Kendra (Lynne Frederick) gets a close look at the enemy in Saul Bass’s cult classic, Phase IV
PHASE IV (Saul Bass, 1974)
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
August 4-10
212-660-0312
metrograph.com
Metrograph’s celebration of the career of logo designer, title credits innovator, and Oscar-winning director Saul Bass has just added his sole feature film, the 1974 sci-fi thriller Phase IV. The long-unavailable work, which was comically crucified on Mystery Science Theater 3000, is an underrated gem, a thinking person’s horror film that is too intellectual for its own good. As the result of some kind of space anomaly, ants are doing things that they’re not supposed to do, communicating among different ant species and developing what appears to be a surprising sentience and intelligence. Dr. Ernest D. Hubbs (Nigel Davenport) and scientist and mathematician James Lesko (Michael Murphy) head out to an awesomely shaped circular lab in the middle of the Arizona desert, where the ant rebellion has begun. Dr. Hubbs tells the Eldridge clan — Mr. Eldridge (Alan Gifford), his wife, Mildred (Helen Horton), their granddaughter, Kendra (Lynne Frederick), and ranch hand Clete (Robert Henderson) — that they’re being evacuated for their own safety, but they don’t listen until it’s too late. As Dr. Hubbs and Lesko continue their complex study of the ants, the creatures start playing a fascinating cat-and-mouse game with the humans, challenging them both mentally and physically. The ants even show more compassion and consideration for their dead; while Dr. Hubbs refuses to mourn the Eldridge grandparents, the ants hold a touching ceremony for their fallen. It all leads to a surreal, psychedelic finale that is part 2001: A Space Odyssey, part Colossus: The Forbin Project, and part The Holy Mountain. Don’t expect the conclusion to make much sense, especially because Paramount edited it down from its original glory (while leaving some bits of it in the official trailer); you can watch the full ending here; it’s a doozy.
While most genre movies make their killer creatures giant, like Empire of the Ants, The Deadly Mantis, and Them!, Bass keeps his bugs regular size, but they are often shot in spectacular close-ups by National Geographic time-lapse expert and insect photographer Ken Middleham (The Hellstrom Chronicle, Damnation Alley), making them appear to be enormous. Despite their size, the ants build some amazing structures, one a Stonehenge-like series of towers that would make Spinal Tap drool. (The production designer was John Barry, who later worked on the Star Wars and Superman series, while Dick Bush did the less-than-stellar cinematography.) The script, by playwright and screenwriter Mayo Simon (Futureworld, Marooned), is no mere stale Cold War parable or military manifesto but subtly references totalitarianism and communism while recognizing the coming climate change crisis. (In 1980, Bass would make The Solar Film with his wife, Elaine, about solar energy.) Meanwhile, the creepy, ominous score is by Brian Gascoigne, Stomu Yamashta, David Vorhaus, and Desmond Briscoe. Davenport (A Man for All Seasons, Bram Stoker’s Dracula) is gruff as the determined Hubbs, while the sensitive Murphy (Manhattan, An Unmarried Woman) and Frederick (Voyage of the Damned, Nicholas and Alexandra) form a sweetly innocent bond. The film is quite a warning, one that humankind is clearly still not taking seriously all these years later. Phase IV — which was also poorly marketed, as evidenced by the poster at left — is screening August 4-10 at Metrograph in the new Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ year-long residency there, which also includes the program “Why Man Creates — the Work of Saul Bass,” consisting of the Bronx-born Bass’s Why Man Creates, which won the Academy Award for Best Short Documentary Subject, The Solar Film, Saul Bass: In His Own Words, a trailer reel, a commercial reel, and classic title sequences.