Classic Horrors Club

With William Alland now producing, Dorothy Brown (Marcia Henderson) is becoming a more important character in World of Giants (WOG). In ‘Chemical Story,’ she gets to travel with Mel (Marshall Thompson) and Bill (Arthur Franz) to Washington D.C. to visit the commissioner. (This begs the question, where do our heroes live? I always assumed the office and Mel’s “dream house” were also in D.C.)

Regardless, when the men infiltrate a lab that produces the rare, priceless element, yttrium, and the bad guys take off with Bill’s briefcase and, long story short, Mel gets locked in a refrigerator, Dorothy even gets to help Bill follow clues to find him. Thank goodness Mel is so clever. Since he has bottles of yttrium with him inside the briefcase, he can leave a glowing powder behind for them to trace.

I did not recognize him, but Gavin MacLeod plays the bad guy, Arthur Olson. Perhaps if he and the conniving Alice Lane (Peggie Castle) had gotten tickets for a cruise rather than for a flight to El Paso, they may have escaped capture. On the other hand, he delivers potentially lethal action by putting Bill’s briefcase in the fridge. Mel tries desperately to turn up the temperature. Then, when he hears Bill and Dorothy, short circuits it so that the power goes out and Dorothy can spot the glowing powder. 

‘Chemical Story’ was written by Meyer Dolinsky, who followed episodes of WOG and Men Into Space in the 1950s with The Outer Limits, The Invaders, and Star Trek (‘Plato’s Stepchildren’) in the 1960s. His co-writer was Robert C. Dennis, a more seasoned veteran at the time, but ultimately had fewer genre credits.

Our featured creator this week, though, is the episode’s director, Eugene Lourie. He knew a thing or two about size; he helmed The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), The Colossus of New York (1958), The Giant Behemoth (1959), and Gorgo (1961.) He has three times as many credits as production designer and art direction than he does as director, though. While he worked on some genre fare during his career, he was Oscar-nominated in 1970 (along with Alex Weldon) for Best Effects, Special Visual Effects for the adventure Krakatoa: East of Java.

Lourie was born in Karhov, Russia, in 1903, and moved to Paris at the age of 16 to study painting and stage design. He became known for working with Jean Renoir and was the sole art director for The Grand Illusion (1937.) Moving to the United States, he was art director for Charlie Chaplin’s final American film, Limelight (1952), before becoming somewhat a specialist in giant monster movies. He died of a stroke and heart failure in Los Angeles on May 26, 1991. One of his final jobs was as production designer for one of my favorite movies, Burnt Offerings (1976.)