Ray Bradbury Movies

This science fiction fantasy is taken from the stories of Ray Bradbury. Carl (Rod Steiger) has a tattooed torso of bizarre illustrations done by his wife Felicia (Claire Bloom). Each one tells a story about the future, and when Will (Robert Drivas) meets The Illustrated Man in a hobo jungle en route to California, Carl warns him not to look too closely at the pictures on his person. One story has Carl, Felicia, Will and another man stranded on a planet plagued by perpetual rainstorms. Another has Will as a marriage counselor who watches in horror while Carl and Felicia's children plan their deaths. The third futuristic saga has Will observing Carl and Felicia on the top of a mountain as they plan to kill their children. After the three stories, Will is plagued by futuristic nightmares of Carl coming to kill him in this depressing and pessimistic film. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Impoverished and terminally ill Mexican peasant Juan Diaz (Alejandro Rey) makes a deal with gravedigger Alejandro (Frank Silvera) that will enable Juan to provide for his wife, Maria (Pina Pellecier), and their children after his death. When Maria discovers that her late husband had promised to allow Alejandro to mummify his body and display it as a tourist attraction, she takes it upon herself to break into Alejandro's crypt and steal Juan's corpse. An ironic ending caps this ghoulishly poignant Ray Bradbury story, which also boasts a typically superb Bernard Herrmann musical score. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though he'd originally intended to write several scripts for the original Twilight Zone, Ray Bradbury's sole contribution to the series was this sensitive adaptation of his own short story "I Sing the Body Electric!" Hoping to fill the void left by the death of his wife, a widower (David White) takes his children to Robots Unlimited to purchase an "electric grandmother" for the kids. The younger children (Charles Herbert) and Dana Dillaway) are delighted with their robot granny (Josephine Hutchinson), but older daughter Anna (Veronica Cartwright) is sullen and resentful -- until "Grandma" proves herself to be more human than most humans. Though the episode is generally successful, no one connected with it was satisfied, least of all director James Sheldon, who felt that star Josephine Hutchinson was not quite right in the leading role. In addition, an earlier scene with June Vincent as the kids' aunt Nedra didn't "play" on film, necessitating an expensive reshoot, directed by William F. Claxton, with Doris Packer replacing Vincent. All in all, however, "I Sing the Body Electric!" pleased the crowd when it first aired on May 18, 1962, though a much-later 60-minute TV version, "The Electric Grandmother" (1980), was closer to the spirit of the Bradbury original. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Suburbanites Bill and Cynthia Fortnam (Steve Dunne, Beatrice Straight) are a tad surprised when their 11-year-old son, Tom (Peter Lazer), receives a special-delivery package. The package turns out to contain mushroom seeds, which the industrious Tom plants and cultivates in the cellar. Although Bill is nervous about the quality of the mushrooms, they turn out to be addictively delicious; in fact, it would not be inaccurate to say that the mushrooms are "out of this world." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Previous film versions of Moby Dick insisted upon including such imbecilities as romantic subplots and happy endings. John Huston's 1956 Moby Dick remains admirably faithful to its source. "Call me Ishmael" declares itinerant whaler Richard Basehart as the opening credits fade. Though slightly intimidated by the sermon delivered by Father Mapple (Orson Welles in a brilliant one-take cameo), who warns that those who challenge the sea are in danger of losing their souls, Ishmael nonetheless signs on to the Pequod, a whaling ship captained by the brooding, one-legged Ahab (Gregory Peck). For lo these many years, Ahab has been engaged in an obsessive pursuit of Moby Dick, the great white whale to whom he lost his leg. Ahab's dementia spreads throughout the crew members, who maniacally join their captain in his final, fatal attack upon the elusive, enigmatic Moby Dick. Screenwriter Ray Bradbury masterfully captures the allegorical elements in the Herman Melville original without sacrificing any of the film's entertainment value (Bradbury suffered his own "great white whale" in the form of director Huston, who sadistically ran roughshod over the sensitive author throughout the film).Cinematographer Oswald Morris' washed-out color scheme brilliantly underlines the foredoomed bleakness of the story. Moby Dick's one major shortcoming is its obviously artificial whale-but try telling a real whale to stay within camera range and hit its marks. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A celebrated short story by Ray Bradbury is the source for this eerily entertaining episode. Detective Krovitch (Charles Bronson) shows up at a seedy vaudeville house to investigate the murder of one person and the disappearance of another. Among the suspects is an elderly ventriloquist named John Fabian (Claude Rains), who seems obsessed with his strangely alluring female dummy, named Riabouchinska. Ultimately, the detective solves both the murder and the disappearance -- but only with the help of Riabouchinska, whose voice is provided by radio actress Virginia Gregg (later the voice of another infamous character in the Hitchcock canon, namely Norman Bates' mother in Psycho). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

It Came From Outer Space is one of a handful of science fiction films from the 1950s that plays as well today as it did on its original release, this despite the fact that its original 3-D elements seem to be lost. It was also the first science fiction effort of director Jack Arnold, and one of three excellent 3-D features that he made (the others were Creature From the Black Lagoon and Revenge of the Creature) during that format's short-lived history. It was also, along with The Incredible Shrinking Man, one of the two most sophisticated films he ever made in that genre. Additionally, it was Arnold's first opportunity to use the desert setting that seemed to inspire him in some of his best subsequent movies. Based on a story by Ray Bradbury, the movie starts off in a gentle, lyrical mode, almost reminiscent of Our Town, as the narrator introduces the tiny Arizona town where the action will take place. Writer John Putnam (Richard Carlson), a new arrival to the town and an amateur astronomer, is looking at the skies with his fiancée, schoolteacher Ellen Fields (Barbara Rush), when they see what looks like a huge meteor crash into the desert. Putnam and Ellen go to the site of the crash and find a huge crater. When he goes down inside, Putnam sees what is very obviously some kind of vehicle or device embedded in the ground, but before he can show it to anyone, a rock slide buries what he saw. He reports that a spacecraft of some kind is buried there and is duly ridiculed by the local press and some of his own colleagues in the astronomical community, and even Ellen has her doubts. The local sheriff, Matt Warren (Charles Drake), is downright hostile because he believes that Putnam is not only an interloper, but has also taken Ellen away from him. Putnam is at a loss as to what to do, and doing something -- or, perhaps, not doing anything -- becomes a critical matter when various townspeople start to disappear, including Ellen, to be replaced by alien "duplicates." A small but significant part of this action is told from the standpoint of the aliens, who are only glimpsed in brief flashes as they move through the desert and the underground caves where they are hiding. Putnam ultimately comes to understand that the aliens are actually benign and only need time to repair their ship and leave; but by then, the sheriff and the rest of the town have started taking his original warning seriously and their intervention threatens the lives of everyone. Reason and a peaceful approach prevail, but only just barely, and the space travelers are allowed to go on their way -- in return, they restore the real townspeople. The movie ends on a hopeful note as Putnam predicts that someday, when we're ready here on Earth, the visitors will be back to make formal, peaceful introductions. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide