TWILIGHT SAGA

The island of Doctor Morose.

There’s cheese and there’s Philippine cheese. Cheese is mildly fragrant. Philippine cheese is chase-you-from-the-room stinky. Twilight People, for which you see a promo poster above, was made in the Philippines and it reeks to high heaven. But all is not lost—it’s also fantastically funny in parts. The story here is a scientist kidnaps John Ashley to an isolated tropical island with the aim of transplanting his personality into the members of a menagerie of feral semi-humans created as the next step in human evolution.

This scientist is not just mad—he’s a total downer. Nuclear war, pollution, overpopulation, the ecological consequences of civilization—he’s worried about it all. His ugly quasi-humans are the answer. In our opinion, anything that makes Pam Grier look less like Pam Grier is not an advancement of any kind, but whatever—she’s hairy, others are hairy, and they’re the next leap up the evolutionary ladder, so sayeth the script.

Ashley can only think of one way to escape this crazy island, which is by using his lips. He works his charms on the sad doc’s assistant Pat Woodell, who’s the only non-hirsute woman around, and pretty soon her hormones get to simmering and there’s trouble in paradise. We really can’t blame Ashley for going this route. Woodell is spectacular. Too bad the movie isn’t. Think of it as a low budget Island of Doctor Moreau, then watch that film instead. Twilight People premiered in the U.S. today in 1972.

Philippines, Twilight People, John Ashley, Pat Woodell, Pam Grier, Eddie Romero, Jan Merlin, poster art, cinema, sci-fi, movie review

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

February 11

1938—BBC Airs First Sci-Fi Program

BBC Television produces the first ever science fiction television program, an adaptation of a section of Czech writer Karel Capek’s dark play R.U.R., aka, Rossum’s Universal Robots. The robots in the play are not robots in the modern sense of machines, but rather are biological entities that can be mistaken for humans. Nevertheless, R.U.R. featured the first known usage of the term “robot”.

February 10

1962—Powers Is Traded for Abel

Captured American spy pilot Gary Powers, who had been shot down over the Soviet Union in May 1960 while flying a U-2 high-altitude jet, is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel, who had been arrested in New York City in 1957.

February 9

1960—Woodward Gets First Star on Walk of Fame

Actress Joanne Woodward receives the first star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Los Angeles sidewalk at Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street that serves as an outdoor entertainment museum. Woodward was one of 1,558 honorees chosen by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce in 1958, when the proposal to build the sidewalk was approved. Today the sidewalk contains more than 2,800 stars.

February 9

1971—Paige Enters Baseball Hall of Fame

Satchel Paige becomes the first player from America’s Negro Baseball League to be voted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Paige, who was a pitcher, played for numerous Negro League teams, had brief stints in Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Major Leagues, before finally retiring in his mid-fifties.

February 8

1969—Allende Meteorite Falls in Mexico

The Allende Meteorite, the largest object of its type ever found, falls in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. The original stone, traveling at more than ten miles per second and leaving a brilliant streak across the sky, is believed to have been approximately the size of an automobile. But by the time it hit the Earth it had broken into hundreds of fragments.