"Shadow on the Sun"

[Art Haupt]

(Arthur C. Clarke, describing his early days working with Kubrick,
back in 1964:

"...[Stanley] had also acquired rights to a property with the
intriguing title 'Shadow on the Sun'; I remember nothing whatsoever
about it and have even forgotten the author's name, so presumably he
was not one of the s.f. regulars. Whoever he was, I hope he never
knows that I sabotaged his career, because Kubrick was promptly
informed that Clarke was *not* interested in developing other people's
ideas."

—from Clarke's 1991 intro
to a new edition of
his "2001" novel)

-----------
Geez. I wondered for years about what "Shadow on the Sun" really was.
(One possible suspect was "Shadows in the Sun," a 1954 novel by Chad
Oliver, who was an SF regular.)

Then, last week a simple 'Net search revealed all. The info is near
the bottom of the 2004 UK "Guardian" article about Kubrick's boxes,
which I'm sure many people have read before me. The link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2004/mar/27/features.weekend

In short: the "Shadow on the Sun" cited by Clarke wasn't a novel.
Rather, it was a BBC radio drama that Kubrick had followed in the
early '60s. The series' odd-sounding plot involved a meteor landing on
Earth.

Furthermore, the article, by Jon Ronson, says Kubrick didn't forget
"Shadow" after the '60s. In the early '90s K. played around with it
some more, getting hold of the BBC scripts. So "Shadow" is another
example of Kubrick holding on to a story idea for many years.

[Cosmic Gnome]

This post might be inappropriate. Click to display it.

[Cosmic Gnome]

Correction:

As this archive site indicates, Shadow on the Sun was a 13-part SF drama
serial, broadcast weekly from October 6th, 1961 to December 29th, 1961.

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/suttonelms/lost9.html

Post by Cosmic Gnome
Yes, Art, and a few more details about the BBC Radio drama are also of
[1] It was written by Gavin Blakeney, a regular writer of radio dramas in
the 1950s and 1960s, and was broadcast in two parts in November and
December, 1961, when Kubrick was in London working on Lolita. This is
further confirmed by a letter (below) written by his niece to The Guardian
"In 1988, my uncle Gavin Blakeney also received a most exciting telephone
call from Tony, Kubrick's assistant (Citizen Kubrick, March 27). Kubrick
wanted the rights to his radio serial Shadow On The Sun. Unlike Jon
Ronson, this call made him £1,500 richer. Gav, who was the epitome of a
"bon viveur", died in 1993, but would be thrilled to know that Kubrick saw
promise in "the dog is not well", and that Ronson thinks it cheesy.
Madeline Church"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2004/apr/03/weekend7.weekend1
This seems to completely contradict Clarke's claim that Kubrick had
acquired the rights to the serial in the early 1960s. Perhaps Kubrick was
*considering* acquiring them at that time but didn't proceed after
Clarke's remark about rejecting the ideas of other writers.
[2] William Sylvester, who would late star as Dr Heywood Floyd in 2001,
acted in "Shadow on the Sun", alongside Sarah Lawson, William Lucas, and
Colin Gordon . Sylvester had settled in England after WWII and acted in
many science fiction and horror B-movies as well as radio and TV dramas
throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
[3] The original audio tapes of the SF drama are unlikely to have
survived, as both video and audio tape was so expensive at the time that
numerous dramas were routinely wiped for later re-use/recording of
subsequent dramas. However, Kubrick may well have recorded it off the
radio on his own equipment back in 1961, as how else would he, twenty
seven years later in 1988, have recalled such details about the broadcast?
[4] Blakeney's Shadow on the Sun is very different to Chad Oliver's
Shadows in the Sun, the latter being about a village in Texas comprised
entirely of aliens.
It was written by
(Arthur C. Clarke, describing his early days working with Kubrick,
"...[Stanley] had also acquired rights to a property with the
intriguing title 'Shadow on the Sun'; I remember nothing whatsoever
about it and have even forgotten the author's name, so presumably he
was not one of the s.f. regulars. Whoever he was, I hope he never
knows that I sabotaged his career, because Kubrick was promptly
informed that Clarke was *not* interested in developing other people's
ideas."
—from Clarke's 1991 intro
to a new edition of
his "2001" novel)
-----------
Geez. I wondered for years about what "Shadow on the Sun" really was.
(One possible suspect was "Shadows in the Sun," a 1954 novel by Chad
Oliver, who was an SF regular.)
Then, last week a simple 'Net search revealed all. The info is near
the bottom of the 2004 UK "Guardian" article about Kubrick's boxes,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2004/mar/27/features.weekend
In short: the "Shadow on the Sun" cited by Clarke wasn't a novel.
Rather, it was a BBC radio drama that Kubrick had followed in the
early '60s. The series' odd-sounding plot involved a meteor landing on
Earth.
Furthermore, the article, by Jon Ronson, says Kubrick didn't forget
"Shadow" after the '60s. In the early '90s K. played around with it
some more, getting hold of the BBC scripts. So "Shadow" is another
example of Kubrick holding on to a story idea for many years.

[kelpzoidzl]

So...ok where is this radio drama on tape/cd etc? i want it. Very
tantalizing. And is the script around?


dc

[Cosmic Gnome]

"So...ok where is this radio drama on tape/cd etc? i want it. Very
tantalizing. And is the script around? "

It is extremely likely that all the tapes were wiped long ago, meaning that
there are no remaining recordings. The script, however, is at The Stanley
Kubrick Archive located at The University of the Arts London, here:
http://www.arts.ac.uk/kubrick-archive.htm

Post by Cosmic Gnome
Yes, Art, and a few more details about the BBC Radio drama are also of
[1] It was written by Gavin Blakeney, a regular writer of radio dramas in
the 1950s and 1960s, and was broadcast in two parts in November and
December, 1961, when Kubrick was in London working on Lolita. This is
further confirmed by a letter (below) written by his niece to The Guardian
"In 1988, my uncle Gavin Blakeney also received a most exciting telephone
call from Tony, Kubrick's assistant (Citizen Kubrick, March 27). Kubrick
wanted the rights to his radio serial Shadow On The Sun. Unlike Jon
Ronson, this call made him £1,500 richer. Gav, who was the epitome of a
"bon viveur", died in 1993, but would be thrilled to know that Kubrick saw
promise in "the dog is not well", and that Ronson thinks it cheesy.
Madeline Church"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2004/apr/03/weekend7.weekend1
This seems to completely contradict Clarke's claim that Kubrick had
acquired the rights to the serial in the early 1960s. Perhaps Kubrick was
*considering* acquiring them at that time but didn't proceed after
Clarke's remark about rejecting the ideas of other writers.
[2] William Sylvester, who would late star as Dr Heywood Floyd in 2001,
acted in "Shadow on the Sun", alongside Sarah Lawson, William Lucas, and
Colin Gordon . Sylvester had settled in England after WWII and acted in
many science fiction and horror B-movies as well as radio and TV dramas
throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
[3] The original audio tapes of the SF drama are unlikely to have
survived, as both video and audio tape was so expensive at the time that
numerous dramas were routinely wiped for later re-use/recording of
subsequent dramas. However, Kubrick may well have recorded it off the
radio on his own equipment back in 1961, as how else would he, twenty
seven years later in 1988, have recalled such details about the broadcast?
[4] Blakeney's Shadow on the Sun is very different to Chad Oliver's
Shadows in the Sun, the latter being about a village in Texas comprised
entirely of aliens.
It was written by
(Arthur C. Clarke, describing his early days working with Kubrick,
"...[Stanley] had also acquired rights to a property with the
intriguing title 'Shadow on the Sun'; I remember nothing whatsoever
about it and have even forgotten the author's name, so presumably he
was not one of the s.f. regulars. Whoever he was, I hope he never
knows that I sabotaged his career, because Kubrick was promptly
informed that Clarke was *not* interested in developing other people's
ideas."
—from Clarke's 1991 intro
to a new edition of
his "2001" novel)
-----------
Geez. I wondered for years about what "Shadow on the Sun" really was.
(One possible suspect was "Shadows in the Sun," a 1954 novel by Chad
Oliver, who was an SF regular.)
Then, last week a simple 'Net search revealed all. The info is near
the bottom of the 2004 UK "Guardian" article about Kubrick's boxes,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2004/mar/27/features.weekend
In short: the "Shadow on the Sun" cited by Clarke wasn't a novel.
Rather, it was a BBC radio drama that Kubrick had followed in the
early '60s. The series' odd-sounding plot involved a meteor landing on
Earth.
Furthermore, the article, by Jon Ronson, says Kubrick didn't forget
"Shadow" after the '60s. In the early '90s K. played around with it
some more, getting hold of the BBC scripts. So "Shadow" is another
example of Kubrick holding on to a story idea for many years.

[kelpzoidzl]

On Jul 28, 11:58 am, "Cosmic Gnome"

"So...ok where is this radio drama on tape/cd etc?  i want it. Very
tantalizing.  And is the script around? "
It is extremely likely that all the tapes were wiped long ago, meaning that
there are no remaining recordings. The script, however, is at The Stanley
Kubrick Archive located at The University of the Arts London, here:http://www.arts.ac.uk/kubrick-archive.htm

Post by Cosmic Gnome
Yes, Art, and a few more details about the BBC Radio drama are also of
[1] It was written by Gavin Blakeney, a regular writer of radio dramas in
the 1950s and 1960s, and was broadcast in two parts in November and
December, 1961, when Kubrick was in London working on Lolita. This is
further confirmed by a letter (below) written by his niece to The Guardian
"In 1988, my uncle Gavin Blakeney also received a most exciting telephone
call from Tony, Kubrick's assistant (Citizen Kubrick, March 27). Kubrick
wanted the rights to his radio serial Shadow On The Sun. Unlike Jon
Ronson, this call made him £1,500 richer. Gav, who was the epitome of a
"bon viveur", died in 1993, but would be thrilled to know that Kubrick saw
promise in "the dog is not well", and that Ronson thinks it cheesy.
Madeline Church"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2004/apr/03/weekend7.weekend1
This seems to completely contradict Clarke's claim that Kubrick had
acquired the rights to the serial in the early 1960s. Perhaps Kubrick was
*considering* acquiring them at that time but didn't proceed after
Clarke's remark about rejecting the ideas of other writers.
[2] William Sylvester, who would late star as Dr Heywood Floyd in 2001,
acted in "Shadow on the Sun", alongside Sarah Lawson, William Lucas, and
Colin Gordon . Sylvester had settled in England after WWII and acted in
many science fiction and horror B-movies as well as radio and TV dramas
throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
[3] The original audio tapes of the SF drama are unlikely to have
survived, as both video and audio tape was so expensive at the time that
numerous dramas were routinely wiped for later re-use/recording of
subsequent dramas. However, Kubrick may well have recorded it off the
radio on his own equipment back in 1961, as how else would he, twenty
seven years later in 1988, have recalled such details about the broadcast?
[4] Blakeney's Shadow on the Sun is very different to Chad Oliver's
Shadows in the Sun, the latter being about a village in Texas comprised
entirely of aliens.
It was written by
(Arthur C. Clarke, describing his early days working with Kubrick,
"...[Stanley] had also acquired rights to a property with the
intriguing title 'Shadow on the Sun'; I remember nothing whatsoever
about it and have even forgotten the author's name, so presumably he
was not one of the s.f. regulars. Whoever he was, I hope he never
knows that I sabotaged his career, because Kubrick was promptly
informed that Clarke was *not* interested in developing other people's
ideas."
—from Clarke's 1991 intro
to a new edition of
his "2001" novel)
-----------
Geez. I wondered for years about what "Shadow on the Sun" really was.
(One possible suspect was "Shadows in the Sun," a 1954 novel by Chad
Oliver, who was an SF regular.)
Then, last week a simple 'Net search revealed all. The info is near
the bottom of the 2004 UK "Guardian" article about Kubrick's boxes,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2004/mar/27/features.weekend
In short: the "Shadow on the Sun" cited by Clarke wasn't a novel.
Rather, it was a BBC radio drama that Kubrick had followed in the
early '60s. The series' odd-sounding plot involved a meteor landing on
Earth.
Furthermore, the article, by Jon Ronson, says Kubrick didn't forget
"Shadow" after the '60s. In the early '90s K. played around with it
some more, getting hold of the BBC scripts. So "Shadow" is another
example of Kubrick holding on to a story idea for many years.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Hopefully we might be able to see it without a trip to the archives.


dc

[Art Haupt]

Amazing that any info at all about the BBC programs is still available
after nearly 50 years. Thanks!

Also interesting that William Sylvester drifted (accidentally?) into
Kubrick-world early on (in Shadows). Shades of "Universe" narrator
Douglas Rain's drift-in.