Post by silverbullet63 on Jan 19, 2021 12:57:18 GMT -5
Here we go:
The Thing From Another World (1951)
Seen it a million times and never get tired of it. What always impresses me anew is the dialog – credible, realistically delivered even with multiple people talking at once. The story? If anyone out there looking in does not know this movie, immediately go find where online it is playing and watch it. Intelligent plot, interesting characters, fine old school scares.
The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953)
Story by Ray Bradbury, FX by Ray Harryhausen. The first of the Big Monsters of the 1950s. Good action, intelligent script, credible acting all carried forward under smart direction.
Them (1954)
Nicely constructed giant ant feature that is as smartly done as it is scary. The first of the giant insect movies. Graduates slowly from small-scale off-screen action as the it is slowly discovered what is going on. Moves on to first seeing the monsters and the initial battle and finding out how big the threat is. Culminates in a battle royal with the things in the LA sewers. That makes it very claustrophobic and more effective for that. All of this was done on a surprisingly small budget. Although it sometimes seems like many more, they only had three of the big ants to use, that being all they could afford.
Forbidden Planet (1956)
Absolute classic of science fiction, with the science aspect being well above the level of most movies. Beautiful alien scenery, terrific FX, first class acting by the leads, genuine SF plot presented in human terms, intelligent just about everything. (Well OK, the part about the girl losing the telepathic link with the tiger because she got kissed is a little too 1950s. As I recall the book implied considerably more and made it clearer why the link got broken.)
The Time Machine (1960)
I had read the book years before the movie came out and had some trepidation about seeing it back then and what they might have done to it. Happily, it was treated well and preserved all the key elements without any embarrassing infantilism as too often happens with good books. It was with considerable pleasure that again viewed this oldie.
World Without End (1956)
Cinemascope and Technicolor make this movie look good. Too bad they did not spend more on FX. That spaceship control panel could have been in a Star Trek episode a decade later, and I do not even mean the bridge. The spaceship exterior shots and the crash landing in the snowy mountains are footage from When Worlds Collide. Another place they could have freed up a few more bucks was in the screenwriting. Acting is actually fairly good. It is the plot that sucks, a mashup of Buck Rogers time travel and The Time Machine two societies setting, mixed with SF B movie tropes like the future men being weaklings and the women hot to trot but the men from the past (or earthlings etc.) being as virile as anything.
In checking this out, I discovered that this was from Allied Artists, aka Monogram Pictures. I am astonished that they even scraped up enough coins to manage Cinemascope and Technicolor rather than their usual Academy Aspect and B+W. The other financial limitations now make sense.
Satellite in the Sky (1956)
From the UK, this was done in Cinemascope Warner color. A good-looking film but sadly not much to it. This could have been a lot better if they had paid attention to presenting the thrill of the first manned spaceflight instead of getting sidetracked into military conspiracies and stowaways. It should instead have been about the accomplishment like that UK movie that convinced all its viewers that the Brits were the first to break the Sound Barrier (in a dive) when the Yanks had actually done it some five years earlier (in a climb.
) The FX are nice as spaceships would be imagined in the 1950s. And the real military aircraft look terrific, including beautiful shots of the prototype Avro Vulcan bomber. The huge straight edge delta wings on the bare aluminum body are really impressive. The production version had curvy ogival wings, this giving better low speed lift.UPDATE I managed to hit Replay instead of Eject and discovered that Wally Veevils was in charge of FX. He would later be a big player on the 2001 FX crew doing models and such.
More movies on the way but the Postal Service really sucks these days to the point that the State has started an investigation.
Le Loup-Garou Qui Rit
