ADAPT OR DIE: MALZBERG'S PHASE IV

by Nathaniel Poggiali

The sci-fi thriller PHASE IV, graphic designer Saul Bass’s only feature film as director, had a chilly reception from audiences in 1974 and fell into obscurity for many years. Thanks to home video, an appearance on Mystery Science Theater 3000, and recent screenings that restored Bass’s original ending, the film has gained something of a cult following.

Award-winning sci-fi author Barry N. Malzberg penned a novelization of PHASE IV for Pocket Books. Malzberg called the Mayo Simon screenplay “wretched” (The Business of Science Fiction 62) and claims to have written the book in four or five days (60), yet his adaptation seems unhurried and is a strong example of developing thinly drawn characters and motivations for another medium. It differs significantly from the film in the way it presents the evolutionary climax and its build-up almost exclusively from the humans’ perspective, detailing the events as a psychological suspense tale quite unlike the clinical approach of the film.

At a research outpost in the Arizona desert, senior scientist Hubbs (Nigel Davenport) and cryptology specialist Lesko (Michael Murphy) investigate the death of livestock and various insect species at a nearby, and abandoned, housing development. Hubbs traces the deaths to an aggressive strain of ants that are being controlled by an extraterrestrial intelligence emanating from a cluster of dirt monoliths. Lesko attempts to understand the ants by breaking down their actions and communication patterns but Hubbs, impatient for a reaction from the insects, destroys the dirt towers.

Mr. and Mrs. Eldridge and granddaughter Kendra (Lynne Frederick) live nearby and have stubbornly refused to leave despite a government order. One night the ants attack Kendra's horse and eat it alive, and the Eldridges flee their home, seeking shelter at Hubbs's outpost. When Hubbs sprays pesticide as a defense against the insects, the Eldridges are killed and Kendra ends up with the two scientists. Meanwhile, the ants adapt to Hubbs’s insecticide and lay siege to the outpost, cutting off power and leaving the humans helpless. Eventually, only Lesko remains to locate the ant queen and exterminate her. He must descend into the earth and confront Kendra, who may be the queen in human form.

The release version sees Kendra, presumably under the influence of the ants, leading Lesko to his fate in an abrupt, bizarre, and downbeat conclusion. Bass and Simon’s original climax was a montage of hallucinatory visuals that depicted “Phase IV” as a melding of humanity and insect into the next stage of existence. This ending was shortened before the film's release, but the full version has been screened recently and the finale can be seen on YouTube. Because of the uplifting music score and Bass’s poetic, visionary images, the original ending seems optimistic about the human race: It’s implied that “Phase IV” is a natural adaptation of humans and insects to ensure survival.

Bass and Simon develop their theme by allotting more-or-less equal screen time for humans and ants, this shared dramatic perspective acting as a metaphor for the climactic fusion of species. The scenes between Hubbs, Lesko and Kendra alternate with footage of real insects photographed by Ken Middleham. The two perspectives complement each other, so that we see both Hubbs’s attempt to eradicate the ants and the insects' calculated defense, which involves a worker ant carrying a morsel of pesticide to its queen to absorb and adapt to the poison and hatch new eggs. Bass and Middleham also capture a suspenseful confrontation between two ants and a praying mantis that leads to the destruction of the air conditioners and the humans’ increasing madness.

In the novelization, this structure is largely ignored. Although Malzberg focuses on the ants mostly in opening and concluding sections, the bulk of his text alternates third-person narrative favoring Lesko -- and, in a few brief scenes, Kendra -- with Lesko's first-person diary entries. Malzberg explains that he designed the adaptation as such to keep from “running out of story [by] page 23," (62) but the effect is one of heightened tension, so that even in the absence of an immediate threat the novel’s tone becomes unnerving. Unlike the film, it’s not always clear if the ants are attacking the outpost and, as Lesko’s psychological state slowly deteriorates, a reader may wonder if the diary entries are meant to be a delusion (Malzberg has used an unreliable narrator several times, most notably in his 1972 novel Beyond Apollo). The author’s contempt for the source material can be glimpsed at times, such as Lesko comparing his situation to “one of those idiotic obligatory scenes at the end of a dramatic second act when characters talk to one another ponderously” (Malzberg 93), but even then humor and self-consciousness bring a certain plausibility.

Not surprisingly, considering how much of the plot is told from his perspective, Lesko emerges a more fully developed character. In the novel he comes off as lonely, depressed and sexually frustrated, with concerns that in two decades’ time he will be a clinical neurotic like Hubbs. It’s difficult not to sympathize with Lesko when Hubbs is initially characterized as “demoniac,” “possessed,” and “psychopathic,” the unpleasant next phase of Lesko’s personality if the younger scientist continues down a path of antisocial behavior.

As the novel progresses, Lesko’s reactions to his superior range from admiration to disgust, an interesting contradiction that the film never approaches. Hubbs is more likely to act impulsively, and when he suddenly destroys the towers to spur the insects to action, Lesko vocally objects but secretly admires Hubbs for having a “certain force and courage that had led him to perform precisely that act that I would have if I had had the authority … and the imagination” (47). In the film and novel Lesko is clearly upset when Hubbs's pesticide kills the Eldridges and the family's employee, Clete, but his anger at Hubbs weakens as both men struggle to stay alive against the insect siege.

Kendra, too, becomes a stronger character. In the film she is little more than beautiful and naive, and never seems to care that Hubbs and Lesko were responsible for her grandparents' deaths. Malzberg, however, writes Kendra as perceptive and intelligent. Shortly after arriving at the outpost, she assumes that both Hubbs and Lesko are "insane" and humors them in order to stay alive. Her innocence is basically an act, and yet, she finds herself drawn to Lesko and sees some integrity in him. In one scene she correctly deduces the relationship between the scientists and challenges Lesko:

She held that curious, intense look on me. 

“You’re afraid of him, aren’t you?” she said.

“Not exactly. But I am his assistant.”

“All right,” she said. “You’re not afraid of him.”

There was nothing else to say. She still looked at me levelly; she would have held that position indefinitely (87).

Malzberg's finale is even more grotesque and disturbing than the film's revised ending. The author was obviously limited in how he could depict “Phase IV” without benefit of film images and music, but as various characters are mutated into human/ant hybrids the descriptions are potent and horrifying. Characters are “running desperately” and screaming before their agonizing transformation into “crawling thing[s]” identified using names combined into a Frankenstein patchwork (HUBBSELDRIDGEMILDREDCLETE; LESKOKENDRA).

Strangely enough, sections from the Phase IV novelization found their way into Bass's film. As Malzberg recalls in The Business of Science Fiction: Two Insiders Discuss Writing and Publishing, post-production dragged on for so long that the author turned in his manuscript about ten months before the film premiered. When Malzberg and his editor finally viewed Bass’s work, they noticed that a passage from the novelization had been used in Lesko’s voiceover narration (63). Although the author receives no credit (and, according to him, no additional compensation), the narration provided as Lesko travels to the ant queen’s lair is an edited version of the protagonist's final diary entry from pages 151-153.

[EDIT: Sean Savage, who wrote an article on PHASE IV and studied the various drafts of Simon's screenplay, debunks Malzberg's claim. See Sean's post in the comments section.]

I would still like to believe that, given time, we could have come to an understanding. Some rational accommodation of interests. Some agreement. But that's not the way it's going to be. I've made some calculations about their rate of expansion using their intelligence, their powers of organization, their network of communications, the poisons, their ability to adapt genetically. I believe that after this test run they'll move rather quickly into desert areas, taking over the countryside first, then laying siege to towns and cities. I believe that they will learn as they advance, anticipating our moves and continue to stay a move ahead. We have only one chance: The counterattack suggested by Dr. Hubbs. A direct assault on their queen. Jesus, I wish it wasn't me.

Works Cited

Malzberg, Barry N. Phase IV. New York: Pocket Books, 1973. Print.

Resnick, Mike, and Barry N. Malzberg. The Business of Science Fiction: Two Insiders Discuss Writing and Publishing. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2010. Print.

THE CAT O' NINE TAILS (Award Books, 1971) by Paul J. Gillette

Reviewed by Nathaniel Poggiali

An American publication based on a European co-production, The Cat O’ Nine Tails is the only novelization of a Dario Argento film. It’s also one of the few penned by two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee (for the novel Carmela and the stage play Red River Rats) Paul J. Gillette.

The film’s screenplay, from a story co-authored by Argento, Luigi Collo and Dardano Sacchetti, follows the investigation by newspaper journalist Carlo Giordani (James Franciscus) and blind crossword designer Franco Arno (Karl Malden) into a series of murders tied to the break-in of the Terzi Institute for Genetic Research in Rome. They discover the murders are connected to research subjects possessing an XYY chromosome aberration, which is thought to make a person more inclined to violence, and that two of the victims -- one of them a doctor who is pushed in front of a train -- were blackmailing the killer. Giordani falls for beautiful Anna Terzi (Catherine Spaak, in a stunningly wooden performance), adopted daughter of the Institute director and a suspect. After several attempts on the amateur detectives’ lives, Arno’s granddaughter Lori is kidnapped, and, in a gripping finale, Arno and Giordani trace the killer to the rooftops of the Institute.

Argento’s often subjective camerawork, jarring edits and a tendency to withhold information reinforces what Maitland McDonagh identifies in the film as the “impossibility of seeing ... anything in a world in which all perception is by its nature fragmentary or distorted” (67). The novelization runs counter to the film’s approach: it lets us see nearly everything. For example, Argento’s impulse is to drop us into the action, as Arno and Lori, during an evening stroll, overhear the conversation that sets off a deadly chain of events. Gillette, however, opens with a lengthy description of the Terzi Institute and the street on which it is located, the Via Pax Augusta -- including the street’s residents, architecture, and commercial properties -- before seguing into Arno’s childhood memories of the neighborhood, the details of the accident that left Arno sightless and, finally, his relationship to Lori. All before the two characters overhear that crucial conversation.

Also interesting is a scene that never appears in the film, in which Arno reveals the identity of the killer and his whereabouts to Giordani and the police. Arno believes the killer’s homicidal impulses are triggered when his XYY aberration is in danger of being exposed. In his summation, he questions the killer’s irrational behavior -- and, by extension, the film’s plot -- calling the killer “rather stupid,” “genuinely stupid,” and a “stupid man,” and marveling at the “limited intelligence” that drove him to murder people that posed no discernible threat to his security, since the records of his aberration, according to Arno, would have hurt him “only slightly if at all.” Arno’s lecture exposes the film’s wobbly foundation, as if Gillette were working out his own frustrations with Argento’s story.

The finale is almost a parody of the haunting, ambigious ending of the film. In the final scene Arno, thinking his granddaughter has been killed, causes the death of the murderer, leaving Lori (and Giordani’s) fate unknown. The novelization’s wrap-up, however, is silly: Arno and Lori are reunited after the killer accidentally falls to his death (Arno's involvement is played down), an injured Giordani jokes with Anna about his ability to perform in bed, and food-obsessed Deputy Inspector Morsella suggests to a colleague that they go out for a celebratory dinner of scungilli!

Argento, a reader of American crime novels who used Fredric Brown’s The Screaming Mimi as the basis for his debut effort, THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE, may have been aware of The Cat of Many Tails (1949) by Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee using their Ellery Queen pseudonym (The Italian translation appeared in 1954 as Il gatto dalle molte code, #33 in the Serie gialla series published by Garzanti). The novel focuses on a hunt for a serial killer, named The Cat by the newspapers, who has strangled eight young women using a collection of multi-colored silk cords. A plot twist in both The Screaming Mimi and THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE has strong similarities to Dannay and Lee's revelation that the assumed murderer is actually a guilt-ridden husband protecting his psychotic wife, the real killer, from authorities.

Though the number nine does not figure into the title, it is significant: Ellery Queen, the heroic detective, tries to stop a ninth murder by using another woman as bait. Argento's film references its title when Giordani identifies “nine leads to follow,” though how he and Arno arrive at that number is never explained; in his critical study of Argento's cinema, L. Andrew Cooper counts the initial break-in at the Institute, the theft of incriminating photographs, and a combination of victims and suspects as a total of nine. Cooper explains that since a cat o’ nine tails is also an instrument used in fetish clubs, in such a context the title seems apt: most of the film’s nine threads involve some kind of sexual aberration (39).

Gillette forces the undercurrent of sexuality, aberrant or otherwise. He finds (lame) humor in the Institute’s research with unfertilized sperm (“Hi Spimi,” grinned Giordani, extending his hand as the inspector approached. “Who stole all the jism?”) and writes several minor characters as comically horny. Even investigating authorities are driven to distraction: “Inspector Spimi ... slid down in his seat, and fixed his eyes to her gorgeously golden thighs which were visible right up to her pink bikini panties.” When Giordani arrives at the Terzi mansion to question Anna, she greets him with her legs spread, sans panties. Gillette also graphically expands on a sex scene that, in the film, was depicted in a series of coy, PG-rated images.

Award Books may have requested Gillette spice up the material. It’s curious, then, that one of the more perverse aspects of the film didn’t make it to the book. In the film Giordani breaks into Terzi’s office and discovers from a series of journal entries that Anna may be having an affair with her adoptive father. When Giordani accuses her of committing the murders under threat of blackmail, Anna says "You petty, narrow-minded little reporter. You figured it all out, didn't you? A neat equation, Italian-style: whore equals liar equals murderer." Cooper points to this scene and its incestuous implication as one of the film's aberrations. This material does not appear in Gillette’s novelization; Anna never even seems to be a suspect.

Works Cited

Cooper, L. Andrew. Dario Argento. Champaign, IL: UI Press, 2012. Print.

McDonagh, Maitland. Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento. New York, NY: Carol Publishing, 1994. Print.

Doc Savage (Gold Key, 1966)

In 1966, Gold Key put out a one-shot Doc Savage comic book that was originally commissioned as a tie-in for a DOC SAVAGE movie from Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions, to star Chuck Connors. Both the comic and the unproduced movie were based on the pulp hero’s seventeenth adventure, The Thousand-Headed Man, written by Lester Dent and first published in July 1934. To learn why the cast and crew that was assembled for this film ended up working on a western called RIDE BEYOND VENGEANCE instead, head over to the excellent Atomic Kommie Comics, where you’ll also find the once rare and highly sought after DOC SAVAGE comic book, scanned in its entirety and posted in three parts for your enjoyment.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

DOC SAVAGE: The Movie That ALMOST Was