Category: Conquest of Time
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Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
Universal’s first monster mashup, made in 1943, is an audience divider. Some enjoy it as a brainless schlockfest, while others find the denigration of the Frankenstein franchise painful to watch. Arguably miscast from the start as the Frankenstein monster, Bela Lugosi saw all his lines cut in the editing room. 4/10
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Sziriusz
This Hungarian sci-fi turned romantic swashbuckler drama from 1942 is a forgotten little gem. It is based on a time machine short story predating H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine by one year, and is the first feature film in history to feature an actual time machine. 6/10
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The Man with Nine Lives
One of five films that Columbia made with Boris Karloff, more or less from one and the same script, this 1940 cryonics film is competently made and quite enjoyable. At least you’ll get a few chuckles out of the utterly silly science, like doctors reviving patients from cryostasis with pots…
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The Invisible Ray
Universal’s 1936 mad scientist yarn boasts Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi in an uneven but entertaining death ray film. Lugosi is seen in a rare heroic role, and Karloff is typecast as a mad scientist. Oh, and human organisms are only part of astro-chemistry controlled by forces from the sun,…
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Our Heavenly Bodies
A forgotten German educational film with strong SF elements, Wunder der Schöpfung takes us on a ride in a spaceship to visit the planets and the stars. Director Hanns Walter Kornblum worked with nine animators and six cinematographers to create astounding special effects that hold up to any other masterpiece…
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The Crazy Ray
The first feature film dealing with the stopping of time, French experimental movie Paris qui dort is a poetical comedy that uses science fiction trappings to recapture the romanticism of a Paris before the hustle and bustle of the modern speed-crazy world of the 1920s. (7/10)
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Aelita, Queen of Mars
(8/10) Ostensibly Russia’s/USSR’s first sci-fi film, this political 1924 space fantasy lays down a surprisingly intelligent criticism of the communist revolution, once you look past the clunky, propagandistic symbolism on the surface. Although most of the movie is Earth-bound, it is remembered for the amazing constructivist sets and costumes on…
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The Man from Beyond
(2/10) Harry Houdini is frozen in ice for a hundred years, and is too busy longing for love and escaping from danger to realise it is no longer 1820, but 1922. Houdini is charismatic, but the film derivative, and the escape acts don’t transfer well to the screen. The Man…
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The Ghost of Slumber Mountain
This 1918 short by stop-motion wizard Willis O’Brien and Herbert M. Dawley is probably the first film to describe time travel, and is a showcase for their marvellous stop-motion dinosaurs. (6/10) The Ghost of Slumber Mountain. 1918, USA. Written & directed by Herbert M. Dawley & Willis O’Brien (uncredited). Starring Herbert…
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