With a new TV version of The Man Who Fell to Earth planned, Nostalgiahhh takes a look back at Bowie’s 1976 classic.
Great sci-fi movies are like skyscraper lifts: they work on many different levels.
When The Man Who Fell to Earth was released in 1976, it was the Burj Khalifa elevator of films.
An adaptation of the Walter Tevis novel. A star vehicle for David Bowie. An art house movie. A racy popcorn flick. A sci-fi adventure. An allegory about alcoholism. The list goes on.
And while it could have been a direct adaptation of the Tevis novel, with a cinematic visionary like Nicolas Roeg in charge, it was so much more.
Though a pipe dream at the time, the Burj Khalifa Was just the sort of epic structure mysterious tycoon Thomas Jerome Newton would finance.
When I first saw the film on its UK TV premiere (BBC Two, Sunday, 20th December, 1981), it left an indelible mark on my 13-year-old brain.
The aptly weird and very literal black and white illustration of Bowie’s character falling in the Radio Times was a taste of things to come.
(Thanks to a friend on Twitter, I clap eyes on that cartoon for the first time since 1982).
So, having endured a repeat of laughably bad drama The Borgias, I stayed up until the early hours watching that retina-searing fantasy adventure.
This was back in the days when watching immediate repeats was almost unheard of. (It would be another six years before I had enough cash to rent a video player).
So I waited for a second viewing. Three years of waiting. The ability to watch almost whatever you like and when is a luxury I could only have dreamed of then.
I’ll admit that some of the hot-under-the-collar scenes were one of the reasons for my desperation to watch again, but repeat visits underlined the fact that this was sci-fi like I’d never seen before.
Of course at that age, cinematic experiences were limited to A/PG movies, so staying up for something so intense was like cat nip.
It was mind-bending, perception-altering entertainment which featured a peerless performance from Bowie. He was apparently so immersed in the role, as with so many of his creations, the thin white duke stayed in character for some time after the cameras had finally finished rolling.
Given some of his addictions, there was a wonder Bowie was as focused as he is in The Man Who…
He was also incredibly precise. As a musician used to multiple performances, he’d repeat a scene several times in exactly the same way, such as a scene in which he stirs a drink with a gun (according to cinematographer Anthony Richmond in the DVD release).
Tevis’s novel was adapted by Paul Mayersberg, a writer who later worked on The Disappearance, a little-seen Donald Sutherland film; re-teamed with Bowie for Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, and also with Roeg for cult oddity Eureka.
Years later he also scripted Croupier, the cult Mike Hodges film which looked like Clive Owen would be a shoo-in for 007. Alas, it was not to be.
Thomas Jerome Newton remains one of fantasy cinema’s most alien and yet human creations. A hairless, genital-free being whose mating rituals seem to involve an off-screen trampoline and gallons of milk.
Obviously it’s not intended to be milk, and it’s not rocket science to figure out what it is, though in an age where everything has been done in cinema, no one but Roeg has achieved something so audacious.
It was also one big gag. An alien comes to Earth in search of water and winds up desperate for his next drink as an alcoholic.
The movie was produced by Michael Deeley, one of the most important film makers of the past 50 years. After all, without him there would have been no Italian Job, no Deer Hunter and no Blade Runner.
I interviewed Michael in 2008 for a car Q and A while he was publicising his book Blade Runners, Deer Hunters and Blowing the Bloody Doors Off.
While some producers can be egocentric, he was the model gent. Polite, hugely co-operative and thrilled to discuss his beloved movies The Italian Job, Blade Runner and you know what.
We chatted about TMWFTE’s production and the fact his company saved a fortune by flying an Aer Lingus plane, together with all the crew and equipment from London, via Shannon in Ireland (where it refuelled) to Albuquerque.
“This was the first time – and will probably stand as the last time – that a full-sized British crew shot an entire feature film in America”, he remarked in his book.
Roeg was a maverick who might use the script as a blueprint for his movies, but was just as keen to see what magic happens on the day. It might have wound up some of his crew who thought he didn’t know what he wanted, but golden era Roeg (1970 – 1976) proved he was a master of his craft. With hits such as Performance (co-directed by Donald Cammell); Walkabout and Don’t Look Now under his belt, it was clear that the ends justified the means.
Bowie’s wife Angie joined him on location with their four-year-old son Zowie.
Given his formative years and a dad who remains light years ahead of other visionary artists, there was little wonder Zowie, aka Duncan Jones, would go on to helm genre favourites such as Moon and Source Code. (The less said about flawed fantasies Warcraft and Mute the better).
Bowie might have been a genius, but he was also a bit of a diva. He had every right to be given his standing in the media. But whether he actually believed someone was trying to spike his beloved skimmed milk, or whether his dressing room was genuinely built on an unmarked Indian burial ground was anyone’s guess.
Obviously some people are more attuned to bad vibes than others, and given Bowie’s skills as an artist, chances are he was on the money even if the local OS map didn’t flag up such things.
Regardless, the crew had to cater to his every whim.
Candy Clark, who had risen to fame in George Lucas’s crowd-pleaser American Graffiti in 1973, gave a knockout turn as Mary-Lou, the hotel maid who becomes Newton’s lover.
Her genuine reaction to his alien appearance is still pretty raw to this day.
She had been dating Roeg and was the first person cast, having around six months to absorb the script.
However, when the film was released in a hacked up version for the US market, making it a two-hour cut, Candy was so upset by the truncated version, she dropped out of the promotional tour. A while later she was instrumental in ensuring the origin version was restored for US theatres.
Filming one of the final scheduled scenes, the splashdown of Newton’s craft in a mountain lake, was no walk in the park. Located 11,000 feet above sea level, the crew had to travel with oxygen tanks in each car to cope with the altitude. It didn’t hurt when producer and director found a bar which opened at 6am. Tequila sunrises helped them through the production a treat.
Years before his rib-tickling turn as producer Arthur in The Larry Sanders Show, the wonderfully monikered Rip Torn gave a powerhouse turn as Nathan Bryce, a randy lecturer who beds his students.
He plays an integral role in Newton’s plan to amass enough cash to help his ailing family, and planet.
It also starred Buck Henry, the actor and writer who gave the world Get Smart and The Graduate.
His excellent turn as Oliver Farnsworth offers an everyman reaction to Newton’s elaborate plan.
James Mason was originally wanted for Farnsworth’s character, and James Coburn for Nathan Bryce. Alas, the budget was so tight they couldn’t afford either so Henry and Torn were hired.
Mayersberg decided to play to Henry’s strengths, peppering his dialogue with gags.
For little indie studio British Lion, financing a movie like The Man Who… involved getting a major studio on board and then borrowing the rest of the cash against their investment.
Which is fine – until the new big cheese takes a look at what Paramount is buying and gets cold feet.
Barry Diller, the boss at ’the mountain’, was far from happy after watching a private screening in New York with Deeley.
Roeg’s non-linear style was far from the ABC TV films-style of films Diller was used to. (Both ABC as a company and in terms of 1,2,3 structure). This was more AZB or 2,3,1.
The Man… might have been filmed in America and featured a largely American cast, but this was about as European and art house as films got in the mid-1970s.
When Paramount falls out of love with a picture and with talks of law suits being bandied about, it wasn’t long before the film attracted a product on a par with biohazardous material.
Except it was anything but. However, Hollywood being one of the safest commercial entertainment factories on Earth, studio bosses at the time wanted a hit on a par with The Sting, The Godfather movies, and Jaws.
Even movies pitched as a mix of all three stood a better chance of getting studio cash, as nonsensical as they may have been.
Deeley eventually got the backing via a company called Studio 5, and the film was released.
It divided some critics, wowed others and left a major impression on the minds of film-makers such as Sam Taylor Wood (50 Shades of Gray) and Jonathan Glazer. (His own sci-fi masterpiece Under the Skin is just as mesmerising and disturbing as Roeg’s movie, and arguably the best film of its type since Bowie’s film debut).
In 1987, Hollywood decided to have another stab at the story, only this time as a linear, safe-as-houses USTV movie which, at the time, were about as daring as a stuntman who never left the house.
Despite an impressive cast, including Star Trek veterans Wil Wheaton and Robert Picardo, and Ghostbusters/Young Sheldon star Annie Potts, the TV film vanished with the skill of a stealth fighter behind enemy lines.
That, it seemed, was that.
However, in a project aptly called Lazarus, The Man… was re-launched as a stage show with Dexter’s Michael C Hall as Newton.
That musical was one of the last projects Bowie worked on before his death in January 2016, and along with key track Lazarus, is a heartfelt goodbye to his countless fans.
Forty three years after its release, The Man… remains an extraordinary piece of work. Especially the soundtrack, which was finally released a few years ago (after decades of being promised on the back of the tie-in paperback).
Though Bowie had been working on music for the film, it never quite happened, so John Phillips (The Mamas and the Papas) set to work recording in January 1976. He reworked his track Devil’s on the Loose for Bryce’s introductory theme – a glorious duel of vocoder and sax that eclipsed the original tune.
By March the film was in theatres.
Strangely he was listed as Musical Director, instead of composer, but his slices of musical Americana help the project enormously.
Years before Christopher Nolan started playing around with timelines for films such as Inception and Dunkirk, Roeg’s films played with the chronology of scenes. The beauty of The Man… is a movie that is both the past and future. It even predicted disposable cameras and TV screens that can be rolled up.
Thankfully, unlike those cameras, David Bowie’s feature debut is anything but disposable.
I have a much-repeated theory that any movie you see between the ages of 11 and 16 stays with you for life, like footprints in the wet cement of your mind.
For any outsider who travels to the States, we are all aliens, bombarded by its culture and history like Newton. And clearly the reverse is also true. I can only imagine what my American friends make of our culture in Blighty, but it’s that bridge between the two cultures that makes for endlessly fascinating conversations.
In the end we are all aliens, except these days watching the world via our phones and tablets instead of a bank of TVs (a scene which apparently influenced Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ classic saga Watchmen in 1985).
With another TV version planned, who knows whether Thomas’s enduring character survives on the small screen. Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek) is usually a safe pair of hands, so as writer, co-showrunner and director, let’s hope he has what it takes to give Newton a new lease of life.
Roger Crow
Nostalgiahhh 