The author, Matthew R. Bradley, is an authority on novelist, short story writer, television and movie scriptwriter Richard Matheson (1926‐). Bradley has published articles on Matheson in numerous periodicals, and he is the one of the editors of The Richard Matheson Companion (Waiter et al., 2008). He is also the creator of the film related blog, Bradley on Film. In gathering material for this and other Matheson related publications, Bradley worked closely with the novelist for over a decade, and the two became close friends.
Matheson, a prolific writer in the horror, science fiction, and fantasy genres, has had a long career stretching back to the 1950s, and his many published novels include I Am Legend (1954), The Shrinking Man (1956), Hell House (1971), Bid Time Return (1975), and Seven Steps to Midnight (1993). He has also written many short stories, screenplays, and teleplays. His Hollywood writing career includes collaborations with figures such as Jack Arnold, Rod Serling, Roger Corman, Steven Spielberg, John Landis, and Dan Curtis.
Matheson's writing blurs the distinction between the science fiction, horror, and fantasy genres. As Brown and Oakes (2003) note Matheson's “[…] stories do not lend themselves to categorization. They lack the rational, scientific explanations that are usual in true science fiction. Unlike the protagonists in fantasy fiction, his main characters are ordinary people who discover that terror lurks beneath the familiar, comfortable veneer of reality”. In the introduction, Bradley supplies the reader with a quote from Matheson that encapsulates the leitmotif of his work as “the individual isolated in a threatening world, attempting survive”. Because paranoia is a common element in Matheson's fiction, Matheson's own children have nicknamed their father “Mr Paranoia”.
Matheson on Screen is essentially in three parts. The first consists of brief Acknowledgements section, followed by a Foreword by Matheson, and Bradley's Introduction. Besides giving a biographical sketch of Matheson's life, Bradley's Introduction discusses his plan and goals for the book.
Although Matheson is accomplished and frequently published author, Richard Matheson on Screen is not primarily a critical work on Richard Matheson as a novelist and a short story writer. In his introduction to the book, Bradley states that while there are many books on novelists, poets, playwrights, and movie and television actors, directors, and producers, there are few published books on screenwriters. Consequently, Bradley's book is more of a study on Matheson and his involvement with film and television, and the book is part biography, part film history, and part television history. Bradley does discuss Matheson's short stories and novels, but he does so in the context of how Matheson and other writers have adapted these works to film and television. Included in the book are discussions of original film and television works by Matheson, Matheson's adaptations of the others' works, and other writers' adaptations of Matheson's works. Matheson's career is a long one, and I would like to a few examples from film and television.
Matheson broke into the movie business with his screen adaptation of his novel, The Shrinking Man. Director Jack Arnold's (1957) film chronicled the story of Robert Scott Carey (Grant Williams), a businessman, who begins to shrink after being exposed to radiation and an insecticide. Throughout the film, we see Carey shrinking in size. As he shrinks, Carey becomes increasingly socially isolated and vulnerable. For example, a house cat and a spider terrorize the diminutive protagonist. While the science aspect of the film may be questionable to “hard science fiction” types, the film remains compelling, because of its realistic portrayal of a man who is trapped in a landscape that is simultaneously familiar and alien.
Later, Bradley discusses Matheson's work with director Roger Corman. As a director, Corman is famous for working quickly and under budget, and Matheson wrote screenplays for several of Corman's Edgar Allan Poe themed films: House of Usher (1960), Pit and the Pendulum (1961), Tales of Terror (1962), and The Raven (1963). All four films included actor Vincent Price. Critics have not always been kind to Corman's work. Critic Andrew Sarris wrote that “[Corman's films are] […] much more stronger visually than dramatically. His acting is usually atrocious […]” (Sarris, 1968). Nevertheless, Corman's Poe films achieved cult‐film status, and the Library of Congress selected House of Usher as artistically significant enough to be part of its National Film Registry program.
So popular is Matheson's novel I am Legend that it is the basis for – or at least inspiration of – three movies: The Last Man on Earth (1964), The Omega Man (1971), and most recently I am Legend (2007). Vincent Price, Charlton Heston, and Will Smith respectively play the protagonists in each of the films. A common element to all of the films is that a plague results in vampirism. (A testament to the novel's popularity is that the McFarland uses the visages of the three actors on the front cover of Bradley's book.) Matheson was not entirely happy with these movie adaptations. He was part of the screen writing team in the 1964 film, but he was not involved in writing either of the other films. Bradley quotes several interviews with Matheson in the book to gauge his reactions. Matheson describes The Last Man on Earth as being “[…] very poorly done, but it did follow the book”. As for The Omega Man, Matheson said that it “[…] bore no resemblance at all to my book, so I can't comment on it. I had absolutely nothing to do with the screenplay but they did pay me a very small remake fee”. For the most recent version with Will Smith, Matheson told Bradley in a recent interview: “I think it's very well made. As usual, it's not my book”.
Matheson's numerous works for television include teleplays for Rod Serling's Twilight Zone, and Serling's Night Gallery. For Twilight Zone, Matheson contributed 14 teleplays, including the memorable Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, where airline passenger Bob Wilson (William Shatner) sees a gremlin through the plane window. The creature begins tampering with the airplane's wing, and Wilson tries to warn others on the plane. Although Wilson sees the creature, other do not, as it readily moves out of sight. Unable to convince others on the plane that the creature is damaging the wing, the supposed madman is taken away after the plane lands. As the episode ends, the viewing audience sees that the damage to the wing is very real. (The ill‐fated theatrical film, Twilight Zone–‐ The Movie (1983), used Nightmare at 20,000 Feet as one of its four segments.)
Matheson wrote the screenplay for Steven Spielberg's 1971 television movie, Duel, which was based on Matheson's short story. The genesis of the short story came from an incident in Matheson's life. Both Matheson and fellow writer Jerry Sohl were playing golf. When they heard the news that President Kennedy had been assassinated, they stopped their game and started to drive home. Driving home together and discussing the tragic news, the two writers were in a narrow pass in a canyon, when a trucker began tailgating them. The tailgating went on for miles, and, given the tragic events of the day, the trucker's aggressive behaviour inspired the story. The plot for film – and the earlier short story – concern salesman David Mann (Dennis Weaver) driving on routine business trip on a remote highway where he encounters a huge tanker truck. Mann unintentionally provokes the truck driver, who is unseen throughout the film. The trucker stalks the salesman and attempts to kill him by crashing Mann's car. Forced to defend himself by eluding the vengeful trucker, Mann undergoes an emotional transformation. So popular was the television movie, that Duel later received theatrical release in Europe and in the USA.
Matheson adapted journalist Jeff Rice's unpublished novel, The Kolchak Papers, for Dan Curtis' television movie, The Night Stalker. Curtis had created the hugely popular Gothic soap opera, Dark Shadows. The Night Stalker introduced newspaper reporter Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) to American audiences. Kolchak had a penchant for finding crime stories with supernatural elements. In the film, Janos Skorzeny (Barry Atwater) is a vampire who preys on victims in modern day Las Vegas. Matheson also scripted a follow‐up film, The Night Strangler. In the latter movie, Kolchak pursues a news story – and a killer, Dr Richard Malcolm (Richard Anderson), a 144‐year‐old physician in modern day Seattle. A similar element of vampirism is present in the sequel, as Dr Malcolm kills and drains blood from his female victims to use as a life giving elixir to restore himself to a younger self. The two movies were so popular that ABC ran a weekly television series with McGavin as the Kolchak.
Finally, I would like to mention the 1980 film, Somewhere in Time. Cast members stars Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour, and the plot concerns both romance and time travel. In the story, a playwright, Richard Collier, becomes smitten after seeing a photograph of a young woman at the Grand Hotel. Using self‐hypnosis, he projects himself back to the year 1912. For the film, Matheson adapted his 1975 novel, Bid Time Return. Subsequent to the movie's release the book was republished under the film's title. As with Duel, an event in Matheson's person life served as the impetus for the story. During a camping trip in Virginia, Matheson and his family visited a Piper's Opera House in Virginia City, Nevada. In the Opera House, Matheson saw a photograph of the actress Maude Adams (1872‐1953). Matheson was so taken with the photograph and Adams' beauty that he decided to research the actress' life. As Diaz de Chumaceiro (2005) wrote, Matheson “linked his serendipitous attraction to Adams' photograph with time regression – a conceptual combination”.
My previous experiences with McFarland's books on television and film have been positive, given the high quality of research, writing, and editing in each of the books. After reading this book, I have no reason to change my opinion. Bradley is clearly an authority on his subject and an excellent writer. Throughout the book, Bradley supplies detailed plot summaries for the film and television works, cast and crew information, and critical reactions to the works. Not only do we learn about the films and television programmes, but we learn about their production, and, perhaps most importantly Matheson's level and personal involvement with and his reactions to the finished products. Film and television are collaborative enterprises, and Matheson on Screen describes joys and struggles of a working writer in the competitive world of film and television. Bradley's research, based on personal interviews and previously published articles and books – and apparently repeated viewing of the relevant movies and television shows, is both extensive and impressive. The book includes an extensive bibliography and a well‐compiled index.
My only complaints about the book have to do with how Bradley documents his sources within the text. He uses neither footnotes nor endnotes. Rather than briefly mentioning a reference, e.g. (Skelton and Benson), Bradley introduces the reference within the text this way: “According to Scott Skelton and Jim Benson, the author's of Rod Serling's Night Gallery: An After‐Hours Tour […]”. Because Bradley is conscientious about mentioning his sources, this kind of reference occurs throughout the text. I found the practice interrupted the flow of the narrative of the book. Of more serious concern to this reviewer was the lack of page numbers for in‐text references. This does not lessen the scholarship or the value of Bradley's book. Nevertheless, this kind of omission could hinder Bradley's readers who wish to examine his original source materials. Presumably, they would spend more time trying to locate sections that Bradley cites. I am thinking here of books more so than periodicals, because Bradley's bibliography gives very complete citations (including page numbers) for the periodicals that he cites.
Overall, this is a welcome addition to scholarship on an important American writer. Fans and students of Matheson's work will welcome this book, as will film and television buffs. Libraries with film and television collections will definitely want to acquire this book, as well as those libraries with science fiction and fantasy collections.
