ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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B-movies kept America entertained throughout the 30s. 40s, and 50s. Below we have three fine examples.

Debora Walley and Michael Cole encounter aliens that never show themselves. They arrive a ship we never see, and the plan to conquer Earth in a manner never stipulated.

And it's all in magnificent 3D!

Next we have an unusual 1943 horror movie in which John Carradine invents a way to turn a gorrilla into the lovely Acquanetta — a process which, if perfected, would insure the extinction of gorillas! (They'd all be Hollywood starlets.)

Finally, we're treated to an invasion, complete with ray guns, rockets, and non-corporeal aliens who inhabit the bodies of dead humans, thus saving the studio the expense of creating alien makeup for the actors.

The aliens are here to shot down our rockets because they're a threat to alien planets millions of miles away . . . which is funny for the obvious reason (the rockets didn't go that far) and the less obvious one (our rockets rarely worked back in the 1960s, so why bother shooting them down?)





Less-than-perfect movies are enjoyable to comment on because they make so many mistakes. Posting replies is easy, it's free, and it's fun for the whole family!
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The Bubble (1966)



THE BUBBLE - (1966) [Also released as: "Fantastic Invasion of Planet Earth"]

Director Arch Oboler ("The Twonky") pioneered a new 3-D process called "Spacevision" which used polarized glasses to separate the right-and-left images for the audience. The 3-D effect works remarkably well, especially in a scene involving a serving tray which floats out of the screen and (apparently) right up to the viewer's face.

Oboler obviously made "The Bubble" just to show off "Spacevision"; the plot is practically nonexistent, and the film is littered with scenes that poke objects out of the screen at the audience. In Deborah Walley's first scene, she holds her arms out to the audience and exclaims "Darling!" to husband Michael Cole.

The token plot is about a small town which alien invaders have isolated inside a spherical force field (the bubble of the title). A small plane piloted by Johnny Desmond and carrying newlyweds Michael and Deborah is forced to land during a storm, and the trio end up trapped in the town. The town's citizens act like broken robots, repeating routine tasks over and over, oblivious to everything around them. Olan Soule has a small role as one of the automaton Earthlings. The alleged alien invaders are never shown.



Music by Paul Sawtell and Bert Schefter (the team which provided music for "It! The Terror from Beyond Space" and many other 1950s classics). Arch Oboler served as producer, screenwriter, and director -- so he has nobody to blame but himself.

Click on this wonderful poster (which bears no resemblance to events in the movie) to watch the YouTube trailer.


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Captive Wild Woman (1943)



Directed by Edward Dmytryk and inspired perhaps by the success of "The Wolf Man" in 1941, this one flip-flops the basic concept so that John Carradine can turn a gorilla into the beautiful Acquanetta. Sexual excitement has the same effect on her as the full moon has on Lon Chaney, Jr.; it turns her back into a killer monster.



. . . Still very fashionably attired, of course . . .



John Carradine as Dr. Sigmund Walters never look better.



The hero of the piece is Milburn Stone (Doc from "Gunsmoke"), who plays an animal trainer, appropriately enough. The monster makeup is pretty good, and Acquanetta has a strange sort of beauty that makes her believable in the role. Jack Pierce did the fine makeup, including several transitional stages of the ape's conversion to Acquanetta and vice versa.

The transitional stages retain the suggestion of the Acquanetta's eyes — a neat trick.
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Cape Canaveral Monsters (1960)

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Director Phil Tucker is quoted as saying this film is even worse than his other one, the infamous "Robot Monster"!

He wasn't just bragging.

Two floating white dots that are supposed to be alien energy-beings cause Katherine Victor and Jason Johnson to die in an auto crash so the aliens can inhabit their bodies. The pasty-faced zombie-aliens hide in their buried "space ship" (small set with wobbly walls), and they sneak out to the beach occasionally to blow up NASA rockets with a bazooka-sized ray gun.




Two brave and inquisitive teenagers (Scott Peters and Linda Connell) uncover the plot and battle the aliens. Spooky Theremin music saturates the soundtrack (Weee-ooooo-aaaaah!). The local police don't believe the teens when they try to warn them (a 1950s sci-fi tradition). But the sheriff wises up in the nick of time, and the brave Earthlings defeat the nefarious energy-creatures.

Or do they? Weee-oooo-aaaah!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)