Made in 1956, this science fiction movie starring Leslie Nielson as Commander Abrams was quite fascinating to watch from a 2010 viewpoint. With pretty decent special effects and in some cases pretty impressive special effects considering it was 1956, this was part speculative space exploration and part psychological thriller.
From IMDb: When an Earth mission arrives on Altair IV, they find that Dr. Edward Morbius and his beautiful daughter Altaira are the only survivors from the original expedition that had arrived some 20 years before. Morbius isn't exactly pleased to see them and would have preferred that they not even land their spaceship. He does his best to get them on their way but Commander Abrams and his men soon face an invisible force leading them to believe that Morbius and the girl are in danger. Morbius claims to know nothing of other life on the planet but does reveal there once existed a far superior race, now extinct, that left a huge subterranean industrial and scientific complex.
The drawbacks of the movie do include portraying Altaira as a weak and naive girl who falls in love with the first men she has seen outside of her father. Her main job is to pose seductively and bat her big blue eyes in a beguiling manner. The movie also portrays a starship to be much like a regular seafaring ship on earth, where even the lowliest cook seems to have way to much liberties. Discipline was very lax. Tsk.
But even with the societal norms of the times portrayed in the movie, I still felt it was fairly well executed visually and I enjoyed it for what it was: an entertaining science fiction movie. Recommended.
1 comment:
Yes, it is a strangely cool movie, isn't it? Despite the flaws, it manages to convey a sense of wonder that works even today.
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