ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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What's up on "Hump Day"?

~ An invitation to sample a belove sci-fi series from the early 1950.

~ A complaint from yours truly above the future we were promized.

~ And a comprehensive essay on a movie about an invisible alien who runs around naked at an observatory and takes liberties with an attractive female scientist!

My God, what's the world coming to?



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Space Patrol (1950 - 1955)

I was only five when this show aired, so I didn't get to see it then, and I've never gotten around to sampling it, but the time may have finally come to do exactly that.

YouTube offers at least a dozen episodes, such as the one below. Give it a shot, guys. Might be fun.


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Where's the Future That I Was Promised! Dream Cars!

This was one of the cars shown in the article, and I thought at first it was the one you pictured, BDT. It isn't, however, but it's certainly gorgeous!



And then there's this little runabout. You know, something to dash to the store in when you're in a hurry -- and want to outrun the state patrol.



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Phantom from Space (1953)

I watched this movie on January 1, 2013 for the first time in over 40 years, and I gained a keen appreciation for it. If you haven't seen it, maybe this will help you enjoy it, too.

First of all, you have to admire a movie which presents a poster that doesn't mislead the audience by showing a monster or an alien which looks nothing like the one in the movie, holding a scantily clad woman in his arms who isn't actually one of the characters.

The poster for this movie accurately portrays the alien, and the lady he's carrying is actually in the movie (Lela Nelson in a bit part, early in the film). The lobby card features the same young lady — or at least her very excellent legs! I should point out, however, that Miss Nelson is NOT wearing sexy red high heels in the movie. Just plain old tennis shoes.


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However, the alien does have a scene in which he carries the heroine, Noreen Nash (a brilliant scientist who has most of the best moments in the film) and she also has a very nice pair of legs, but we never get a good look at them in the movie — unfortunately.


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Ironically, when the alien does carry Miss Nash, he IS showing his legs, because he's not wearing his spacesuit the way he does in the poster. In fact, he's naked! But Miss Nash doesn't get to enjoy the view because he's invisible at the time.

Obviously the photo below doesn't represent an actual scene in the movie, but the gentleman who plays the alien seems to be enjoying himself in this publicity still. The expression on Miss Nash's face might mean she suspects just how much the alien is enjoying carrying her . . . if you know what I mean.





Concerning the plot: having little money to spend on special effects or makeup, producer-director William Lee Wilder did his best to entertain us with this imaginative tale about an alien who crash lands near the Griffith Observatory and tries to evade pursuing scientists and authorities.

(I guess that means this story is about an alien evasion! )





To save money, the filmmakers (a) never actually show the spaceship and (b) make the alien invisible. The scientists capture the alien's space suit (which is not invisible) when he discards it to escape from his pursuers, and they examine it in their lab.


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The alien can't live on Earth without it, so he tries to get it back, but the helmet is accidentally destroyed. (At this point we all begin to wonder just how intelligent this guy is: he strips off his suit and runs around naked on a planet he can't survive on. Maybe he was just some nut who stole a spaceship!)


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Dying from asphyxiation, the alien is finally cornered on a catwalk in the observatory.

The story has some intelligent points, including a discussion about the possibility that the alien's basic chemistry is based on silicon rather than carbon, and that the spaceship uses magnetic lines of force to travel through space.

The scientists discover that the alien becomes visible under ultra-violet light. Once the alien is revealed, he glows with an eerie light. It's the pay-off moment for this low-budget but entertaining movie.


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There actually are quite a few other FX in this film, including floating objects being carried by the invisible alien. The scene in which the lady scientist uses an ultra-violet lamp to make the alien's hand visible is very effective.

I also discovered an interesting thing about the film's poster. In the best tradition of 1950s sci-fi movies, the alien is shown with a gorgeous young lady in his arms. Although the heroine of the movie isn't the lady shown in the poster, I did find the publicity shot shown below.

It's obviously the picture used by the artist — but this scene doesn't seem to be from the movie. The young lady is from a scene early in the film. Strangely enough, her hair in the movie is much shorter than it appears in the photo.


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This modest, low-budget film provided fond memories for me during my teen years when I watched movies presented by our local late-show host on Friday nights. He performed under the whimsical name Bestoink Dooley in Atlanta during the middle 1960s.


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This wonderful character was created my Mr. George Ellis, and I was so devoted to his late-night show that I joined his fan club and received the button shown below.





A few years ago his granddaughter joined All Sci-Fi because she had discovered a thread in which I spoke kindly of her grandfather.

There are several videos of Bestoink Dooley on YouTube, one of which is a seven minute mini-movie with a terrific picture —


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— and the other is a seven minute excerpt from an independent comedy/horror film he starred in called The Legend of Blood Mountain!


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