10 Things to Know About 'The Philadelphia Experiment' (1984)

The Philadelphia Experiment stars Michael Pare and Nancy Allen in the story of a World War 2 era soldier who gets transported through time through a botched experiment in trying make a US Destroyer ship invisble to radar. The film is filled with practical effects, chase scenes and romance and holds a 50% rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

Here are 10 Things to Know About The Philadelphia Experiment

10 John Carpenter Was Going to Direct The Philadelphia Experiment

John Carpenter wrote the first draft of the script that became The Philadelphia Experiment. His intention was to direct the film as a follow-up to The Fog, According to Carpenter, he just couldn’t nail the ending and it caused him to fall off the project. He left the project but once director Stewart Raffill was on board and a new script was completed, Carpenter came back as an Executive Producer.

9 Marketing in England Made it Look Like a Horror Movie

In England, Michael Pare was perhaps not seen as a draw, despite his chiseled jaw and America’s fawning critics comparing him to Brando and James Dean. So, when The Philadelphia Experiment opened in England, the marketers made it a horror movie. The tagline in England is “The Terrifying Story of an Experiment That Went Wrong.” The four quad poster for the film makes it look a bit like Threads, the genuinely terrifying British TV movie that came out the same year.

8 John Carpenter’s The Philadelphia Experiment

England leaned into horror imagery to sell The Philadelphia Experiment while other parts of the world went a step further. In Germany and other parts of Europe, The Philadelphia Experiment was marketed as John Carpenter’s The Philadelphia Experiment, using the horror master’s reputation to morph The Philadelphia Experiment into a horror movie.

7 Author William L Moore Loved the Movie Adaptation

William L. Moore co-wrote the "non-fiction" book The Philadelphia Experiment with Charles Berlitz in 1978. When the book was turned into a movie, Moore was first in line to tell people he loved the movie adaptation. The movie is basically based on the premise of Moore’s work, the conspiracy theory regarding World War 2 experiments and the supposed disappearance of the U.S.S Eldridge.

Nevertheless, Moore loved how the film extrapolated a sci-fi love story adventure, from his story about American soldiers being dangerously experimented upon by the U.S Government. I didn’t mean for that to sound insulting but I can read the insult you may perceive in those words. Moore was serious about his love for the movie and it helped revive interest in his book and the conspiracy theory surrounding the USS Eldridge and alleged World War 2 conspiracies. So yeah, of course he loved the movie.

6 “Beam Me Up Scotty”

In 1999 sailors who had served on the U.S.S Eldridge held a reunion in Las Vegas. The gathered sailors laughed and joked and mocked the ideas behind The Philadelphia Experiment. According to sailors such as Ted Davis, Ex-O Bill Van Allen, and Ed Tempeny, the Eldridge never even docked in Philadelphia in 1943, let alone participated in a secret government conspiracy.

Referring specifically to claims made in Moore and Berlitz’s book, one sailor joked about filing for mental health disability to which Ed Tempeny replied mockingly “Beam Me Up Scotty.”

5 The Real U.S.S Eldridge

Yes, the U.S.S Eldridge was a real World War 2 era destroyer. That’s pretty much all that is true regarding The Philadelphia Experiment. The real Eldridge protected other ships supplying troops preparing to invade France and drive Germany out of the country. After the war, the ship served as part of the U.S fleet until 1951 when it was sold to the Greek Army and remained in use until the late 1970s.

4 That Third Act Problem

As mentioned earlier, John Carpenter walked away from The Philadelphia Experiment over the third act problem that even he couldn’t solve. And it seems many other screenwriters could not solve it either as director Stewart Raffill went through nine rewrites of the script before settling on one he seemingly made up on the fly, three weeks before production began.

3 Joe Dante Was Briefly Attached to Direct

As the film was struggling toward production, producer Douglas Curtis refused to give up. After John Carpenter left the project, Curtis brought in director Joe Dante, fresh off of the success of The Howling. Dante spent a year trying to get the script to work before he too walked away, just in time to shift his energies to making Gremlins.

2 The US Navy Wanted Nothing to Do with The Philadelphia Experiment

Speaking of producer Douglas Curtis, not only was he struggling with the story of The Philadelphia Experiment, he was struggling with the United States Navy. According to Curtis, his proposal to the Navy was met with a stern rejection:

“We will have nothing to do with your film.”

Curtis had hoped for the cooperation of the Navy as it would have provided access to personnel and equipment that would have saved a lot of money on the production.

Instead, the production was forced to make use of a decommissioned World War 2 ship in a ship graveyard in South Carolina. The USS Laffey had been part of the D-Day invasion during World War 2 and it became the stand-in for the USS Eldridge. Curtis wouldn’t comment on the cost of refurbishing the ship for the production.

1 Writer Charles Berlitz Claimed to Have Found The Lost City of Atlantis

Charles Berlitiz, co-writer of the original 1978 “Non-Fiction” book, The Philadelphia Experiment with William L. Moore also claimed to have found the lost city of Atlantis. According to Berlitz, Atlantis is located inside The Bermuda Triangle, thus why no one has ever found it before.

How Berlitz found Atlantis is perhaps in one of his books on Atlantis that I haven’t read.