Ray Bradbury Movies

While Norman Lloyd managed to avoid becoming a household name, over the course of a career in the arts that has spanned eight decades he's distinguished himself as an actor, director, writer and producer in film, television and the legitimate stage. In the 1930s, Lloyd acted in a number of ground-breaking theatrical productions alongside his friend John Garfield under the direction of Elia Kazan, and he later became a member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theater company. As a film actor, Lloyd has worked with such directors as Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin and Martin Scorsese, and as a television producer his credits include Alfred Hitchcock Presents and an award-winning series of adaptation of great plays for public television. However, the show-business blacklist against leftist artists in the Fifties stalled Lloyd's career, and while he's always had the respect of his peers, for years he struggled to put his career back on track. Who Is Norman Lloyd? is a documentary by filmmaker Matthew Sussman which gives Lloyd and some of his illustrious colleagues the opportunity to answer the titular question while discussing his life and work; the film includes interviews with Ray Bradbury, Cameron Diaz, Arthur Hiller, Karl Malden, Pat Hitchcock and many others. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

One of the most compelling strokes of fate in the past millenium is the fact that the 20th century's most hated dictator and most beloved film comedian were born within four days of each other in 1889. Although Adolf Hitler probably never gave Charlie Chaplin a second thought during his rise to power, Chaplin was obsessed with the notion that there was a larger and more profound meaning to the coincidence of his age proximity to Hitler--not to mention the fact that both men became famous by sporting postage-stamp moustaches. In 1939, Chaplin inaugurated production of his first 100% all-talking picture, in which he would abandon his familiar "Little Tramp" character in favor of two new screen alter-egos: A Jewish barber in the fictional European country of Tomania, and the barber's exact lookalike, the infamous dictator Adenoid Hynkel, aka "Der Phooey." Utilizing rare color behind the scenes footage discovered by Chaplin's daughter Victoria, and complemented with commentary from Charlie's coworkers, contemporary filmmakers and movie historians, this one-hour documentary detailed the making of The Great Dictator, Chaplin's devastating (and often devastatingly funny) satire of the Nazis. Among the many topics covered in the film is Hollywood's frightened reaction to Chaplin's daring move (at a time when appeasing rather than openly opposing Hitler was the order of the day), and Hitler's own reaction upon seeing the completed film himself. Assembled by the brilliant historian and silent-movie preservationist Kevin Brownlow, The Tramp and the Dictator represented a collaboration between Britain's Photoplay Productions and Germany's Spiegel TV. In America, the film was first broadcast on October 1, 2002, as the vanguard of a TCM cable network retrospective of Hitler-related films and cartoons, beginning with the new, digitally restored version of 1940's The Great Dictator. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Well-known science fiction novelist and playwright Ray Bradbury has a career that spanned more than five decades, and this documentary seeks to capture his accomplishments in detail. See real footage of the author at home and on the lecture circuit, as well as comments about the man and his work from friends and compatriots. Rod Steiger narrates the program, and longtime Bradbury fans will also enjoy clips from The Ray Bradbury Theatre television program. Hear from Bradbury himself, as recorded footage of his recollections and stories truly bring his tales to life, and highlights some of his most famous works, including The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451. ~ Karen Solomon, All Movie Guide

At 10:20 PM on June 16, 1985, an avuncular chap named Ray Bradbury, sitting at his typewriter in a room overflowing with clutter, introduced the first of HBO's dramatizations of his off-kilter short stories. Strange Tales: Ray Bradbury Theatre is a videotaped collection of three of those stories (though not the first three telecast, as has sometimes been listed). "The Town Where No One Got Off" stars Jeff Goldblum in the tale of a murder scheme gone awry. "The Screaming Woman," previously (and somewhat clumsily) produced as a made-for-TV movie, stars Drew Barrymore as a little girl whose penchant for lies backfires when she hears the sound of a woman's screams emanating from under her feet. And "The Banshee" features Peter O'Toole and Charles Martin Smith in the story of a roguish old film director whose amorous past comes back to literally haunt him (it is said that Bradbury wrote this story to settle an old score with filmmaker John Huston). Strange Tales is so good that one wishes the rest of Ray Bradbury Theater had come up to its standards. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The works of "Puppetoon" creator and special effects wizard George Pal are perhaps best seen separately and in toto rather than lumped together in fragmentary form. The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal contains an abundance of enjoyable film clips, but most are far too short for the audience to fully appreciate Pal's cinematic contributions. The narration suffers from banality, while the overall pacing of the documentary is lumpy. Still, for those who've never seen Pal's Puppetoon shorts, or his early features The Great Rupert (1950) and Destination Moon, this compilation serves as a tantalizing teaser. Paul Frees narrates The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal, while several Pal associates and admirers, including Ray Bradbury, Roy Disney, Ray Harryhausen and Walter Lantz, are interviewed. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Electric Grandmother was the second TV adaptation of Ray Bradbury's I Sing the Body Electric (the first was presented on The Twilight Zone in 1962). Maureen Stapleton plays the title character, a custom-made android purchased by widowed Edward Hermann. "Grandma", a magical creation who can read minds and conjure up meals literally at her fingertips, is supposed to act as surrogate mother to Herrmann's three children; two of the kids accept her immediately, but the third (Tara Kennedy) is hostile. The relationship thaws after Grandma saves the little girl's life. Years later, the grown-up children tearfully bid their Grandma a fond farewell; but the grandmother eventually cares for the children after they themselves have grown old. Paul Benedict costars as cheerfully eccentric robot creator Guido Fantoccini. Adapted for television by Ray Bradbury and Jeffrey Kindley, the 60-minute The Electric Grandmother first aired as an NBC "Project Peacock" special on January 17, 1982. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the future, an oppressive government maintains control of public opinion by outlawing literature and maintaining a group of enforcers known as "firemen" to perform the necessary book burnings. This is the premise of Ray Bradbury's acclaimed science-fiction novel Fahrenheit 451, which became the source material for French director François Truffaut's English-language debut. While some liberties are taken with the description of the world, the narrative remains the same, as fireman Montag (Oskar Werner) begins to question the morality of his vocation. Curious about the world of books, he soon falls in love with a beautiful young member of a pro-literature underground -- and with literature itself. Critics were divided on the effectiveness of the result; some praised the unique design and eerie color cinematography by Nicolas Roeg, while others found the film's stylized approach overly distancing and attacked the central performances as unnatural. In any case, however, the film inarguably succeeds in making Truffaut's reverence for the written word abundantly clear, especially during the film's justifiably famous finale. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Pat Buttram (he was Mr. Haney on Green Acres) brings a macabre twist to his standard country-bumpkin characterization in this bone-chilling episode. Visiting a traveling carnival, farmer Charlie Hill (Buttram) is fascinated by one of the exhibits: a huge jar, filled with water and mysterious floating objects. Convinced that the jar possesses magical qualities, Charlie purchases the object and brings it home, putting it on display for his friends and neighbors -- who are equally fascinated, even mesmerized, by the jar's eerie "properties." All of this brouhaha annoys Charlie's promiscuous young wife, Thedy Sue (Collin Wilcox), who plans to expose the jar as a fake and humiliate Charlie in public just before running off with her current boyfriend. James Bridges earned an Emmy nomination for his adaptation of Ray Bradbury's short story The Jar, which also boasts an appropriately eerie minimalist musical score by frequent Alfred Hitchcock collaborator Bernard Herrmann. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Small-town garage mechanic Aaron Menefee (Andrew Prine) becomes a devoted disciple of the Reverend Otis Jones (Sidney Blackmer) after the traveling faith healer seemingly cures Menefee's ulcer. Even so, Jones refuses Menefee permission to marry his daughter Emily (Maggie Pierce), arguing that Aaron's faith isn't "strong enough." Thus does Menefee challenge himself with the ultimate test of that faith -- leading to a memorable "Lady or the Tiger" denouement. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Charlie Brailing (Norman Lloyd) dreams of leaving his wife, Lydia (Marian Seldes), and flying off to Rio. Of course, if he were to do this, it would cause nothing but shame and humiliation for all concerned. Thus, Charlie concocts a "foolproof" scheme to make his getaway without detection: he builds a robot lookalike, intending to leave his mechanical double with his wife while he skips town. Trouble is, the robot has a few plans of its own. One of the few "supernatural" Hitchcock episodes, "Design for Loving" was written by no less than Ray Bradbury. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide