This Friday (9/25/20) TCM is screening three of the six films that loosely comprise the Ivan Reiner/Antonio Margheriti Gamma One series, a mid-60s sexy space future where the United Democracy Space Center manages all the interplanetary threats, where endearingly cheap analog (in-camera) special effects, tough guy performances, cohesive interplanetary space-military jargon, and occasional stealth feminism serve a no-nonsense scripts. At. 6:45 AM (EST) there is War of the Planets (1966), then at 11:30 AM (EST), The Green Slime (1968), and finally, the first in the series, The Wild Wild Planet (1965) at 2: 45 PM (EST). If you haven't seen them, set the DVR and prepare to be wowed, or at least amused.
What is so fascinating is how they linked, not as some obvious series with a prefix in the title, but they recycle sets, props, character names, actors, miniatures, and a general mise-en-scene future, with a united government and revolving circular space stations in orbit around the solar system with names like "Gamma One" and "Gamma 3." But this isn't a TV series-based movie series like the Star Trek films, nor a series stemming from instant pop culture pervasion like Star Wars, these films aren't titled to draw attention to the others in the series; it's as if each one is stand alone, but just uses the same characters, actors, writers, sets, and props. They're just there. What are they? And why am I so fascinated?
Getting to know these films can be confusing - they have similar names, and casts, but things keep changing. The main four films that comprise the "Gamma One Quadrilogy" were shot over a two year period in the mid-60s by genre journeyman Antonio Margheriti (using the Americanized pseudonym 'Anthony Dawson' in the credits) with co-producing and writing by American writer (and Batman co-creator) Ivan Reiner: Set in a future where mankind as moved out into space in much the way Werner von Braun laid out in early Disney films, with space stations revolving (to duplicate gravity) around the Earth, the moon, Mars, etc. The key station is "Gamma One," where men and women work side-by-side, clad in corsets (for the men only) and muted polyester, as interplanetary threats--'wild' planets, mutant-making splinter societies, abominable snowmen, and unified intelligence 'diaphanoids'-- come and are dispatched by intrepid commanders. Then the writers from the last film went Margheriti made went over to Japan two years later to make another unofficial entry, with none of the same characters but set on "Gamma 3" instead of Gamma One, and organized around the same Central Space Command idea. If you add to these five a film Margheriti made in 1964 that plants a lot of the seeds we'd reap in the Gamma One quadrilogy, then you have what I term the Gamma One Sextet - and you can even add a 1963 Japanese science fiction movie that seems a partial inspiration for The Green Slime if you want to be thorough.
If you watch these films a few times you learn what the differences are between the Gamma, Alpha, and Delta space stations, the names of ships (given the names of planets, just to confuse) and manned satellites (like "Echo"), and they are not easy to keep separate as often the effects referred to are either not added (probably for budget reasons, or they looked too ridiculous even for Margheriti) or the same shots are used for exteriors. Also, the names of crew stay the same from film to film, but actors switch roles, furthering the mystery, alongside the overly similar titling. For example I was a fan of War Between Planets for a long time without realizing War of the Planets was a totally different film, albeit with some of the same cast in different roles.
Of course my enthusiasm for this odd duck series may blind me to their niche appeal. The special effects are pretty bad, but to me that's part of the charm. First, there are no optical effects at all in any of these films. Forget about CGI, or hand-painted glowing shapes, here there's not even a laser beam scratched into the celluloid. When floating in space the wires are always visible, and far away astronauts are represented by floating plastic toy spacemen. When these characters fire their lasers (one guy even pronounces them 'lazz-ers'), it's as giant cigarette lighters meet blow torches, so they have to aim at things up in the air as that's where the flame is going anyway. When the ships roar through the cosmos there's this prop with three of them flying in formation, each spitting fire into nose of the one behind from their exhaust as they roar through the cosmos: in the light of the fire not only do you see the clear plastic rod connecting all three ships to each other and being held up by some offscreen hand, you can slightly see the studio back wall, painted black to resemble outer space but the lines of the Exit door visible in the light of the sparklers. The stars are almost afterthoughts, hanging low in the sky; the Earth, when visible, is as 2D as if it was hanging in the back of kid's a stage show. Sometimes the darkness of space is more a light blue depending on how alert the lighting tech is. But who cares when the exterior miniatures are super cool like this? The imagination is there, in typical Italian genius style.
Here are the Main Four, the Gamma One Quadrilogy:
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Though it has easily the best of all the movie posters (above). a title that urges you to consider it in the same hipster vein as Wild, Wild West, and a lot of great miniatures, ideas, and kooky sets, the first in "Anthony Dawson's" official Gamma One quartet suffers from too many gross outs (and a hero whose horror of genetic difference is both reprehensible and contagious), and too many outdoor scenes back on Earth (nothing takes the air out of a goofy sci-fi movie like bright Italian sunlight), and a ridiculous villain in the corporate chemist "Mr. Nurmi" (Massimo Serato). A eugenics-crazed lunatic with his own corporation-owned planet, Delphus, and a master plan to abduct 'perfect specimens' via a chemical that shrinks them down to Barbie-size, he's always clamoring about "perfection" even as his Klingon-esque eyebrows are peeling off under the sweaty soundstage kliegs. Nurmi's plan to purify the world is ridiculous, but even more so is the incredible slowness of Mike Halstead in Space Command to figure out what's going on. He regularly misses obvious clues (clones appearing in several places at once) and dismisses his own sister's eyewitness accounts as hysteria. Eventually they figure it out, but the skeevy irritation lingers. Still, this is such a completely realized mise-en-scene, such cool futuristic miniatures, futuristic cars, ray guns, etc. that it's hard to stay mad.
THE WILD, WILD PLANET
I criminali della galassia
(1966) Dir. Antonio Margheriti
**1/2
Though it has easily the best of all the movie posters (above). a title that urges you to consider it in the same hipster vein as Wild, Wild West, and a lot of great miniatures, ideas, and kooky sets, the first in "Anthony Dawson's" official Gamma One quartet suffers from too many gross outs (and a hero whose horror of genetic difference is both reprehensible and contagious), and too many outdoor scenes back on Earth (nothing takes the air out of a goofy sci-fi movie like bright Italian sunlight), and a ridiculous villain in the corporate chemist "Mr. Nurmi" (Massimo Serato). A eugenics-crazed lunatic with his own corporation-owned planet, Delphus, and a master plan to abduct 'perfect specimens' via a chemical that shrinks them down to Barbie-size, he's always clamoring about "perfection" even as his Klingon-esque eyebrows are peeling off under the sweaty soundstage kliegs. Nurmi's plan to purify the world is ridiculous, but even more so is the incredible slowness of Mike Halstead in Space Command to figure out what's going on. He regularly misses obvious clues (clones appearing in several places at once) and dismisses his own sister's eyewitness accounts as hysteria. Eventually they figure it out, but the skeevy irritation lingers. Still, this is such a completely realized mise-en-scene, such cool futuristic miniatures, futuristic cars, ray guns, etc. that it's hard to stay mad.
One-Offs: One tack that would disappear after this first entry is a typically-Italian anti-corporate motif in the form of gigantic chemical company CBM -who can get away with whatever they want, leaving Halstead to have to escape his house arrest to throw himself into the fray. It's a cliche'd antiauthoritarian slant that doesn't taste right in this kind of utopian collective future.
Special Effects: As with most of the series, the effects are terrible - ray guns are basically sparklers and lighters cranked to eleven (all effects are in-camera) Luckily Margheriti would rather give you a poorly designed alien world than just have another static, cheap, talky scene. But oh brother, don't get me started about the grimy-looking "Proteo Theater" with its butterfly dancers! Man, does Nurmi have some odd ideas.
Feminism: The romantic bickering between the 'married to his job' commander of Gamma 1, Commander Mike Halstead (Tony Russell) and martial arts expert Connie, i.e. Lieutenant Gomez (Lisa Gastoni) has aged very badly. Connie doesn't give a good an impression of women in the workforce. She ignores red flags galore when she gets the leering proposition to go away to Nurmi's off-limits corporate planet, Delphus, merely because he calls her "a marvelous jungle animal" that he wants to to "explore." And when she snaps to Mike, "I want to be treated as a woman, not as an equal" you want to find the macho idiot who wrote that line and belt him black-and-blue with a feminist film textbook. Worse, Connie goes from demonstrating kung fu to freaking out when blood comes out of the shower on Delphus, then to being locked up in an old-school medical version of a pillory without any argument.
On the plus side: There are some excellent miniature cityscapes and planetary landing areas--they glimmer and shine and are gorgeously photographed; all sorts of futuristic spacey ideas come zipping past, and Margheriti takes time to give us busy (indoor soundstage) exteriors of the UDSC, replete with televisions in windows advertising things like the "Compu-doll" (a computer animated talking baby doll) and "Nu-Face" an at-home plastic surgery kit. These scenes were given relatively lavish attention (and would be reused in the subsequent films). I will forgive the terrible blue eyeshadow/pink lipstick combination of the enemy kung fu women because, well, I love the idea, though it's funny they fight the men, while I like that the film has the guts that makes it okay for the enemy agent lady to abduct a young moppet for no clear reason. There's a great hotel room fight between a bunch of kung-fu hittin' babes and the three space force Gamma 1 officers (which include a young Franco Nero in a supporting part); and a cool mid-air escape from an apartment window by Halstead after he's confined to quarters, when his crew (including Nero) swing by to pick him up in a craft before zipping over to Delphus! Good stuff. There's a cool shoot-out where the boys massacre a whole army of mutant clones, their four arms waving menacingly (some only have two but who's complaining?) and a final all-out brawl as the set is flooded with bloody eviscera-water that must be seen to be believed
Egregious Offenses:Nurmi's mission on Halstead's station is to create living, autonomous human organs for transplants; Halstead looks at them and expresses his distaste; and then we're supposed to buy that a villain hung up on perfection wouldn't think his beautiful people might object to a life spent lounging by an open swimming pool full of blood and pureed human viscera (which they're also expected to shower with) that eventually spills through during the big collapse climax ala something between one of Danny Torrance's special Overlook elevator and the flooding of the Romans after Moses gets across the Red Sea. Parts of the film seem to have been cut for budget or time -though we have but a glimpse of Nurmi's grand plan to become one with Connie (slice both people in half, literally, and splice them together!). And his planet Delphus seems to be awfully small. The tour of his place (under the blood lake) is freaky thoiugh, with a room full of deformed mutants straight of an AIP Lovecraft adaptation and trays full of severed limbs being dumped into the lake as 'leftovers'. The most disquieting element though is the uncanny look Nurmi's cloned henchman, a tall sharp-nosed man with an obscenely bald head barely covered by a fascist infantry cap, wearing a cheap black rubber raincoat too sizes too small. He's like that icky guy you have to be friends with just because he's the only other kid into punk rock. Luckily all his clones have four arms (making them "a freak... a sickening freak" as reactionary Halstead dubs him). The rest of Nurmi's 'perfection' army are women suffering a surfeit of cheap oily make-up, unflattering costumes (only the men wear corsets in the future!) with a dislike of harsh words, and trapped in godawful hair styles. Luckily, they're good at kung fu, and a big hotel room battle with Halstead and his men (including a young Franco Nero!) is a highlight.
Enzo Fiermonte status: He's called General Fowler here (the "italian Burt Lancaster" plays a general in all four of the main quadrilogy but never keeps the same name)
Hopeful Hints: there's a pixie-faced brunette girl who keeps popping up as an extra in all these films as one of the crew. I have yet to find out who she is, but it's fascinating that she's always around in all four films. Look for the half-shrunk scientist at the end, close to the bottom of the screen at the end, when Connie is all revealed in a fetching bathing suit and the gang is kicking back with cocktails by the (normal-colored) swimming pool. He's not bitter,
WAR OF THE PLANETS
I diafanoidi vengono da Marte
(1966) Dir. Antonio Margheriti
***
***
Now safely off of Earth and up on Gamma 1, Commander Mike Halstead (Tony Russel) and Lieutenant. Connie, Gomez (Lisa Gastoni) are celebrating New Years, up to their old 'not as cute as they think' unprofessional bickering, and all the Gamma stations are competing for the best space display - or in Gamma One's case, a live space ballet of cheerleader-style letter spelling Happy New Year (in English! Did they shoot one for Italian too?). But while that's going on - terror strikes - when one of the officers on duty that night, Captain Jacques Dubois (the Satanic-looking Michael Lemoine) is possessed by a green gel light and fog - a hive mind of bodiless creatures roaming the galaxy in search of the ideal hosts, are attacking the space stations through their green light displays (which the revelers presume are fireworks or something). Though it takes awhile for it to sink in as the crews are all getting drunk and/or snogging (the dress designer Berenice Saprano doesn't waste a chance to trot out lots of cute space babes in various futuristic--albeit tasteful--dresses.), Margheriti proves himself a master of well executed crowd movements in the the way the emergency is gradually relayed from just a peculiar observation in background radiation all the way to evacuation of all guests, and the way the guests--drunk--make it hard to get rid of them.
The glowing green lights everyone sees flashing in the corner of their eyes are supposed to be something tangible, though all we ever see of them are rushing green smoke illuminated from a green light off camera. We have to take Halstead's right hand man's word that "you did it commander - you knocked 'em right out of orbit" by- luring them between two lead shields and then blasting 'lazzers' at them? Some pretty weird effects appear to be missing. When he tells the crew to "get ready with the .38s!" it's pretty funny - imagining shooting bullets at green smoke and that magically clears it away. We're a long way from the same year's Planet of the Vampires, which managed to get by with using a few bicycle reflector lights to a much better effect.
Egregious Offenses: The gross idea of some dusty old automated system and you just push a button and get "Lobster tails ala bracco" instantly delivered in a steel block and you just sit right down and start gorging yourself is, in the scheme of things, pretty gross considering it's been a long time since anyone reloaded the fridge. "What do we do with the garbage, leave it for the maid?" asks young Franco Nero. It's been a long time since I heard a lobster so disgraced!
Enzo Fiermonte status: He's called General Halstead here (Mike's father!). He's slightly less behind the learning curve than usual.
Plusses: Lots of groovy tracking shots this time, one involving a helmet-less stagger across a flat planetary surface to escape at the climax, with a red tinted space sky and full size ships and vehicles crawled gaspingly passed in favor of a bigger craft all the way across the red sandy (all indoor soundstage with cool lighting) landing area. There is also a marvelous walk across what is a big hangar / boiler room / garage / soundstage garage on either Gamma One or Earth, as the crew set out on this journey to a remote mining planet (Mars?); and a long, kind of pointlessly elongated automated walkway journey down into the dark recesses of the mine where the "hosting" ceremony is going on. The big New Years parties on all the various space stations and Earth HQ are also shown in elaborate detail, as if we'll see these people again (we never do). Along with the first film, this is one of the more sexist of the series, with Sanchez easily hypnotized into a green trance, and spending most of the movie a zombie, and there's an older officer as well (same deal). They don't get much dialogue but Sanchez gets all pissy when--again--Mike treats her like an officer in front of the troops instead of getting all romantic, which seems hopelessly unprofessional. She looks good though, and there are more than a few pretty faces floating around at the party (such as that unbilled pixie-faced girl from the previous film).
WAR BETWEEN THE PLANETS
Il pianeta errante
(1966) Dir. Antonio Margheriti
***1/2
You guessed it - the title to this one is the "runaway planet" or "The Errant Planet" if you want to be exact. But distributors eager perhaps to jump on the press they did for the last film (or was this one first?) but banking on a short memory.. ? no, anyway you look at it, the nearly identical title makes no sense, especially considering its got much of the same cast and props, so that if you were sleeping through the last movie you might not be able to tell the difference!
Cast: This is one of my favorites as it has Giacomo Rossi Stuart (Kill Baby Kill!), who with his regular voiceover dubber whomever it is is a master - at matching GRS's brief lip movements with great torrents of tough snapped dialogue, which is the way a coiled natural leader with a GI Joe-style handle like Commander Rod Jacskon would be. The dubbing is great matching the lips with weird hesitance and fast-talking when necessary. Dialogue is rich.... and wondrous, using the weird pauses of the actors to create mood and drama rather than just making them sound drunk: "Read your retros - don't get clogged, Mack!" / "Who's got the flagship?!" Great lines like the interchange with his on-station lover Terry Sanchez (Ombretta Colli)
"I'm engaged to her Terry.... not that... I want to be."
"cant you keep her from coming up here?"
"I'm afraid..... it's more... complicated ... than that."
It's in charge of communications and she's way more low key and professional than Lisa Gastoni was with Mike Halstead in the first two films. They've been having an affair when not too busy with space; and there's just one hitch - Rod's dopey, cat-eyed fiancee is down on Earth, and happens to be the General's daughter (Halina Zalewski of Long Hair of Death fame). Pietro Maretellenzana is Toby, AKA Capt. Dubrowski, who is buddies of sorts with Commander Jackson but has a hard time taking orders.
FX: The exterior (beyond the pull of the space wheel) is once again the worst part as far as being convincing, and therefore the best - while they stand on the edge the stars don't move as they would if the wheel was spinning (to create gravity) and naturally the flying through space is all done from wires so everyone looks like they're lifted up by the seat of their britches. Man it's ridiculous but the music is nice and ominous and weird.
Enzo Fiermonte status: He's called General Norton here, and Janet (Zalewska) accompanies him like a secretary or something, even getting him to cut short an important meeting so she can whine about not hearing from Mike on Gamma One! Norton, that's so unprofessional!
It's not so much it's that riveting but its rich with delight.
There are no weird aliens, but the errant planet, soaring too close to earth's gravitational field resulting in all sorts of seismic and tidal disturbances. It's uninhabited but impressive and alive, with fields of cold red gelatin quicksand and islands of hairy ground surrounding craters breathing out plumes of cold steam. Going into one to plant anti-matter charges, they find themselves attacked by white tendrils that bleed but repair themselves as soon as Rod stops hacking at them. It's quite a destination.
The imdb score is unfairly low, and perhaps based on old faded VHS pan and scans (or memories of being horribly bored as a kid catching it on TV, marveling that an astronaut hacking at white tubes constituted a science fiction movie); but the Prime print is sublime. It lets the scheme of dark colors-- greys, blacks and red that make up the bulk of the colors look really rich and alluring. If space opera style drama and mature, adults doing work as an organized group in constant radio communication is your bag, this is like the base, the raw go-to for all your Italian swinging cocktail space station needs. I can see it any old time, and if nothing else, it rocks me to sleep like a baby. That cool dubbing voice of Stuart's "Don't get clogged, Mac!" it's like the manly manna to lure me out of any panic attack as gelatinous planet surface seems to envelop my ship, essentially burying me alive. "Use your retros!"
THE SNOW DEVILS
La morte viene dal pianeta Aytin
(1966) Dir. Antonio Margheriti
***
Personnel: One again the name Ivan Reiner crops up in the writing credits. Is he like the show runner? He never wrote another movie series (but co-created Batman with Bob Kane and invented most of the cooler characters--Joker, Cat Woman, Riddler--himself, but got shafted from the spotlight). Reiner and Devils co-writers Bill Finger and Charles Sinclair (of Batamn fame) went on to do The Green Slime!
These show a regular improvement, gaining steadily since the herky-jerky Wild, Wild Planet
The exterior that opens things this time is snow-bound, a tower on the north pole, where "General Norton has approved Commander Jackson's new rotation schedule," i.e. things are quiet and now everyone can take off. But then - wham!
Cast;Giacomi-Rossi Stuart's Commander Rod Jackson is back from the previous film and is no longer with either girl. He's free agent, lounging around with sexy countess's who play mini golf in their gardens with pet parrot; or at the karate gym, working out with Japanese martial artists (giving Sanchez a chance to speak in Japanese, to which he replies it's a "singu-war preszher" to talk with her- thus undoing any racial progress). Ombretta Colli is here, though now she's called Lisa and has strange cheekbones and is dating someone else and I'm also not crazy about her hair, up in this wildly unkempt 'do.
And what's the deal with the way the hot "countess" is seen only in passing at the pool spa where Jackson and his buddy Captain Pulaski (Geoffredo Unger, back from the grave from the last film) are hanging out with a ginger kidwho I can only assume is Toby's orphaned son seen at the end of the last film? Well, the kid only gets the one scene (thank goodness) and soon Rod and Pulaski are jetting off the Himalayas; and we're back to a very frumpy looking Halena Zalewski in the same outfit and sagging reptilian black hair bun and gold lame jumpsuit, but she's no longer engaged to Rod and no longer the general's daughter - she's called Lt. Sanchez, now!
Debits: This is a very segmented film, not unlike Empire Strikes Back in that it seems to be several different films welded together, from the weird intro of Rod and Pulaski's vacation spots (which we never see again) to dispatched to Nepal to climb the Himalayas (or at least a few snowy sloped hills somewhere in the Italian Alps), to a cave leading to the Snowmen's secret relay station; the indoor scenes, such as a strange 'night life' sequence with their guide (Wilbert Bradley) cavorts like he's in a voodoo trance, and is given misleading inscrutable close-ups to make you think he's a spy; but with his crazy eyes and racist dub he's like a black-Italian actor doing an impression of a sherpa that would embarrass Alan Bourdillon Trahearne. To the last segment, the flight to "the big one, Jupiter" and its moons for a mission to save the Earth once again. Each part is interesting, but the whole is never completely mythic as its predecessor.
Also, we miss the the actor who did Rod's English speaking voice in War Between the Planets. The new guy is fine, but it's jarring to lose the last guy, as he and Stuart were a perfect match.Music: Angelo Francesco Lavagnino's theme song has a groping rock edge; making it second only to the Green Slime as far as a groovy theme song, with a slinky lead guitar and a pleasingly ominous beat. The main instrument for the rest seems to be an open mashed piano, lower keys banged and boomed so all the strings vibrate. Tres cool.
Enzo Fiermonte status: He gets to stay General Norton this time, even if his daughter is now nonexistent (With Zalewska playing Lt. Sanchez). He's just as ineffectual as ever, getting all flustered when Jackson isn't right at his post even though he just approved leave, getting mad he didn't use the helijet, not realizing it's been destroyed, and so forth.
Uniforms: I like the red triangle on their navy blue uniform with the light blue trim. As with Wild Wild Planet the costumes and make-up are all substantially cheap-looking, but once we're in the caves with the snowmen there's at least some nice painted frost, cold air (for steam breath) and clever lighting (purples and greens). Best of all, the snowmen themselves: giant actors in elegant in green vinyl bathing suits over dark grey long underwear with red capes and sashes; with puffy grey hair, beards and big medallions they look like a crew of Germanic salt and pepper "bears" at some 70s disco.
Odd Touches: it takes awhile to kick in at first there's some weird things; the winter station has a blue and black uniform and there's a beefy silver-haired actor as the commander of the station - a weird symbiosis to the big snow devil aliens and his salt and pepper beard. There's a yeti footprint in plaster, a global warming plot, and a
FX: As with all the other films in the series, the laser guns shoot a mix of sparklers and flames, like giant cigarette lighters/blowtorches (every effect is in camera) but there are some gorgeous miniatures, including a snowbound arctic station, burning heli-jet sabotage,
THE GREEN SLIME
(1968) Dir. Kinji Fukasaku
****
Writer/co-prpducer Ivan Reiner is back one more time as is the space station design and overall vibe / mise-en-scene; instead of Gamma 1 this time (or in addition to), it's Gamma 3, further out there. Neither Jackson or Halstead are around, nor is Margheriti, but Fukasaku more than makes up for it with a well-oiled thrill machine. Shot in English with what seems to be a bigger budget, a better sense of pace and dynamics than the Margheriti films, it's a load of cohesive fun. This time the Toby-Rod dynamic from Between is back, with the square-jawed Commander Rankin (Robert Horton) sent on an urgent mission to blow up an encroaching asteroid. First he has to go to space station Gamma 3 and that means bumping into station chief Vince Skully (Richard Baywatch Jaeckel, sporting an aggressive blonde buzzcutick and a short guy shoulder chip.) Skully fights him every step of the way, and then the mission is almost blown thanks to a dawdling biologist who found something interesting. Uh oh. Shades of X from Outer Space as even a slime or a soap bubble can turn out to harbor the invasive species apocalypse if moved to the wrong set of stimuli.
Back on Gamma 3, Rankin moves in on more than station command, there's also the chief medical officer, sexy-lipped Lucian Paluzi (Thunderball), dressed here in sexy silver glitter open-midriff disco-heralding jump suit. (if you're old enough to remember Marvel's "Dazzler" character, it's a very similar look). The camerawork is tight, with impressive close-ups; and tough (non-dubbed) English language dialogue, and of course the monsters are incredibly endearing, if sloppily-painted, and they make a groovy whir-squeal noise as they go breaking through walls in search of the electric current that stimulates their cell division. I remember my first ever rubber monster thumb puppet from the gumball machine when I was two or three, I loved that thing. And it looked just like this, so maybe I'm prejudiced.
Pros: It's probably the best parable for letting liberal empathy make you a bad leader (Skully is the kind of bleeding heart who would "kill ten to save one" as Rankin puts it. Paluzzi sticks up for him in that same puppy dog pity way that Katniss frets over little Peta in The Hunger Games. I think at one point she even says "but he's trying really trying,!" as if that makes a good leader. There is also a good parable to glean with the way the slime spreads and multiplies as an invasive species, ala COVID wherein once an invasive organism jumps containment, you have to keep evacuating, no room to fret and 'try', It's not long before the whole station must be blown to shreds before it crashes and spreads its tentacled plague to the World!
Score: Love that theme song! It's off the chain, the hook, and the wall.
UNOFFICIAL PREQUELS:
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BATTLE OF THE WORLDS
Il Pianeta degli uomini spenti / Translation: Planet of Extinct Men
(1961) Dir. Antonio Marghereti
**1/2
Sort of the early prequel to Margheriti's 1966-7 "Gamma One" Tetralogy (note its American title is Battle of the Worlds, and is not be confused his War Between the Planets or War of the Planets, both of which came later), here we have a runaway planet entering our solar system and taking up orbit around Earth, all predicted by an aged, vaguely portly Claude Rains in owl spectacles. Hamming wildly but dubbing his own voice as a Hawking-style grand vizier of physics, Raines even wears a big space helmet during the big alien planet-landing climax, racing around like a kid in a candy store through miles of alien tubing and red gel lights (an early version of the "runaway" in War Between the Planets) while issuing grating 'music of the spheres' from his portable synthesizer. (The alien UFOs are maneuvered via sound waves, leading to lots of overlaid asynchronous tones as ships race into heavily-edited dogfights). Mixing Mycroft Holmes and Peter O'Toole doing Henry II, Raine's mathematician physicist is so brilliant he can just write an equation on the observatory floor in chalk for the world's leaders to see (via camera phones) and he initiates an interplanetary war. Meanwhile the young couples (a pair from a Martian outpost, and a pair from his own observatory) fawn over him and stand around in awe and then saddle up when it's time to ride out of orbit and take on "the Outsider" (as Raines dubs the interloping world). In many ways I like this film more than that Wild Wild Planet that came next (there's less sweating and Raines really gives it that added oomph). It may lack a more fully realized UDSC mise-en-scene of the Gamma One-verse, but it's a good start (with the pre-extant Martian outpost, etc) in visualizing how it will work in future films. Meanwhile, Mario Migliardi's score smoothes over any soft patches and helps to give the rocky island scenery a proto-giallo sense of class, but the barrage of jarring synth noises in the second half may wake your sleeping girlfriend if you don't keep the volume low. Long a PD title, one can dream of seeing this one day remastered to look as good as the (above) War Between the Planets. What else is the stuffing of the stars, Professor, if not such dreams? At least let us see what these dead aliens look like? The big climax finds the astronauts all gawking at what looks like a Rauschenberg 'black' painting leaning against the tunnel floor.
10. THE X FROM OUTER SPACE
Uchû daikaijû Girara
(1963) Dir. Kazui Nihonmatsu
*** / Criterion Channel Image - B-/C
Though quite joyful and triumphant (just this side of The Giant Claw in pleasing ridiculousness) Guilala's attacks are a bit on the weaker side compared to his more esteemed Toho comrade, but with all the fun jetting back and forth from the moon to Earth to that loungedelic Taku Izumi score, the glowing soap dish UFO visits, the widescreen medium shot compositions, the luminous glowing skin of the two lead actresses, and Guilala's aerodynamic head curling its edges when blasting laser spitballs, you may forgive it most trespasses, such as the soft foggy print Criterion is stuck with on their DVD.
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| Grooving at the moon's astro-lounge, foggily |
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So...
WAR OF THE PLANETS and THE WILD, WILD PLANET and THE GREEN SLIME - are all on TCM Friday 9/25.
Yyou can find BATTLE OF THE WORLDS and WAR BETWEEN PLANETS streaming on Amazon Prime. For more cool 60s science fiction on Prime, check out this post from a few months ago.
As for THE SNOW DEVILS, you can get it on a nice DVR from Warner Archive (once you're hooked on the rest.). The X FROM OUTER SPACE is on the Criterion Channel (you heard me!)
PS: For the longtime readers wondering when I'm going to pull out of this retro sci-fi / classic horror funk, know I've been working hard on a major pice about Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone. It's coming up next! It would be sooner if the new blogger interface wasn't so buggy and lame!