: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".
:53:01
It's funny to think of Henry Mancini
writing music for monster movies,
:53:05
and without credit at that,
but this was years before Peter Gunn
:53:08
and his several Academy Awards
:53:10
for Breakfast At Tiffany's and "Moon
River" and Days of Wine and Roses.
:53:14
He also won over 20 Grammies.
And in 1990, David Schecter tells me,
:53:18
Mancini put out a CD called
Mancini In Surround,
:53:21
including music he wrote for Creature,
an excellent piece "Monster Gets Mark".
:53:26
You'll hear it during the scene where
the creature kills Richard Denning.
:53:29
Mancini reorchestrated
and slightly recomposed the cues,
:53:32
and he conducted them
at a much more leisurely pace,
:53:35
but it was still clearly Creature music.
:53:37
Mancini also contributed to
It Came from Outer Space
:53:40
and Tarantula, and lots
of other golden oldies.