I'd seen Terror In The Midnight Sun back in 2010 and posted about it. I enjoyed it but hadn't watched it since. Last week I was in DreamHaven, owner Greg mentioned the movie and that there were two different American versions. I was pretty sure I hadn't seen either. I looked and they're not in My Watched Movie List, I don't mention it on my post either. Here's a bit of an explanation of the versions from the IMDb page for the movie. I've added links to the versions I could find online.
- (1) "Terror in the Midnight Sun" is the original Swedish version which was shot in English with a running time of 69 minutes.
- (2) "Invasion of the Animal People" is the title of the original U.S. theater release in which Jerry Warren removed approximately 24 minutes from the 69 minute original version. Scenes of John Carridine and others were shot and added to the remaining footage. The remaining footage was changed around, stock music cues and narration by Carridine were added. This U.S. theatre version ran only 55 minutes.
- (3)"Invasion of the Animal People" was the title retained for the version distributed to television by Medallion. Some of the cut Swedish footage was restored and Jerry Warren shot additional scenes to pad the running time up to 81 minutes, nearly 12 minutes longer than the original version.
The version of TITMS in the title link above is the version missing the shower scene. The DVD I bought after our conversation has the #1 version, running 69 mins with shower scene, the one on YouTube is 71 minutes. Not sure why, especially since the shower scene, barely a minute plus, is missing. The DVD has a copy of Invasion Of The Animal People, the 3rd version listed above. I wasn't able to find a copy of that to post. TITMS looks pretty good but IOTAP doesn't look as nice, it's a bit fuzzier.
I enjoyed Terror In The Midnight Sun all over again. It's a well made movie with a fairly efficient story. The cast is good, the sets and props are well made, the locations are quite nice at times. The effects are fairly good and so is the monster, considering that it was the only SF film made in Sweden at the time. There might be too much skiing.
The script was by Arthur C Pierce, it was his 2nd feature film, he'd written a short film and an episode of The Silent Service. The Cosmic Man was his first film, I hadn't seen it, I found I'd downloaded a copy some time ago but hadn't ever got around to watching it, I'll be checking that out soon. Pierce followed TITMS with Beyond The Time Barrier and The Human Duplicators. He wrote several other low budget films that weren't always great but were usually interesting to watch.
Terror In The Midnight Sun was directed by Virgil W Vogel, his first three features were The Mole People, The Kettles On Old McDonald's Farm and The Land Unknown. I've seen all of those 3 or 4 times each. After he finished The Land Unknown Virgil started directing TV. After TITMS he only directed on more theatrical feature, The Sword Of Ali Baba, but he did direct several TV movies and lots of TV episodes.
Barbara Wilson plays an Olympic figure skater who is in Sweden. The fellow is Sten Gester, he plays a scientist who joins the fellow below on a trip to investigate a meteor that landed in Lapland.
That's the team there, military men transported them to Lapland. They encounter the big furry monster pretty often. The military men attack on first site but their pistols and rifles are ineffective.
There's plenty of action, mostly skiing but a good bit of monster screen time. The aliens make an appearance or two and eventually things are wrapped up fairly well. There's even time for a bit of romance. I liked the way it looked and would want to watch it again sometime.
I can't say that for the two versions Jerry Warren cobbled together out of his lack of imagination. His added footage is terrible, the writing is poor and everything else about it sucks. He takes a good film and ruins it, twice. He even chose a stupid title for his version. The short version is the worst of the two, at least the TV version has more of the interesting original footage added back.
If Jerry were alive he'd be right in line for a smash in the nut sack from the disinterred skull of Paul Naschy. I'd take a running start on this one, flailing my skull wielding arm like a windmill of bones. Luckily Jerry is dead, he won't have to stand up to the mighty power of Paul Naschy's testicle obliterating skull of vengeance. I'll have a chance to complain more about Jerry in the near future. I just picked up 3 volumes of Jerry's so called work from Kit Parker Films and VCI.
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