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movie poster
I
have many songs, pieces of music or whatever, that I will always remember
the moment, situation or place I was when I heard it; a case in point
is the theremin;
ok, it's not a song but it fits in there. The first time I heard the
sound of the instrument I was 11 years old and had discovered Sci-Fi in books and films several years earlier. As far as films go, I
was used to the funky stuff, Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon, the VERY low budget Man From Planet X, etc.,
so, from the moment the The Day the Earth Stood Still opened with the electrifying (pun intended) music score by
Bernard Herrmann with the quivering, other-worldly sound of the theremin, which sent shivers up and down my spine (it still does), I was
transfixed in my seat! The film score by Herrmann
is sensational; it is in my pantheon of the top ten film scores of all
time. I think it with the excellent production values are what makes Day the Earth
the Grandfather of the modern Sci-Fi film age.
The next technological/sonic breakthroughs would happen again 17 years later with the Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey . . .
. . . then 35 years later with Star Wars.
Today, August 25, is the birthday of Michael Rennie who starred as Klaatu, the alien from the flying saucer in The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Michael Rennie was a 6' 4" tall British film, television and stage actor, born in 1909, in Idle near Bradford, West Riding of West Yorkshire, England. He appeared in more than fifty films but is best remembered for his starring role as the space visitor Klaatu in the 1951 Sci-Fi film, The Day the Earth Stood Still.
He attracted the interest of a casting director at Gaumont British
who took him on as an extra. Rennie said this was a deliberate strategy
so he could learn how films were made. Head of production Michael Balcon
said Rennie was taken on "because he was good-looking and athletic. He
knew nothing of acting, but was given a contract to play small parts
and to work as stand-in for players such as Robert Young and John Loder.
Rennie's first screen acting was an uncredited bit part in the Alfred Hitchcock film Secret Agent (1936), standing in for Robert Young. Balcon says he saw Rennie act in a scene in East Meets West
(1936) and fired him immediately afterwards. Balcon wrote "I had seen
the rushes of that day's filming and had at once decided that Rennie was
far too inexperienced to justify big screen parts."
Rennie worked mostly in Yorkshire, eventually becoming a star with the
York Repertory Company. Among his roles were as Professor Henry Higgins
in Pygmalion, a play by George Bernard Shaw, which was later made into the 1956 musical My Fair Lady .
During
World War II, Rennie began to receive offers for film roles but
continued repertory work honing his craft. He enlisted in the RAF Volunteer Reserve
on 27 May 1941. "There has been a pause in Rennie's film career", wrote
Balcon in 1942. "But there will be parts awaiting him when the war is
over"
With the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, Rennie was given his first film break, when cast alongside Margaret Lockwood, then at the peak of her popularity, in the musical I'll Be Your Sweetheart (1945), directed by Val Guest.
The movie was not a big hit but Rennie received excellent notices, including a review from the US trade paper Variety
who said his performance made the film "noteworthy" and that he was . . .
". . . likely Hollywood material... the best bet in the way of a new male star to have come out of a British studio in many years. Rennie not only has a lot on the ball as a straight lead, he knows the value of visual tricks. Femmes will go for him in a big way."
He followed this with The Wicked Lady in 1945. Rennie was the fifth lead
but it was a good part and
an excellent project to be associated with – the year's biggest
box-office hit, subsequently being listed ninth on a list of top ten
highest-grossing British films of all time.
Rennie's prestige was raised when he was given a single prominent scene as a commander of Roman centurions in the Gabriel Pascal production of Caesar and Cleopatra by George Bernard Shaw (also 1945), starring Vivien Leigh and Claude Rains.
Rennie was now established as a leading actor. One report called him
"the bobbysoxers' dark idol... Gainsborough's 1945 discovery." He was
mobbed by female fans on a personal appearance tour.
In 1950, he was one of several English actors cast in the 20th Century Fox medieval adventure story The Black Rose starring Tyrone Power and Orson Welles. Rennie was specifically cast as the 13th-century King Edward I, whose 6' 2" (1.88 m) frame gave origin to his historical nickname "Longshanks".
After Claude Rains turned down the role, Rennie received top billing in his next film, The Day the Earth Stood Still, the first postwar, large-budget, "A" science-fiction
film. It was a serious, high-minded exploration of mid-20th century
suspicion and paranoia, combined with a philosophical overview of
humanity's coming place in the larger universe. Rennie said director
Robert Wise told him to do the role "with dignity but not with
superiority". (The story was later dramatised in 1954 on Lux Radio Theatre, with Rennie and Billy Gray recreating their original film roles. Seven years later, on 3 March 1962, when The Day the Earth Stood Still made its television premiere on the NBC Saturday Night at the Movies, Rennie appeared in a two-minute introductory prologue before the start of the film.)
He appeared in the film Seven Cities of Gold in 1955 with Richard Egan and Anthony Quinn, and with them again in Demetrius and the Gladiators (link below). His film career only went up from there.
Michael Rennie - 1958
photo: CBS Television
During a visit to his mother's home in Harrogate, Yorkshire, following the death of his brother, Rennie died suddenly of an aortic aneurysm almost two months before his 62nd birthday.
Viewfinder links:
Net links:
The Day the Earth Stood Still ~
Klaatu barada nikto! (interpretation)
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