ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Spaceship en route to distant world encounters unconvincing monster of the bulky-rubber-suit variety.

The crew doesn't get along well, so the audience has to listen to a great deal of pointless bickering. When the ship reaches its destination it crash lands in the ocean.

What the audience actually sees is a model rocket in a small tank of water with a few crabs. The alien they eventually meet is borrowed from "Wizard of Mars". It's tough to enjoy a movie when so little care, talent, and money has been put into it.

Starring Francine York and Russ Bender. Poorly written and directed by Leonard Katzin.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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Okay, so that's what's wrong with this movie, but is there anything right about it?

Well, let's talk about Miss Francine York, shall we?

I'll go first. Like . . . wow. How 'bout that Francine York, eh?







And she looks mighty good in this movie, too!





And I must admit that the ship's interior isn't too badly done, either. God knows, we've certainly seen worse!











The spacesuits, however, suck worse than the vacuum of space, and they win the award for the most cumbersome air tanks in the universe, bar none.





This guy barely made it through the door, despite its five-foot width! And just to be sure there wasn't too much headroom above the helmet, they made the air hose stick straight up out of the top!





So, all in all, there's a lot about this movie to talk about — mostly bad stuff, but not all bad stuff. It would make a great movie for one of All Sci-Fi's Friday Live Chats.

Anybody interested? Here's the whole cotton pickin' movie, free of charge. Can't beat that price, huh?



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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Krel]

I read that it was originally made for TV. That would make it one of the first TV movies. Comet TV has been showing this lately.

I watched a few minutes of it the other day. Well, most of it, I missed the beginning. I haven't seen this since the 70s, so I would like to see the beginning.

The models are small, so there aren't any good views of them. I think that the alien spaceship was made from the first stage of the old Lindberg cargo, or passenger rocket. They both used the same first stage, and the fins on the alien ship are a dead giveaway. I believe that the Earth rocket was made from the final stage of the Revelle XSL-01 space ship. The fins and upper fuselage shape are the same.

The reason the backpacks are so big is because they have fire extinguishers as rockets for traveling between the ships.

David.

[orzel-w]

I never realized that for several years I had a spaceship-rated acceleration chair in my living room.
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...or not...

WayneO
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[Gord Green]

This film is what they call a "potboiler"...….
With the heat turned off!
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There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

[Krel]

Those helmets have appeared in a few things, including a first season "Man From U.N.C.L.E." episode guest starring Kurt Russel. The helmets were part of a HAZMAT suit.

The episode would have been filmed around the same time as this movie.

David.

[Bogmeister]

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The first brief sequence in this film, on another planet, shows the downside of space exploration — the lone surviving astronaut (the others died off screen) has found himself on a planet so toxic to human existence, he dare not not even bring the ship back to Earth regions, where it may infect our planet.

Also, he's already dead anyway — his spacesuit was not able to keep out the alien radiation.

Whew! After such a depressing beginning, I was waiting for more horrors associated with outer space. But what we get is a 4-person crew heading out on some mission, encountering a derelict vessel, and then getting attacked by an alien who precedes the attack by sticking his tongue out at them.

I kid you not.

I first saw this scene many years ago in the early seventies, on the Creatures Features show hosted by Bob Wilkins in the Bay Area, which would show several scenes from different sf/horror films during its intro each night.

For decades I wondered which film this alien with the tongue problem was from. It's only this year that I finally found out that it's this film.

The female crew member is played by Francine York (memorable in the Lost in Space episode The Colonists) and the other three are unknowns.

Anyway, one of the human astronauts is forced to shoot & kill the alien and it's later discussed how this was mankind's first encounter with an alien species — not very encouraging.

Since the alien was very ugly, at least one astronaut won't lose any sleep over the incident. The bulk of the plot has the space pioneers encountering a static meteorite storm and making an abrupt 'landing' in the ocean of some planet. There are giant crabs and a man-shaped sea-dweller that attacks one of the crew. The FX in outer space and the ocean floor are like something from a grade school project, and the astronomy is iffy. (They speak of being in another galaxy.)

It's slow, but there is some entertainment in that this is a fifties-styled low budget space adventure.

BoG's Score: 4 out of 10


BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus

______ Space Probe Taurus (1965) - FULL MOVIE


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[ralfy]

Upscaled version (to 1080p) but it's a TV rip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ft_GSGppxSg

[tmlindsey]

I drifted in-and-out of a coma trying to watch this one last night. YAAAAAWN. What a bore!

The only time I perked up (not including Francine York's appearances) was when I saw the undersea fishmen near the end and immediately recognized them as the same ones from War Gods of the Deep, which I believe is one of Bruce's favorite movies.

Next up for me - Riders to the Stars.
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"Have you never wondered what it would be like to walk between the ticks and tocks of Time?"

[Bud Brewster]

[tmlindsey]

[Krel]

"Riders To The Stars" is one of Ivan Tors trio of the Office of Scientific Investigation movies. The other two are "Gog", and "The Magnetic Monster". Riders is the lesser of the threee.

David.

[tmlindsey]

Yeah, Krel, I knew about Tors' trilogy and had seen the other two before. It's an interesting idea Tors had even if the results are . . . uneven. Now I've seen Riders and woof, the effects in it are far from special and it is veeery draggy until Richard Carlson's OTT freakout

At least I've seen all three now. For whatever that's worth.

I'm rapidly running out of older SF I've not seen before
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"Have you never wondered what it would be like to walk between the ticks and tocks of Time?"

[Bud Brewster]

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On New Years Day in 2002, Turner Classic Movies aired a marathon of classic science fiction movies. I was excited by the idea of a day-long sci-fi movie watching experience.

At that time, I was recentlyly divorced after a 25-year bad marriage. But that day in 2002 it was bright and sunny, and I was living happily in my well-decorated bachelor apartment!

I was no longer consigned to my former basement "man cave" — even though I had been surrounded by my artwork, my custom-built entertainment center, and my trusty IBM computer.

However, on that 2002 New Year's Day, I was enthusiastic about the TCM marathon, so I planned a Day of Classic Sci-Fi in my swingiin' bachelor pad!









Alas, my hopes were dashed.

The first feature was Rider to the Stars . . . which I had wanted to see for years, ever since the issues of Famous Monsters had teased me with photos from the movie.

But of course, I was bitterly disappointed . . .

Next on the TCN schedule was Destination Moon — which, for years, has used a terrible print of the movie, one that was vastly inferior to the commercially sold DVD! (Hey, who knew there were film scratched in outer space? )

Conquest of Space was the third feature, and we all know the mistake George Pal made when he produced that badly flawed movie.

My point here, gentlemen, is that my initial viewing of Rider to the Stars was a severe letdown — but I suspect the experience was partially responsible for my creation of the first version of All Sci-Fi in 2006.

That version's web host crashed after a few months, but soon after that I moved to North Carolina and started the scond vers of the board from scratch. I lasted seven years.

So, that's the history Bruce Cook/Bud Brewster and the origin of All Sci-Fi.

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)