Over time I have built up my Amazon.com wish list of various items knowing that I will never be able to afford or have room for most of what I’ve listed. Even so, there are several items that are a priority for me in adding to my collection, and for some time I have been interested in picking up a copy of Bill Warren’s book Keep Watching the Skies!: American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties (McFarland). My keen interest in this volume is due to my initial interest in the fantastic that was spawned by Fifties sci-fi films, and my continuing appreciation and ongoing assessment of their meaning.

Through its various printings Warren’s book has become something of a classic among science fiction film fans and scholars, and in a big way. The 1997 edition of this book was way out of my price range, with used copies going for over a thousand dollars at times. With the 2010 release of the The 21st Century Edition the cost for the previous edition has decreased, but the new volume itself is still a hefty $79.20 through retailers like Amazon.com. But even with a cost that exceeds most volumes on science fiction films, at 1,040 pages this book is worth the price.

Keep Watching the Skies! 21st Century Edition is clearly a labor of love for Warren who writes from the perspective of a lifelong fan who’s imagination was captured by these films while growing up in Oregon. He writes about films that he defines as science fiction (“a fantasy film in which the fantastic element is rationalized as being explicable in scientific terms”) and following a formula identified as “Fifties sci-fi” that covers a time span of 1950-1962. Warren notes that his treatment of these films is not academic, but instead is a result of his great affection for them which he feels provides special insights. As I read this in the Preface I was a little concerned about whether the insights would be idiosyncratic or of much depth. Thankfully, I quickly lost these concerns as Warren describes, for example, the influence of the re-release of King Kong on what would become known as “Fifties sci-fi”:

To back up a little, one of the biggest influences on 1950s SF movies was the then 20-year-old classic, King Kong. In the summer of 1952, Kong was reissued with a heavy television and radio promotion campaign. This onslaught of advertising, in fact, was one of the first to heavily use television. As a result, Kong made money – more money than it had in its first release and subsequent reissues combined. …

Without Kong‘s influence, the SF movies of the 1950s probably would have gone in a different, perhaps short-lived direction. … In a way, then, King Kong was the progenitor of the giant insect films, one of the most distinctive subgenres of the 1950s SF movies.

As a fan, researcher, and writer on these topics I should have known about the Kong reissue, and postulated its possible influence on 1950s science fiction films, but must admit I had no idea. Until I read Warren that is. In addition to the interesting discussion of the background, history, and trivia related to these films, Keep Watching the Skies! The 21st Century Edition includes little gems of insight that add to our understanding of these films, and in so doing it compliments academic treatments of them like Mark Jancovich’s Rational Fears: American horror in the 1950s (Manchester University Press, 1996).

If you are a fan of 1950s American science fiction add this volume to your library.

Related posts

“1950s Horror and Rational Fears”

“Weekend Nostalgia: The Day the Earth Stood Still and Forbidden Planet”