Phase IV, the only movie that Saul Bass made as director, is now 50 years old and well worth watching.
Made in 1974 it stands as a fascinating time capsule of science fiction’s evolution. Mayo Simon, who also scripted The Man from Atlantis and the sequel to Westworld in the 1970s, provides the screenplay very reflective of the concerns of the era. Twenty years after the classic creature feature Them!, where giant ants were scary for their sheer size, Phase IV scares us with ants that are terrifying because of their newfound hyperintelligence. Over the course of twenty years the creature feature has evolved to be no longer a product of the atomic anxiety that fuelled Them! and Godzilla, but to reflect the burgeoning green movement and environmental consciousness spurred by the famous 1968 Apollo mission ‘Earthrise’ photo of the Earth seen from space, in all its fragility and singularity.
Them!’s gargantuan practical monsters are replaced by wildlife photographer Ken Middleham’s stellar close-up photography of real ants. The effect is unsettling, and very much ‘pure cinema’. If Hitchcock said the meaning of an image could change depending on what the images either side of it were, here the meaning of images of ants walking around and interacting with each other takes its meaning from the music. Brian Gascoigne only has to put his hand on a Moog synthesiser, and suddenly we think Sinister Ants! It seems, certainly from FilmFour’s occasional screenings, that the version which restores Saul Bass’ original trippy finale is now in favour. But in any case the journey to it is wonderful as the scientists under siege in their isolated laboratory start to suffer paranoia and panic as their ant antagonists seemingly become intelligent and aggressive.
Michael Murphy as the naive idealistic scientist is unrecognisable from his turn a few years later in Manhattan as a jaded sophisticate, while Nigel Davenport, a frequent guest star on The Avengers, is customarily redoubtable as the cynical older scientist. Davenport’s determination to overcome his arm swelling to giant and useless size from an ant bite earned him a special mention from Stephen King in Danse Macabre. As the film becomes claustrophobic their relationship takes centre stage. There may also be anticipations of Aliens in the way that the scientists badly underestimate their foe, even as they blunder into the heart of enemy territory. Which arguably means that this is another entry in the oblique commentaries on Vietnam, which would locate it even more in the dazed zeitgeist of 1974.
Phase IV is not a mainstream blockbuster, but it is an underseen gem; a unique and thought-provoking film that deserves to be on sci-fi watchlists.
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