:51:00
but to anything else - especially
something different from himself."
:51:04
"You can trace the roots to primitive
tribes, one against the other,
:51:08
in cities, to this block against the
next block, the Jew against the Arab,
:51:12
the Protestant against the Catholic,
black against white."
:51:15
"We have not progressed to differentiate
what is superficial and what is not."
:51:19
"The sooner we learn the lesson,
the better off we'll be."
:51:22
"That's what I tried to say in my films,
in a manner an audience would accept."
:51:27
"I don't think they'd accept a polemic.
They'd walk out on it,
:51:30
or it'd be under investigation by the House
Un-American Activities Committee."
:51:34
"My objective was to entertain,
but I also wanted to say something."
:51:38
"If ten per cent of the audience
grasped it, then I was very successful."
:51:51
Whit Bissell, who's in several Jack Arnold
movies, was a versatile character actor,
:51:55
and an ideal choice for the part
of the gentle Dr Thompson.
:51:58
He was just as suited for his
ruthless mad-scientist roles
:52:01
in I Was a Teenage Werewolf
and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein.
:52:04
He was one of the most recognisable
of 1950s supporting players.
:52:08
He's also in sci-fi pictures like Lost
Continent, Target Earth with Denning,
:52:11
Invasion of the Body Snatchers,
Arnold's Monster on the Campus,
:52:14
The Time Machine, The Manchurian
Candidate, Soylent Green,
:52:17
and Psychic Killer with Julie Adams.
:52:19
Bissell was from New York City.
He worked on the stage from boyhood,
:52:23
and appeared in Broadway plays before
he went Hollywood in the mid-1940s.
:52:27
He worked in movies at first
under the name Whitner Bissell,
:52:30
in pictures like Holy Matrimony,
Destination Tokyo and Brute Force.
:52:34
His busiest decade
for film work was the '50s.
:52:36
He made more than 50 movies
in ten years -
:52:38
a lot of small parts,
but a few co-starring roles, too.
:52:41
He was in lots of sci-fi TV series, and
he was a regular on Land of the Giants.
:52:46
Whit Bissell died in 1996.
:52:51
It's hard to believe Bissell,
or anybody, could fall asleep
:52:54
guarding a seven-foot-tall killer
from the dawn of time.
:52:56
Maybe it's that soothing music, a Henry
Mancini composition "Monster Caught".