Irwin Allen, the Hollywood super producer and director who reveled in bold over-the-top storytelling seen in his epic ’70s catastrophe movies like “The Poseidon Adventure,” “The Swarm,” and “The Towering Inferno,” also carries an enviable legacy of iconic ’60s fantasy and sci-fi TV shows like “Lost in Space,” “The Time Tunnel,” “Land of the Giants,” “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,” and many others.
After a stellar career that spanned nearly 50 years, Irwin Allen’s brand of brash entertainment and visionary series still resonate with fans of classic ’60s television.
Author Jeff Bond’s beefy 612-page book “The Fantasy Worlds of Irwin Allen” seeks to encapsulate the prolific work of one of the most influential and successful creators that the twinkling stars in Tinseltown ever turned out. This prestige edition was published on Nov. 26 by Titan Books. Check out these colorful interior pages to tempt you with images, sketches, and photos gathered from studio archives and collections.
Here’s the official synopsis:
“This lavish coffee table hardback book is the first and only book of its kind to take a visual journey through the mind and career of legendary producer Irwin Allen, the ‘Master of Disaster’—the man behind some of the most popular television programs of the 1960s and the visionary who invented the special effects movie blockbuster format with his 1970s hits ‘The Poseidon Adventure’ and ‘The Towering Inferno.’
“It traces Allen from his early days as a Hollywood agent and radio personality to his lengthy stint at 20th Century Fox, where he produced movies such as ‘The Lost World’ and’ Five Weeks in a Balloon’ and the popular television shows ‘Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,’ ‘Lost in Space,’ ‘The Time Tunnel’ and ‘Land of the Giants.’
“Allen employed the studio’s sprawling lot and soundstages, its library of movie footage, costumes and props, and its veteran special effects craftsmen to bring vivid color and movie-quality action, miniature effects and visuals to television viewers accustomed to low-budget, black and white programming. Allen’s flare for action and visual punch gave audiences some of the 1960s most popular and iconic figures: Admiral Nelson and Captain Crane of ‘Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea;’ the Lost in Space Robot and Jonathan Harris’ nefarious Dr. Zachary Smith; Will Robinson and the Robinson family of space travelers; the pop art kaleidoscope of ‘The Time Tunnel;’ the Jupiter 2, the Seaview, the Flying Sub, the Spindrift.
“Illustrated with more than 2000 images including concept and production artwork, storyboards, blueprints, design sketches, miniatures and behind-the-scenes photographs, many of them never before published, this is the ultimate guide to Allen’s famous productions, from his documentaries ‘The Sea Around Us’ and ‘The Animal World’ to his spectacular TV-movie ‘City Beneath the Sea,’ plus fascinating unproduced projects, all explored in detail for the first time.”
Hollywood owes a great debt of gratitude for the sheer volume of material the Irwin Allen name was associated with over the decades, a treasure of vintage movies and TV hits that paved the way for modern speculative fiction fare from superheroes to disaster flicks, underwater odysseys and beyond. This new tribute hardback is a fitting retrospective spanning the time when entertainment was indeed golden.
Titan Books’ “The Fantasy Worlds of Irwin Allen” is available now at Amazon.
