The strangely plotted life of Tom Graeff, writer, director, producer and star of Teenagers from Outer Space *

* (restored)
* all text culled from The Tom Graeff Project Website

 

‘Tom Graeff was born Thomas Lockyear Graeff on September 12, 1929, to George and Grace Graeff in the now-vanished mining town of Ray, Arizona. Before Tom was two years old, he and his parents moved to Los Angeles, where Tom grew up and where his brother James was born. Discovering a love for film at an early age, Tom enrolled in the UCLA Theater Arts program, which allowed him to study filmmaking.

 

 

‘Graeff pledged the Delta Chi fraternity and became a brother. His college career was marked by poor grades and after being put on academic probation several times, he redeemed himself by making a short film about fraternity life entitled Toast to Our Brother.

‘The film starred Graeff and a Paramount ingenue named Judith Ames, and guest-starred the Hollywood actor and comedian Joe E. Brown, a UCLA alumni. Judith Ames, who appeared in When Worlds Collide, later changed her name to Rachel Ames and found success in the role of “Audrey Hardy,” one of the longest-running characters on the popular American soap opera General Hospital. Toast to Our Brother premiered at the Village Theater in Westwood on December 18, 1951 as a benefit for the St. Sophia Building Fund. The film garnered some industry attention and, because of the work Graeff put into it as writer, director, producer, and star, he was allowed to graduate in 1952.

 

Toast to Our Brother – the entirety

 

‘After graduation, Graeff made several attempts to break into the film industry. Inspired by Roger Corman, Graeff decided to work independently. Described by friends and acquaintances as outgoing, energetic, creative, and a born salesman, Graeff landed a job producing and directing a recruiting film for Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California. The resulting 20-minute film, entitled The Orange Coast College Story, was first shown on campus in May of 1954. The film was narrated by actor Vincent Price, who was a friend of the faculty advisor, and starred a young actor named Chuck Roberts, who became romantically involved with Graeff and helped him by working on Graeff’s two feature films.

 

Stills from The Orange Coast College Story

 

‘In the summer of 1954, Graeff began production on his first feature, a fantasy/ comedy entitled The Noble Experiment, to be shot in 35mm and color in Orange County, California, where Graeff was now living with his parents and younger brother. The film was photographed by Austin McKinney, who also shot Toast to Our Brother and who invented the apparatus that allowed the pre-recorded dialogue to be played back on set so the actors could lipsync. This saved on having to rent sound recording equipment or having to post-dub the actors later. McKinney had devised a 16mm version of the device while filming Toast to Our Brother, but now created a 35mm version for Tom’s first feature.

‘The film took a year to complete and premiered at the Lido Theater in Newport Beach, California, on August 2, 1955. Graeff again played the lead in this fantasy that he describes as being “about an amateur biochemist who, successful with a chemical ‘get-along pill’ for his mother-in-law, pours a barrel full of the concoction into the city water supply.” The film was not well received by the local audiences, but remained Graeff’s favorite of his films.

‘Today, no print of this film has been located. You can read Tom’s own description of the plot and themes of the film below. While a fantasy, The Noble Experiment was both autobiographical and eerily prescient about Graeff’s later troubles.

Our protagonist is Ronald, a good natured, very sensitive and imaginative young married man whose only vice is his evening and weekend tinkering with biochemistry experiments in a makeshift lab in his garage (which he sometimes gets so concerned with that he forgets little chores such as pulling weeds and repairing things like the loose and anxious ironing board which, at the slightest provocation, unfolds out of its wall with a bang, followed a moment later by its little sleeve board).

Ronald’s antagonist, a frequent family visitor who becomes the inspiration for his ‘noble experiment’ because of her uninhibited faultfinding with him over his household irresponsibility, is Motherinlaw. Her daughter, Katherine, our hero’s wife, tries valiantly to win her Mother to Ronald by describing, with as much exuberance as she can muster, his latest potion, this time a carrotcolored syrup, which, when taken in proper doses, is supposed to … (well, for the sake of brevity we won’t go into that here).

Already disgruntled over squealing gate hinges, the tall weeds, and then a doorknocker that comes off in her hand, Mother finds the new concoction outrageous, the ultimate in absurdity among Ronald’s timewasting nonsense projects.

That night, after watching TV pill commercials (to lose weight, or gain, or sleep, or keep awake and even one for getting rid of ‘that blue feeling,’ etc., Ronald gets his brainstorm idea: Why not a pill that would change Mother-in-law so drastically that he and she would get along: And that is what he’d call it: the ‘GetAlong’ pill. Why, the implications of worldwide use would be enormous. Imagine. Everyone taking the pills and getting along with everyone else. Think what would happen to crime, and war, and all of man’s inhumanities. This is what the world has been waiting for. If people wouldn’t take the pills, the formula could be vaporized in the air, or put in the reservoirs of drinking water.

Ronald sets to work immediately to come up with such a formula. He sticks at it night and day, with only short naps and snacks in between. After several weeks the project leads him to financial ruin, but he keeps right on.

In writing the script, it seemed reasonable to assume that a man working with diligence, perseverance, and singlemindedness, so unheeding of his ‘financial situation’ or other consequences, and all for an idea which to the runofthemill would seem utterly farfetched, would at some point along the way find himself forcibly removed to an institution for the emotionally disturbed. And so, this is what happens to Ronald. All this work without success, and now he finds himself in Sunnyside Asylum (Mother-in-law knows mental illness when she sees it.)

But, Eureka. An elderly scientist, confined there for years, is able to help Ronald. The old codger had been top man in a biochemical warfare research lab and had been caught putting his own secret ‘getalong’ formula into missile warheads instead of the death chemicals that had been ordered. This unbalanced behavior was enough to have him committed post haste.

But now Ronald has what his formula had lacked, and he escapes in the night with the help of the old fellow who himself chooses to remain.

Home again, Ronald mixes a huge batch of the formula–an eerie, milkypink substance. He prepares to test it on himself, having put a minute amount of it in a cup that he has Katherine take into the kitchen to fill with coffee. But before Katherine knows what has happened, Mother sips from the cup. Katherine knocks it out of her Mother’s hand, and rushes out to tell Ronald what has happened in case an antidote is needed. Mother follows, alarmed and furious with Ronald. But then … there is silence … She blinks her eyes… and then …”Hic… Hic up.” Ronald and Katherine stare, immobile. A gentle smile breaks over Mother’s face. Her eyes twinkle. “Ronald, my son..,” she says, her voice overflowing with warmth and affection.

Katherine is incredulous. “It works.'” Ronald joyously accepts Mother’s offer to help in his plan to get the whole batch into the city dam.

What happens to the little town and to Ronald, the funny things and the notsofunny things, the international reaction, and what the old scientist back at the asylum says about the results are things everyone should find worth pondering.

Ronald, even though he succeeded only in a ‘noble experiment,’ nevertheless had set his heart on a dream of what the world could become.

Will not, someday, everyone catch that same dream?

Would any more than that be needed?

 

The only surviving images from The Noble Experiment

 

‘His hard work paid off, however, when he was hired as an assistant on Roger Corman’s film Not of This Earth in the summer of 1956. To cut costs, Roger Corman regularly used crew members to play small parts in his films. We know that Tom worked as an assistant on Corman’s Not of This Earth. Now it’s been confirmed that the car park attendant in two scenes is Tom.

 

Roger Corman’s Not of This Earth

 

‘The experience working with Roger Corman led directly to Graeff’s writing a heart-felt science-fiction script entitled Killers from Outer Space and, modeling himself after Corman, Graeff set about getting investors, hiring actors, and planning the production. Securing some of the $14,000 budget from actor Gene Sterling, Graeff placed a small ad in The Hollywood Reporter looking for more investors. The ad was answered by British actor Bryan Pearson (billed as Bryan Grant), who put up $5000 in exchange for playing the role of Thor, the evil alien, and casting his wife Ursula Pearson (billed as Ursula Hansen) in the small role of Hilda.

‘Filmed in the fall of 1956, the film changed titles several times before it was eventually released as Teenagers from Outer Space by Warner Brothers in June of 1959. The film, now considered a cult classic, tells the tale of Derek (played by Chuck Roberts, a.k.a David Love) a space alien with a conscience who must save Earth from an invasion of giant flesh-eating monsters. It was shot entirely on location in Hollywood, California. The final title of the film was apparently not Graeff’s choice. The last title he gave to the film before selling it to Warner Brothers was The Boy From Out of This World.

 

Tom Graeff’s Teenagers from Outer Space

 

‘When it was finally released, it appeared as the lower part of a double bill alongside the second Godzilla film, Gigantis the Fire Monster, and was shown almost exclusively at drive-in theaters. Critics were not kind to the film, though Graeff was mentioned in the Los Angeles Times and Variety as a director with talent and a creative approach to a minimal budget. Audiences and theater exhibitors were vocal in their contempt for the film.

‘In the early 1960s, however, the film was sold to television, where it played frequently for the next thirty years and gained a cult following as a supreme example of a film whose intentions far outstripped its budget and for its infamous ray gun that turned living things into instant skeletons, an effect lovingly borrowed by Tim Burton in his film Mars Attacks!.

 

Stills from Teenagers from Outer Space

 

‘In November of 1959, Graeff bought a large advertisement in the Los Angeles Times, announcing that God had spoken to him and wanted him to spread peace and love throughout the world. This was followed by another advertisement announcing that Graeff was now named Jesus Christ II, and would be making an appearance on the steps of a Hollywood church to spread God’s word.

 

 

‘In 1960, Graeff appeared in the Los Angeles County Superior Court to petition for his name change. With vocal opposition by the Christian Defense League, the petition was denied. Later in 1960, Graeff interrupted a church service at the Hollywood Church of Christ, shouting “I’m Jesus Christ II and I’ve got a message. Everyone must listen.” Graeff was arrested and charged with disturbing the peace. This was actually his second arrest for disturbing the peace that year. Earlier he had disrupted a college class and had to be forcibly removed.

 

Tom Graeff leaving the Los Angeles Court House in 1960

 

‘Sentenced to 90 days in jail, Graeff jumped bail and fled first to the Midwest, then farther east until more entanglements with the law and state authorities led to jail time and finally an involuntary stay in a state mental hospital. After a series of electro-shock treatments, he was returned to his parents in California by late 1964.

‘Although Tom seemed to have given up filmmaking for involvement in various social and religious causes while a fugitive, he nonetheless was hired as editor on David L. Hewitt’s ultra low-budget science fiction film Wizard of Mars in 1965.

 

David L. Hewitt’s Wizard of Mars

 

‘By 1968, he had completed a bizarre screenplay entitled alternately Please, Please Turn Me Off, The Immortalizer, and The Fate Worse Than Death. In early 1968, Graeff took out a small ad in Variety, announcing that his screenplay, now entitled Orf, was for sale for the unprecedented sum of $500,000. Gossip columnist Joyce Haber followed up and printed a sarcastic piece in the Los Angeles Times, which reported that Graeff claimed Robert Wise was attached and Carl Reiner was to star. Wise denied any involvement.

‘Graeff, hurt by Haber’s misquotes and nasty attitude, published an apology to Robert Wise in The Hollywood Reporter, accusing Haber of purposefully omitting facts and trying to destroy negotiations to get the script produced. Haber responded in her column by telling everyone in Hollywood of the Jesus Christ II incident ten years earlier.

 

Tom Graeff in the late ’60s

 

‘Tom’s final years were obsessive and energetic. He lived in a beautiful home on Rodgerton in the Hollywood Hills, apparently serving as an assistant/helper to the house’s owner. Tom was vague about how he got his money. He always seemed to have enough to get by, despite never holding down a regular job. He continued to try and interest the Hollywood elite in Orf. He called agents and actors all over the world, asking them to read his script, then following up with them until they said, “No.” And they all said no.

 

 

‘Tom was also running Evolutionary Data Foundation, a mail order business that primarily existed to sell a long-playing record of a lecture he gave at the Metropoloan Community Church. The record’s front cover had a groovy picture of Jesus and the back cover proclaimed “UNABASHED LOVEMAKING and how sexual hypocrisy got started.” The lecture is a wacky, often humor-filled explanation of why man is inherently bisexual, with stops along the way into the theories of Desmond Morris and Richard Leakey. The record was broadcast twice in its entirety on local radio station KPFK-FM in 1969.

 

Cover illustration of Tom Graeff’s LP

 

‘Ironically, the back cover text on the record claimed that one of its uses was to help end the suicides of men with “an inability to cope with the flood of convincing misinformation concerning their homosexual feelings.” Tom talked about committing suicide endlessly to his circle of friends, who laughed him off or became annoyed at what they thought was a way for Tom to get attention and sympathy. Tom swung from manic highs, running around Hollywood trying to promote his projects, to depressed lows when he just sat quietly and said little.

 

The last known photograph of Tom Graeff

 

‘What led to Tom’s suicide? Was it that “inability to cope” with his homosexual feelings? Hearsay evidence points to a very different reason, which may also explain why he moved from Hollywood to a small rented room outside San Diego. Why were many of his papers destroyed after his suicide? And what does Kurt Vonnegut have to do with Tom Graeff? My research continues as I try and track down the facts behind Tom’s last years. It’s a tale of lust, unrequited love, Hollywood studio treachery, the sexual revolution of the late 1960s, big time dreams, and the crazy emotional roller coaster of Tom Graeff’s obsessions.’ — The Tom Graeff Project

 

The sad tale of Filmmaker Tom Graeff

 

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** tomk, Hi, tk! Wow, a beautiful Bela Tarr quote. Dude definitely knows about dark areas. Thanks. Your new novel is on its way! That’s a headline! Take care, bud. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Fingers crossed on the grant, thanks. We’re one of five finalists, so there’s a chance at least. Oh, hm, maybe a fan film of ‘Death in Venice’. All kinds of untaken possibilities there. I really have to stop losing my wallet. I swear I must have accidentally picked up a pickpocketing ghost. Did love succeed? Card in hand? Love making that ‘new’ Beatles song which I haven’t heard and have no intention of ever hearing cease being of interest to people who use social media to express their opinions, G. ** scunnard, Hey, Jared. Oh, is your Tanizaki essay readable? Thanks about the Guardian thing. xo. ** Jack Skelley, Hi, Ja … I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a Japanese toilet, but they’re inspiring. Thanks, thanks, thanks. Have fun reading with Exene and Kim, and make sure your memory hangs onto some related anecdotes. xo, me. ** Nick., Maybe it’s just me, but peanut butter is something I’ll start eating and then can’t stop eating until I feel very sick. Hence, my trepidation. Annoyance can be pretty interesting if you can step back and parse the effect. Um, I think my favorite ever concert was Gang of Four in 1979 at this club in LA called The Starwood. It’s the only time in my life that I threw myself around the room in completely uncontrolled, excited abandon. I’m still well! I’m still a well oiled machine-like body. Guessing you are too, although guessing you would phrase your state of wellness differently. ** Bzzt, Hey! It’s true, I haven’t seen or shared words with you in ages. I’m all and only about finishing Zac’s and my new film. We’ve been planning, making, and editing it for well over a year, and I’m looking for the finish line, which is soon. Yeah, I guess The Guardian thing turned out ok. It’s hard for me to tell. Happy to hear about the consistency and the steady job. Those are no small things. You were here? Nice. I was probably locked in an editing room (Zac’s apartment) while you were here anyway. The Hunting and Nature Museum is my favorite thing in Paris. Great, I look forward to reading your interview piece. Thanks, and kudos. Everyone, Bzzt, who’s better known in the real world as the fine writer Quinn Roberts, has interviewed writer Valerie Werder about her debut novel ‘Thieves’ for the always excellent Full Stop Magazine. Find that here. I’ll look for her book, thanks. Cloudy, drizzly by default love back from Paris. ** Sarah, Hey. I really think I need to read ‘Pinocchio’ again now. It sounds custom fit for my needs. Thanks! Yeah, PC has, like, 10 people I’ve never heard of opening for him at the concert. Scary. I haven’t been to a rap show in a really long time. I tend to like the more experimental, wild rap artists, and they don’t seem to get over here very often. PC is playing at this huge venue here, and it takes a lot for me to want to watch something from the nosebleed seats that I can afford, but he’s an obvious exception. Veterinary hospital, that does sound kind of intense, and sweet too, and probably quite depressing often. Glad you’re writing. What are you working on? ** _Black_Acrylic, Cool. Thanks, Ben. ** Gee, Hi. It’s a beauty of a book. Gorgeous prose too. That’s huge about the passport then. Really huge. Wow, amazing. Tokyo! So recommended. And, you know, Paris as well. I’ve never liked looking at photos of myself, I don’t know why. I don’t think that I like knowing what I look like to other people. It makes me feel weird. I should probably write about that or something. ** Nika Mavrody, Hi, Nika! Well, it probably didn’t live up to its name’s charisma if that’s any consolation. ** Tosh Berman, Yep. I guess he was quite the randy perv, or so I’ve read? ** Darbs ❄🕷, Ooh, nice decorations. I think you’re still asleep as I type this, but all powers of mastery to you in a few hours. Did you pass (with flying colors)? Sure, I like aquariums. The one here in Paris is kind of nice. There was a guy who used to comment on the blog who worked there and who got me in for free, but I think he quit. It’s kind of boring, but I do really like octopi. Their intelligence mixed with their goopy appearance is pretty fascinating. What’s your fave? I think if you chloroformed yourself you’d probably pass out with the rag still on your face and maybe die of an overdose or something? I think that is indeed an excellent line, and you should swipe it, yes, I concur. ** Bill, Hi. Ha ha, that was a momentously crosshatched moment in my life right there. ‘Landscapes’, Sebald-like, I think I need to find that. Thanks, man. ** Damien Ark, It reached me. You’re in Iceland? Holyfuck, you’re so lucky if so. Where? Dude, do your best to get out of Reykjavik if you can. That country is just non-stop, jaw-dropping beauty wherever you go. ** Audrey, Hi, Audrey. Yeah, if you snag it and want to pass it along, definitely. Thank you. I think the young writer has a couple of more years left inside. The good thing is that a book of his is being published soon by this wonderful press Infinity Land, so at least he’ll have that to help with the drag of incarceration. Better is definitely better, and here’s to more than that next. LA, my hometown! Enjoy! Where in LA does he live? I’d hoped to be there for Halloween, but the film kept me here. Maybe Xmas. I’m happy you like Pharmakon. I hear you about writing/talking about music, or at least music that really has an impact. I used to write about music for Spin Magazine, and when I actually really liked what I was writing about, it was always ten times harder. This week … try to finish the edit on our film, Zoom with a guy who teaches a class that I’ll be the guest writer at in a couple of weeks, wait anxiously for my replacement bank card, see the new Miyazaki movie, and hopefully some surprises. I hope the same goes for you. Love, me. ** Travis (fka Cal), Thanks, Travis. I havant read ‘The Key.’ I’ll agenda-fy it. I hope your upcoming world and mine are identically glowing twins. ** Right. I always thought the post up there was fun, so I dug way back and pulled it out of moth balls and put it back together for you just in case my thinking that it’s fun will pay off. See you tomorrow.