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Date Posted: 04:41:41 10/31/07 Wed
Author: Rick
Subject: Re: Mongo to Mars and Orson Welles
In reply to: Officer Torch 's message, "Re: Why would Barin take charge of the Forest Kingdom?" on 20:11:39 10/30/07 Tue


Mars was filmed the last 8 weeks of 1937. The story was written earlier that summer. The serial was released March 1938. This was long before Orson's "War of the World's" radio broadcast on Halloween 1938. I don't think Welles' radio telecast had anything to do with the locale changes from Mongo to Mars. The timeframe is too far apart.

That November, Universal cashed in on Orson's radio broadcast with a condensed feature cut of the serial, edited by Joe Gluck. Entitled, "Mars Attacks the World", it outgrossed several higher profile films.




Rick

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[> [> [> [> Re: Mongo to Mars and Orson Welles -- Officer Torch, 08:05:56 10/31/07 Wed [1]

I stand corrected, anytime,(but am a tad confused..so help me out there, or I'll dispatch the orangapoid to ring your doorbell this Halloween).
Yeah..seems W.O.W. was indeed broadcast over radio by Orson Welles Halloween of 1938. Seems several write-ups I came across tied FG Mars into this, but what Rick indicates makes sense... and, I just checked a couple of solid sites, one by a Judy Harris re her FG Mars commentary, and another on a site EOFFTV re Timelines.
Harris indicates the serial was considerably edited and re-released under title Mars Attacks the World in the wake of the notariety of Orson Welles' W.O.W. radio broadcast. The EOFFTV site shows Timelines of copyrights for Feb thru April of 1938. So, the Halloween W.O.W. broadcast was some time after copyright grants. OK..and it would seem logical that writing etc would have been earlier.

Hmm...my curiousity has piqued now...as to how/who/why etc our FG hero/team wound up on Mars at all? Coincidence? W.O.W. script leaks maybe? I recall write-ups/reviews where some commentators talk of W.O.W. influencing the FG Mars serial.
It is Halloween today, I will now impersonate Boris Karloff's Frankenstein monster (you guys apply the voiceover/accents)...."Friend! Friend?"...any further ideas/comments why FG was placed on Mars? Maybe to meet John Carter? or little green men...grrr...drink, goooood!


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[> [> [> [> [> Re: Mongo to Mars and Orson Welles -- Emperorofmongo, 17:55:05 10/31/07 Wed [1]

I stand even MORE corrected by the time sequence.
Was there any other things martian going on while the FGTTM project and script were in development?


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[> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Mongo to Mars and Orson Welles -- Officer Torch, 19:59:31 10/31/07 Wed [1]

I'm spookin' myself out in a way looking on websites about this...W.O.W. literally and figuratively might have been deeper than thought! Perhaps complex; maybe disturbing.. unless I'm reading too much into this, but I'm gonna ease up on it. If your interested, keep in mind Hitler in Europe about that time. Also, possibly conspiracy theories here and maybe cover ups. If you're game, type in Orson Welles War of the Worlds in a search engine, and go surfing. Be sure to check stuff in Wikipedia, especially following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(radio)#Conspiracy_theory


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[> [> [> [> Re: Mongo to Mars and Orson Welles -- EmperorofMongo, 15:49:25 11/03/07 Sat [1]

The Orson Welles' connection was obviusly impossible, but Rick, you said
"The Universal backlot was used as the exotic Mars locale to save on money. At some point, one of the writers thought of Mars as the locale for the 1938 serial and there's your title switch. I'd imagine the red planet could have been in another 30's film's story. Writers are always looking stories over."

So without my confusion about War of the Worlds, Baron taking charge of the Forest Kingdom still could have been an incomplete re-write of an earlier reference to Arboria.

Or have I been breathing Ming's gas that only "works on the weaker kinds of minds"?

BTW-few trick or treaters this year. I was all alone going down the street with my plastic bag!


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[> [> [> [> [> Re: Mongo to Mars and Orson Welles -- Rick, 13:21:41 11/04/07 Sun [1]


Rewrites can be done when writing a script in any draft of the screenplay before the studio approves it for filming. Or right there at the set or the backlot as they're filming the serial.

When a studio has a budget crisis, location filming can't be done far away from the studio. The budget was so reduced because of lost profits by Laemmle. This in turn, made the new producers cut the budget to a minimum of $175,000. The 1936 serial was at or around $350,000 dollars, the most expensive one ever made. Initially, it was 1 million, but they scaled it down.

The reduced budget is true in the case of Trip to Mars and the backlot dressed as the Forest Kingdom to economize. The producers look over the final script and make the decisions. They're the men who are making the film, so they have the final approval. In this case, it was Charles Rogers and Barney Sarecky.

The final season of Star Trek ( 1968-69 ) had such a high budget, they were only able to film one episode ( "The Paradise Syndrome" ) on location at Franklin Lake. By the time they wanted to shoot "The Savage Curtain", it was December 1968 and they didn't have enough daylight, so it was all shot on the soundstage.

The 1969-70 season of Mission: Impossible was affected by a filmmaker at Paramount who produced a movie that put them in bad financial trouble in the seven digit catagory. Shooting took place at the studio. In a few exceptions they could do a few local shots, but not much.

As for Welles and Trip to Mars, he was nowhere in sight until 1939. He had no bearing on the 1938 serial film's title switch. One of the writers made the change while working on the screenplay in 1937. That said, Mars has the distinction of being the only 30's sound film that took place on the planet of the same name.



Rick


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