ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

If you're not a member of All Sci-Fi, registration is easy. Just use the registration password, which is —

gort



Attention members! If you've forgotten your password, just email me at Brucecook1@yahoo.com.
____________________________________________________________________

More exciting adventures with my imaginary team called Science Investigations, Unlimited!

The team journeys to Mexico to find out why a man whose plane crashed in the desert has turned into a giant, hideous, one-eyed monster.

Then they fly their supersonic top secret plane to the American Midwest, where a meteorite has trigger the growth of giant black rocks which rise up out of the ground!

Finally, the team investigates a new invention — a device that transmits solid matter across space, instantly!

Check out the three video “mission logs” available below.
____________________________________________________________________

The Cyclops (1957)

____________
________________ The Cyclops Trailer - 1957

__________


This another of my most recent purchases from Sci-Fi Station. I finally watched this after making plans about a year ago (after reading about it while writing up the post for The Amazing Colossal Man).

This was Bert I. Gordon's warm-up for his more famous Colossal Man movie. It's not as bad as I thought it would be, since I'd read that it's one of the worst monster films of the fifties. Gordon actually manages to present some sophisticated characterizations for this type of fare.

The 4 main characters — three men and a woman — use a single-engine airplane to fly into a remote jungle valley in Mexico in search of the woman's fiancee.

At least two of the guys are somewhat deficient, par for the course in these films. Lon Chaney Jr plays the prime troublemaker. His goal is to stake a claim for the uranium he feels certain is there. Tom Drake plays an unemployable pilot. James Craig, playing a scientist, has the hots for the woman, played by Gloria Talbott.

They manage to land safely, but they aren’t ‘out of the woods' so to speak.



It's not long before they start to see giant animal life — a huge rodent is picked off by a giant hawk. (This gigantic bird never flies out of the valley? Oh, it needs to each giant rodents. Right.)

Later, we see a giant spider and a giant lizard. Then the 5th character enters, the woman's fiancee, now a 25-foot tall one-eyed horror, thanks to the radiation in this valley. The radiation affects the pituitary glands of living things. Much of the action in the latter half takes place in the giant man's cave, a direct steal from the story of Odysseus and his encounter with a one-eyed cyclops.

At one point, it's stated (by scientist Craig) that animal growth is unlimited in this valley due to the situation with the radiation. This might have been a set-up for a sequel, in which the animals grew to such sizes that they began to spread beyond this valley.

Maybe Gordon felt this would be copying Food of the Gods by H.G. Wells too much. Hey... waitaminni! Food of the Gods? Is it just me or was Gordon kind of stuck in a rut?

_______________ Joe Dante on THE CYCLOPS


__________


BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus
____________________________________________________________________

The Monolith Monsters (1957)

____________
_________________________

________ The Monolith Monsters | Trailer | 1957


__________



Bill Warren, in his book Keep Watching the Skies, calls this "one of the last reasonably serious SF films from Universal."

I found it to be on the slow side when I watched it as a kid, and not even very comprehensible, but I think that's because it is a bit more adult in nature than usual with these films.

This has an unusual alien invasion — alien rocks that grow when it rains, and that's when it gets really serious, as the alien rocks grow to the size of skyscrapers.




This takes place in one of those desert town locations, a la Tarantula. It all begins with a meteor.

A geologist (Phil Harvey) is the first victim of the (currently) small mysterious black fragments of rock. Another geologist (Grant Williams, the star of The Incredible Shrinking Man) finds him in a petrified state.

It's eventually discovered that the alien rocks absorb silicon. Silica is a substance in human skin which keeps it supple.

So, do NOT get these rocks wet! But then . . . the rains come.

This is the weird concept. The now-huge rocks topple, and the broken fragments grow into new huge monoliths. That's how they move.

BoG's Score: 6.5 out of 10


BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus
____________________________________________________________________

The Fly (1958)

____________
__________________ The Fly (1958) - Trailer


__________




The downside of using a transporter (later employed as casual transportation on Star Trek TOS.

A scientist (David Hedison, credited as Al Hedison) invents this mechanism for transporting matter instantaneously, but encounters a horrific mishap when he accidentally transports himself with a common house fly. When he comes out of the “receiving booth” he has the head and claw of a fly (greatly enlarged). The fly, meanwhile, flies off with his head and arm (greatly miniaturized).



Most of the film is told in flashback. The scientist is found dead at the beginning, but his head & arm are crushed in a hydraulic press. So, the audience and the police are unaware of his recent transformation. The wife (Patricia Owens) confesses to the murder, but it's a mystery as to why she did it. She relates what happened to the scientist's brother (Vincent Price).

_________________

_________

A problem I've had with this story's concept since seeing it as a kid is the question of why the fly's brain wasn't transferred to the scientist along with the head. But that would have been another type of story.

The horror of the story is that the scientist is fully aware of what has happened to him. He can no longer communicate verbally, resorting to written notes, but he has full comprehension of the horror that has encompassed hi — as does, later, the wife.

Also tense is the scenario of capturing the errant fly so that the two can once again transport together and possibly reintegrate correctly. They come close to getting that fly, but it just was not to be. Would it have worked? We'll never know. It's a gripping combination of science fiction concepts and pure horror.

The sequel was Return of the Fly the following year, involving the scientist's son. Then, years later, a 2nd sequel which diverged from the stories in the first two, Curse of the Fly. A famous remake by Cronenberg was in 1986. That one also had a sequel.

BoG's Score: 7.5 out of 10

__ The Remaker: The Fly (1958) vs. The Fly (1986)


__________


BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)