By Michael G. Glab
Now McCallum smiles.
McCallum is positively giddy. He bounces in his seat as he identifies every bit player and names their subsequent films.
Once a pack of four kids stood him up against a wall to punch and kick him. When they stopped, McCallum spied a pile of wood nearby. “I grabbed one of the timbers,” he says. “I ran after them, screamed at the top of my lungs, and swung it at this one kid I singled out. Somebody warned him, and he ducked his head. If he hadn’t done that, I would have knocked him cold. I came very close to injuring someone very seriously.”
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Klaatu is sutured up in Walter Reed Hospital, and his wound miraculously heals overnight. He tells a presidential secretary to set up a meeting of all the world’s leaders. The secretary complains that many of the leaders won’t sit at the same table. Klaatu looks out the window and sees people walking the hospital grounds. “Before making any decisions,” he says, “I think I should get out among your people, become familiar with the basis for these strange, unreasoning attitudes.”
“In a way, Vincent Price defined horror films in the 1950s and ’60s, but he actually did thrillers, fantasies celebrating Halloween at a Saturday matinee, grown-up fairy tales.”
McCallum says his mother could match his father’s outbursts. “She was violent. In fact, my sister Linda is nearly deaf in one ear as a result of beatings by my mother’s fists.”
