The Teenager from Outer Space

* 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.

 

Tom Graeff – Film career

 

‘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

 

‘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 here. While a fantasy, The Noble Experiment was both autobiographical and eerily prescient about Graeff’s later troubles.

 

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. ** Shane Christmass, Hi, Shane. ** JM, Thanks again so much, Josiah. ** rewritedept, Okay, I kind of understand the field kit, and if you’re smitten, that’s all that counts, obvs. And obviously excellent about the band with your roommate! Curious to hear the resulting tuneage. My day was solid, thanks. Things seem to be getting sparklier. Take care, buddy. ** Jamie, Hey, Jamie! I’m good. A bummer can be productive if you reinvent the feeling against its will, for sure. Yesterday’s post … the sad boys? They were all images from mostly Russian porn of the early 00s that I used to collect fervently. In each one, a sex act was occurring (anal, oral) and I just cropped the sex act out of them so that their looks of sadness or fear or misery were the only thing in hopes that that would make them harder to objectify sexually. I used to do that a lot. I was fascinated by the way Russian, especially, twink porn didn’t even bother to try to disguise how unhappy the boys were to be in the situation they were. I did dozens of those collections/posts back in the days of my now murdered blog. Does that answer your question? You feeling better today, I hope? What’s going on? Love, me. ** David Ehrenstein, Word association. ** Misanthrope, Yep. A few times I’ve tried to see if there was any way to find out what happened to at least the biggest of the Russian twink porn stars of that era, but there’s nothing out there. Ton is still making porn, mostly SM and scat, but the others have vanished. It would definitely be a gift from god to me if the makers of organic clothes had imaginations, but they don’t. 7 is very minimum number of hours I need to sleep every night not to feel wrecked, and even 7 hours leaves me feeling very bleah the next day. ** Dominik, Hi!!! I know, right? Kind of a hybrid of a boy band and those boys choirs who sing melancholy old religious songs. I think it’s a billion dollar idea. Maybe after Zac and I finish our new film, that can be our next project. Ha ha, your love is an ideal audience. Love adapting one of my novels, maybe ‘My Loose Thread'(?), into a movie vehicle custom-fit to star the by-then massively, internationally popular sad boy band, but it’s a massive flop, and that makes the sad boy band even sadder and, hence, more wildly popular, G. ** Sypha, Awesome, thank you so much for putting your efforts into the post reboot! ** _Black_Acrylic, Morning, Ben. How’s tricks? ** Bill, Hi. A friend yesterday was recommending a horror movie to me called ‘Bone Tomahawk’. Have you seen it? I don’t know that Monica Ojeda book, but I’ll figure it out. ** Alexandrine Ogundimu, Hi, Alexandrine! I’m bad at checking my Facebook messages, but I’ll do that as soon as I finish up here, and I’ll get back to you. Take care, maestro. ** Ryan angusraze, I like how your name slightly changes every day. I’m a very firm believer in the idea that if you’re making art that you’re exited by, that means it’s valuable and unique. I think if one is really excited by what one is making, that’s because one is accessing and working with something is entirely and meaningfully yours. And the only thing that makes any work of art valuable is that it has that uniqueness and the impression that the artist felt it to be a necessity that that art was created and placed in the world. I think trying to think about your art in relationship to others’ art just leaves you fantasising pointlessly. That’s how I think about my work and always have. And ‘success’ is a complete unknown. It comes in a million forms and by a million different routes and at a million different paces. That’s my two cents on that subject. Don’t worry, iow. I will say that if I had ever judged the value of what I do based on whether I made a liveable income off of it, I would have quit a long, long time ago. Yeah, my friend/collaborator Zac Farley and I make films, and we’re going to make our third film this fall. I’ll let you know when we get to the point of starting to cast it. The sound/score is being done by Puce Mary, but if we decide to include other things, again, I’ll let you know. Bon day! ** l@rst, Hey, man. Happy you liked ‘Castle Faggot’. It’s insanely great, I think. Amazing that the library ordered it. Wild. I don’t know who Chuck Tingle is unless I’m spacing. I’ll go find out. Great about the new zine, and, yeah, fuck circulation numbers, they ain’t no big thang. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. I’m sorry about your mom’s pain issues. Yeah, great that she’s having it looked into, and I hope they can quell it and that it’s easily fixable. Everyone, Steve has written about the Museum of the Moving Image’s “First Look” series, ‘including FIRST TIME and the latest Radu Jude and Tsai Ming-liang shorts’, right here. ** Brandon, Hi, Brandon. Ouch. Yeah, try your best to very gently rub the afflicted area if you can. What did you end up doing today? Yeah, weekend seems okay. Zac and I are showing one of our films at a festival here, and hopefully I’ll see a movie or two or something. How is yours looking? ** Brian, Hey, Brian. Oh, yeah, Shakespeare is the genius everyone says he is, but writing about his stuff for million billionth time? That just seems like a rote thing to assign someone — the assignment of a teacher who’s taking the easy way out or something. But you nailed it, nonetheless! Of course you did! Oh, fuck, about the seeming delay in the shoot. Grr. I know all about the great displeasure of filmmaking delays. Of course I’m very happy that you’re so into ‘A Man Escaped’. I too think it’s way up there in Bresson’s oeuvre. If I had to choose, I think I’d say ‘Mouchette’ is his greatest b&w film, to my mind. But it’s apples and oranges. My Thursday was okay. I Zoomed with a class of students who were reading my stuff, and that was very nice, and I saw a pal I haven’t seen in too long, and we finally set up a Zoom meeting with the LA producer of our new film to talk stuff through for next week, and that’s good. No plans for today yet. We show ‘PGL’ tomorrow at a festival, so maybe some checking out the space and testing the sound and visuals and stuff. Did Friday open your weekend’s door with consummate grace? ** Okay. I made post about Tom Graeff for the blog a long time ago, and his weird estate people made me delete it for reasons I can’t remember, and I’ve made a new one hoping they’ve chilled out, but we will see. Interesting story if you’re up for engaging with it. See you tomorrow.