William Wellman Jr | Through the Shattered Lens

In the days leading up to World War I, spoiled rich kid Thad Walker (Tab Hunter) flees Boston after getting hit with a car theft charge and ends up in Paris. He befriends a group of American expatriates (including David Janssen, Will Hutchins, Jody McCrea, and William Wellman, Jr.) and eventually joins the French Air Force as a members of the Lafayette Escadrille. Thad also falls in love with a French prostitute named Renee (Etchika Choureau) and, after Thad strikes a French officer, he goes on the run with her.

I always wonder how many people have watched this film over the years because of the presence of a young Clint Eastwood in the cast, just to discover that he doesn’t get many lines and his character is largely interchangeable with the other young actors playing the members of the Lafayette Escadrille. This is a Tab Hunter movie, meaning that the action is dominated by Hunter’s sincere but bland screen persona. Director William Wellman wanted to cast Paul Newman in the lead role and that would have been something to see. Instead, the studio insisted on Hunter. They also insisted that Wellman change the film’s ending so that Hunter could survive instead of getting shot down on his very first mission. William Wellman was so disgusted with the studio that he retired from directing.

What had to make it all especially galling for the director was that Lafayette Escadrille was based on his own life. His son, William Wellman Jr., plays “Bill Wellman” in the film and Thad was based on actual friend of Wellman’s. The film was meant to be a tribute to his friends, many of whom did not survive World War I. Instead, the studio insisted that it be just another Tab Hunter service comedy. The best scenes are the ones where it’s just Thad and his friends trying to make it through basic training. Unfortunately, those scenes are overshadowed by Thad on the run.

The film is still there for those of us who enjoy catching future stars. Clint Eastwood, David Janssen, Tom Laughlin, Will Hutchins, Brett Halsey, and Jody McCrea are all present and accounted for. Rumor has it that James Garner can spotted in the background but I couldn’t find him and Garner had already co-starred with Brando in Sayonara when this move was made so I doubt he was doing background work. Tab Hunter’s blandness sinks the production but the rest of the cast would go on to better things.

The last film in the Thief In the Night series, 1983’s The Prodigal Planet picks up where Image of the Beast left off. Computer technician and post-Rapture Christian David Michaels (William Wellman, Jr.) is on the verge of being sent to the guillotine when he’s rescued by Connie (Terri Lynn Hall). Connie may be wearing the uniform of UNITE and she may have the mark of the beast but she insists to David that she is actually on his side. Not having much choice but to believe her, David joins Connie in a military grade RV. They drive away from Des Moines just as a nuclear explosion takes out the whole city.

After seven years of being ruled over by Brother Christopher and the UN, the world is on the verge of ending. (As the film’s narrators informs us, “Plane Earth is dying and the disease is sin.”) Nuclear war has broken out, destroying cities and killing the majority of the citizens. David is determined to get to Albuquerque, where he and a group of Christians plan to wait for the final judgment. Government agent Jerry (Thom Rachford), who is one of only two characters to have appeared in every Thief In The Night film, is close behind but both he and his men are starting to show the signs of radiation sickness.

(Russell Daughten also returns as the Rev. Matthew Turner, with his apocalypse chart that explains each step of the end of the world. Daughten’s role is small in this one, which is a shame as his grim Santa Claus screen presence was one of the best things about Image of the Beast.)

Along with the remnants of UNITE and a few survivors who have yet to take the mark, the world is also populated by “mutants,” humans whose faces are permanently scarred by the radiation. They dress like monks and stalk empty and deserted city streets. Their goal is to destroy anyone who they believe is responsible for the end of the world. David and Connie rescue a scientist named Linda (Lynda Beatie) and her teenage daughter, Jodi (Cathy Wellman), from a group of mutants. Linda is wracked with guilt because she previously put all her faith in science. Jodi is bitter over how the world has turned out and, initially, she’s upset when David allows a mutant named Jimmy (Robert Chestnut) to join them in their journey.

With The Prodigal Planet, it’s obvious that director Donald W. Thompson had hopes of setting up an epic conclusion for the Thief in the Night films. Not only does the film move the action out of Iowa and into other parts of the country but the film also runs for 127 minutes. (By comparison, A Thief In The Night barely last over an hour.) Unfortunately, most of that running time is taken up with David talking and trying to convert everyone that he meets. On the one hand, considering what’s going on in the film’s world, it makes sense that David would do that. On the other hand, it doesn’t exactly make for exciting viewing. A film that features nuclear explosions and mutants should never be this slow or boring. If the previous Thief In The Night films achieved a dream-like intensity, The Prodigal Planet dutifully plods along. For every scene that works (like an extended sequence in which Linda and Jodi explore a city that isn’t as deserted as it first appears), there are other dramatically inert scenes that encourage the viewer to just about anything other than pay attention to what is happening on the screen.

(It doesn’t help that William Wellman, Jr. — despite appearing to be the only professional actor in this film — displays a bit of a blah screen presence in the role of David. The scene where he tells Jodi that she’s spoiled because she’s pretty fails not because he’s necessarily wrong about Jodi as much as because Wellman can’t make David’s “tough love” approach compelling. He just comes across as being a jerk. The series was better off when the less polished but far more sincere Patty Dunning was the lead character. As for Wellman, he was far more interesting as the morally conflicted national guardsman in The Trial of Billy Jack than he is here.)

Donald W. Thompson hoped to make a fifth Thief In the Night film, one that would feature The War in Heaven and bring the story to its prophesized conclusion. Unfortunately (or not), he was never able to raise the money to do so. And, as such, the saga of UNITE, Brother Christopher, and David Michaels came to a close with The Prodigal Planet.