Ib Melchior

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Ib Jørgen Melchior born September 17 1917 is a novelist short story writer film producer film director and screenwriter of lowbudget American science fiction movies most of them released by American International Pictures He was born in Copenhagen Denmark Melchiors novels include Code Name Grand Guignol Eva The Haigerloch Project The Marcus Device Order of Battle Hitlers Werewolves Sleeper Agent The Tombstone Cipher and The Watchdogs of Abaddon His nonfiction includes the books Quest Searching for Germanys Nazi Past with coauthor Frank Brandenburg and Lauritz Melchior The Golden Years of Bayreuth the latter a biography of his father the opera singer and movie star Lauritz Melchior With his wife LA architect Cleo Baldon Ib Melchior wrote the nonfiction books Reflections on the Pool California Designs for Swimming and Steps amp Stairways Melchior also wrote Hour of Vengeance a play based on the Viking story of Amled that also inspired William Shakespeares play Hamlet In 1982 it was awarded the Hamlet Award for best playwriting by the Shakespeare Society of America As a filmmaker Melchior wrote and directed The Angry Red Planet 1959 and The Time Travelers 1964 His most high profile credit was as coscreenwriter along with John C Higgins of Byron Haskins critically acclaimed Robinson Crusoe on Mars 1964 He cowrote the screenplays for two USDanish coproductions Reptilicus 1961 and Journey to the Seventh Planet 1962 and provided the English language script for Mario Bavas Planet of the Vampires 1965 For television he wrote The Premonition episode for the second season of the original The Outer Limits series The episode was broadcast in 1965 Melchiors short story The Racer was adapted as Paul Bartels cult film favorite Death Race 2000 1975 starring David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone and produced by Roger Corman It was later remade as Death Race 2008 starring Jason Statham and Joan Allen directed by Paul WS Anderson and produced by Tom Cruise He claims to be the creator of the original idea upon which Irwin Allen based his television series Lost in Space although he never received onscreen credit for this In 1960 Melchior had created an outline for a series he called Space Family Robinson which later became a Gold Key comic book Ed Shifres book Lost in Space The True Story is a detailed documentation of how Irwin Allen allegedly plagiarized Melchiors script with the two outlines presented side by side Decades later Prelude Pictures hired Melchior as a consultant on its Lost in Space feature film adaptation but later sold his contract to New Line Cinema its production partner on the film New Line agreed to pay Melchior a 75000 production bonus and 15000 but refused him his contractually promised two percent of the producers gross receipts from the film Melchior who is a decorated war hero of World War II has also been involved in a long legal battle involving his fathers estate Chossewitz in Brandenburg Germany which was confiscated by the communist government of East Germany and never returned In 1965 he was dubbed Knight Commander of the Militant Order of Saint Brigitte of Sweden In 1976 the Academy of Science Fiction Fantasy and Horror Films awarded Ib Melchior its Golden Scroll Award to Merit for Outstanding Achievement Biographies include Ib Melchior Man of Imagination by Robert Skotak as well as Melchiors own autobiography Case by Case A US Army Counterintelligence Agent in World War II Description above from the Wikipedia article Ib Melchior licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia