii Five-0, but he is best known for Dallas. Katzman produced 365 episodes of the popular nighttime soap and also wrote and directed a few episodes. His three children also took part in the show's production. Katzman died in his Malibu home of an apparent heart attack on September 5, 1996; he was 69. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
It Came From Beneath the Sea was the first of several fruitful collaborations between producer Charles H. Schneer and special-effects wizard Ray Harryhausen. "It" is a giant, six-tentacled octopus, which is galvanized into action by an H-bomb test. Worse still, the monster is highly radioactive, rendering useless the normal means of defense against it. Scientists Donald Curtis and Faith Domergue team with atomic-submarine commander Kenneth Tobey to halt the creature's progress before it begins to attack major coastal cities. Alas, the monster manages to reach San Francisco, wreaking havoc on the Golden Gate Bridge, the Ferry Building, and Market Street before Tobey figures out a way to destroy it. The stop-motion animation utilized by Harryhausen in It Came From Beneath Sea is convincingly frightening, but before long he'd top this achievement with such superb projects as Earth vs. Flying Saucers and Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kenneth Tobey, Faith Domergue, (more)
