Forbidden Planet
Based on Shakespeare, MGM’s 1956 epic starring Anne Francis & Leslie Nielsen is a landmark SF movie. The pulpy premise of space explorers saving a virgin from an alien monster hides surprisingly serious and adult themes. 9/10
Highly Dangerous
A lady entomologist channels her inner secret agent when sent on a dangerous mission to an Eastern European country in this British 1950 spy-fi comedy thriller written by author Eric Ambler. 6/10
Fly by Night
Robert Siodmak shows his skill as a director in this early 1942 screwball comedy starring later SF star Richard Carlson and Oscar nominee Nancy Kelly, as they chase a Nazi superweapon, trying to prove Carlson’s innocense in a murder case. 7/10
Up the Ladder
Universal’s 1925 silent melodrama is a riches-to-rags story on steroids, focusing on the inventor of a video phone. With money and fame he neglects his wife, who secretly holds 50 percent of his company. A competent but forgettable programmer. 5/10
The Intrigue
A well-produced spy-fi melodrama of the serial mold, this 1916 silent scripted by pioneer Julia Crawford Ivers may be the earliest preserved American science fiction feature film. Frank Lloyd’s nifty directorial touches add to its appeal. 6/10
Kvinnens plass
A photo of a UFO propels journalist Tore Haugen into a stellar career, while her colleague and husband becomes a stay-at-home dad. This well-made Norwegian marital comedy from 1956 manages to be progressive and reactionary at the same time. 7/10
1984
The first feature film depicting George Orwell’s dystopian vision of a totalitarian future capture the book’s bleak atmosphere well. A miscast leading couple and Michael Anderson’s uninspired direction prevent the movie from reaching its potential. 5/10
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
This 1956 SF thriller directed by Don Siegel is a masterpiece dissecting American post-war paranoia and timeless themes of losing one’s identity and sense of belonging. One of the few fifties horror films that is still spine-chilling today. 10/10
The Gamma People
Two bumbling journalists accidentally save a European backwater country from a mad scientists creating zombies and a master race with the help of gamma rays in this British B production from later Bond producer Albert Broccoli. 4/10
Warning from Space
Friendly star-shaped aliens try to warn Tokyo’s inhabitants of a planetary collision. Humans flee in fear at the sight of the alien starfish, so one of them shape-shifts and infiltrates. This 1956 colour spectacle is entertaining but contrived. 5/10
Day the World Ended
A small group of survivors hole up in a bungalow after a nuclear war, hoping to outlast the fallout and the mutants raging beyond the picket fence. Roger Corman directs the 1955 cheapo efficiently, but it spends too long treading water. 3/10
Creature with the Atom Brain
Cult director Edward L. Cahn directs SF staple Richard Denning with a Curt Siodmak script in this 1955 consumable about gangster zombies with radioactive brains. An entertaining but forgettable atom age potboiler from Columbia. 4/10
King Dinosaur
Bert I. Gordon’s 1955 directorial debut sees four scientists completely uninterested in exploring a new planet and doing “darn science stuff”. After battling stock footage and superimposed insects, they detonate a nuclear bomb and go home. 0/10
Bride of the Monster
Ed Wood’s 1955 schlocker is a love letter to the film’s star Bela Lugosi and the monster movies of the thirties, and as such it is quite charming, despite its ineptitude. And despite ill health, Lugosi is magnetic in his last first billing. 5/10
Conquest of Space
An implausible, ill-conceived and sluggish script is the bane of George Pal’s 1955 Technicolor space epic. The visuals in this first trip to Mars are (mostly) superb, which make the bizarre plot and deadly dialogue stand out like a sore thumb. 4/10
scifist 2.0 