Sting of Death

Reader “Robin” suggested that Sting of Death (SoD) might be a good addition to this sci-fi collections. Admittedly, SoD was passed over when this study was viewing through films of the 60s as most sources classified it as horror. Upon deeper examination, SoD does have a hint of sci-fi and turns out to be a fitting follow-up to the two recently reviewed films from the 40s, The Bat (’40) and The Flying Serpent (’46). All three films feature a ‘mad’ scientist using his creation to kill off people he does not like. This similarity does not make SoD a good film. It’s relative obscurity is not undeserved. It does, however, deserve inclusion.

Quick Plot Synopsis

A slimy, rubbery hand of the “monster” sabotages a two-way radio. The monster then pulls under the water, and drowns a blonde sunbather. Under the title and credits, the mostly-hidden monster ferries the dead blonde to an underwater lair. When Dr. Richardson, his adult daughter Karen and Dr. John Hoyt return to their island compound in the everglades, Ruth’s absence is noted, but of much concern. Egon is the slightly disfigured, but otherwise normal assistant to Doc. Egon is smitten with Karen and professionally jealous that the hunky Dr. John replaced him as Doc’s assistant. A boat load of rowdy young adults (classmates/friends of Karen) come to the island to spend spring break helping Doc do his research on sea life and evolution (?). The visitors are rude and insensitive to Egon: teasing, chasing, laughing. The youth proceed to dance around the pool to a peculiar pop tune by Neil Sedaka: “The Jellyfish”. The monster lurks in the pool and attacks Louise (one of the taunters of Egon). She is pulled out, but the monster then attacks the young man who taunted Egon. Both suffer from ‘horrible’ stings, but are not dead. Most of the youth take the injured man to the hospital in Doc’s big boat. The monster damaged the boat, so it stalls and founders. A ‘swarm’(?) of regular jellyfish (plastic bags floating on the water) “attack” the sinking boat. Much panic, flailing and screaming ensues and drags on too long. Eventually, all the youth are dead in the water. Back on the island, the other youth are stalked and killed one by one. Eventually, Egon captures Karen after professing his love for her. She faints. He absconds with her via his airboat. Doc and John pursue in their airboat. A long chase through vast tracts of everglades grasses ensues. Engine trouble for Doc’s boat gives Egon time to get to his underwater entrance to his secret ‘cave’ lab. He takes Karen there and professes his great love for her. She rebuffs his creepy mauling form of love. Perhaps in an effort to persuade Karen of his merits, Egon monologues about his ‘genius’. He was able to grow giant (20”) jellyfish when everyone said he could not. His secret was: seawater, electricity and human blood. Breathing deeply from the fumes thus created, is what turns Egon into the jellyfish-man-creature. He transforms. John appears with an underwater flare. They spar and wrestle and dance around in the cave while Karen looks passive and sick in the background. John drops his flare in the big aquarium tank with the ‘giant’ jellyfish. This somehow throws off the magic of Egon’s “science”, causing the jellyfish monster to swoon and all his sparky electrical equipment to smoke. Sensing an immanent explosion, John tries to get Karen to flee. She’s worried about Egon, who has partially un-transformed. In a last ditch show of humanity, Egon-monster tells John to save Karen from the impending explosion. John and Karen swim away. Once on Doc’s airboat, the undersea cave ‘explodes’ (makes a lot of bubbles). The three ride off into the everglade distance. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
For those who love ‘so-bad-it’s-good’ films, SoD has a lot to offer. The monster costume is bad enough to bring a smile. On the plus side, Grefe and Fink did fill the cast with some pretty young women, if 60s styles don’t bother you.

Cultural Context
Indie Club — Southern California had a virtual lock on film production, even in the low-B grade films. Cheap and quick as they were, the Poverty Row studios were still in California. That did not stop some people from trying to spark alternate movie industry hubs. William Grefe was a south Florida director/writer who thought Florida could be the new Hollywood. Grefe, along with producer Joseph Fink and a handful of others, created several B films in the mid-60s. They had a crowd of regulars for workers and actors. None of their films even approached the work of Poverty Row, but that did not stop them from trying. They were a group making movies!

Notes
Low B — SoD was born with low expectations. Grefe had written and directed Death Curse of Tartu in 1966. (Fink was the producer). Tartu was a low-B film itself. Grefe and Fink needed to create an even cheaper film so Tartu could be released as a double feature. William Kerwin was a busy third-tier actor and jack-of-all-trades (production manager, sound man, camera man, writer, etc.) Kerwin provided a screenplay (with Al Dempsey another bit actor) for a monster movie that was a mishmash of traditional tropes. Kerwin’s story might have made for a less risible film with a bigger budget (better monster costume) and more time, but SoD was born to be the B film for an already low-B first feature.

Trope Sampler — Some see in SoD, a low-budget knock off of Creature From The Black Lagoon (’54), though the parallels are few. Both were set in “wet” tropical settings. Both featured some underwater footage. There was also an ‘attraction’ between the monster and the “good” girl. But, there are as many differences between SoD and CFBL as there are similarities. SoD has a hint of Dr. Jekyll to it, as Egon’s experiments appear to have inadvertently turned HIM into the monster. There are hints of The Bat in that the mad scientist uses his creation to kill off his enemies. There is also a touch of The Hunchback of Notre Dame in the disfigured Egon being in love with the fair Karen, including the abduction. No doubt, other plot parallels can be found too.

Senseless Killings? — Being a low-B horror film, audiences expected random people to be killed for no particularly good reason. SoD delivers the expected, but actually tried to provide a motive for the murders. During his cave monologue, Egon explained that his experiments to grow really big jellyfish required: 1, sea water. (easy, they’re in Florida), 2, electricity (that magic ingredient since Frankenstein) and 3, human blood. That’s why the “missing” fishermen were missing and why the monster drown the sunbather, then swam her body down to his secret cave. He wanted their blood for his jellyfish experiments. This was very poorly developed in the screenplay, but then, the purpose of the film was more simple — gratuitous violence to sell tickets.

Man or Beast? — The costume for the monster was so cheaply done that viewers could be excused for no knowing if the killer was really supposed to be a freakish beast, or just Egon dressing up as a jellyfish. After all, the beast appeared to be just a guy in a black wetsuit with a plastic bubble on his head and some limp ‘tentacles.’ At times, the actor’s ankles showed between wetsuit legs and flippers. At times, the actor’s face/head were fairly visible within the painted plastic bag ‘head’. Was it really a beast, or just Egon? The answer is easily missed, but lies in the poorly done transformation scene. After his monologue in the cave, Egon fires up his sparky machines. The aquarium bubbles and makes dry ice fog. Egon breathes in the fog. Some slimy lumps develop on his face. Then, suddenly, he is fully beast. As a sentient were-jelly, the beast retains Egon’s mind, but now with deadly stinging power.

Sudden Demise — Another spot where the production did not bother, was making it clear just what killed the beast. Grefe spent a lot of time and footage on agonizingly slow stalk attacks and airboat chases, but only a few feet of film on the turning point. Viewers could be excused for missing it. During the standoff “fight” between John and the beast, John drops his underwater flare into the aquarium tank. The flare, apparently kills the big jelly fish Egon had grown. Apparently, the Egon/Beast was an extension of this ‘murderous creature’. So, when the tank jelly died, the Egon/Beast would too. Why all this would make Egon’s equipment short out, was not explained. Nor why said equipment should explode. Details. Grefe had enough film for a second-feature movie, so just needed to wrap it all up quickly. So he did.

Lite Voyeur — A regular feature in Grefe’s mid-60s B films was a segment in which several youth dance (60s dance moves) to some lite pop music. Grefe would then zoom in close to catch the jiggle of the young ladies backsides and upstairs. These dance scenes did not advance the plot so much as it provided the young male movie-goer with some extra-soft voyeurism.

Bottom line? SoD is a marginal film that suffers from the usual problems of weak acting, poor effects and numerous plot problems. Even as a “horror” film, it is scant horror. There is barely any sci-fi to it, but diligent viewers will find a little bit of the classic tropes in the final reel. For fans of so-bad-it’s-good films, SoD can be entertaining. For viewers who expect believable effects, good acting and a logical plot, SoD will probably be annoying.

Blood Beast from Outer Space

Shepperton Studios produced a modest sci-fi film in 1965 called The Night Caller. or Night Caller from Outer Space. When released in the USA, it was retitled Blood Beast from Outer Space (BBOS). The American distributors must have thought the British title was too subtle. John Saxon stars as Dr. Jack Costain. Maurice Denham plays Dr. Morley. Patricia Haines plays Ann Barlow. It is the somewhat typical story of an alien who comes to earth for “our” resources (women) and to warn us of the dangers of a nuclear future.

Quick Plot Synopsis
Radar detects an incoming asteroid that lands near London. When scientists and the army search, they find a beachball-sized translucent sphere. They take it back for testing, but it is obviously not of this world. While Ann stays late to type up notes, she feels sick and notices a glow in the store room. When she opens the door, a clawed hand grabs hers. She runs and sets off the alarm. No one is found, but a big clawed footprint is found in the dirt outside. Dr. Morley, Ann and Jack are certain the sphere is a transporter portal, sent from the 3rd moon around Jupiter: Ganymede. Dr. Morley wants to see the mysterious stranger, but gets killed by it. The stranger drives off the base in a nice Jaguar. Fast forward three weeks. 21 young women have disappeared mysteriously. Slowly, Scotland Yard and the scientists piece together that a mysterious stranger has placed an ad in Bikini Girl magazine, recruiting models. They disappear the day after their interviews. Scotland Yard sets up a trap for the stranger, now named Medra. Ann volunteers to be bait. She goes in, confronts Medra. They chat about about him wanting women for his planet. He then strangles Ann for knowing too much. Medra arranges one more abduction of a pretty girl. Police give chase to the Jaguar. They find it at a farm. Standing in front of a fire (for no apparent reason), Medra exposits about how his people are a thousand years advanced. They also discovered nuclear power and it all went bad for them. Most were wiped out. The survivors were mutants. Medra has one normal human hand, and one claw-hand - half a normal face and half deformed face. They want the pretty english girls as fresh breeding stock to clean up their gene pool. There’s nothing the army can do. Medra disappears. His portal ball shoots up into the sky as a fireball. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
British sci-fi of the 60s had a subtly to it that gave it a very different feel from American B-grade sci-fi. The director does a good job of keeping the alien hidden in the shadows. The fact that the “monster” amounts to just one rubber claw-glove, is nicely hidden.

Cold War Angle
Don’t Let This Happen To You — A common theme in 50s sci-fi was the cautionary tale. Sci-fi let audiences “see” the horrors of an unchecked nuclear future. This was the moral of the story in Rocketship XM (1950), in which the astronauts see the ruins of martian civilization, high radiation, and mutant survivors (as cavemen). BBOS repeats all these traditional Cold War tropes. Medra’s people suffered their apocalypse. They mutated into monsters. Medra tells the earthmen that it will happen to them too. Add in Medra’s mission, and his warning amounts to: Keep messing with nukes and you’ll wind up mutant monsters (like me) and you won’t have enough women.

Notes
Based on the Book — Frank Crisp wrote the novel in 1960, “The Night Callers.” The plot is essentially the same: an alien civilization is kidnapping young women, one by one. Crisp’s novel (and the ’65 film) have a very 50s feel to them, as they were a product of those times.

Klaatu The Abductor — Medra delivers a monologue at the end, which amounts to Klaatu’s warning from The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). “A thousand years ago, we made our first stumbling steps into space. We visited the earth, only to find we could not survive its atmosphere. But we from Ganymede knew were were superior beings and had nothing to learn from you. We had knowledge that could lead to eternal peace and progress, but also embodying the darker powers of universal destruction, so our civilization ended, just as yours will.” Like Klaatu, Medra delivers his warning message and leaves. But this time, he took a bunch of earth girls with him. Medra wasn’t on a mission to warn Earth, so much as he was gathering breeding stock and got a little chatty before departure.

They ARE After Our Women — This old trope is sci-fi is sometimes hinted at, or danced around with visual metaphors. In BBOS, it is the essence of the plot. The aliens on Ganymede need earth women (with chromosomes free from nuclear-war mutations). Unlike in most films with this trope, the Earth men do not thwart the abductions by the “outsider” tribe. The aliens win. They get the girls. Still, the earthly parallel would be angst over “our” young women being stolen by immorality. Note how the ad is placed in Bikini Girl magazine and the bait of “modeling.” Note too, the glimpses of the seamy side of Soho and the greasy bookstore owner, Thorburn. Medra fits as metaphor for the dark side of society that “steals” the innocence of young women.

Transporter Device — An interesting tidbit to the story, is the sphere itself. Medra did not travel inside the sphere. Instead, it is a matter transporter that was launched at the Earth. Once landed, Medra could beam himself in and beam the girls out. In this, his sphere is reminiscent to Mr. Johnson’s closet in Not of this Earth (’57). But, instead of the vampire angle in NotE — beaming back people for food — Medra is wants his beam-back-ees to remain intact as women.

Advanced Killer? — In Medra’s monologue at the end, he boasts about how advanced their people are, and how they learned their lesson from their destructive nuclear past. However, Medra was pretty quick to kill earthlings who got in his way. This is what advanced looks like?

The Price of Equality — Rare for sci-fi films, the lead female is killed by the monster. He complements her as having “a mind nearly equal to my own.” Presuming Medra had an advanced mind, that meant Ann was actually the brightest of the scientists. However, as an equal, she was a threat to the abduction plans, so he kills her. No fancy ray guns. He just strangles her. It’s a bit grim.

Star Gazing — Beyond the more obvious John Saxon, watch for Aubrey Morris as the flagrant bookshop owner. He would later the equally questionable probation officer in A Clockwork Orange (’71). Fans of Fawlty Towers will see “The Major”, Ballard Berkeley, in a very Major-like role, but a pre-Fawlty serious one.

Bottom line? BBOS is a very British sci-fi, and fairly typical of the vintage. It is not an action-packed film, nor replete with special effects. It can be a bit talky at times. The expository ending feels like the writer ran out of time to tell the story, so just summed it up via the alien’s monologue. Still, BBOS has a mild and somewhat cerebral quality to it. The themes are the usual fare, but delivered without gore, or scary monsters, explosions or random nudity. Only the strangling of Ann and Medra’s mutant-half face would keep BBOS from being suitable for children.

Invasion

Continuing Digression Week in the mid 60s, is another obscure British sci-fi: Invasion. It's obscure enough and low-budget enough that it did not seem to get much promotion via posters.  Anglo-Amalgamated handled the release in the UK in '65. A.I.P. brought it to American theaters in '66. Like Unearthly Stranger a couple years prior, Invasion is a low-budget, black and white mystery sort of sci-fi. Merton Studios was no stranger to low-budget productions, having much experience with minimal detective/mystery films and television. Edward Judd stars as Dr. Mark Vernon.

Quick Plot Synopsis
A mysterious rocket lands in the English countryside by night. It causes some brief interruptions of electrical devices, but otherwise goes unnoticed. Mr. Blackburn is driving home from a party with Barbara (not his wife). Suddenly, a man in white appears in the road. They hit him. Blackburn puts the hurt man in his car, but drops off Barbara at a neutral flat first. Then he takes him to the local rural hospital. The hurt man is a mystery. He has asian facial features, but has no ID and "blood" unlike humans. X-rays also reveal a metal disk in his brain. Two other shadowy figures (with good figures) seem to be stalking the unconscious stranger. The army find the landing site and the escape pod in the woods. While everyone is at the hospital, it becomes apparent that there is a force field has developed around it. No one can leave or enter, nor can heat escape. It becomes unbearably hot. Mr. Carter, the hospital director, decides to go for help. He tries to break through the force field with his Morris Traveller, but only crashes and kills himself. The stranger awakes. He says he is an alien looking for an escaped prisoner. He needs his space belt (still in Blackburn's car). The two lady aliens lurk around Blackburn's flat, (also looking for the belt?) but frighten him into a heart attack. Dr. Vernon deduces that he can get out beneath the forcefield because water is still coming IN through the pipes. He goes out through the sewer tunnels and retrieves the missing belt. When Vernon returns, one of the alien women tells him that they are the keepers looking for stranger who is their escaped prisoner. Vernon trusts a pretty face. Meanwhile, however, the stranger is up, out of bed and dressed in his white rubber suit again. He stabs Major Muncaster and takes Dr. Claire Harland as hostage. He takes her to the escape pod. Using Claire as a human shield, he gets past the soldiers and takes off (without her). Once airborne, the other aliens' rocket intercepts him and they all blow up. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
Despite the obvious low budget, Invasion is quite engaging. Mostly a mystery story, it has good atmosphere. For the most part, the acting fairly good. There's some food for thought too. The alien women are apparently dominant on their planet. Dr. Howard is able to browbeat the stranger into admitting things because she's a woman. The aliens really don't care about earth. It's just a backwater hick planet they broke down on. Yoko apologizes for the deaths and all, but a job's a job. And, there is still crime out there in space, police and prisons. These are not the usual idealized kumbaya aliens, nor the nasty conquering ones.

Cold War Angle
There is the spy-like atmosphere of mysterious strangers and no knowing who you can trust. There is brief moment too, as the soldiers wonder if the capsule is a secret Russian project. The fact that the aliens are all oriental may be play on fear over Red China.

Notes
Small Invasion -- Despite the title, the aliens aren't really invading. They intrude, but only to repair their ship and retrieve their prisoner. Many invasion films strive for a global scale, (War of the Worlds '53, for instance). But there is a subset of "pub invasion" stories, in which events are played out among a small cast, usually confined to a single location. Devil Girl From Mars ('54), comes to mind. "Pub invasions" are easier on the budget. Even easier if the aliens look just like humans.

Force Fields -- While the trope was created decades earlier, there was a spate of "force field" isolation movies in the 60s. There was one over the village in Village of the Damned ('60), The Slime People ('63) put Los Angeles under a mysterious dome. In The Bubble ('66), unseen aliens put people in a fake village under a dome.

Liking It Hot -- There were also several films -- most of them British -- in which things getting very warm was part of the story. The Day The Earth Caught Fire ('61), as well as Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea in the same year. Night of the Big Heat ('67) had aliens heating up a remote island. Perhaps all this visible suffering in the heat was cathartic for audiences. The summer of 1959 was a hot one. It wasn't record heat, but the UK had enjoyed many mild summers prior, so it felt more extreme.

Compensating? -- Another possibility for Invasion's heat theme is rather like in the Twilight Zone episode "The Midnight Sun" (November '61) in which a character dreams of oppressive heat because the earth is freezing to death. The winter of '62/'63 was an especially cold and severe one for southern England. Were films of too-hot appealing because of the cold?

Star Gazing -- Edward Judd just happened to star in a prior getting-hot film, The Day The Earth Caught Fire ('61) . He also played Bedford in First Men in the Moon ('64). Yoko Tani, who plays the lead alien, was the japanese doctor in First Spaceship on Venus ('62).

Subtle Auto Messaging -- Lost on American audiences were the subtle messages the choices of automobiles made. Mr. Blackburn drove a Vanden Plas Princess R. It was a "luxury" mid-size that Rolls Royce hoped would attract younger (or semi-wealthy) buyers. It marks Mr. Blackburn rather as a "Beemer" would in American films nowadays. This helps explain why Barbara shows interest in him. All this is tangental to the plot, but it adds some depth to the characters.

My, What Big Pipes You Have -- It's handy, but in bit incongruous, that the "rural" hospital is linked to the countryside by a maze of sewer tunnels large enough to walk through. The English countryside has quite the infrastructure, apparently.

Bottom line? Invasion is obscure, so not easy to find. The story is more of a mystery / drama, not an action flick. Viewers hungry for special effects or elaborate sets won't find much. The only special effects is the takeoff of the escape pod at the end, and it's minimal. But, fans of good story telling and obscure B-movies, will find entertainment.

Frankenstein Created Woman

In 1966, Hammer released their fourth Frankenstein film, starring Peter Cushing as the mad genius baron. Frankenstein Created Woman (FCW) is (roughly) Hammer's rendition of Bride of Frankenstein. The story has less "science" and more crime-thriller elements as well as some classic gothic horror twists in an Edger Allen Poe sort of way. Despite publicity shots, and the poster art, Susan Denberg does not appear in a bikini or sporting wild "Bride of…" hair. The setting and costumes stay very 1860.

Quick Plot Synopsis
A man is guillotined for murder. His young son, Hans, witnesses it. Fast forward and adult Hans is Dr. Frankenstein's assistant, as is the alcoholic Dr. Hertz. They pull frozen Victor from a freezer. He has been dead a full hour, but they revive him with sparky gizmos. Victor enthused that he's proven that the soul remains in the body after death, at least an hour. Victor has a new gizmo which can create an impenetrable force field. He wants to use it to contain a soul for later transference back into a repaired dead body. His chance comes soon. Three arrogant dandies insult Christina, disfigured daughter of the innkeeper. Hans, who loves her, fights them, eventually drawing a knife. The innkeeper takes the knife from Hans who, in the heat of the moment, says "I'll kill you." Later, Hans meets Christina upstairs and they get seriously romantic. The dandies return to the hotel after hours, find the door unlocked and drink more. The innkeeper returns for his keys. They kill him. Hans is blamed for the murder, but refuses to cite Christina as his alibi. He is guillotined. Christina, distraught, drowns herself in the river. Victor gets Hans' body and extracts his soul. The villagers bring in dead Christina. Over the course of six months, he fixes up her body. Victor puts Hans' soul in her. She has amnesia at first, but Hans' soul takes control and makes Christina seek out the three dandies, one at a time, and kills two of them. The police accuse Victor of black magic. He tells them all, but they disbelieve. Victor races to stop her from killing the third, but arrives a moment too late. The head of Hans (kept in a hat box) tells Christina she has avenged him. Christina, distraught at the truth of it all, throws herself off a cliff into a river. Victor walks off, sad. The End,

Sci-fi Connection
There is less surgery and fewer gizmos in FCW than in the previous films. However, in a neat nod to the atomic age, watch for Victor's steampunk gizmo which appears to be a three-rod nuclear reactor. Once inserted, the rods glow. Power from the earth itself! There are also a pair of parabolic dishes which focus the energy and capture the white-glowing soul of Hans. Interesting effects for 19th century setting.

Saga Connection
The story line does not directly follow from the previous films, but is more akin to the Further Adventures of Frankenstein. He still has an assistant named Hans, but he is no longer the doctor/seeker of Revenge of… or Evil of…. He's just a simple peasant. Dr. Hertz assumes the assistant role, but as a sort of necessary accomplice. Unexplained, is that Victor does not have sufficient control of his hands for fine work. He wears black gloves through most of the film. As in the others, Victor's creation is destroyed in the end.

Notes
Non-Creation -- In keeping with the irony of the past titles (i.e. not much revenge in Revenge of… and not much evil in "Evil of…") there's not much creating in FCW. Unlike Bride of…, Victor does not make Christina. He fixes up her scarred face and bad leg, but she already existed. It's a bit of a stretch to say that he created a Woman (sexy, confident and dangerous) out of an innocent girl, but that might be the angle intended.

Spiritual Dimensions -- In a first for the Frankenstein legend, things move beyond the purely physical. "Death is only physical," says Victor. "The soul remains alive." This metaphysical dimension sets FCW apart. The essence of what makes a person who they are, lies in the soul. Earlier films posited that this essence belonged in the brain -- hence the transfer of Ygor's brain into the monster's body, made it essentially Ygor. In FCW, repaired Christina awakens without any identity. Yet even after the transfer of Hans' soul into her body, she was not just Hans in drag, but more akin to a multi-personality person. Repaired Christina seemed have received a new (blank) soul.

Shades of Dippel -- FCW makes a curious connection to Mary Shelley's novel. The real life person of Johann Conrad Dippel, who as born in the real Frankenstein castle in the 1700s, was said to mess around with anatomy and even to have tried to transfer the souls of cadavers. All rumor, of course, but an interesting minor connection.

Dubbing Denberg -- A curious detail in FCW is that Susan Denberg (who plays Christina) is dubbed. Denberg spoke english well enough, but did have a noticeable German accent. You can hear some of it (she doesn't get many lines) in her role as one of Mudd's Women in a 1966 episode of Star Trek. Her actual voice and accent are more evident in An American Dream ('66) as Ruta the seductive maid. Since FCW is supposed to take place in a German village (the police even wear the quaint spiked helmets -- pickelhauben), you'd think a German accent would be perfect. Perhaps her speaking with an accent made the others non-accents too obvious.

Bottom line? FCW is worth checking out. It is pretty well paced, with action or events never far away. There is certainly a heavy dose of chopping and killing, though sensibilities keep the gore mostly off camera (except for spatters of red paint). FCW is refreshing for not being a retread of the same old trope. It is also pretty good as a ghost story and crime thriller, as Christina lures her victims to their deaths.

Terror Beneath the Sea

This bit of digression is actually pretty apt, following Latutude Zero. Released originally as "Kaitei daisensô" in 1966, it too, features a largely western cast, mostly speaking english, but dubbed into Japanese. It also featured amazing submarines and an undersea city. When released internationally, the film had many titles, including: Water Cyborg, UX Bluthund, I Mostri Della Città Sommersa, Robots 2000, and Terror Beneath the Sea (TBS). This last iteration probably did not have an American theatrical release, since no poster seems evident. There were German and Italian posters, however. TBS more than likely went direct to television, hence the VHS cover art in lieu of a poster. This also makes TBS a good bridge in this study to sci-fi movies of the 70s, as the early 70s was most likely when it aired. TBS stars a young Sonny Chiba, one of the first martial arts "stars".

Quick Plot Synopsis
A high tech sub tracks a target sub. It's all demonstration by the navy for a super homing torpedo. During the tests, the silhouette of a swimming man flashes across the monitors. Journalist duo, Ken (Chiba) and Jenny (Peggy Neal), go scuba diving to check it out. Jenny encounters a silvery gillman, takes a picture, but drops her camera. The navy doesn't believe her. Ken and Jenny go looking for the camera, but find an undersea cave full of air. They also find several sliver gillmen who capture them. They awaken in the modernistic lab of the sinister Dr. Moore who always wears sunglasses. He bombasts about the world of the future starting with his city under the sea and his army of water cyborgs. He demonstrates how humans are transformed into the aquatic cyborgs. Some gas, some colored lights, some time-lapse photography and finally a lung-gill transplant. Viola. WaterCyborg. Meanwhile, the navy found Jenny's camera and the picture of the gillman. Now the search is on. Dr. Moore wants Ken to join his new world order, but he and Jenny try to escape. For that, Dr. Moore sentences them to becoming his next WaterCyborg. They start the process enough to give both Ken and Jenny some waxy patches on their hands and faces. Further morphing is interrupted when the navy's sub has found Moore's hidden city. A battle ensues between Moore's clever seeking missiles and the sub's also clever moves and devices. In a last desperate move, the sub's commander launches his super torpedo. This manages to cause enough damage that Moore's city begins to fail. The damaged equipment means the water cyborgs go nuts, turning on their human masters. Many fights ensue. The atomic reactor goes critical AND has a handy countdown timer to doom. Moore and his henchmen prepare to escape in a pod, but Ken stops them for some hand-to-hand combat. Just when it looks like Moore will kill Ken, Moore is killed by Professor Howard (another abductee). Ken, Jenny and the professor don't know how to launch the escape pod, but a not-quite-dead Moore tries to kick them out and escape, thereby revealing the hidden panel. This time Moore is really dead. Ken, Jenny and Howard are rocketed to safety just as the city blows up. The navy finds them. Jenny is distraught over her disfigurement, but while she was unconscious, professor Howard reversed the early gillman-ism and she's pretty again. She and Ken walk the beach in the sunset (in their scuba gear). The End.

Why is this movie fun?
This film makes a nice companion piece to Toho's larger budget Latitude Zero. The sets, costumes and effects are all lower budget, but the similarities in the stories make for amusing watching. Super subs, Subsea cities, Smirking villains. They're sister films.

Cold War Angle
There are few of the usual Cold War motifs. Of course, the large demonstration of sub-tracking weaponry suggests a not-quite-peaceful world. The non-sequitur seabed field of dumped atomic waste carries the customary nuclear caution message.

Notes
Process Mann? Cyborg? -- The gillmen (sometimes called Water Cyborgs) appear to be purely biological and not a mixture of man and machine. The sinister Dr. Mann converts humans into gillmen with chemical treatments. Apparently the lungs don't convert well enough, as gill-lungs (grown separately) need to be transplanted into them before they're complete. The gillmen's near-imperviousness to bullets is never explained. Perhaps it's the scales.

  Failed Feminist -- The writers made a feeble attempt to write Jenny as the tough liberated woman reporter. When Commander Brown suggests that maybe she didn't really see the gillman, she gets all snarky. "You think it's just the wild hysterical imagination of a WOMAN, don't you." After that opening bit of attitude, however, Jenny settles back into the comfortable stereotype. She screams at pretty much anything. She regularly cowers behind her boyfriend's shoulder while HE takes on the bad guys. When Sonny is fighting, she stands aside gasping "oh no". At the end, her shallow vanity is blatant. She'd rather die than not be pretty. Her tough-girl feminist mode did not last long.


Dub Fest -- TBS featured many actors from a pool of lesser-grade western actors who worked for Japanese studios. Peggy Neal, who plays Jenny, goes on to star in X From Outer Space (a B-grade rubber-suit monster kaiju film). Franz Gruber (Commander Brown) would also feature in "X" and others. While they apparently speak english during the filming, either their voices were not "right" or their diction is off. Their lips sometimes match up with the voices, but often not quite. They even had their english lines dubbed into english.

  Ultimate Weapon? -- When the navy's super sub having trouble fending off all of Dr. Moore's insidious torpedo-missiles, Captain Bob decides he's going to launch their big missile -- the one that makes up most of the bow of the submarine. "No, you can't" another officer objects. "You'll blow up half the ocean." Captain Bob launches it anyway, and sure enough it does breach Moore's defenses. But, "blow up half the ocean?" Why would people design a whole submarine around a weapon they don't dare fire? Now, it turns out the super missile did not blow up half the ocean, so was that just over-acting hype? Or, was it an allusion to nuclear weapons? Hard to say.

 Shades of Evil -- In B-grade Japanese films, anyone wearing sunglasses all the time, MUST be a bad guy. Dr. Moore is clearly cast in that trope. He also does what many screen villains do, he laughs disdainfully a lot.

 Bottom line? TBS is fairly "lite" entertainment. It makes an interesting companion film to Toho's more polished Latitude Zero. The sets, models and acting in TBS are modest at best. The film is a step up from the campy "Star Man" style of Japanese fighting-hero stories, such as "Iron Sharp" -- a space hero in tights and a cape, played by Sonny Chiba a few years earlier. TBS is rainy Saturday matinee material, but not much more.

1966

Mash-ups, imports, remakes and adaptations from (or to) television dominate the sci-fi movies of 1966. Fantastic Voyage is the stand-out big movie of the year. For influence of television increases, both as source material (e.g. Dr. Who movies) and a market for 50s remakes (the many A.I.P./Buchanan movies). Here are the year's movies, in roughly chronological order.

Queen of Blood -- Recycled soviet sci-fi footage mixed with new. An alien woman, rescued from crash on Phobos, feeds on the blood the rescue crew.

Planet of the Prehistoric Women -- Low-budget tale of a ship crashed on a prehistoric planet and the dawn of civilization.

War of the Planets -- English dubbed version of second in the Gamma One series. Energy beings take over humans.

War Between the Planets -- English dub of the third in the Gamma One series. Commander Jackson must stop a rogue planet whose gravity is harming Earth.

Dr. Who and the Daleks -- Movie version of several Dr. Who television episodes. Peter Cushing stars as the Doctor, battling the robot-like Daleks.

Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 -- Second movie version of Dr. Who. Travel to Earth's future to find Dalek domination. He must thwart their plan to steal the planet.

Fantastic Voyage -- A team and a mini-sub are shrunk to perform micro-laser surgery inside the brain of a defecting scientist. Sabotage and treachery threaten the mission.

The Navy vs. the Night Monsters -- Plant samples from Antarctica grow into man-eating trees, threatening to eat everyone on a remote island naval base.

Cyborg 2087 -- A Terminator-like tale of a cyborg sent from the future to earth's past (1966) to prevent a professor inventing a mind-control tool.

Dimension 5 -- A secret agent with short-jump time shifting belt, battles Chinese spies trying to assembled an A-Bomb in Los Angeles.

Destination Inner Space -- An undersea base is beset by a saucer carrying frozen gillman creatures. The earthlings must stop this spearhead of an invasion.

Zontar: Thing From Venus -- AIP/Buchanan remake of 1956 Roger Corman film It Conquered the World. John Agar stars.

Way...Way Out -- Jerry Lewis comedy about a shirker astronaut trainee, drafted to replace crew on a moon base. For propriety, he must marry astronaut Connie Stevens.

Fahrenheit 451 -- British production, based on Ray Bradbury's novel about Earth's authoritarian future, in which books are burned and independent thought is treason.

The Bubble -- A man and wife are trapped in weird town, beneath a clear dome. Is it the work of aliens? a 3D extravaganza by Arch Oboler.

Invasion -- A mysterious man lies hurt in a hospital. Two mysterious women are after him. Is HE a space criminal, or are THEY?

Sting of Death -- Young people on a research spring break in the Everglades are being killed off one at a time by a monster jellyfish-man-thing.
---

The Bubble

Arch Oboler, who gave us Five ('51) and The Twonky ('53) had been away from the big screen for many years. He returned in force, with The Bubble (aka, The Zoo, Fantastic Invasion of Planet Earth). Oboler wrote, produced and directed this sci-fi story mostly (it would seem) as a promotional vehicle for "Space-Vision" -- a new, cheaper, method of making 3D movies. The story itself is rather scant. Some liken it to an episode of Twilight Zone, padded to feature film length, and stuffed with 3D moments to show off the technology.

Quick Plot Synopsis
A pilot is flying a woman in labor, and her husband to a hospital. They are engulfed in a storm and set down. It turns out that they landed on the outskirts of a strange town where everyone acts semi-drugged, but going about whatever their usual tasks were. Cathy's baby is delivered okay. Mark looks around town, which is an eclectic mix of styles, dates and functions. Mark and Tony (the pilot) explore. His plane is missing. Back in town, they find an odd fake-rock structure. Inside is an odd chair. Tony sits in it and is shocked. He has an extended "dream" sequence, then goes into the same sort of trance the other people are. When Mark, Cathy and their baby are out of the hospital and driving through town some time later, they encounter Tony throwing flowers into the air. After a well-placed right cross, Tony regains his wits. They travel to an abandoned mine outside of town and camp there. Tony shows up one day with an army truck and the zombie saloon girl. Everyone packs into the truck and attempt to drive to freedom. 20 miles out, they encounter a clear plastic wall. They search miles to either side, but it is continuous. Tony tries to ram the wall with the truck, but it blows up. The burning truck is also mysteriously drawn up into the night sky. They have to walk back to the mine. Back in town, Mark tries to question the zombie folk, but to no avail. He exposits to Cathy vague notions of inhabited alien worlds, and bugs collected in a jar by children. Mark guesses that the zombie folk get their nutrition from the rock-structure. A shadow passes over the town. Everyone looks up. A woman and her baby are taken up into the sky screaming. Cathy freaks out. The next morning, Cathy is gone. Mark searches, eventually finding her hiding in the basement of an old mill. He schemes to dig under the plastic wall. He travels to town for supplies. He damages the rock structure's shock chair. He finds Tony. They drive until they get a flat. The shadow comes. Mark hides in the woods. Tony and the jeep are taken up into the shadow. Later, Mark is digging in the mill again. The shadow lingers over the mill, freaking out Cathy. Mark finally finds the bottom of the plastic wall. The doctor comes down the mill's ladder. He says the people in town are hungry (because Mark damaged the chair). In town, the crowd chants for food. Mark preaches about freedom, notes that the wind is blowing. It starts to rain. The keepers are gone. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
Between all the 3D moments, there is still a kernel of a story which tries to be engaging. The isolated town trope, and the alien abduction trope, are interesting.

Cold War Angle
There is more of a freedom vs. authority theme than anything clearly Cold War related. There is one moment of Cold War thinking. Mark wonders if maybe the rest of the world has been destroyed and their odd bubble existence may be all that's left.

Notes
For 3D's Sake -- Much of the footage in Bubble is shot purely to show off the 3D technology of "Space-Vision". Almost never do the 3D moments do anything for the plot. A tray of beers floats up to the audience. Some firemen carry a ladder up to the audience. An accountant (?) pokes some tweezers at the audience, several times. A billboard man pokes his brush at the audience, etc. etc. None of these events have anything to do with the story. They exist only as set pieces to show off the technology.

Oboler the Trailblazer -- Back in 1952, Oboler wrote, produced and directed the first 3D movie. Bwana Devil used a synchronized twin projector system developed by his brother-in-law. Each projector shone through a polarized filter. Viewers wore polarized glasses. The result was dim, as one might expect wearing sunglasses in the dark. In 1966, Oboler was back blazing trails again. Bubble was the first movie shot in "Space-Vision." This was also a polarized process, but had both left and right images on the same film. This made 3D less expensive and more feasible for smaller theaters (with single projectors). As with Bwana Devil 14 years earlier, The Bubble was panned by critics, but popular with audiences. They liked the 3D experience, even if the story itself was fairly lame. Red/Blue anaglyph copes were made too which exist in VHS and DVD.

Libertarian Lament -- If Oboler wrote any meaning into his screenplay, it came through one of several expositions delivered by Mark. He complains that life in the alien's bug jar was not so different from "real" life beforehand. Someone is always watching you anyway. Parents, teachers, army officers, bosses, the government. How, Mark muses, was life before their abduction really different than the bug jar? The undercurrent motivation of Mark and Cathy is to gain their freedom from their captors at all costs.

Non-Ending -- For whatever reason, (lack of budget, lack of time, etc.) Oboler doesn't resolve his story. He simply ends it. Once Mark has dug beneath the plastic bubble's walls, the mysterious never-seen alien is simply gone. The bubble itself simply goes away too. Wind and rain return to the eclectic "town." The movie ends with Mark and Cathy all smiles at the return of their freedom. Viewers, on the other hand, are left hanging. At least at the end of The Thing, everyone is aware that they are no longer alone. We must continually watch the skies. At the end of The Bubble, everyone is happy. Whew, glad that's over. Let's go eat.

Bottom line? If one approaches Bubble as a Twilight Zone episode, chock full of non-sequetor 3D moments, it isn't too bad. Even in anaglyph, the 3D is kind of fun (if usually pointless). Anyone expecting a deeper story (or an ending) is apt to come away disappointed.

Farhenheit 451

Universal released a big budget adaptation of Ray Bradury's novel in late 1966. Farhenheit 451 (F451) is a reasonable adaptation of Bradury's 1953 novel. Oskar Werner plays the protagonist, Guy Montag. Julie Christie plays both Clarisse and Linda Montag. Director Fancois Truffaut provides a very visual film with some artistic input of his own into the story.

Quick Plot Synopsis
In an undefined future, Guy Montag goes to work as a fireman. Houses are fireproof. Firemen seek out and burn books, which are illegal. They raid an apartment, find many books and burn them. While riding the monorail home, Montag is approached by a chatty (and pretty) neighbor, Clarisse. She asks him if ever read any of the books he burns. This makes Montag curious. At home, Montag's wife Linda is a listless and shallow woman obsessed with her television shows. At one point, Montag discovers her unconscious on the floor from a drug overdose. Callous paramedics arrive and give her a total blood transfusion. Afterward, she remembers nothing, but is hungry and libidinous. It doesn't last. The next day when Montag returns from work, he secrets in a book. He gets up at night to read it. Clarisee tells him she's been fired from her teaching job. Montag cannot help her. Later, Linda catches Montag reading at night. The next day, the firemen are called to Clarisse's house. Her uncle warns her so she escapes through the roof, but he is caught and the old woman in the house (with a huge library) refuses to leave. Instead, she opts to burn with her books. This upsets Montag even more. He steals another book, but is secretly seen doing so. Linda catches him again and threatens to leave him. She later informs on him. Montag tries to resign but the Captain insists that he complete just one more run. This turns out to be his own home. There, the Captain confronts him as a book criminal. Montag turns the flame thrower on him, killing the Captain. Montag flees, chased as a murderer, Eventually he makes his way to the countryside where the book people camp. There, each person has committed a book to memory so mankind's literature might survive this dark age. Montage meets up with Clarisse again. He is given Edgar Alan Poe to memorize. Literature lives on in people, if not print. Fade to black. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
The story is grim, but the acting, directing, cinematography and music make for a rather lush viewing experience. The dualitys (Montag v Captain, Clarisse v Linda, etc.) make for some thoughtful musing afterward. F451 is not a "lite" movie.

Cold War Angle
Most of Bradbury's original impending apocalypse is missing, but the view of an oppressive authoritarian state is clearly stems from the Cold War mood.

Notes
Based on the Book -- Much discussion already exists on the internet, comparing what Ray Bradbury had in his 1953 novel and this movie adaptation. Yet, a few points are worth adding. The movie sets more of a 1984 tone of a future world oppressed by some vague authoritarian government. F451 also shares some of Brave New World's prediction of a hedonistic (and vacuous) citizenry. Bradbury said he focusing more on how television drains us into being docile zombies, than he was on authoritarian dystopias. Some of this still comes through in Truffaut's adaptation. The ending lacks Bradbury's hinted apocalyptic flavor. Instead of massive war providing the phoenix its flames, the "Book People" in F451 just wait passively for the end of the dark age.

Iconic Scene -- The scene in which the old woman refuses to leave her books and dies in the flames, is one the movie world's iconic scenes. While low-gore by today's standards, it was nonetheless pretty powerful.

Relevant Message -- While ranting against books, the Captain (Beatty) criticizes books because they offer opposing opinions. A lack of a homogenous message only upsets people. In the bookless, television-dominated world, a single (non-upsetting) world is portrayed. "The only way for everyone to be happy, is for everyone to be made equal." This seems an especially salient message for today -- with the notion of equality being pushed to Asmovian extremes, and whichever political party is in power, seeking to squelch any opposing voices.

She's Not Dead Yet -- A significant change from Bradbury's novel was that Clarisse did not die. In the movie, she and Montag part ways, but meet up again at the "Book People" camp. Bradbury is said to have rather liked that change. Even though unstated, this does fit with fake caught-criminal drama such as Montag's "capture."

Tele-Zombies -- Even though overshadowed by Truffaut's storm-trooper firemen, the notion of a citizenry drained of life (by their drugs and televisions) still comes through. The TV drama which Linda is all excited to participate in, is excruciatingly banal. "But where will Monica sleep? In the blue room?" In life, Linda and her friends are equally as banal. The drugs similarly drain away humanity. Note how, after her transfusion, Linda is ambitious and passionate. The drugs and TV quickly return her to "normal."

Monorail Moment -- Used to good effect, to create a mood of "future", is a SAFEGE-system monorail system built in France in 1959. Envisioned as a commuter line to relieve urban traffic, little more than a 1.4 kilometer test track was built at Chateauneuf-sur-Loire. It was operated for several years, but proved to be too expensive. The line was dismantled in the late 60s (1969?), but the car survived in storage (though in poor condition due to vandalism). The stairway, as seen in the movie, was actually an "emergency" stair not intended for regular use. Passengers were got on and off at station platforms at the car's floor level. Monorails had their moment in the 50s and early 60s, had a magical aura as some clean and better (and more "modern") mode of transportation. The oddness of French monorail helps give F451 its other-worldly quality. Viewers will note that few automobiles appear, despite extensive roads.

Bottom line? F451 is a great classic movie. It can be enjoyed by sci-fi fans -- even those jaded by CGI -- as well as those less keen on the typical sci-fi, for its thoughtful plot. Werner, Christie and Cusack all turn in great performances.

Way...Way Out

Just to keep sci-fi from being too serious, 20th Century Fox released, Way...Way Out (WWO) in late 1966 as a spoof on the space program and the Cold War. It stars Jerry Lewis as the reluctant astronaut, Peter Mattamore. He and Connie Stevens are sent to the moon as a hastily arranged married couple to staff America's lunar weather base. Anita Ekberg and Dick Shawn play the Russians.

Quick Plot Synopsis
In the future (1989, according to the poster) NASA has a problem. It's two-man lunar team have gone nuts. One of them has become a woman-obssessed psychopath. Both are sick of each other. The Russian team has been fine, since it is a man and a woman. Professor Quonset must relieve his dysfunctional team in three days, and has been ordered to send a man and wife pair. The trouble is, the young couple he's chosen have had a lover's spat and refuse to go. Next on the list is Peter Mattamore (Lewis), who has been avoiding space duty since day one. Only two women in the program are qualified: the dumpy Miss Davenport and the kittenish Miss Forbes (Stevens). She objects to the forced marriage of convenience (for NASA). Peter tries to coax her by being charming, but fails. They agree to a marriage-in-name-only, for the scientific opportunity. Once on the moon, and the crazed old team departed, Peter and Eileen try to settle in. They are visited by the beautiful Russian cosmonaut, Anna. She immediately clings to Peter, spawning jealousy in Eileen. Anna wants to sleep over, as she and the overly amorous Igor had a spat. Igor comes over too and a Russian Party ensues with much drunkenness. It ends when Peter and Igor have a comic fight with weightless gags. When Peter awakens, three days later, he is told there is a Cold War crisis. He is ordered to "secure the moon". He clobbers Igor, but the crisis was nothing. Nevermind. Anna has decided she wants Igor to marry her. He just wants the informal free love they've had thus far. Anna tells Igor she's pregnant. A virtual wedding is conducted from earth. The Russians crow about the first baby born on the moon being yet another Russian first. Quonset and all of NASA are chagrinned at being "beaten" by the Russians. Eileen tells Quonset not to worry, she is just as far along as Anna -- even though only married for 5 days. Quonset is puzzled but happy. Peter is confused. Eileen is just as pregnant because Anna isn't. She just said it to get Igor to marry her. Eileen hints heavily that she and Peter should work on making America first. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
It's a Jerry Lewis comedy. It is supposed to be fun. The humor is less slapstick and more "adult", with many innuendos or outright sexual references.

Cold War Angle
As a spoof, the Cold War gets its share. At one point, General Hallenby tells Peter that the world is on the brink of nuclear armageddon because the Russians moved troops into someplace (which they can't recall). Three minutes later, the crisis has passed. It was all a misunderstanding. It was the Russian Peace Corps.

Notes
Project Moon Base II -- Back in 1953, Project Moon Base set up the story in which an American male astronaut and a pretty young female astronaut are temporarily alone together on "Moon Base One." Since America would be shocked at an unmarried couple co-habitating, they are married via a televised ceremony. WWO repeats this trope, but with the marriage occurring before liftoff instead of on the moon. Igor and Anna, however, did get the televised ceremony. The notion of America being shocked was more sincere in 1953. By 1966, "free love" was becoming mainstream enough that the moral shock was more spoof than reality.

Lighter Lewis -- Jerry Lewis was already famous for his zany slapstick humor. At 40 years old, his "crazy kid" schtick would have seemed forced. In WWO, he calls on his more subtle style. This, he pulls off rather well. Note the scene where it's their first night on the moon. She insists that he sleep on the couch -- no hanky panky. He keeps delivering lines like, "After being awake for 72 hours, a man needs sleep. All he wants to do is go to be and do it." -- all with a straight face.

Musical Connection -- The title music is played by Gary Lewis and the Playboys. Gary is Jerry Lewis' son. His band was a going concern, starting in 1960 and having a number one hit in 1965 -- "This Diamond Ring." The title, (oft repeated in the lyrics) is so charmingly 60s.

Car Geek Moment -- Not everyone is fascinated by "cars of the future" from the 50s and 60s, but those who are, get a brief treat. Just before the launch, Peter is driven up to the launch site in the Ford Aurora station wagon. Very cool. As he walks to the gantry, in the background are three other "future" cars to help suggest that the story takes place in 1989, not 1966. The red one is the GM X-Stiletto. The gray one looks like the Pontiac Banshee ('64), but it is hard to get a good look. Too many people in the way. Briefly visible, too, is the blue GM Runabout, also from 1964. 20th Century Fox had some pull, apparently.

Bottom line? WWO is an entertaining spoof. While not one of Lewis' bigger, funnier movies, it has plenty of moments. As sci-fi, it is pretty "lite".

Zontar, The Thing From Venus

American International commissioned Larry Buchanan to remake several of their older movies as part of a TV movie package. The first was The Eye Creatures ('65) which was a remake of Invasion of the Saucer Men ('57). Zontar: The Thing from Venus was a similarly close remade of It Conquered the World ('56). As a purely TV movies (no theatrical posters), it would fall outside the scope of this survey, but Zontar is grandfathered in. It's like a "10th Anniversary Edition" of a 50s icon, updated to have mid-60s styles and cars.

Quick Plot Synopsis
Note: What follows is nearly identical to that for It Conquered the World, but with mostly just name changes.
A special laser communication satellite is about to be launced. Keith, a scientist who has become discredited for having too many wild theories, tries to warn the authorities not to launch a satellite. They do anyway. It is lost, but returns mysteriously. Keith reveals to his friend Curt (a rocket scientist) that he has been communicating with a being from Venus, who is coming to earth in the errant satellite. Curt does not believe him. After the satellite comes down, the venusian takes up residence in a steamy cave. It somehow manages to stop all power sources. Electricity, steam, hydro, even mechanical watches stop. It releases eight lobster-like flying creatures who 'bite' their intended target person in the back of the neck, implanting an electronic control device. The alien then directs them to do its bidding. The Army General of the rocket base is bitten, and so is the police chief of the town. They become emotionless tools of the alien. Curt's wife Ann is also bitten, but Curt eludes and kills his lobster-bat. When he realizes that his wife has been taken over by the alien, he shoots her. Keith feels much inner turmoil. He believed that the alien was coming to earth to improve mankind, but events have caused him to doubt. The alien, Zontar, orders him to kill Curt, but he can't. His doubts have grown. Keith's wife, Martha takes matters into her own hands, drives to the cave and tires to shoot the alien. Bullets are useless. The alien kills Martha, which Keith hears over his radio. This is the turning point for Keith. He drives to the cave. A squad of soldiers tried to shoot the alien, also to no avail. Keith uses a special plutonium laser wand to stab Zontar. It grabs Keith in its claws. They die together. Curt (John Agar) gives a longish epilogue speech about imperfect man needing to find his own answers. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
It is amusing to see how closely Buchanan copied the original screenplay. Sometimes it's a more general scene-for-scene copy. Other times even specific lines are copied. It is a curious thing to watch.

Cold War Angle
Whatever there is of this, was inherent in the original. The most blatant line (also in the original) comes when the possessed-general tells the lab folks that the power is out due to a "communist uprising."

Notes
Compare and Contrast -- Larry Buchanan's remake is not an exact line-for-line copy of Lou Russof's original screenplay. Buchanan and Hillman Taylor tweaked the script a bit -- in places. For instance, when Keith is letting Curt listen to a transmission from Zontar, Curt guesses that he's listening to "progressive jazz?" In ICW, Paul says, "the London Philharmonic?" Yet, many times, they kept lines completely intact, such as the general worrying about recovering the satellite, then relaxing a bit, "What am I worried about? I'm not paying for it." Even Martha's final speech is the same as Claire's. Aside from such tweaks (or not), a notable change is that in the original, Tom takes an old-tech pump style blow torch to the monster's eye to kill it. Keith stabs Zontar with his plutonium laser and turns it on, frying them both.

Monster Mash -- The original movie suffered some scorn for having its monster be too silly looking. Paul Blaisdell's foam creation would have worked better in moody dark cuts, but Roger Corman had far too exposed. Blaisdell's monster looked like a mutant carrot. Buchanan at least touched on deeper cultural iconography. His monster, Zontar, played off the more classic villain, Milton's Satan in Paradise Lost. In this one small way, Buchanan's Zontar improved on the original.

Saucer Redux -- Fans of the low-B genre will probably note that the "Laser Communication Satellite" which returns to earth is the same saucer model used in Buchanan's first A.I.P. remake, The Eye Creatures. In fact, the footage is the same. It's just recycled.

Bottom line? Zontar is almost exactly the same as its predecessor. If you liked the original, you'll be amused by the remake. If ICW annoyed you, it might be best to give Zontar a pass. John Agar fans might still want to take it in, as he is the star.

Destination Inner Space

Harold Goldman and his United Pictures team put out a third low-budget film in 1966. Destination Inner Space (DIS) was more sci-fi than Dimension 5, but not much as Cyborg 2087. Arthur C. Pierce again wrote the screenplay, but this time with more quick recycling than originality. DIS may have had a modest theatrical release, based on the poster, but has all the hallmarks of a made-for-TV movie.

Quick Plot Synopsis
Commander Wayne is called to an undersea lab to help identify some odd signals. Is it a sub? A secret Soviet sub? No. It's not an animal either. It turns out to be an aquatic flying saucer, which settles onto the sea floor 2000 yards away. Distracting sub-plots begin. Sandy likes Maddox but he can't make a commitment. Maddox hates Wayne for some misdeed in their past. Wayne likes Rene, but she's too cool for him. Inside the saucer, a triangular block of ice is pushed out of a compartment. The ice melts away from the capsule-pod inside. Wayne, Maddox and Sandy investigate the saucer. Maddox brings back the pod. Once in the heat of the sea lab, it grows to double its size, then hatches a hunch-backed creature from the black lagoon. Said creature kills an expendable crewman, then departs. Creature then kills everyone aboard the surface support ship and trashes the air pumps, winch and radio. Now trapped inside the sea lab, Wayne and Maddox have it out over who did the bad thing years ago. Turns out Maddox was the coward who froze and killed the five sailors, not Wayne being heartless. Thus stripped of pride, Maddox bristles no more. Sandy is impressed with him admitting he was a coward. Wayne plots a trap for the gill man. They rig spear guns to trip wires. Hungry creatures obligingly comes in and gets a chest full of spears. It leaves. Wayne goes after it, followed by Maddox and Ellis. The creature jumps the, but all three men manage to subdue it. They bring it aboard the sea lab, tie it up and have it sedated. Wayne and Maddox then swim up to the support ship. Everyone dead. Nothing working. They do find some dynamite, though. They return to sea lab. Wayne rigs up a timer for their bomb. Wayne, Maddox and Sandy swim to the saucer. Meanwhile, Rene dabs the poor sedated gill man with water like a good nurse, but this awakens the creature. It breaks the chains and escapes to chase Wayne and company. Inside the saucer, the three have the bomb almost ready, but the creature jumps in, interrupting. Maddox holds off the creature while Wayne and Sandy escape. He tries to keep it at bay with a flare, which is predictably knocked into the case of dynamite. Big explosion. The saucer is gone in a cloud of silt. Many days later, later, aboard the sea lab, Dr. Lassiter is morose about the lost opportunity to study the alien. Wayne says it's okay, the President wants him to head up a team to be ready for next time. Dr. L is happy. Rene drops her ice princess act and jumps Wayne with a big kiss. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
Fans of 50s sci-fi will see several of the classics mashed into this one script. While not new or novel, the screenplay is at least comfortably familiar.

Cold War Angle
Other than a brief worry that the mystery sub might be some new soviet technology, the analogies of ruthless invaders (which drove the 50s movies), lingers only as an echo of those more sincere days.

Notes
Medley of Your Favorites -- Pierce cobbled together his screenplay from tried and true 50s classics. There is the element of a crew trapped somewhere with a murderous monster on the loose: The Thing ('50) and It! Terror from Beyond Space ('58) There the alien frozen in the block of ice which thaws and rampages, also from The Thing. From The Atomic Submarine ('59), we get the underwater alien saucer. Of course, there is the inescapable link to Creature from the Black Lagoon ('54) with the amphibious gill-man costume. Similar gill men monsters have terrorized coastal towns and party beaches too. That's just what gill monsters do.

Value Monster -- Most of the special effects budget must have gone into the monster costume. It's actually not too bad, given some of the really poor ones that had gone before it. The monster gets a fair amount of screen time. Yes, the hunch on his back is where his scuba tank is. It is interesting to note that the credits call the creature: "The Thing."

Scuba Padding -- Viewers will probably note how the run time of DIS is padded out with extended -- and a few times repeated -- footage of divers swimming in scuba gear. Swimming, swimming, swimming.

Tedious Subplots -- Also filling out the run time with non-action, are the three (or four) human drama subplots. Maddox and Wayne have a hostile history. Maddox accused Wayne of killing 5 crewmen by sealing up a flooding compartment on a stricken sub. Turns out it was Maddox who killed them by locking the escape hatch. Whatever. Sandy liked Maddox before, but now that he knows that she knows he was a coward, there's no hope for them. He's still a coward. This makes his sacrifice in the end his honor-redeeming act. Wayne has the hots for older-gal Rene, but she's too world wise for some navy wolf. But, when Wayne is all heroic and even kind, she jumps his bones. Whatever.

Logic Gap -- Pierce probably did not have much time to work on his script. It was bound to have a few inconsistencies. He has the premise that the people in the sea lab were trapped and could not escape until a rescue ship comes. Yet, Wayne and Maddox were quite capable of swimming up to the supply ship for a look around, and return with some dynamite. If it was that easy, why couldn't everyone just swim up to the ship?

Bottom line? DIS is a low budget mash-up of previous stories. That gives it some nostalgia value for 50s sci-fi fans. Fans of gill man monster movies will probably like the monster. People expecting an A-quality movie will be disappointed. DIS is a B movie made of spare parts, for TV markets. It might be interesting to do a Goldman triple feature with Cyborg 2087, Dimension 5 and Destination Inner Space.

Dimension 5

The team that brought you Cyborg 2087 produced another time travel story. Dimension 5 (D5) is only marginally a sci-fi film. It amounts to a commie plot spy thriller with a time-shifting belt as one of his gadgets. Jeffrey Hunter stars as the agent with the almost-prescient name of Justin Power. Other recognizable second-teir actors include Harold Sakata ("Odd Job" in Goldfinger), Robert Ito (Quincy, MD) and France Nuyen (Star Trek, Elaan of Troyius).

Quick Plot Synopsis
The story opens to a car chase in which Justin Power eludes police by using his time-shifting belt. Back in the USA, his boss has another assignment for him. A chinese plot to blow up Los Angeles is afoot. The NIA have captured an enemy agent. Powers is assigned to bring him in. He uses his time belt to discover and foil an assassination attempt. Interrogation via a truth-gizmo extracts that the Dragons (a mafia-like gang) are importing a nuclear bomb in pieces and assembling it. Powers is given a pretty new partner, Kitty (France Nuyen). She has also been playing double agent with Dragon. An attempt is made to blow up Power, but it fails by chance. Power goes to Nancy Ho's apartment. (she gave the explosive owl). She tries to kill him, but Kitty saves Power. She also turns him over to Stoneface, an agent of Big Buddha, the local Dragon boss. Stoneface reneges on her deal to meet Big Buddha. She decks them all. Back at Power's apartment, Kitty gets a time belt too, and some lessons. Big shipment coming to Ming Products warehouse. They go check it out. They poof three weeks into the future to see what gets unloaded. They find lead containers (with U238 inside) in bags of rice. Big Buddha and his minions have Power and Kitty surrounded. They poof out to escape, but Kitty poofs back in to threaten Big Buddha. Back story about him being an executioner in Nanking and her as abused girl left for dead. A minion knocks out Kitty. Power finds them in an office. Stand off, then drawn out fist fight. Woman minion stabs Big Buddha. All escape just fine. Happy music. Power and Kitty say they'll go back in time and do it again the right way. Flirting and frolicking. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
Short-jump time travel as practical tool has some interest. The poor-man's-Bond flavor has its amusements too.

Cold War Angle
Instead of the more customary allegory, the Cold War is part of the plot. Chinese communists (this time) are the rogue element, trying sneak a bomb into America. This aspect actually has some resonance to post 9/11 America,

Notes
Budget Bond -- There is an unavoidable similarity between D5 and the various Bond films that preceded it. Hunter plays a similar sort of handsome, suave, gadget-laden special agent. He has a boss and a gizmo-wizard guy. And, there are plenty of babes around. Power's time belt gave him quite the advantage, making up for his apparent lack of observational skills. (the whole gift owl (bomb) in the restaurant thing did not seem just a little suspicious to him?) His beautiful cohort, Kitty, seems the more capable spy.

Odd Job 2 -- Harold Sakata played "Odd Job" in the Bond film Goldfinger. He lends some of that menace momentum to the role of Big Buddha: the Dragon gang's Los Angeles boss. In an odd quirk, the screenplay has him wheelchair bound. Even more peculiar is that he was dubbed by Marvin Millar.

Time Tale Two -- D5 is the second time-travel movie put out by Harold Goldman and his United Pictures group. For D5, Goldman tapped Arthur C. Pierce (again) for the screenplay. Pierce had written the time-travel story for Cyborg 2087. In both, he made a special effort to point out that time travelers to the past had to use non-lethal force (paralyzer darts or rays), to avoid potentially big changes to the future timeline. Apparently, it's okay to kill people in your future, though to be fair, Powers uses his time belt to scope out future events (such as the assassination of Chang) or to test a situation (the warehouse ambush). He would then repeat the event, better informed, so that non-lethal force could be used. Time traveling spies, with a heart.

Storm Clouds Rising -- Note the demands of the Dragons. They will blow up L.A. unless "all American troops are withdrawn from asia." Hidden in those lines is the reality of increased American presence in southeast Asia. The "Vietnam War" would soon become woven into the American cultural fabric. But as yet, it was just storm clouds on the horizon.

Shadow of War Crimes? -- A somewhat interesting bit of back story, is that Kitty was a young girl in Nanking before WWII. "Big Buddha" was apparently a cruel POW warden who executed her parents and abused her. The "Rape of Nanking" is not a common plot nugget in American films. Nazi prison guards or evil doctors in hiding are much more common.

Made Small -- Even though there is a theatrical poster, the whole flavor of D5 smacks of being made for the small screen. From the titles and credits, to the music, to the simple script easily wrapped up in the end, D5 is a typical made-for-TV film.

Bottom line? As a sci-fi, there's not much to recommend D5. It is essentially a very low budget secret agent story. Where some of Pierce's films have a sci-fi setting or tone, D5 is a low-budget, poor-man's James Bond with few gadgets and fewer babes. Fans of cheap spy stories may find more to like.

Cyborg 2087

There were a burst of time travel stories in the mid-60s. Cyborg 2087 added to the trope of an agent from the future traveling to the past to prevent some event which causes mayhem in the future. Michael Renne (Klaatu in Day the Earth Stood Still) plays the cyborg named Garth. Wendell Corey, who played the inarticulate admiral in Women of the Prehistoric Planet, plays the inarticulate sheriff here. Like most time travel tales, it can get a bit confusing.

Quick Plot Synopsis
In a futuristic city of 2087, troops storm a control room in mid countdown. The agent in the time capsule pod is, nonetheless, successfully sent back to the year 1966. His mission is to find Professor Sigmund Marx and bring him back, or destroy him. The agent, named Garth A7, pops into 1966 on the edge of a western ghost town. A man drives up in his red jeep, bringing his uncle Pete and german shepherd for a visit. Garth stuns all three and steals the jeep. He breaks into a clothing store for some less conspicuous attire. Citizens are getting jumpy. Stolen vehicles. Missing people. Burglaries. Garth gets to Marx's lab after he'd gone. Garth uses mind control to turn Marx's assistant, Dr. Sharon Mason, into a helper. He has a tracking beacon in his chest and wants it removied. "Tracer" agents will come from the future to stop him. She takes him to a friend: Dr. Carl Zeller. The Tracers do pop into 1966 in their own pod and start jogging towards Garth's beamer. Carl removes the beamer but they need 5,000 volts to destroy it. They head for the power station. The Tracers catch up with Garth and Carl at the power station. One Tracer is killed and the beamer destroyed by voltage. The other Tracer chases Garth around on the roof for awhile before both elude the cranky Sheriff and his men. Meanwhile, Sharon has swiped Marx's files on his radio telepathy project. Marx catches her. She spills back story Garth told her about how in the future, unscrupulous powers will use it to enslave mankind. Free thought will be illegal. They drive out to Old Town to find Garth. There, Sharon is captured by the other Tracer and used as bait. Garth was willing to leave her to her fate (no feelings) and fulfill his mission of bringing Marx to 2087. But, a spark of compassion brings Garth to Sharon's rescue. After much old fashioned fist fighting, Garth kills the Tracer. Sharon proclaims her love for him, begs him to stay. He cannot and says she will forget he was ever there, if the timeline is altered. Garth and Marx pop out. Later that morning, some generals and officials have gathered to see Marx's demonstration. He comes in (apparently back from 2087) but says there will be no demonstration. Mankind isn't ready to handle the power. It will be abused. The generals go away sad, but Sharon and Carl discover each other and agree to go on a date. In the sheriff's office, bored deputies complain that nothing ever happens around there. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
The plot is intriguing enough, with many possible threads left unexplored, that Cyborg is good food for thought.

Cold War Angle
The focus in Cyborg is more on oppressive state dictatorships, ala 1984, with the military-industrial complex (as Eisenhauer put it) as the bugbear.

Notes
Remake? Ripoff? -- The plot of Cyborg reminds many people of The Terminator ('84). There are similarities, but also some significant differences. The tropes they have in common suggest an inspiration, at any rate. Cyborg sent to the past to find a human who is the key to a dystopic future. Dual good/bad time travelers. Some claim that two Outer Limits episodes from 1964 were the basis for both movies. Again, not so much in their plots as in their tropes. The Soldier episode provided emotionless (but human) soldiers, raised by the state from birth, to do nothing but follow orders -- to kill on command. But there was no time traveling. Demon With A Glass Hand provided the trope of agents (alien humanoids, not machines, nor human despots) are sent from an oppressive, dystopic future to find and stop Robert Culp (actually a cyborg) who has the key to saving humanity. Yet, neither of these TV episodes were the same story as Cyborg or Terminator. T1 is too different in plot from Cyborg to be even a loose remake. Both the Terminator and Garth were after a key human in the past, but one was to persuade, the other to kill. T1 was focused on violence and killing (somewhat creepily previewing the millennial style of real life massacres: Columbine, Virginia Tech and Fort Hood.) Cyborg was focused more on the time-line issue and far less on the violence. One scene could raise an eyebrow. T1 ends with Sarah Conner driving a red jeep, with a german shepherd in it. Coincidence? or intentional nod to Cyborg? You decide.

Stockholm Syndrome -- Presaging the famous bank robbery/hostage event in 1973 that gave the syndrome its name, note how Garth forces his will upon Sharon. Briefly, Garth handles Sharon somewhat roughly, supporting the captor/captive model. He hooks her up to the radio-telepathy machine to "bend" her mind to accept only his point of view so that she'll help him (get the beamer removed). Under this mental control, she begins to develop feelings for him (rather quickly and based on little). In the end, she proclaims her love for him. Garth, quite correctly, tags the Stockholm Syndrome. She only has feelings for him because he bent her will.

Lame FX or Butterfly Effect? -- The script of Cyborg tried to keep the complexity of time travel logical, instead of as a gimmick. The Free Thought rebels could not risk any negative changes, so Garth's ray gun could only stun. Killing anything might ruin the improved timeline they were trying create. The Tracers were not so careful. Their ray guns could kill. Fortunately, but like most movie bad guys, they were very poor shots.

Plot Flaw or Time Paradox? -- The story ends with a sort of "it was all a dream" erasure off all the movie's events. This isn't explained at all, so feels like a too-hasty wrap. Professor Marx's return to 1966, and refusal to do his demonstration would change events from then on. Why would it rewrite the prior day? Perhaps it ran like this: Marx is taken by Garth to the year 2087. The Oppressor State is still in power. The Free Thinkers convince Marx of his error and return him. He does not give the demo. Since they succeeded, their timeline then poofs out. No Oppressor State. No rebels. Jo Ann Pflug (who plays the female rebel engineer who launches Garth to 1966) if she existed at all, might just be some mild researcher somewhere. No one sends Garth, so all those events of the movie caused by him would cease to exist too.

Love Trumps Programming -- Writers (and audiences) loved the notion that human love could conquer just about anything. Garth is the total stoic. He was taught since birth to suppress and deny all feelings. Yet, near the end, Garth's heart is softened by Sharon's plaintive screams for help. He risks the success of his mission to rescue her. The earth-woman-falls-for-outsider trope is reminiscent of Klaatu and Patricia Neal in TDESS (and its many remakes). This is all the stronger since it is Michael Rennie playing the outsider again.

Nasty Cuts -- Betraying the ultra-low budget, note how badly the disappear-appear cuts are done. In the future lab, the camera position is nowhere even close to the same. When the pod appears/disappears outside of Old Town, the camera was at least fixed. But, the sun and lighting are very different. Oh well.

Senseless Dancing -- Perhaps as a sop to the teen ticket buyers, Hoey included some longish shots of two teen couples dancing all groovy-like in Carl's living room. This wasn't a mere establishing scene, but almost a showcase. Viewers are given long stretches of close-ups of the girls' fancy footwork or Rick's asynchronous gyrations. Toss in a garish hot rod and some cool "hip" teen lingo, and the whole segment smells like a sop.

Bottom line? Cyborg is a low budget production with no impressive effects or captivating acting. It does build upon the time travel sub-genre, and aside from a few quirks presents a fair story.

The Navy vs. The Night Monsters

The style of cheap 50s B sci-fi was gone yet. 1966 saw the release of The Navy vs. The Night Monsters (NvNM). Essentially, NvNM a recasting of the popular people-trapped-with-a-monster trope. Instead of an arctic base, such as The Thing ('51) or in a rocket It! Terror From Beyond Space ('58), NvNM is set on a tropical island. Mamie Van Doren stars, but not in her usual way. Anthony Eisley plays the reluctant hero. Bobby Van plays the incongruous comic relief. The navy personnel on the base, and later from an aircraft carrier, must battle the killer trees.

Quick Plot Synopsis
Antarctic scientists discovered some odd plant forms, so loaded them on a plane to ship them to the States for study. As they planned to set down on remote Gow island for refueling, all heck breaks loose. A crewmen goes berserk after visiting the cargo hold. Shots are fired. People fall out. The pilot regains control, but lands gear-up on Gow. He's in a catatonic state, so can explain nothing. With the disabled plane on the runway, no one can come in, or leave. On the island, there is a complex web of would-be love triangles and macho rivalries to distract the viewers. Spaulding has the hots for Nora, but Nora is smitten with Lt. Brown. While fond of Nora, Lt. Brown has commitment issues. Since Spaulding and Brown are rivals for Nora, they don't get along. The island's biologist, Dr. Beecham has the "trees" planted near a hot spring to preserve them. After awhile, one by one, people who walk into the jungle at night, disappear. The catatonic pilot is a suspect, since he periodically gets up and attacks people. This is a red herring. It's the trees. They can walk (sort of),have grabber arms and secrete a powerful acid Several more people are killed and absorbed by the trees. The trees ruin the base's generator.The islanders fight back with molotovs. Doc theorizes that the trees needed to be mobile and carnivorous to survive the 60 months of antarctic winter. The darkness in the cargo plane "awakened" them. The navy dispatches an aircraft carrier to the island. Jet fighter-bombers drop napalm on the hoards of walking trees. The bombers eventually wipe out the trees, saving the day. Cue triumphal music. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
NvNM is almost pure 50s B sci-fi, with all its warts and foibles. This far into the 60s, it's like finding a dollar between the couch cushions. It can be enjoyed as such.

Cold War Angle
This is more monster and horror than political metaphor. There is, still, the strong flavor of American military might, as yet untarnished by the Vietnam experience.

Notes
Based on the Book -- Michael Hoey wrote a screenplay based on the 1959 novel "Monster from the End of the World" by Murry Leinster. The novel was, itself, a variation on The Thing ('51). Hoey kept the basics: antarctic plant samples, plane crash en route back to the States, carnivorous trees. He made some of the usual Hollywood additions. Curiously, Hoey kept the pilot alive, perhaps as a plot diversion. In the book, the pilot shoots himself after the crash landing.

Land Unknown, Again -- The central premise in Leinster's book and Hoey's screenplay used the same source material as Land Unknown ('57). A supposed warm area, with clear lakes is found in the antarctic. See notes on Land Unknown for more on that.

Platinum in Decline -- An icon from the 50s was the platinum blonde "bombshell" starlet. Fox had Marilyn Monroe. Warner Brothers countered with Jayne Mansfield. Universal tried to get in the game with Mamie Van Doren. Where Marilyn had an ethereal charm. Mansfield had a huge chest. Despite type casting as the "dumb blonde", both Marilyn and Mansfield showed some acting ability. A more distant third in the "Three Ms", Mamie also had a huge chest, but not as much acting ability. Somewhat surprisingly, Mamie plays a fairly serious role in NvNM with little flagrant exploitation of her famous features. Hoey did put her in a tight sweater for one scene, but other than that, her assets remained unexploited.

Weak Team -- The people creating NvNM did not qualify as a well-oiled-machine. Mamie Van Doren refused to wear the navy nurse's uniform, insisting instead on wearing several sleeveless (and shapeless) dresses. Hoey relented. She'd be a civilian then. Director Hoey and executive producer Broder did not get on well, nor communicate well. Broder changed Hoey's title from a more mysterious "Nightcrawlers" to the flagrant NvNM title. The most glaring example of their dysfunction was the inserted scenes and hokey ending. Hoey was striving for a darker, moodier piece, more along the lines of The Thing. You can tell what he imagined as his ending -- the scene where everyone is standing shoulder to shoulder watching the tree monsters burn. Hoey wrapped it up as a 78 minute film. Apparently he did not believe Broder when he told him he needed a 90 minute film. Broder than had director Arthur C. Pierce film the shots in the admiral's office, insert yet more stock footage of jets, and a few brief (and badly done) clips of the "crawlers" en masse. Broder then wrapped it up with some triumphal music and air show footage.

Bad Plant, Bad -- Plant monsters have a history in classic sci-fi. Of course, the first of them, The Thing ('51) was very humanoid in shape, but made of plant tissues. The pods in Invasion of the Body Snatchers ('56) didn't do much, but produce duplicate humans, but they were plants. More monster-like, was Tabanga, the walking tree monster in From Hell It Came ('57). Then there was the very similar people-eating tree thing in Womaneater ('59) which actually fed on humans, and was destroyed by fire. The Triffids ('63) added the mobility factor. They too were people-eaters.

Plane Crazy -- Like any average 50s B sci-fi, there is ample stock footage in NvNM. In that, there are the usual continuity lapses. The first one is brief, so easily missed. The plane the scientists (and killer trees) are on, is an R4D (Navy letters for the DC-3). A different DC-3 is shot making a gear-up low pass at the air strip. it is a C-46 Commando that is show doing the belly landing. Note too, that all the shots of the supposedly belly-landed DC-3 are with it in a wheels-down stance. Towards the end, in the new footage Broder inserted, we're shown several clips of the Blue Angels team at air shows, sometimes in F9F Panthers (with the tip tanks), or F9F Cougars (more swept wing, no tip tanks). All the stock footage of napalm bombing runs are P-94 Starfires (with the huge tip tanks). A smorgasbord of late 50s fighters, but not the same squadron.

Bottom line? NvNM is not high art. In fact, after the production polish of Fantastic Voyage which was released before NvNM, its cheapness is almost embarrasing. But it is classic low-budget 50s-style sci-fi. Lots of stock footage, cheap monsters, predictable deaths and heroic heros. NvNM is out of its league in the mid-60s. Fans of the cheap 50s films will enjoy it.