Monday, July 6, 2009

1951 - FIVE-nuclear war end of the world story

 The Writer/Producer/Director of Five was a radio writer named Arch Oboler. He was frequently thought of as Orson Welles light. There is nothing light weight about his 1951 film, Five. It's an interesting little film about the after effects of nuclear war on five survivors. This film was made entirely on location for about $75,000 with a crew of college students. 

 

The actors are not well known Hollywood personalities and the whole look of the film almost has a European feel to it with it's stark filming style, and some creative use of sound particularly towards the end, when two of the survivors explore the empty city.

 
 
Today's film people run around from city to city attending independent film festivals where young filmmakers force their low budget junk on audiences in a shot for artistic relevance. A film like Five shows that creative people had been working in this medium long before fancy digital film making software was available working with very low budgets.
 
 
 
 Arch Oboler sounds like an interesting character, he was a pioneer in 3D movie making with films like Bwana Devil and The Twonky. Today Hollywood is convinced that 3D will save their accelerating extinct business. If it's new it's old.

The screenplay was by Arch Obler, the running time is 91 minutes.

 

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