Photoplay Editions & Movie Tie-Ins
The Golden Years [1912-1969] ... Science Fiction Films

Early science fiction novels by Jules Verne were filmed as early as 1916 with the appearance of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea with Grosset and Dunlap providing a nice photoplay edition with a wraparound photo dust jacket.  This film introduced the iconic Captain Nemo to the theater audience and seeing underwater film action of a submarine was a ‘big deal’ at the time.  The Mysterious Island also by Verne is a 1929 part-talkie film loosely adapted from the novel that featured a diving boat, dragons, giant squid, and an underwater race of humanoids.  The photoplay edition has some double-spread interior stills in addition to the photo endpapers.  This is a crossover subject with pages for Horror and Fantasy books.

The wife of German film director Fritz Lang, Thea von Harbou brought us Metropolis and The Woman in the Moon (UK film title – Girl in the Moon) in the later 1920s.  These British photoplays by Hutchinson and Readers Library fetch high prices.  The first English language edition of Metropolis by Readers Library is identified by the absence of any reprint dates and a dust jacket and text that do not list Metropolis as a Readers Library title.  The Woman in the Moon was reprinted by World-Wide in the United States with a new dust jacket, under the title Rocket to the Moon.

The concept of mad scientists tends to be a crossover with horror films but at least three different versions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde exist as film books, including a 1913 short version that may be the earliest United Kingdom film edition.   Another contender for earliest being A Message from Mars (1913), a solid sci-fi venture.  Other demented scientists include Dr. Cyclops (1940), Dr. Moreau in Island of Lost Souls (1932), and Dr. Frankenstein, who created the mate for the monster in The Bride of Frankenstein (1935).

There are several film books derived from the futuristic writing of H. G. Wells in the 1930s.  The Island of Lost Souls (1932 from The Island of Dr. Moreau), The Invisible Man (1933), Things to Come (1936 from The Shape of Things to Come), and The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1936), all have film editions.  The Island of Dr. Moreau film edition published by Duffield and Green is among the rarest of all movie books and the controversial nature of the film led to it being banned in Great Britain.  This title was reprinted by Dodd Mead utilizing remainders from Duffield and Green, which can create confusion on this one.  The first dust jacket has a written credit to the Paramount film at the bottom of the front panel.

Other science fiction films preceding 1950 that have book editions include Chandu the Magician (1932), The Tunnel (1933), F.P.1 (1933), Once in a New Moon (1934), The Lost City (1935), and The Miracle Rider (1935), a combination of cowboys and science.  The 1940s gave us little in respect to film editions in this genre.  The realities and consequences of WW2 seemed to put a damper on science fiction films.

The Golden Age for science fiction films begins in the 1950s and culminated with Moon Zero Two in 1969 (the last year for listings within the scope of this website).  The emerging science technologies, the potential for nuclear warfare, and the ongoing ‘cold war’ were factors in the abundance of films during this era.  Perhaps the most desired book from the 1950s would be Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), a First Edition novelization by Vargo Statten (John Russell Fearn) published by Dragon Press in London.  The digest paperback is much harder to find compared to the hardcover in the dust jacket and one of the rarest of collector paperbacks.

Other notables available as movie tie-ins include The Thing from Another World (1951), The War of the Worlds (1953), This Island Earth (1955), The Quartermass Experiment (1955), 1984 (1956), Forbidden Planet (1956), 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957), Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), Village of the Damned (1960), The Time Machine (1960), Gorgo (1961), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961),  X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes (1963), Queen of Blood (1966), Barbarella (1967), The Lost Continent (1968), and Planet of the Apes (1968).  2001, a Space Odyssey (1968) was the biggest moneymaker in the United States for 1969 and has fueled continued outer space productions from film studios with accompanying movie tie-ins.

Webmaster: webadm@photoplay-edition.com (Bay State Systems)

Last Revision:  May 6, 2021 12:37 PM