"The Outer Limits" producer Joseph Stefano has been quoted as saying, regarding the episode "Tourist Attraction," that it was "the closest we ever came to those kinds of shlocky sci-fi movies that overran the 1950s," and a rewatch of this episode #13 last night has only reinforced the veracity of that remark. Whereas many of the first season "OL" episodes have greatly impressed me by dint of their resemblance to European art films, "Tourist Attraction" does indeed strike the viewer as a throwback homage of sorts to the kind of Saturday afternoon matinée films that the fortunate kiddies of the 1950s were able to see in their neighborhood theaters as part of a mind-warping double bill. In this episode, which I had memories of as one of the lesser Season 1 episodes, business bigwig John Dexter--portrayed by the great Ralph Meeker, late of such films as the classic sleaze noir "Kiss Me Deadly" (1955) and "Paths of Glory" ('57)--goes on a fishing expedition in the Central American country of San Blas. He manages to capture an enormous creature in Lake Aripana that is apparently a cross between a fish and a dinosaur, and plans to bring it back to the States with him. This does not sit well with the country's ruling despot, General Juan Mercurio (the great character actor Henry Silva, who many might recall from his earlier work on such classic films as 1960's "Ocean's Eleven" and 1962's "The Manchurian Candidate," and who would star in an upcoming "OL" episode, "The Mice"), who quickly redubs the find Ichthyosaurus Mercurius and demands the creature be kept in San Blas, to be exhibited in the country's World Fair. Dexter, a callous, unemotional, overbearing tyrant of sorts himself, plots to smuggle the gigantic whatsit on his own plane back to America, all the while arguing with his secretary/galpal, Lynn (Janet Blair, who, the previous year, had appeared in the "psychotronic" film "Burn, Witch, Burn"). But all heck breaks loose when the creature's sonic cries for help bring forth a whole gaggle of its fellow Ichthies from the waters of Lake Aripana....
"Tourist Attraction" feels like a somewhat padded episode for me, with shots of a Carnivale-type of affair, long passages of underwater scuba diving and so on...not to mention TWO expositional commentaries from the "Control Voice" during the course of the episode itself! Screenwriter Dean Riesner's script is middling at best, with touches of Stefano frills here and there, and Hungarian director Laslo Benedek's helming of the film is competent, if no more. Fortunately, the episode still manages to please, largely by dint of the three performances by the leading players, and the FX on display here. Indeed, I have long thought that the look of the so-called "bears" in this episode to be very impressive (I can hear you laffing at that remark), and well recall the first time that I saw them. I was a high school kid at the time (more decades ago than I care to admit), and watching this episode on a local station here in NYC one Saturday afternoon while in the process of getting what Jay Thomas has referred to as "herbed up." Maybe it was my state of mind, but when those creatures arose from the waters of Lake Aripana, my eyes were just boggling out of my head. I couldn't believe what I was seeing! The crew responsible for these critters--Byron Haskin, Wah Chang and all of Projects Unlimited--is to be commended for a job well done. These critters were apparently not only difficult to produce, but also impossible to maneuver underwater--one of the men inside his creature suit almost drowned. The creation of these monsters also busted the budget for this landmark series yet again. But the bottom line is that despite the excellent creature FX, "Tourist Attraction" remains one of the lesser efforts of the generally superb Season 1. It is NOT artful, like so many of the other episodes that came before and would soon follow, but it yet still manages to entertain. Fortunately, the series would rebound in a big way the following week with one of its most fondly remembered outings..."The Zanti Misfits"!!!
"Tourist Attraction" feels like a somewhat padded episode for me, with shots of a Carnivale-type of affair, long passages of underwater scuba diving and so on...not to mention TWO expositional commentaries from the "Control Voice" during the course of the episode itself! Screenwriter Dean Riesner's script is middling at best, with touches of Stefano frills here and there, and Hungarian director Laslo Benedek's helming of the film is competent, if no more. Fortunately, the episode still manages to please, largely by dint of the three performances by the leading players, and the FX on display here. Indeed, I have long thought that the look of the so-called "bears" in this episode to be very impressive (I can hear you laffing at that remark), and well recall the first time that I saw them. I was a high school kid at the time (more decades ago than I care to admit), and watching this episode on a local station here in NYC one Saturday afternoon while in the process of getting what Jay Thomas has referred to as "herbed up." Maybe it was my state of mind, but when those creatures arose from the waters of Lake Aripana, my eyes were just boggling out of my head. I couldn't believe what I was seeing! The crew responsible for these critters--Byron Haskin, Wah Chang and all of Projects Unlimited--is to be commended for a job well done. These critters were apparently not only difficult to produce, but also impossible to maneuver underwater--one of the men inside his creature suit almost drowned. The creation of these monsters also busted the budget for this landmark series yet again. But the bottom line is that despite the excellent creature FX, "Tourist Attraction" remains one of the lesser efforts of the generally superb Season 1. It is NOT artful, like so many of the other episodes that came before and would soon follow, but it yet still manages to entertain. Fortunately, the series would rebound in a big way the following week with one of its most fondly remembered outings..."The Zanti Misfits"!!!