THE BLACK HOLE (1979) Lobby Cards

 

Courtesy of Star Kid Paul Quinn, here is a selection of colorful lobby cards from Disney's 1979 entry in the post-Star Wars cinematic space opera wave, The Black Hole. These scans are from a set of reproductions included in the 1999 special "tin box" VHS edition of the film, released by Anchor Bay Entertainment.

This is a cool collection, because aside from the familiar "rolling meteor" shot above, and the standard aft shot of the Cygnus, there are a bunch of lesser-seen stills from the movie included in this set. Enjoy.

And, before I forget, I'd like to express my appreciation for the late Maximilian Schell, who portrayed the demented Doctor Hans Reinhardt in The Black Hole, who passed away just a few weeks ago on February 1st. The highly-respected and acclaimed Austrian actor was 83 years of age. R.I.P.

Behind-The-Scenes Pix #47: THE HUMANOID

An Italian effects crew sets up a miniature shot during production of 1979's The Humanoid, director Aldo Lado's answer to Star Wars, starring Richard Kiel and Barbara Bach. I finally got to see the film last year, and while it's not as much fun as Starcrash, it is enjoyably goofy.

I actually thought the spaceship miniatures were pretty decent (as evidenced above), even if the effects techniques themselves were primitive in comparison to their Hollywood competitors.

FLASH GORDON (1980) Hawkmen Teaser Art

I may be mistaken, but I believe that this poster by artist Philip Castle was the first piece of publicity art released for the Mike Hodges-directed Flash Gordon feature film in 1980.

I remember seeing this art of Vultan's Hawkmen attacking the war rocket Ajax, in Starlog and other genre fan magazines months and months before the film's release. I assume that it was a piece of repurposed pre-production art. In any case, I'm glad I finally found a decent scan of it....

BUCK ROGERS Leukemia Society PSA

From 1980, here's a rare TV clip: a public service spot for the Leukemia Society of America, featuring Gil Gerard and the cast of Buck Rogers in The 25th Century.

ZARDOZ (1974) International Posters

To me, John Boorman's bizarre 1974 mindbender, Zardoz, is one of those movies. You know, the kind of sci-fi film that seems really profound when you're a high school-aged teenager, but when you see it again years later, just seems kind of pretentious and goofy. That doesn't mean to suggest that I don't like the movie - I do, and even own the main U.S. one-sheet pictured above.

It's been more than a decade (maybe two!) since I last viewed this surreal Sean Connery vehicle - I do have the DVD, though I've never actually watched it. I think I'll have to dust it off and give it a spin sometime this year. I wonder what my reaction will be this time?

In any case, here's a small selection of International theatrical posters for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy.

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK Soundtrack Ad

Over Christmas with the family, I was surprised to discover that my teenaged niece was a big Star Wars fan. Of course, I was too, when I was her age, but it wasn't quite the same back then. For one thing, there wasn't all the cool collectible stuff back in my teens. Early on, practically all we had were the paperback novelizations, the Marvel comics, some tee-shirts and the soundtrack albums on vinyl LPs.

Today I've got this whimsical newspaper advertisement (from the UK, I believe, though I may be mistaken) for the John Williams Empire Strikes Back soundtrack album. Really needs a comma between Jaws and Dracula, though... unless there was a vampire shark movie I missed?

Universal Announces: THE BATTLE OF GALACTICA... LIVE!

Happy New Year! Today we've got this colorful 1980 magazine advertisement announcing Universal Studios' then-new "Battle Of Galactica" attraction. Part of the Hollywood Universal Studio Tour for a decade or so, this immersive, Battlestar Galactica-themed attraction featured animatornic Cylons and other sinister aliens (including a few insectoid Ovions) attempting to hijack a tourist-filled tram for nefarious purposes.

You can view a video of the attraction HERE.

Season's Greetings from Space: 1970

Here's wishing you all a very fine holiday season and a fantastic New Year! Thank you for your interest in this blog - and special thanks to those who recently supported my efforts here with donations. The plan is to get back to more regular posting after the holidays.

And yes - I listen to this album every year!

BUCK ROGERS Toy Art by Earl Norem

Despite the low quality of the above scan, it's still clear that this painting by Earl Norem, which graced the box of HG Toys' Buck Rogers In The 25th Century Galactic Playset back in '79, is a pretty fine representation of the Gil Gerard series and its universe (although the blonde bears no resemblance to Erin Gray, whatosever).

The "Galactic Playset" was a repackaging of a space toy that had been around since the late Sixties under various names, with the addition of a few Earth Starfighters and Draconian Hatchet Fighters to tie it in with the series. A quick look around the Internet shows that this set is commanding fairly high prices on auction and collectible sites - though not quite as much as the original Norem painting, which is currently being offered on eBay with an asking price of $1,800!

UPDATE: Here's a higher-quality scan of the left side of the painting:

News: THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN Season 5 DVDs Announced

For those of us who didn't buy the deluxe, Time-Life complete series set of The Six Million Dollar Man a few years ago, the good news is that the fifth and final season of the show will be receiving its standalone DVD release on February 18, 2014 from Universal Home Entertainment:

In Season 5 of this science fiction cult classic, the dangers are never greater and the assignments never more impossible as Steve Austin tackles national security threats on land, beneath the sea, and beyond the stars. 

Summoning every last atom of his bionic strength, Austin leaps into action against man-eating sharks, a reawakened Bigfoot, a murderous computer, hostile extraterrestrials, treasonous space explorers, and a nastily revitalized scientific probe. Revisit the astounding astronaut's final journeys in this unprecedented, digitally remastered DVD set featuring 21 uncut episodes!

This final Season not only includes Colonel Steve Austin (Lee Majors) in rematches with both the Bionic Bigfoot and the dreaded Venus Death Probe, but also features guest shots by a number of Space: 1970 favorite thespians, such as Pamela Hensley (Buck Rogers), Jenny Agutter (the Logan's Run feature), Ted Cassidy (Genesis II and Planet Earth), Rick Springfield (Battlestar Galactica), Jack Colvin (The Incredible Hulk), Jared Martin (The Fantastic Journey), Bibi Besch (Star Trek II), and in the final episode, John Colicos (Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, The Starlost).

The six-disc set has a suggested retail price of $39.95, and will not contain the extra disc of bonus material included in the Time-Life edition.

Behind-The-Scenes Pix #46: KING KONG

Jessica Lange is in good hands in this rare behind-the-scenes shot of the full-scale animatronic gorilla arms built for Dino de Laurentiis' production of King Kong, on the blue-screen stage in 1975-76. Carlo Rambaldi's much-hyped, life-size robot Kong turned out to be an unconvincing dud, but these robot appendages were actually pretty remarkable feats of 70s engineering...

Captain's bLog: 1125.13

• It's been a long time since I've posted anything here - over a month, in fact - and this is the first post I've made in November... and that's nearly over. I even missed marking Space: 1970's fourth anniversary on the 1st. Really rather embarrassed about that.

I have no good excuse. November's just been a bad month for me overall, writing-wise, and this site has suffered from that unfortunate (and frustrating) motivational drought along with all my other writing projects.

But that doesn't entirely account for the reduced posting here since the Summer. I've kinda been feeling like it's getting harder to find cool images to post, and the more involved articles - essays, film and DVD reviews, "Fave Episodes," "Fave Fives," "Hall of Fame," etc . - well, it's always been difficult for me to make the time to really do them up properly. And that's always been frustrating, because, for me, anyway, those are the most personal and satisfying posts to write.

Another factor in my Space: 1970 ennui is that due to recent changes in my state's tax laws, I no longer receive any kickbacks from Amazon's affiliate program. Don't get me wrong - this site was never about making money, and it never amounted to much anyway, but the couple hundred bucks a year at least helped me justify to myself the time and effort I put into Space: 1970, and it did allow me to buy more cool 70s sci-fi stuff (videos, books) for my collection. (I do still have the Paypal button over in the right-hand sidebar, but nobody's donated anything in over a year.)

Now, I know this all sounds pretty grim, but I'm not about to abandon this blog. My passion for disco-era sci-fi (and sci-fi disco, for that matter) hasn't diminished one iota. I'm just going through an extended  low-energy phase (or as they're referred to around here, a "funk"), and with a little luck, I'll be back up to speed soon. In the meantime, I'll try to scrape up a few more interesting photos over the next few weeks so the site doesn't go completely fallow. I appreciate your patience.

•  I did pick up the Hanna-Barbara series Space Stars on DVD from Warner Archive, and will try to post a review here soon. I will say now that the transfers are surprisingly good, and Warners has included some fun additional content that was not included in their original network airings. If you're a fan, it's a great package.

In upcoming video releases, I'm definitely still looking forward to the imminent release of 1980's Stanley Donen sci-fi gothic, Saturn 3, on Blu-ray from Shout! Factory, which goes on sale on December 3rd.

I'm somewhat less excited about Sony's new manufactured-on-demand Salvage 1discs - I'm deeply annoyed that the studio has chosen to release only a couple of random episodes on standalone (expensive) discs, rather than assemble a complete series package. Also, my interest in the show diminished after the moonshot pilot, so I have little incentive to pick up these releases. If you're interested, TV Shows On DVD has the release info and packaging pics.

• Friend of the blog/Star Kid Paul Quinn recently sent me some cool stuff - all but one of the Beyond Westworld episodes and the 1983 Roger Corman flick Space Raiders, along with a complete run of Starlog magazine on DVD-ROM. This kind of "audience participation" certainly helps motivate me to keep plugging away at Space: 1970, and I wanted to publicly thank him for his generosity.

• Finally, I'm still working on my sci-fi adventure webcomic, Perils On Planet X, which is illustrated by the talented Gene Gonzales, and colored by the equally-talented Ian Sokoliwski. It runs a page a week, with a new one posted every Friday, and it's absolutely free. We're about halfway through the second chapter now, and the story is moving along like a rocket, packed with Flash Gordon-styled pulp thrills. I hope you'll check it out, if you haven't already.