A Tribute to Frederick S. Clarke, 1948-2000

By: by John Thonen
Date: Friday, October 27, 2000

Most fans of the fantastic film genres are willing to be satisfied with watching, reading about, or even collecting materials related to the actors, films and filmmakers who have left their mark on fantastic cinema. Only a handful of fans have the drive to make their own mark on the world of film as writers, directors or producers, or as a part of the media, helping to bring exposure to films and filmmakers, as well as indirectly influencing the industry and the fan community itself. Last week, that fan community lost an important member from the latter category with the passing of Frederick S. Clarke, founder, publisher and editor of the long running Cinefantastique (or CFQ) magazine. CFQ is one of the longest lasting, continually published, journals devoted to the film genres that gave birth to its name. Under Clarke's tutelage, CFQ became an influential, at times controversial, publication of which even 'The Los Angeles Times' took note, labeling it 'the little magazine that could.' in a 1986 article.

Cinefantastique, which has long borne the motto 'The magazine with a sense of wonder' began as a 'fanzine' in the fall of 1970 as a quarterly publication, adopting a bimonthly schedule in 1990. 1970 was a period that might be viewed as the 'golden age' of fan-published amateur and semipro publications. Other notable fanzines of the day were 'Photon,' 'Gore Creatures,' 'Children of the Night,' 'Bizarre,' and 'Fantascene.' Some lasted only a few issues, others a few years, but only Clarke's CFQ and Gary Svehla's 'Gore Creatures' (albeit with the classier moniker of 'Midnight Marquee') have survived the passing decades, and only CFQ came to be a 'pro-zine,' widely sold in newsstands and bookstores throughout the country, and even in some foreign lands.


From the beginning, Fred Clarke envisioned CFQ as something special. He used high quality paper and printing. He accepted only limited advertising; that way, his readers got the most for their money, and the magazine could maintain independence from the major studios, whose advertising support often dictated the editorial content of other magazines. He also saw Cinefantastique as something very separate from Forry Ackerman's Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine and strived to treat his subjects far more seriously in comparison to Ackerman's often juvenile, though undeniably legendary and influential, publication. Clarke was second to no one in his admiration for Ackerman, but he felt it was time for fantastic films and its fans to grow up, and he saw CFQ as the journal to chronicle that maturation. Today, CFQ can be viewed as being second only to 'Famous Monsters' in terms of its influence on fans and the industry as a whole.

CFQ would come to feature exhaustive retrospectives on films such as Them, Forbidden Planet, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and others, which only a few years earlier were widely held to be little more than kiddie fare from the 1950s and seldom seen outside of TV Creature Feature showings. Offering an emphasis on the technical sophistication of these films, as well as their underlying themes, CFQ was a major force in helping these films to gain mainstream respect. In addition, this type coverage helped develop a growing audience interest in them and a desire to see these classics again, a desire that helped to launch the home video boom of the 1980s.

From the second issue on, CFQ was featuring full-color covers, unheard on any other fanzine of the day, and by the seventh issue Clarke had begun to feature a few color pages inside as well. Clarke acknowledged few boundaries to the world of cinefantastique. In the first few years of publication CFQ was as likely to feature a cover story retrospective on a classic such as The Day The Earth Stood Still or a major studio release such as Logan's Run or a low-budgeted, independent film such as A Boy and His Dog.

Within the magazine's popular review section, opinions could be found on films ranging from subtly subversive studio fare such as The Stepford Wives to an art house effort like Spirit of the Beehive to gory trash like Torso and on to the hard-core porn film The Angel Above, The Devil Below. If there was a fantastic element to a film or TV show, Clarke would cover it.

Clarke's independent nature also earned him the animosity of some powerful figures in the film industry, simply because he was always willing to print a story he thought his readers would be interested in. More than 15 years after CFQ's coverage of Alien raised serious questions as to the origins of its story and the actual contributions of its credited screenwriter, Dan O'Bannon, that writer remained so angry that he refused to be interviewed by CFQ in conjunction with the release of Screamers, which was based on a script by O'Bannon. However, Clarke would soon court more powerful adversaries than O'Bannon.

While he devoted most of a double issue to coverage of Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind Clarke openly criticized both that the film and Star Wars in the same issue, referring to them as 'empty-headed.' Of course, as they rested comfortably on the stacks of money their films had earned, Spielberg and George Lucas were little troubled by the opinions of the editor of a small film magazine. That attitude would soon change.

It was with the magazine first double issue, issue 6:4/7:1 that CFQ truly hit its stride. More than 2/3 of the 96-page issue was devoted to Star Wars featuring interviews with nearly all the creative participants and a collection of stills that, combined, make the issue a fan's wet dream even to this day. This kind of extensive coverage became CFQ's hallmark, with future issues featuring in-depth coverage of Close Encounters, Alien, Conan, Blade Runner The Black Hole, The Thing and even a huge retrospective to Forbidden Planet. Other issues featured some of the earliest comprehensive looks at important new directorial talents such as John Carpenter and David Cronenberg.

Some CFQ readers were outraged with the gory photos from Cronenberg's Scanners and The Brood, but Clarke was not swayed. That point was made clear when the next issue was devoted to Dick Smith, perhaps the industry's first 'star' makeup artist. The issue was packed with depictions of some of Smith's most gruesome work from films such as The Exorcist, Altered States, Scanners and The Sentinel. However much this might have irritated his more conservative readers, Clarke found far greater negative reaction to a one-page article in the same issue.

The article detailed the death throes of Spielberg's aborted Night Skies project, a kind of precursor to E.T. intended to feature evil aliens. Artist Ron Cobb, screenwriter John Sayles and makeup effects artist Rick Baker had all recently left the project, some not by their own choice, and the article detailed information about the pre-production woes that led to the project's abandonment. In particular, the article made clear that there was more than a little animosity between the director and Baker, suggesting that Spielberg's own uncertainty on the direction of the project had sabotaged it and that he had been none too supportive of his creative team. Not surprisingly, Spielberg was none too happy to find his dirty laundry on display.

Refusing to let bad enough alone, Clarke followed up the Night Skies brouhaha a few issues later with a small piece detailing a rejected E.T. design. While such behind-the-scenes information is common today (on shows like 'Entertainment Tonight' or 'Access Hollywood,' not to mention the myriad of internet news & rumor sites), it was almost unheard of 20 years ago when the kind of publicity control the major studios had wielded for decades was still in place. The rumor was that Spielberg was furious and, while his irritation with CFQ was never directly stated by the director, the magazine soon found itself persona non-gratis on the filmmaker's later projects.

As if arousing the wrath of one of the most powerful figures in the film industry was not enough, Clarke continued his philosophy that any news was fair game and earned another powerful foe when he printed information about the relationship between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, prior to the release of The Empire Strikes Back. Shortly afterwards, Clarke and CFQ found themselves barred from the productions of yet another Hollywood mover and shaker. However, it wasn't all bad news. CFQ's reputation for in-depth coverage and unbiased, bite-the-hand-that-feeds-it articles had increased sales. Clarke upped the size of his production staff, increased the number of color pages, and even began accepting some additional advertising.

Throughout his publishing career, Clarke would repeatedly prove that he was unafraid of controversy in any form, and perhaps even courted it. He roused fan ire from issue #1, with his choice to feature Mike Nichols' film of Catch-22 on the cover. The move sparked a lively letter-writing debate as to just what constituted a 'fantastic' film, an issue that remains unsettled even today.

Clarke was not one to let the criticism of others influence his decisions, particularly if there were great visuals to accompany the article. By Issue 3:4, in 1974, CFQ was courting controversy again by featuring film stills from the X-rated Flesh Gordon, which featured nudity, a practice that continued, if only sporadically, throughout the magazine's life. By issue 10:1, Clarke's penchant for depicting sexuality reached its zenith with coverage of Alfred Sole's film Tanya's Island starring model D.D. Winters, soon to find fame under the name Vanity. As if the stills featuring full frontal nudity were not enough, Clarke dared to offer a full page, color photo that seemed to be depicting inter-species sex. Two years later he even went so far as to feature full frontal male nudity in a still from the film Ghost Story. Many fans proved to be all too conservative and objected to the displays of skin, as did parents who felt the magazine should cater to kids, even though it had been aimed at adults from day one.

Eventually Clarke repaired the rift with Spielberg, though Lucas remained more elusive, and he began to put increased emphasis on his position as a publisher. In 1992 he launched his first new publication, Femme Fatales, featuring a rather daring cover of scream queen Brinke Stevens, nude except for her strategically placed hands. Within the magazine were numerous near nude photos of actresses, along with articles and interviews, some written by the actresses themselves. Under the editorial guidance of Bill George, who described the magazine as 'the 'Sports Illustrated' Swimsuit Edition of Cinefantastique,' the magazine was successful almost immediately and eventually surpassed CFQ in sales, even though its bookstore distribution was not as wide. The magazine struggled for respect, finding no shortage of starlets willing to display copious amounts of skin in its pages, but finding that better-known female performers were keeping a wide berth between themselves and 'Femme Fatales.'

Around this same time it began to seem to many that Clarke had become more interested in magazines sales than in content. He seemed increasingly to look for covers and interior illustrations that would help drive newsstand sales, since both CFQ and Femme Fatales never had a large subscriber base. Still, he remained willing to cover more esoteric topics such as cover stories devoted to the artists behind movie posters, or to Paul Blaisdell, a little known no-budget effects whiz whose work was seen in many 1950s films.

Flush with the success of 'Femme Fatales,' whose popularity was drawing increased cooperation from studios and producers, Clarke decided to expand CFQ Publishing even further with the birth of another sister publication, the quarterly Imagi-Movies, named for a term coined by Forry Ackerman. Initially edited by the author of this article, IM fell for the rest of its 3-year life span under the guidance of Fandom's own, Steve Biodrowski. Fred Clarke had envisioned the magazine as something rather different from CFQ, but eventually the similarities between the two made their coexistence counter-productive and IM was folded into CFQ, allowing the parent publication to at last become a monthly magazine.

CFQ found solid sales for several years thanks to the popularity of the Star Trek movies and TV spin-offs, which received incredibly in-depth coverage by contributor Mark Altman; The X Files series received similar treatment from Paula Vitaris. But it seemed Clarke could see the writing on the wall and put much of his efforts into 'Femme Fatales,' for a time even boosting its publication up to an issue every 3 weeks.

Clarke would make other efforts at expanding the CFQ publishing domain, including the short-lived Visions and the slightly less short-lived Anime-Fantastique. However, by the time of his death, Clarke had discontinued all publications except for Femme Fatales and CFQ, and had even scaled the latter back to bimonthly publication in the face of declining sales as fans became increasingly drawn to the almost instantaneous genre coverage available on the internet. While Femme Fatales seemed likely to at least maintain its popularity, the days of CFQ's position as the best genre publication seemed numbered. Few would have guessed that the days of its creator were even more limited.

On a strictly personal note, I feel compelled to add that not all those who worked for or with Fred Clarke held him in the considerable esteem that I did. One former contributor reacted to the news of Clarke's sudden and premature passing with the comment, 'Well, I guess there is a God.' Clarke could be a taskmaster; he was often inflexible in creative disagreements and didn't mind stepping on a few toes to accomplish his goals. Those are qualities that can easily earn enemies, but I think they are also the qualities of leaders and people with vision. Clarke was never more demanding of anyone than he was of himself. He generally ate his lunch while working and regularly put in 6 day weeks, many of them 10-12 hour days.

Clarke was tough, but he was also fair. When I resigned as editor of Imagi-Movies, leaving Clarke without an editor after spending money to launch the magazine and having committed to further issues, I felt certain it would be the end of my relationship with CFQ, and I expressed this to Fred in my letter of resignation. Instead, I received a call from him letting me know that I remained welcome as a contributor, which I continued to be right on through to Fred's death.

The exact future of Cinefantastique (not to mention Femme Fatales) remains uncertain at this moment, but the good news is that there will be an attempt to keep the magazines going. No matter what the outcome, Frederick S. Clarke left a mark on the cinema and fandom. It is one that few fans could hope to achieve. A more admirable legacy would require a considerable 'sense of wonder.'