11/5/22
Newletter149
The Crack of Dawn
I contacted Saul Bass back in 1983 to do the titles for the feature version of Cleveland Smith, Bounty Hunter (which never got made; the short is on YouTube), and he kindly said, “You can’t afford me.” Saul Bass did the front titles for many, many movies, including a half dozen Hitchcock movies, like Psycho, Vertigo, and North By Northwest. After he turned me down, he and I just talked for a while. I asked him, “Why don’t you direct another movie?” Saul only directed one movie, Phase IV (1974). He asked me, “Have you seen Phase IV?” I said, “Many times” (I owned the VHS). He said, “I think that answers the question,” and it did.
Phase IV is an entirely unique movie. It’s the story of ants taking over the world. Not giant ants; normal-sized ants. And there are no fake ants; it’s all real ants. So, there are these scientists in a geodesic dome that has about six pipes leading out of it to sprinkler heads, each with a different insecticide. When the ants attack, they say, “Give ‘em 100% blue,” then blue insecticide sprays out of the sprinkler head. We then see an ant, a real ant, grab a hunk of blue insecticide and carry it down a tunnel until it dies. Then another ant takes the blue glob farther and dies. Then another ant brings it to the queen. The queen eats it, then begins laying blue eggs, which become blue ants that are now resistant to the blue insecticide. There are tracking shots with the ants through the tunnels, there are close-ups, and the ants keep doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing, but none of it is achieved with special effects.
At another point the scientists spray yellow poison and the same thing happens; the queen eats it, lays yellow eggs, then there are yellow ants. There is a meeting among different species of ants as they decide to work together. They form a circle and are clearly communicating somehow with each other, and it’s cutting like they were people: wide shots, close-ups, over-the-shoulder shots, and the ants are turning right and turning left and nodding their heads. How the fuck did he do that?
Luckily, there was this high-end, beautifully published quarterly magazine called Cinefex that dedicated an issue to how Phase IV was made. To get all of these different colored ants, Saul Bass found clear ants in Africa that when fed blue food, turned blue, and when fed yellow food, turned yellow. Then he and his crew built these insane little rigs where they shoved a pin up an ant’s butt so they were able to turn them right and left and get them to nod. Of course this process killed the ants, so they were constantly replacing them.
In any case, it took Saul Bass years to make Phase IV, then it got a shitty, low-budget release – I saw it at the cheapo theater, the Northgate – and I was the only one there. And I bought the VHS tape. Even still, it lost money.
So, going back to my conversation with Saul Bass, when I asked, “Why don’t you direct another movie?” and Saul asked me, “Have you seen Phase IV?” And I said, “Many times,” and he said, “I think that answers the question,” it really and truly did.
Just as an historical note, Saul Bass and Alfred Hitchcock worked together many times – I have the Vertigo poster on my wall – but they parted ways after Psycho (1960). Bass not only created the breathtaking front title scene, but he’s credited with, “Visual Consultant,” which is the one and only time Hitchcock ever had such a thing. Whatever the reality of the issue was died with both men. Apparently, the two men, both able to draw, figured out and storyboarded the murder in the shower sequence . . . then never spoke again. Bass never did another Hitchcock title sequence.
I shit you not, Saul Bass created the logos for damn near every big company in the 1960s and ‘70s (many of which are still in use): AT&T, Bell Telephone, the United Way, Quaker Oats, General Foods, United Airlines, Minolta, Kleenex, Warner Communications, Lawry Foods, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Geffen Records . . . It’s ridiculous.
Saul Bass’s second-to-last feature film was Goodfellas (1990). It is one of the simplest, most beautiful front title sequences in movies. Plain white type on a black back ground. We hear the guys in the car talking, then a car goes by, and the title rushes out of frame, then immediately locks back in at the center so you can read it. The next several titles do the same thing, and each time my brain said, “Cool.” Then it goes into killing the guy in the trunk. But that simple little piece of animation on the front title is brilliant. Saul Bass was brilliant. And I certainly couldn’t afford him.
And another day dawns.