Barbara Payton
A pair of young scientists have perfected a "reproducer," a machine that can duplicate anything, including Barbara Payton (Yes please! I want one!) However, the Payton character has feelings of love for only one of the two physicists whom she will marry.
Invaders from Mars
Helena Carter
Young David MacLean sees strange lights going down beyond the hill outside his parents' house. Over time, his father and mother, along with others in the town go over the hill and return changed. David notes that all of them return with marks at the back of their necks. Only a health inspector and an astronomer believe David’s story and they call in the army to take on the Martian invaders who have ensconced themselves beneath the hill.
Hillary Brooke plays the mother of David MacLean. Her son notices a change in the behaviour of his parents whose minds have been taken over by the invading Martians.
It Came from Outer Space
Barbara Rush (again!)
An alien spaceship crashes in the Arizona desert. An amateur astronomer and a schoolteacher suspect alien influence when the local townsfolk begin to act strangely.
Mesa of Lost Women
Tandra Quinn
Mad scientist, Dr. Aranya, in a secret lab atop "Zarpa Mesa" injects spiders with a Growth Serum. The female spiders turn onto beautiful curvaceous women while the male spiders transform into dwarves. Psychoanalysis anyone? If the story doesn’t appeal to you, well….there’s always Tandra!
Phantom from Space
Noreen Nash
An alien being lands in Santa Monica. The frightening appearance of his spacesuit causes two people to attack him. He kills both of them and is then on the run pursued by government authorities who discover that the alien is in fact invisible
Project Moonbase
Donna Martell
Set in the then future of 1970, a group of pilots and scientists on a huge space station are determined to establish a U.S. military base on the moon. This project’s success is threatened by a foreign spy from - we all know where….
The War of the Worlds
Ann Robinson
A 1950s updated version of H.G. Wells' classic sci-fi story in tune with the concerns of the Cold War era with special effects that have the power to stun even 21st. century audiences. Not to mention Anne Robinson's power to stun!
1954
Crash of Moons
Sally Mansfield
Rocky Jones and his "buddy" Winky (yes, Winky) try to avert a crisis involving a pair of inhabited moons whose eccentric orbit is going to collapse, destroying them both. However, one moon is presided over by dictator Cleolanta who has other plans. Seriously.....Winky?
Creature from the Black Lagoon
Julie Adams
A group of scientists try to capture a strange prehistoric beast in the depths of the Amazon jungle. They intend to bring it back to civilization for study.
Devil Girl from Mars
Patricia Laffan
Mars has lots of women and they need human men to breed with. Nyah has come to Earth in order to collect our planet’s males as breeding stock. All she had to do was call for volunteers!
GOJIRA "GODZILLA"
Momoko Kouchi
American nuclear weapons testing results in the creation of a seemingly unstoppable, dinosaur-like beast.
Gog
Constance Dowling
A secret underground laboratory suffers incidents of sabotage and murder resulting in the involvement of a security agent tasked with investigating these happenings.
Riders to the Stars
Martha Hyer
Astronauts are sent into space in three separate rockets in an effort to capture a meteor and bring it back to Earth for examination.
1954 – 1956
Here are some more of the wonderful female actors who we have had the pleasure to meet on screen between 1954 and 1956 in the following science fiction films;
1954
Target Earth
In a deserted Chicago, a small group of people remain who have been overlooked during a mass evacuation resulting from an invasion of robot beings from the planet Venus.
Kathleen Crowley as Nora King wakes up in a hotel room after an apparent overdose of sleeping pills. Finding there is no power or water nor nobody else in the hotel, she walks out into the deserted city and finds dead bodies lying around, before eventually encountering other survivors.
Virginia Grey plays Vicky as supporting actor, together with Richard Reeves who plays Jim. Both of these isolated gambling alcoholics are trapped with Frank and Nora but soon discover they may have something more to live for.
Them!
Atomic tests in New Mexico cause ants to mutate into giant man-eating monsters that threaten civilization.
Joan Weldon plays a scientist who is not only beautiful, but who is also an intelligent and assertive female character. She in fact hated science fiction pictures and was hoping that there would be some romance or love interest in the film. Still, like the other cast members, she took the role seriously and played it as such.
Tobor the Great
The friendship between an 11-year-old and his grandfather's robot, Tobor which he uses to save himself and his inventor grandfather from communist agents.
Karin Booth plays Janice, Prof Nordstrom’s daughter.
1955
The Beast with a Million Eyes
An alien lands in a space ship and is able to see through the eyes of the many creatures he takes control of.
Lorna Thayer & Dona Cole
When we meet these actresses early in the film, Lorna Thayer’s character, Carol admits to her husband, Allan played by Paul Birch that she sometimes hates their daughter, Sandy played by Dona Cole.
Day the World Ended
In a post-apocalyptic world devastated by a wide-scale nuclear war, all that remains are a handful of survivors.
Lori Nelson plays Louise, daughter of survivalist, Jim Maddison played by Paul Birch. who live in a valley sheltered against the nuclear fallout following TD, or Total Destruction. Louise, contrary to her father's almost heartless but understandable advice, lets outsiders into the house to give them shelter.
Adele Jergens plays stripper, Ruby who enters the Maddisons’ house with her small time crook boyfriend, Tony. Jergens gives a solid performance when her character, Ruby becomes drunk one night and begins to do a strip-tease dance routine. As she does so, she reminisces about her club days and breaks down crying.
It Came from Beneath the Sea
A giant Octopus, which has been affected by radiation from H-Bomb tests, rises from the Mindanao Deep and terrorizes the California Coast.
Faith Domergue plays marine biologist Dr. Lesley Joyce, a "new breed of woman." one of two scientists brought in to examine a specimen from a sea monster that was caught in the blades of a submarine.
The Quatermass Xperiment
A spacecraft returns to Earth with only one survivor, who has been infected by an organism during the spaceflight. As he begins mutating into an alien organism which will eventually engulf and destroy humanity, Quatermass and Scotland Yard's Inspector Lomax are tasked with tracking it down and preventing a global catastrophe.
Margia Dean in a supporting role plays Judith, the wife of the surviving and mutating astronaut, Carroon, She eventually helps her husband to escape from a medical facility with dire consequences.
Revenge of the Creature
In this sequel, the creature from the Black Lagoon is captured and turned into an aquarium attraction. Eventually, the Gill-man escapes from his tank.
Again we have the stunning Lori Nelson who plays ichthyology student, Helen Dobson. The Gill-man takes an instant liking to Helen and after escaping from his tank, begins to stalk and then abduct her from a seaside restaurant.
Tarantula
A tarantula which has been injected with a special nutrient formula escapes from an isolated desert laboratory and grows to tremendous size, menacing the local inhabitants of the Arizona countryside.
Gorgeous Mara Corday plays Stephanie who has come to town to aid Professor Deemer in his experiments in which he’s been using a secret formula on animals, that greatly increases their size.
This Island Earth
Atomic scientist Dr. Meacham is chosen to take part in a top-secret research experiment in a remote lab. He soon discovers that he is really involved in a plot devised by alien Metalunans to take over Earth.
One cannot have enough of sultry Faith Domergue and here she is on the film poster, this time co-starring with Rex Reason as Ruth Adams, one of several noted scientists from around the world brought to work on a top-secret project at Exeter's mansion.
1956
Earth vs. the Flying Saucers
Dr Marvin suspects the peaceful intentions of aliens who have landed on earth. They eventually declare their intention to take over the earth and Dr Marvin must find a way to defeat them.
Joan Taylor plays Carol, the beautiful wife of Dr Russell A. Marvin who both have a close encounter with a flying saucer and involvement in the events leading up to and including the climactic battle with the saucers.
1956 – 1957
1956
Forbidden Planet (1956)
Anne Francis
Anne Francis played Altaira, daughter of Dr Morbius both of whom are the sole survivors of an expedition to the distant planet Altair IV. She declares her love for Adams, the captain of the starship C-57D who has come to investigate what happened to the expedition.
It Conquered the World (1956)
Beverly Garland
Beverly Garland played the part of a scientist's wife who bravely battles an alien invader. I really admire this actor who deserves to be better recognized and remembered.
Sally Fraser played the wife of Peter Graves’ character and becomes possessed by the alien invader
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Dana Wynter (WOW!)
Dana Wynter played the part of Elizabeth Driscoll and Carolyn Jones played Theodora 'Teddy' Belicec in a film depicting an extraterrestrial invasion that begins in the fictional California town of Santa Mira. Alien plant spores have fallen from space and grow into large seed pods, each one capable of reproducing a duplicate replacement copy of each human.
Carolyn Jones (of Adams Family fame)
Jean Willes played Nurse Sally Withers
Rodan
Giant prehistoric insects attack a village and soon after, something traveling faster than the speed of sound is seen flying in the sky. It is Rodan, a giant flying prehistoric creature that has come to life, spreading terror and destruction throughout Japan.
Yumi Shirakawa played Kiyo, Shigeru's lover in her first starring role, alongside Kenji Sahara
Satellite in the Sky
Lois Maxwell, the future "Miss Moneypenny" of James Bond films plays the character, Kim in a film about Great Britain’s launch of the world's first orbital vehicle which contains a super-bomb and a lot of complications for the crew and a certain stowaway.
The Beast of Hollow Mountain
Patricia Medina as Sarita in the Weird West movie about an American cowboy living in Mexico who discovers his missing cattle are being preyed upon by an Allosaurus. Guy Madison as character, Jimmy Ryan develops an interest in fellow rancher Enrique Rios’ fiancee, Sarita.
The Gamma People
Eva Bartok
Two newsmen accidentally wind up in a fictitious Eastern bloc country whose dictator, Boronski is performing experiments using gamma rays with a view to creating geniuses but has succeeded in creating sub humans. Eva Bartok as Paula Wendt, works in the castle lab with Boronski and helps the American newsmen as she wants to rescue her brother, Hugo, from Boronski's power.
The Mole People
A group of archaeologists discovers the remnants of a mutant five-millennia-old Sumerian civilization living beneath a glacier atop a mountain in Mesopotamia.
Cynthia Patrick plays the role of the "marked one," Adad, a Sumerian woman who "was born with the mark of darkness."
World Without End
Astronauts attempting to return from a voyage to Mars are caught in a time warp only to find themselves caught in a post-Apocalyptic 26th-century Earth populated by mutants and a community of humans.
Nancy Gates plays the character, Garnet
Lisa Montell played the part of Deena
Warning from Space
Aliens take the form of human beings so that they can warn mankind that earth is on a collision course with another planet.
Toyomi Karita plays Hikari Aozora, lead singer at the Metropolitan Theatre dance hall & Ginko
X: The Unknown
During British Army radiation drills at a remote Scottish base, a subterranean, radioactive entity emerges, leaves two soldiers severely radiation-burned and then vanishes. A crack in the earth is also discovered. The entity re-emerges and seems to be able to absorb radiation, allowing it to grow in size.
Marianne Brauns played Zena, the Nurse
1957
Attack of the Crab Monsters
A team of scientists study the effects of radiation fallout on a tropical island. They are forced to fight for their lives when the island begins to break apart and fall off into the ocean and giant crabs begin to attack the humans.
Pamela Duncan plays the part of Martha Hunter
20 Million Miles to Earth
An American spaceship crash-lands off the coast of Sicily. Its crew has brought back a gelatinous mass that eventually hatches and evolves into a strange bi-pedal alien creature which rapidly increases in size.
Joan Taylor (who also co-starred in Earth vs the Flying Saucers) plays Marisa, the American granddaughter of a zoologist in Italy. She, together with returned astronaut Calder and the American and Italian military try to find a way to stop the creature before it continues on a path of destruction and grows too big to stop.
Beginning of the End
An experiment involving radioactivity has unintended consequences, resulting in the transformation of grasshoppers into gigantic ravenous monsters.
Peggie Castle (who appeared in Invasion USA) plays newspaper photojournalist, Audrey Aimes who with agricultural scientist played by Peter Graves try to find a way to halt the rampaging gigantic mutant locusts.
Invasion of the Saucer Men
Teen lovers making plans to elope, find themselves in a situation in which they must save the earth from the invasion of diminutive aliens who land their spaceship in the local woods near Lover’s Point. In the process, they are not only not believed but find themselves implicated in another person’s murder.
Gloria Castillo as Joan Hayden, one of the teen lovers and whose father is the City Attorney.
Kronos
Scientists investigate what at first appears to be a meteorite that crashes into the ocean. A few days later, a giant machine emerges out of the ocean. It is an energy accumulator and is the creation of an alien race that is trying to drain off energy from earth.
Barbara Lawrence played photographer Vera Hunter and girlfriend of Dr Leslie Gaskell, played by Jeff Morrow
The Night the World Exploded
Newly discovered Element 112, explodes with the force of an atom bomb when exposed to the air. As it makes up a sizeable percentage of the Earth's crust, it can threaten our planet’s existence especially since our mining and other activities is causing it to become active.
Kathryn Grant plays Laura Hutchinson who is Dr David Conway lab assistant and she assists him in his endeavours to avert global disaster. Conway has developed a device to predict earthquakes.
1957 – 1958
1957
Not of This Earth
With (yet again) Beverly Garland as Nadine Storey
Mr Johnson, an alien from the planet Davanna, has come to Earth seeking a new supply of blood because his people are dying out. Mr Johnson sends human specimens through a portal to Davanna. Nurse Nadine Storey and Mr Johnson’s chauffeur, Jeremy becomes suspicious concerning Mr Johnson’s activities and team up to investigate.
Quatermass 2
With Vera Day as Sheila
Professor Quatermass contends with a supposed "meteor shower" which in fact turns out to be a secret alien invasion. The alien invader arrives on earth in rock-like receptacles, then takes over the minds and nervous systems of human beings.
At the St. Patricks Day dance at the Rec Center, just as a mob tries to throw Quatermass and his two companions out, a “meteorite” falls through the roof. Barmaid Sheila then picks it up and becomes infected.
The 27th Day
With Valerie French as Eve Wingate
Five individuals from five nations suddenly find themselves on an alien spacecraft where they are given the power to launch capsules with unbelievable destructive power. No power on earth can open a container. Only a mental command from the person to whom it is given can do so. Each of the five has been given the power of life and death by being able to instantaneously launch their capsule to whatever coordinates he/she chooses. A capsule so launched will then eradicate all human life within a 3,000-mile radius of its chosen location.
After being returned to Earth, Eve (Valerie French) casts her capsules into the English Channel and then books a flight to Los Angeles where she is met by a Clark (Gene Barry), who takes her to a closed race track where they can hide – at least for the time being!
The Amazing Colossal Man
With Cathy Downs as Carol Forrest
Lt. Col. Glenn Manning is accidentally exposed to a plutonium bomb blast at Camp Desert Rock. Despite having 90% of his body burnt, he survives and begins to grow in size. As he grows, his heart and circulatory system fail to keep pace with his growth and he is gradually losing his mind due to the reduced blood supply to his brain. He attains a height of 50 feet before his growth is stopped. A now insane Manning escapes and poses a danger to Las Vegas.
Manning’s wife, Carol has a difficult time trying to contend with his continuing despair and pessimism.
The Black Scorpion
With Mara Corday as Teresa Alvarez
Teresa runs a cattle ranch in Mexico that's been in her family for years but now there’s something killing the cattle and causing great destruction. After falling from her horse while out riding one day, she happens to meet a geologist from the United States, Hank Scott and his Mexican partner, Artur Ramos. They are in the area to do research after a volcanic eruption and related earthquakes.
The Brain from Planet Arous
With Joyce Meadows as Sally Fallon
The Brain from Planet Arous was Joyce Meadow’s second film opposite John Agar who plays nuclear physicist, Steve Marsh who investigates a mysterious radiation source coming from Mystery Mountain. He returns possessed by a disembodied brain called Gor, an escaped criminal from the planet, Arous. To counter Gor’s plans to dominate the world, Steve’s fiance, Sally and her father agree to work with Vol, another brain from Arous that wishes to stop Gor.
The Deadly Mantis
With Alix Talton as Marge Blaine
Having been freed from being trapped in suspended animation in Arctic ice since prehistoric times, a giant praying mantis attacks military outposts before proceeding to the warmer regions of Washington and New York. A palaeontologist together with the military try to come up with a way to kill the creature. Museum magazine editor Marge Blaine sees this as an opportunity for a big scoop!
The Incredible Shrinking Man
With Randy Stuart as Louise Carey
While on holiday at sea, Scott Carey is enveloped in a strange cloud. Later back at home he discovers that he is losing weight and height. It is determined that radiation from the cloud is reacting with an insecticide on his skin and is causing him to progressively shrink. He eventually loses his job and his relationship with his wife, Louise deteriorates as he tyrannically tries to dominate her. Scott then finds himself a mere six inch being in a world of gigantic proportions in which he has to survive giant-sized threats to his very existence.
With April Kent as Clarice
At a local coffee shop, Scott meets and befriends a female carnival sideshow midget named Clarice who is slightly shorter than him. She persuades him that life is not all bad being their size.
The Man Who Turned to Stone
Two hundred years previously, a group of doctors discovered a way to extended their lives by draining the life force of others. If they are unable to so, they will begin to petrify. They become the staff doctors of a girls’ reform school, in order to assure themselves of a steady supply of what they need.
With Charlotte Austin as Carol Adams
Jean Willes as Tracy (who also appeared as Nurse Sally Withers in the original movie version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.)
Together with Doctor Jess Rogers, social welfare officer Carol Adams becomes suspicious of the unusual number of healthy female inmates dying of heart failure or suicide. She also enlists the help of inmate, Tracy who performs clerical tasks for Carol.
The Land Unknown
With Shirley Patterson as Margaret Hathaway
A naval expedition consisting of three men and a woman crash-land in a deep crater in Antarctica where they find themselves trapped in an Antarctic prehistoric jungle world.
Maggie is a reporter with Oceanic Press and her role in the film is pretty standard for the time: eye candy and love interest in need of rescuing and an object to be possessed.
The Monster That Challenged the World
An underwater earthquake in the Salton Sea uncovers eggs of a long-extinct sea monster. Once hatched, the creatures sustain themselves by sucking the life force of humans. The creatures move on to land in search of wider hunting grounds. Humanity's fate depends on a crew of scientists and Lt. Cmdr. John Twillinger.
With Audrey Dalton as Dr. Rogers’s war-widow secretary, Gail MacKenzie who is part of a love-story subplot involving herself and Commander Twillinger.
The Monolith Monsters
Meteors fall from suddenly space, the fragments of which litter the desert landscape. When they get wet such as during a rainstorm, they grow into towering monoliths. Once they become too tall, they fall over and shatter. Each new piece then grows into yet another monolith, with the process repeating itself for as long as they keep getting wet.
With Lola Albright as Cathy Barrett, geologist Dave Miller’s girlfriend, who one day takes her students on a desert field trip where young Ginny Simpson finds one of the strange rocks and takes it home.
The Unearthly
Dr. Conway has discovered that he can potentially extend the human life span by hundreds or even thousands of years by inserting a gland he created into a living human body. To complete the process, he needs human experimental subjects. Dr. Loren Wright helps by bringing individuals who have no family connections to Dr. Conway's house in the belief that he can cure their depression or other problems they may have. Just before they're to be released, Conway uses them in his glandular experiments.
With Allison Hayes as Grace Thomas who is brought to Conway’s house by Dr. Wright to get her depression cured.
Marilyn Buferd as Dr. Sharon Gilchrist who is the cold-hearted scientist who it turns out is really in love with Dr. Conway.
Sally Todd as Natalie Andries who was at Conway’s house to be cured of her depression but ended up as yet another one of Dr. Conway's human experimental guinea pigs.
Fiend Without a Face
An experimental form of radar at a US Air Force base in Canada seems to be linked to a series of mysterious deaths and disappearances at a nearby village. Major Jeff Cummings while investigating the disappearances learns that Professor Walgate is conducting experiments into telekinesis resulting in the creation of invisible monsters from the subconscious. These creatures are intent upon feeding on the base's nuclear power, and are killing its personnel by sucking their brains out through of the back of their heads.
With Kim Parker as Barbara Griselle who is the sister to the first victim. Maj. Cummings is immediately attracted to Barbara who works for Professor Walgate who writes books on such topics as “The Principles of Thought Control,” and “The Energy of Thought.”
1958
Earth vs. the Spider
When a father doesn't return home one night, his daughter and her boyfriend go out searching for him only to encounter a giant spider in a cave near the missing man’s wrecked car. Returning to the cave with the Sheriff, the spider is sprayed with DDT. Believing that the spider has been killed, it is taken away to be temporarily lodged in the local high school gymnasium. However, the spider is awakened by loud rock and roll music played by a teenage band and it then sets about running amok throughout the town.
With June Kenney as Carol Flyn who insists on looking for her missing dad which leads to the discovery of the spider and all that follows. Mike is little more than putty in her hands. (Let’s face it fellas, most us find ourselves in his position at one time or another! We know who the real boss is!)
Curse of the Faceless Man
Originating during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the ruins of Pompeii, the “Faceless Man is mummified in molten lava and turned to stone. He comes to life two thousand years later in order to rescue a woman who he believes is the reincarnated love from his life back in ancient Pompeii.
With Elaine Edwards as Tina Enright (Paul’s fiancée) who is an American living in Italy. She’s a painter who finds herself being the centre of the Faceless Man’s attention.
Adele Mara as Maria Fiorillo (Carlo’s daughter) who at one time had a relationship with Paul. She has finished her training as a doctor and now works with her father in the museum.
It! The Terror from Beyond Space
Earth's second mission to Mars is sent to discover the fate of the first mission. A sole survivor of that mission is found, the expedition's former commander who claims to an unbelieving audience that his crew were killed by a hostile Martian life form. On the way back to earth, that life form stowaways away aboard the ship and begins hunting down and killing the crew.
Shirley Patterson as Ann Anderson who also appeared in World Without End (1956) and The Land Unknown (1957).
Ann Doran as Mary Royce, the ship’s doctor
I Married a Monster from Outer Space
Aliens arrive on Earth to possess the bodies of humans. One such victim is a young man, whose new wife, Marge soon realizes something is wrong with him. In fact, the man she married isn't a man at all, but an alien replacement as are most of the men in her small town!!
Gloria Talbott who also appeared in, The Cyclops (1957), Daughter of Dr Jekyll, and The Leech Woman (1960)
Monster from Green Hell
Animals have been sent up into orbit to test the effects of exposure to space radiation. One of the rockets has malfunctioned and is lost from the scientists' radar screens. Soon, strange reports appear concerning strange occurrences in Central Africa, possibly involving irradiated test wasps. A scientific expedition is sent to Africa to investigate…….
Barbara Turner appears as Lorna Lorentz who together with her father, Dr. Lorentz perform an autopsy on a native and determine that he died of paralysis of the nerve centers caused by an injection of a massive amount of venom. Although advised to remain at the hospital, she insists on joining the expedition to………. Green Hell in equatorial Africa.
Night of the Blood Beast
Extraterrestrials revive the body of a dead astronaut to use as a breeding vessel for an alien invasion force.
Angela Greene appears as Dr. Julie Benson, dead astronaut, Corcoran's fiancee.
Georgianna Carter appears as Donna Bixb, one of two technicians from a nearby space agency tracking station, who located the crashed ship and recovered astronaut Corcoran's body.
Teenage Monster
In a 19th century town in the American Southwest, an adolescent observes a meteorite crash in the desert and heads out to explore the crash site. Upon arriving at the site, he is exposed to mysterious rays emanating from the meteorite and as a result begins to rapidly age and turns into a hairy and aggressive man-monster. His devoted mother tries to protect him from the law which is hunting him for terrorizing the community.
One of the first horror film scream queens, Anne Gwynne plays the part of Ruth.
Gloria Castillo who we also saw in Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957) plays Kathy North.
Space Master X-7
A deep space probe returns to Earth infected with a deadly fungus that turns blood into caustic rust. The fungus threatens to grow and spread, devouring everyone in its path. Two G-men are assigned the task of finding the carrier and injecting her with the antidote.
Lyn Thomas plays Laura Greeling who is unwittingly spreading the alien fungi. She is being blackmailed by scientist Paul Frees over an unwed child she had to him and who he is preventing her from seeing.
Terror from the Year 5000
Prof. Erling and his financial backer Victor build a prototype time machine to retrieve objects from the past such as a statuette dated to 5200 AD! When 20th-century objects are placed in the machine they appear to be traded for objects from the future! What happens when a woman from the future is accidentally retrieved and attempts to bring one of the machine’s operators back to the future with her? For what purpose?
Joyce Holden plays Claire Erling, Prof. Howard's Erling’s daughter and Victor's fiance.
Salome Jens plays Future Woman / Nurse
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman
The husband of an unhappily married rich socialite returns to her after having left her only because he now needs money. Meanwhile, philandering hubby, Harry happily continues his affair with another woman aptly maned, Honey Parker. After an explosive confrontation at a bar, his wife, Nancy drives off until she encounters a large spherical object on the road. The object’s sole occupant is an enormous alien……
Despite rumors of UFOs in the area, will anyone believe Nancy?
What will be consequences of Nancy’s close encounter?
Allison Hayes plays socialite Nancy Fowler Archer.
Yvette Vickers plays the role of ‘other woman’ Honey Parker
The Blob
Teenagers fights to save their town and its inhabitants from being dissolved and devoured by an ever growing blob-like monster that crashes to Earth from outer space inside a meteorite.
Aneta Corsaut plays Jane Martin, girlfriend of teenager Steve Andrews (Steve McQueen).
The Colossus of New York
Genius Jeremy Spensser is killed in an accident just after winning the Nobel Peace Prize. His brain is transplanted by his scientist father into the body of an enormous cyborg, so that it can continue to serve mankind. Jeremy's personality begins to change and he soon loses those features that make him human.
Mala Powers plays Anne Spensser, Jeremy’s wife. Jeremy discovers that his own brother has fallen in love with Anne.
The Fly
Scientist Andre Delambre is transformed into a human-fly hybrid after a common house fly enters unseen into a matter transference machine he is experimenting with.
Patricia Owens plays Andre’s wife, Helene. In a desperate bid to set things right he turns to Helene for help.
The H-Man
A narcotics deal goes badly and a drug dealing suspect named Misaki disappears leaving only his clothes. The Tokyo police question his girlfriend, singer Chikako Arai but she informs them that she doesn't know where he is. Later, a young scientist named Masada claims that H-Bomb tests in the Pacific have created radioactive creatures (H-Men) who ooze like slime and dissolve anyone they touch. His claims are based on a similar case of people disappearing and leaving just their clothes on an abandoned ship that was found by a group of fishermen who declared that three members of their crew were dissolved by a living liquid that was created when the crew of the ship passed through a radioactive cloud. The questions remain: How to find the criminal gang? How to destroy the H-men before they destroy the population of Tokyo?
Yumi Shirakawa plays the role of Chikako Arai, singer in the nightclub
The Giant Behemoth
Scientists from England’s Atomic Energy Commission investigate reports of dead fish washing up on the Cornwall coast. They find that the fish are radioactive and that locals have radiation burns. High levels of radiation have been detected in the water, plants and skies. Not only that, but an irradiated paleosaurus has emerged from the ocean depths and a way must be found to prevent it from destroying everything in its path as it heads towards London.
Leigh Madison plays Jean Treventhan, daughter of fisherman Tom who has disappeared but is later discovered badly burned and is now dead, apparently having been attacked by something from the sea.
The Lost Missile
A mysterious missile hurtles through space, nearing Earth. A rocket is fired at it, but only succeeds in diverting the missile into the Earth’s atmosphere, where it continues on a path of destruction. Its inexorable progress towards NYC seems to be unstoppable! Earth’s only hope may lie in the hands of a scientist and his fiance who have been working on a hydrogen warhead that may be able to hit the missile and save the Earth.
Ellen Parker plays Joan Wood, Dr David Loring’s fiance.
Attack Of The Puppet People
A seemingly unimposing but quite mad doll-maker named Mr. Franz shrinks people into puppet dolls in the back room of his doll factory. He turns the people he likes into living dolls to keep him company and fight his own loneliness. It is now up to his new secretary Sally and her boyfriend Bob to try and thwart Franz before it is too late for the ‘Puppet People!’
June Kenney plays Sally Reynolds, Franz’s new secretary.
Laurie Mitchell plays Georgia Lane (puppet person).
The Space Children
A group of children seem to be receiving increasingly powerful telepathic communications from an unseen alien source. They are drawn to an isolated cave near the beach where an alien presence in the form of a huge and ever-growing brain has hidden itself not far from a rocket test site. The children then begin doing the alien’s bidding involving the launching of a rocket at the test site…..
Peggy Webber plays the part of Anne Brewster, wife of Dave Brewster. She is apprehensive about her family’s move from San Francisco to her husband’s new place of work: a military base where Dave has been transferred to work on The Thunderer--a six stage intercontinental missile at the Eagle Point Missile Project.
The Strange World of Planet X / Cosmic Monsters
In a small, rural English village, Dr. Laird and his assistants, Gil Graham and Michele Dupont are conducting experiments involving ultra-intense magnetic fields. The equipment seems to be affecting distant objects, and to be drawing extra power from some unknown source. The results are the rearrangement of molecules to make solid metal brittle or stiff metal pliable!
After deadly things start happening in Bryerly Woods, a strange man known as Mr Smith from "a long way off" appears and is very concerned about Dr Laird’s pulling down disaster from the skies. Mr Smith helps them in solving a series of attacks in the public park but worse is yet to come with the appearance of giant insects that have mutated as a result of Laird’s experiments.
Gaby André plays the role of Michele Dupont
The Trollenberg Terror [aka The Crawling Eye]
A series of decapitations on a Swiss mountainside seem to be connected to a mysterious radioactive cloud at the base of the Trollenberg mountain which is inhabited by alien creatures that are in telepathic communication with people.
Jennifer Jayne plays Sarah Pilgrim.
Janet Munro plays Sarah’s sister, Anne Pilgrim who is in telepathic communication with alien beings.
The Woman Eater
A mad scientist feeds captured women to a flesh-eating tree in return for a serum that can bring the dead back to life.
Vera Day plays the part of Sally Norton, hula dancer at a carnival.
Joyce Gregg plays Mrs. Santor, Dr Moran's housekeepe and former lover.
Joy Webster plays Judy, yet another victim of the 7 foot plant.
Marpessa Dawn plays the Native Girl who is the first victim fed to the woman-eater plant.
War of the Colossal Beast
Delivery trucks are robbed and destroyed south of the border and Joyce Manning suspects that her brother is responsible. Lt. Col. Glenn Manning has grown to gigantic proportions as a result of overexposure to radiation. His mind and sanity has also been adversely affected. Eventually the army captures Manning but he cannot be restrained and manages to escape with dire consequences for Los Angeles.
Sally Fraser as Joyce Manning
War of the Satellites
What happens when a mysterious alien force declares war against planet Earth while the United Nations disregards warnings to halt its attempts at assembling the first satellite in space?
Susan Cabot plays researcher, Sybil Carrington.
1959
4D MAN (THE FOURTH DIMENSIONAL MAN)
Two brothers, Scott and Tony Nelson are both scientists who develop an amplifier which enables a person to enter a 4th dimensional state, allowing him to pass through any object. Scott decides to experiment on himself with the result that each time he passes through something, he ages rapidly. He then embarks on a killing spree, sucking out the life energies of his victims and restoring his youth in the process.
Lee Meriwether plays Linda Davis, Scott's girlfriend who along with Tony try to put a stop to Scott’s murderous rampage
Battle in Outer Space (宇宙大戦争 Uchū Daisensō)
Alien invaders from the planet Netal capture the moon and invade the Earth with flying saucers and laser weapons. All eyes turn to the most powerful nations on Earth as they unite in a coalition to come up with a plan to defeat the aliens and save Earth.
Kyôko Anzai plays the role of Etsuko Shiraishi who is at first taken hostage by the Iranian delegate, Dr Ahmed and then temporarily captured by the Natal alien invaders.
The Atomic Submarine
In the ‘future’ year of 1968, more than eight ships and seven submarines have vanished mysteriously near the Arctic Circle.The submarine Tigershark is sent out to investigate and remove the cause of their disappearance. What the crew do encounter proves to be far more than they could have expected and may very well be beyond their newest powerful technology.
Joi Lansing plays Julie.
Jean Moorhead plays Helen Milburn
First Man into Space
Navy test pilot Lieut. Dan Prescott, in experimental rocket plane Y-13 becomes the first pilot to leave Earth's atmosphere after disobeying orders. Unable to turn, he ejects but is covered with some kind of metallic meteor dust. The pilot compartment lands but there is no sign of Prescott. It isn’t long before cattle and then people are discovered with their throats cut. It seems that there is something with a craving for blood prowling the countryside!
Marla Landi plays Tia Francesca, Prescott’s girlfriend.
Invisible Invaders
Dr. Karol Noymann is killed in an explosion and aliens inhabit his corpse using it to communicate with his former colleague, scientist Adam Penner. They reveal to him that they have been on the moon for twenty thousand years, undetected due to their invisibility. They have decided to wipe out humanity by making zombies from their corpses unless all the nations of earth surrender immediately. In order to survive, Dr. Penner, his daughter Phyllis, Dr. John Lamont and Maj. Bruce Jay hide out in an impregnable bunker / laboratory where they try to determine the aliens' weakness. Meanwhile, they are attacked from outside by the alien-occupied bodies of deceased humans.
Jean Byron plays the role of Phyllis Penner, Dr Adam Penner’s daughter.
The Manster 双頭の殺人鬼, "The Two-Headed Killer”
An American correspondent in Japan is assigned to interview a maverick Japanese scientist working on bizarre experiments in his mountain laboratory. The scientist uses the reporter in his next experiment by injecting him with a serum that transforms him into a hideous, two-headed monster.
Terri Zimmern plays Tara, assistant to Dr Suzuki and used as a distraction to Larry the reporter as he undergoes the scientist’s experimentation process.
The Giant Gila Monster
A giant lizard emergers from the desert to terrorize a rural Texas community while a heroic teenager, Chase Winstead, the leader of a local hot rod group assists the local sheriff in an attempt to destroy the creature.
Lisa Simone plays Chase’s girlfriend, Lisa
Teenagers From Outer Space
An alien teenager, Derek abandons his crew to search for a new life on Earth. Their mission is to eradicate human life in order to farm Earth with giant lobster-like livestock called Gargons. One of Derek’s crewmates is sent to kill him to protect their mission to Earth.
Dawn Bender plays Betty Morgan who sets about helping Derek.
Sonia Torgeson plays 'man-eater', Alice Woodward.
Terror in The Midnight Sun
A herd of reindeer are mysteriously found dead following a meteor crash in a remote part of Sweden. Soldiers and a geologist are called out to investigate only to discover that the meteor is actually a spaceship guarded by a hideous gigantic monster.
Barbara Wilson plays Diane Wilson niece of famous geologist, Dr. Vance Wilson. She stows away on a plane and joins the expedition to investigate the mysterious goings-on.
Terror Is a Man
Charles Girard, a rogue scientist working on Blood Island, conducts experiments (Dr Moreau-style) designed to transform a panther into a human being. Complications arise when sailor William Fitzgerald is shipwrecked on the island and he and Girard’s wife fall in love.
Greta Thyssen plays Girard’s wife, Frances Girard
Lilia Duran plays the role of Selene, a young servant girl.
The Angry Red Planet
Chief Warrant Officer Sam Jacobs, Dr. Iris Ryan, Professor Theodore Gettell and Col. Tom O'Bannion are astronauts aboard the spaceship MR-1, the first mission to Mars. Shortly after landing on Mars, the intrepid explorers are attacked by monstrous intelligent alien life forms. Upon their departure from the red planet, the humans are given an ominous warning intended for all mankind.
Naura Hayden plays Dr. Iris "Irish" Ryan who relates the story of what happened on the planet Mars.
The Cosmic Man
A large mysterious sphere lands in a California canyon. Its occupant has a message of peace and nuclear disarmament for the world. The scientific and military communities proceed to investigate while unsettling conflicts arise from this visitation.
Angela Greene plays Kathy Grant, a widow whose fighter pilot husband died in the Korean War. She now runs a tourist lodge near the canyon.
The Hideous Sun Demon
Dr. Gilbert McKenna is a research scientist who is exposed to dangerous radiation during a visit to an atomic power plant. The radiation causes McKenna to mutate into a strange and murderous inhuman monster when he’s exposed to the rays of the sun.
Patricia Manning plays Ann Russell, McKenna’s loyal girlfriend.
Nan Peterson plays Trudy Osborne who seems to bring out the inner hideous demon within McKenna.
The Killer Shrews
Boat Captain Thorne Sherman and his sidekick, "Rook" Griswold arrive on a remote island to deliver supplies to a scientist, his daughter and his aides. However, they all become trapped by a hurricane. Sherman soon discovers that the scientist, Milo Craigis has been working on the creation of giant flesh-eating shrews as part of his research into making humans smaller as a way of preventing over-population. As the out of control shrews eventually run out of smaller animals to eat, they set their sights on the hapless humans taking refuge in Craigis’s house.
Ingrid Goude plays Ann Craigis, daughter of Milo Craigis.
The Tingler
Dr. Warren Chapin has discovered that the spine-chilling sensation that people get when scared is due to a parasite that he gives the name of the "tingler" to. It turns out that in extreme circumstances, prolonged fear can cause the creature to feed on its host and grow when the host is scared. Soon, a point is reached whereby damage is caused to the person's spine and even death can result if the victim can't scream. A deaf-mute woman soon falls victim to the parasite Tingler and now it is on the loose!
Judith Evelyn plays Mrs. Martha Ryerson Higgins who is deaf and mute and wife of movie theater owner, Oliver Higgins.
Patricia Cutts plays Isabel Stevens Chapin who is in a dysfunctional marriage with Warren.
Pamela Lincoln plays Lucy Stevens, sister of Isabel Stevens Chapin.
The World, the Flesh and the Devil
A coal miner is trapped by a cave-in. When he eventually makes his way back to the surface, he discovers that apparently all of the human race has been wiped out by nuclear poison. Later, he and two others appear to be the remaining remnants of humanity. They must now choose to learn from their civilization’s past mistakes or simply relapse back into the old ways of division, hatred and prejudice.
Inger Stevens plays Sarah Crandall, Ralph Burton’s fellow survivor with whom she forms a problematic relationship.
The Head
Scientist, Dr. Abel invents a serum that keeps a dog's head alive after its body dies. When the scientist dies of a heart attack, his assistant the sinister, Dr. Ood cuts off his head and, using the newly developed serum, keeps the doctor's head alive. He then forces Dr. Abel (or his head at least) to help him on an experiment to give his hunchbacked nurse assistant a new body - the body of a stripper!
Karin Kernke plays Irene Sander
Christiane Maybach plays Stella (Lilly)
Wasp Woman
Janice Starlin’s cosmetics firm is facing a recent drop in sales which apparently began when she stopped being the 'face' of the company’s cosmetic products. Due to her approaching middle age and feeling that she had lost much of her youthful beauty, Janice stopped doing ads. Coincidentally, a maverick scientist, Eric Zinthrop, has developed a new drug derived from wasp enzymes and this seems to hold out a life-line for Janice and her company. Ah, but what of the consequences!
Susan Cabot (right) plays Janice Starlin, founder and owner of a large cosmetics company.
Barboura Morris (left) plays Mary Dennison, secretary / personal assistant who with Bill Lane and Arthur Cooper are skeptical of Dr. Zinthrop' intentions and conspire to expose him and hopefully save Janice from whatever might befall her.
Part 3: A Tribute To “Science Fiction Authors “
“Who Goes There?”
(by John W. Campbell Jnr)
John W. Campbell Jnr's, Who Goes There was first published in the August 1938 Astounding Science Fiction.
The classic 1951 science fiction film, The Thing from Another World (featured in this eBook series: Volume 5 “Alien Contact”) was adapted from this novella.
In the film adaptation, a plant-based humanoid alien life-form and its space craft is discovered frozen in ice in Antarctica. The alien’s species require animal blood in order to survive. This single alien is capable of creating an entire army of invaders from seed pods contained in its body.
In Campbell’s novella, "The Thing" is a malevolent shape-shifting alien creature possessing telepathic powers. In the story, a group of scientific researchers in Antarctica stumble upon this alien life form which has the ability to assume the identity, memories, and mannerisms of the humans. The story follows the humans’ struggle to determine which members of the expedition are still human, and which are alien impostors. The very fate of humanity will depend on them being able to do so!
Also by Campbell…..
“Deadly City”
by Paul W. Fairman (1916 – 1977)
Paul Warren Fairman (1916-1977) was an editor and writer in a variety of genres under his own name and under pseudonyms. In 1955, he became the editor of Amazing Stories and Fantastic.
Fairman's science fiction short story"Deadly City" appeared in the March 1953 issue of Worlds of Science Fiction: If, under Fairman's "Ivar Jorgensen" pseudonym and was made into the motion picture, Target Earth which is features in this blog.
Target Earth (1954) is set in an eerily deserted Chicago and involves a small group of people who have been overlooked during a mass evacuation of "the city that never sleeps." The evacuation has occurred due to a sudden invasion by hostile robots (well, at least one in the film!) possibly from the planet Venus.
Fairman’s story, however focuses less on the alien invasion aspect than the film does. There are no robot invaders. Instead, the invaders are glimpsed once and only from a distance. The printed story is also far more gritty, noirish and brutal than the film version.
Also by Fairman…..
“Forbidden Planet”
(by W. J. Stuart)
To begin with, the film Forbidden Planet (1956) was actually loosely based on William Shakespeare's, The Tempest. This sci-fi classic film in turn went on to influence other films and series of that genre including Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Shakespeare’s The Tempest is a play that is set on an island near Italy where Prospero, who had at one time been Duke of Milan, and his beautiful daughter, Miranda, live with a spirit servant called Ariel and a strange wildman called Caliban who is Prospero’s slave. Prospero uses magic to conjure a storm and torment the survivors of a shipwreck, including the King of Naples and Prospero's treacherous brother, Antonio. Prospero's slave, Caliban, plots to rid himself of his master, but is thwarted by Ariel.
Magic, betrayal, love, forgiveness and repentance are among the main themes dealt with in The Tempest.
The sci-fi movie, Forbidden Planet (1956) is set in the year 2371 on a desert planet called Altair-4, where the crew of the Cruiser C-57-D arrives on a rescue mission and to determine the fate of a group of scientists who had been sent there decades earlier. When Commander John J. Adams and his crew arrive, they discover only two people: Dr. Morbius and his daughter, Altaira who was born on the remote planet. The questions that need to be answered are:
What happened on Altair IV?
and
Why is it that only Morbius and Altaira are the sole survivors?
Shortly before the film was released, a novelization appeared that was written by W. J. Stuart (Philip MacDonald being the pseudonym he wrote under). His story largely follows the events and characters depicted in the film with some minor alterations and additions. In the novel, the story is told from the point of view of three different narrators: Dr. Ostrow, Commander Adams, and Dr. Morbius.
The novel goes into far greater detail concerning the mysterious Krell and their disappearance. In fact, before viewing the film, it would pay to read the account in Stuart’s novel of Morbius’s repeated exposure to the Krell's brain boosting technology and how it ultimately led to his and the Krell’s own downfall, both of whom did not take into account the role played by their imperfections and primitive base drives.
One of the added story elements that was not present in the film involves Dr. Ostrow’s dissection of one of the dead Earth-type little primates whose internal structure suggests that it had never been alive in the way we would understand a biological organism as being alive. This creature along with the other animals are therefore conscious creations or constructs of Dr. Morbius using Krell technology that can project matter in any form. And what of the power to create life? Can such hubris and arrogance be permitted? - “We are, after all, not God."
The artist is not credited; no visible signature
Cover art supplied by ISFDB
“Farewell To The Master”
(by Harry Bates)
"Farewell to the Master" is a science fiction short story by American writer Harry Bates. The story was first published in the October 1940 issue of Astounding Science Fiction.
Astounding Stories of Super-Science 1930
The 1951 classic science fiction film, The Day the Earth Stood Still (which is featured in Volume 5 of this eBook series) was loosely based on this story.
Both the story and the film are quite dissimilar. In Bates’ story, the events are told from the viewpoint of Cliff Sutherland, a freelance picture reporter and concerns the sudden appearance of a mysterious "curving ovoid" ship on the grounds of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.
As in the film version, two "visitors from the Unknown" emerge from the craft: one an 8-foot tall robot called “Gnut” made of green metal, and the other a being called “Klaatu.”
“This Island, Earth”
(by Raymond F. Jones)
The 1955 sci-fi classic film, This island Earth is based on the novel of the same name by Raymond F. Jones which was originally published as three novelettes in the magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories: "The Alien Machine" (June 1949), "The Shroud of Secrecy" (December 1949), and "The Greater Conflict" (February 1950)
In the story, a race of aliens have set about recruiting human beings for a group called "Peace Engineers" as part of their scheme to use Earth as a pawn in an intergalactic war between the Llanna and the Guarra. Both the movie and the book proceed along similar lines until they diverge quite considerably about half way through.
Also by Raymond F. Jones……
“When Worlds Collide” (1933)
(by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer)
“When Worlds Collide” is a 1933 science fiction novel co-written by Philip Wylie andEdwin Balmer. It was first published as a six-part monthly serial (September 1932 to February 1933) in Blue Book magazine, illustrated by Joseph Franké.
The story was adapted into a film in 1951 with George Pal’s sci-fi classic version of “When Worlds Collide” which is featured in this blog. The film was produced by George Pal and directed by Rudolph Maté.
In both the book and film versions, a select group of humans with superior intelligence are to board a spaceship constructed to escape the earth which is destined to be obliterated by an oncoming planet. If they survive the initial escape into space, the remnants of the human race will settle on another planet where they will found a human colony.
In Wylie and Palmer’s book, Sven Bronson, a Swedish astronomer working at an observatory in South Africa, discovers a pair of rogue planets, Bronson Alpha and Bronson Beta,both of which will soon enter the Solar System.
It is calculated that in eight months’ time, the two intruding planets will pass close enough to cause catastrophic damage to the Earth. After they swing around the sun sixteen months later, the larger of the planets, a gas giant called Bronson Alpha will return to destroy the Earth before it leaves. On the other hand, Bronson Beta which appears to be more Earth-like and potentially habitable will remain and achieve a stable orbit. It is on Bronson Beta that hopes for the continued survival of the human race will depend.
Cole Hendron leads a group of scientists who work desperately to build an atomic rocket that will contain a select number of people, together with animals and equipment and transport them to Bronson Beta before the earth is destroyed. It turns out that only 100 out of about thousand people Hendron had recruited will be able to take up places on the rocket. It seems also that other nations have similar projects underway.
Hendron is assisted by his daughter Eve who forms a relationship with young business man, Tony Drake and a kind of complicated love triangle develops between Tony, Eve and Ransdell during the course of the story. Not to mention the complicated moral and ethical questions that arise with having to start civilisation from scratch on a new planet with a limited number of people. Monogamous love relationships and pairings may not suit the new circumstances!
In preparation for the first encounter, vulnerable coastal regions in the US are evacuated along with the “planting vast areas of land in crops.” When the expected planetary encounter occurs, massive tidal waves sweep inland and the earth is wracked by tremendous volcanic eruptions and earthquakes accompanied by raging wild weather. The images conjured up by the description of the upheavals and destruction are more vivid than what appeared on screen in the film version. To add cosmic insult to injury, Bronson Alpha approaches close to and destroys the Moon.
Meanwhile, the US President has taken up residence in Hutchinson, Kansas, which has become the temporary capital of the United States. Massive geological transformations have occurred with flooding of the entire Southeast region along with the Great Lakes emptying into the Saint Lawrence region, and Connecticut turning into an island archipelago.
South African pilot David Ransdell and two comrades use a plane to survey the scenes of destruction. During a battle with a desperate mob, the three intrepid souls are wounded but are able to bring back to the encampment a sample of a rare and essential heat-resistant metal which can be used to make rocket tubes capable of withstanding the heat of the atomic exhaust.
With just five months to go before the final encounter, a desperate battle erupts between attacking mobs and those defending the camp. Over half of Hendron's people perish in the assault before they use the rocket in a novel way to defeat their assailants. Look for the wonderfully ‘surreal’ description of the man on horseback at the end of the battle! The sheer desperation involved in the fight for survival is very effectively conveyed in the story.
With the newly acquired metal helping to solve the rocket tube heating problem, a second, larger ship is constructed that can carry all of the remaining survivors in Hendron’s camp.
With the end of the earth imminent, both rockets manage to take off but lose contact with each other. Other ships also manage to launch from Europe but the French rocket is seen to explode in the upper atmosphere.
The first rocket rocket carrying Hendron makes a successful landing on Bronson Beta, which appears to be habitable. It is not known however if anyone else had made it.
The 1951 Technicolour Paramount Pictures film version “When Worlds Collide” starring Richard Derr, Barbara Rush, Peter Hansen, and John Hoyt is as has already been noted based on the 1933 science fiction novel of the same name.
The film version tells the story of the Earth being destined to be destroyed by a rogue star called Bellus and of a space ark being constructed to transport a select group of men and women to Bellus' single planet, “Zyra.”
South African Pilot David Randall is given the task of flying top-secret photographs from South African astronomer Dr. Emery Bronson to Dr. Cole Hendron in the United States. Hendron, with the assistance of his daughter Joyce, confirms the undeniable fact that a rogue star named Bellus is on a collision course with Earth.
Hendron warns the United Nations that the world will end in eight months’ time and makes an appeal for the immediate construction of "arks" to transport a select few to Zyra, the planet orbiting Bellus. Despite it being the only hope for the human race to be be saved from extinction, Hendron’s claims and appeal are rejected by the UN delegates.
Wealthy benefactors step in to arrange for a lease on a former proving ground to build an ark while wheelchair-bound business magnate Sidney Stanton offers to finance the construction of the ark on condition that he select the passengers. Hendron insists he only has the right to buy a seat aboard the ark. The ugly and selfish nature of the Stanton character is focused on to a greater extent in the film version as opposed to the rather brief treatment of a similar somewhat mentally warped and deranged character in the book.
Joyce convinces her father into hanging on to the intrepid Randall (whom she seems to take a liking to), much to the displeasure of her boyfriend, Dr. Tony Drake.
As Bellus inexorably approaches, it becomes evident that Hendron was right all along. Everyone gets into gear with spaceships being constructed in other nations, martial law being declared and populations in coastal regions being evacuated to inland cities.
When Zyra approaches first, massive earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tidal waves occur around the world. Later, Drake and Randall drop off supplies to people in the surrounding area by helicopter. A moment of truth arrives when Randall gets off the copter to rescue a little boy stranded on a rooftop in a flooded area. Drake thinks about resolving the eternal love tirangle situation by flying away, but being the good fella he is decides to return. What a guy!
With a constant, urgent and insistent countdown to destiny, the rocketship is loaded with food, equipment, necessary provisions and animals. The passengers are to be then selected by lottery, with places already reserved for Hendron, Stanton, Joyce, Drake, pilot Dr. George Frey, Randall and the young boy who was rescued. This brings the number of passengers to 45.
Randall, believing he lacks any useful skills for starting civilisation anew, pretends to draw a lottery number, but our “what a guy” Drake informs Randall that Frey has a heart condition and that if he doesn’t manage to survive the blackout during lift-off, Randall will be needed as the co-pilot. What a guy!
Meanwhile, the stone-hearted cynical Stanton has been busily stock-piling guns knowing what measures the desperate lottery losers would be likely to take to save themselves. A student of human nature he fancies himself to be no doubt!
Perhaps….but we see then witness a young man who decides to turn in his winning number because the one he loves was not selected. Suddenly, Stanton's brow-beaten constantly demeaned assistant, Ferris claims the number at gunpoint, but he is then shot dead by Stanton.
Danger for the whole enterprise lies closer to hand when just prior to take-off a desperate mob of lottery losers riot. Using Stanton's weapons, they try to force their way aboard the ark.
In another of those “what a guy” moments, Hendron remains with Stanton outside the ship when it launches so that it will consume less fuel on the journey to Zyra. Besides, he feels that starting a new civilisation should be a task for the young. Impelled by sheer desperation, Stanton manages to stand up and futilely attempts to walk toward and board the departing spaceship.
Unlike the survivors in the book’s story, the survivors in the film verson are rendered unconscious by the g-force of acceleration and fail to witness Earth's destruction. In the book version, the ark’s occupants watch on “as the nebulous atmosphere of Bronson Alpha touched the air of earth and then the very earth bulged.”
Randall comes to and sees Dr. Frey relatively chipper, awake and piloting the ship. He then realizes “what a guy” Drake truly is. But his piloting skills are soon required since the fuel is running low as the ship enters Zyra's atmosphere. Randall manages to glide the ship to a safe landing on the surface of Zyra.
Zyra does indeed turn out to be habitable. We close with David, Randall and Joyce walking hand-in-hand down the ramp as a new day dawns on a very ordinarily painted representation. At least in the novel there was an actual road upon which they walked and indications of a previous civilisation.
As to the novel? Well, I highly recommend that you read it. It’s a very lively well-paced writtten story but the style of language along with certain references are definitely from a by-gone era. I know that the collective heads of the PC Brigade will explode upon reading about Kyto the “little Jap” manservant of Drake. Then there’s the matter of eugenics with the selection of suitable candidates for the journey to Bonson Beta. Let’s not even get started on the portrayal and role of women despite the inclusion of a quite for the time strong female character in Eve. I can just see idiots trying to slap disclaimers all over the novel or airbrush or burn it out of existence!
What you do get in the novel is strong sense of what the characters are like and the relationships they have with each other. Also, the descriptions of the destruction caused to the Earth by the approach of Bonson Alpha, along with the desperate struggle with the invading mobs upon the encampment were very detailed and vivid. All this and more in a rollicking good almost ‘first of its kind’ story.
It’s worth considering the recent theory that a planet given the name of Theia collided with the early Earth around 4.5 billion years ago, with the resulting debris gathering to form our Moon.
It is believed that Theia was about the size of Mars and that it might have formed in the outer Solar System and that much of Earth's water originated on Theia.
It’s also worth mentioning that a book called “Worlds in Collision” by Immanuel Velikovsky was published in 1950. Velikovsky suggests that around the 15th century BC, the planet Venus was ejected from Jupiter as a comet or comet-like object and passed near Earth!
Finally, many readers will recall the events of July 1994 when fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into Jupiter over a period of several days, providing the first direct observation of an extraterrestrial collision of Solar System objects.
I would definitely put “When Worlds Collide” (1933) by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balme on your sci-fi reading bucket list and then follow it up with a viewing of the film version.
The sequel,” After Worlds Collide,” deals with the fate of the survivors on Bronson Beta.
"The Day Of The Triffids" (1951)
By John Wyndham
Steve Sekely’s 1962 film version of Wyndham’s novel is perhaps the best known with other superior adaptations that followed with the 1981 and 2009 BBC TV miniseries. Each seems to approach the story from the standpoint of the prevalent concerns and preoccupations of the era in which they were made.
The 1962 film version seems to opt for a more sci-fi / horror angle at the expense of Wyndham’s story with its backdrop Cold War considerations and fears along with philosophical discussions of the nature of human civilisation.
John Wyndham’s classic science fiction story opens with a man called Bill waking up in a hospital room to find the world he once knew utterly transformed - a world gone blind overnight!
The opening chapter contains an atmosphere of dread as Bill senses without the aid of his sight that the outside world sounds more like a quiet Sunday rather than a typical Wednesday. There is an overwhelming feeling of something not at all being quite right.
With only his sense of hearing to guide him, the striking of the clock indicates that it is now nine o’clock. However, the time his bandages were supposed to be removed was at eight – what on earth has been happening in the meantime?
Unknown to Bill, while he had been asleep after his eye operation, a cosmic event caused the majority of the population who witnessed it to go blind.
Added to the horror of mass blindness is the danger posed to humanity in the form of a plant known as a triffid.
Humanity in its complacency, however did not count on a cosmic event causing global mass blindness and providing the triffids with an opportunity to escape their confinement and become THE apex predator with human beings becoming their prey. For the triffids you see, cannot see but are drawn to noise and therefore their prey cannot avoid them for long!
What of are some of the changes and differences between the book and the movie?
Wyndham’s Novel
The triffids had been contained and were farmed to produce a vegetable oil substitute and help to ease the global food supply problem.
Bill is a biologist and triffid expert who had been hit by a triffid.
Central female character is part of the important love story.
Josella
Is saved by Bill from being beaten in the middle of the street.
Modern woman for the times.
Unmarried by choice.
Author of ‘Sex Is My Adventure.'
Gained a notorious ‘reputation.’
Self-reliant
Appearance of Susan later in the story.
Crowd panic, chaos in the streets with loss of sight and reason. Few traffic accidents due to suddenness of blindness overnight.
Greater sense of isolation and no communication with the rest of the world.
Coker kidnaps Bill and Josella to help with his plan to look after and feed the blind. His plan falls apart when a sickness starts killing off people in London.
Sekely’s 1962 Film Version
The light show of the meteor shower has caused the triffids and the plants have somehow been mutated by the event.
Bill is a merchant navy officer, who missed the meteor shower because he was in hospital with his eyes bandaged after an operation
Central female character reduced to screaming damsel in distress.
No Josella! Just a screaming biologist, Karen!
Car and bus crashes and wreckage along with train and pane crashes.
Bill hops across to France and Spain and radios seem to still function
Coker is a British tourist in France.
What individuals and a society will do and the choices that are made in the face of a calamity is a central feature of Wyndham’s story. So too is the question of the value of our cherished moral and social belief systems when put to the test by the sheer necessity of survival. Placed along side Windham’s novel, the film version is little more than a disappointing monster movie with ordinary special effects and little substance. Of greater interest are the subsequent TV miniseries versions and their respective treatments of Wyndham’s story.
'The Body Snatchers'
by Jack Finney (1955)
In the small Californian town of Santa Mira, medical doctor, Miles Bennell begins to notice that something is not quite right with its inhabitants. On the surface, the good folks of Santa Mira seem to be themselves, but in ways that Miles can’t put his finger on they are definitely not themselves.
Miles, together with his high school sweet heart and returning divorcée, Becky Driscoll and good friends Jack and Teddy Belicec, soon uncover an alien plot involving an invasion of this slice of small town America. They discover that people are being copied by means of large pods and replaced with duplicates who appear and behave just like them but who display no discernible human emotions and seem to lack human spirit and soul.
Can the invasion be prevented before it spreads beyond the borders of Santa Mira?
Can the surviving humans of this town resist the invaders and avoid the fate of their fellow townsfolk?
Will human individuality be crushed by the forces of alien conformity?
Broadly speaking, there isn’t a great deal of difference between Finney’s novel and Don Siegel’s screen adaptation. One difference involves the Belicecs and Becky who in the film version succumb to the alien pod plot.
Unlike the start of Finney’s book, the film opens with Miles in a hospital emergency room. His appearance is disheveled and his behavior suggests insanity, even more so considering his wild story concerning an alien invasion. The tale he tells doctor Hill is the subject of the film’s plot.
The ending is also different in the film version whereby Miles (the lone voice of truth) is seen desperately flailing about in the middle of the night on a highway screaming at oncoming traffic and directly at the audience, "They're already here! You're next! YOU'RE NEXT!"
Back in the hospital emergency room, evidence comes to light of a crashed truck carrying what appears to look like giant seed pods. Upon hearing this, doctor Hill leaps into action and notifies the FBI who no doubt will get to the bottom of all this and all will be well soon. A relieved Miles has finally managed to persuade the doctors who were about to have him committed that his story is true.
Finney’s story and the original film adaptation have been viewed by many as being a commentary on Communism, the conformity of 1950s America or even on the paranoia of McCarthyism at the time.
On a more universal level, the story can be viewed as being an examination of the loss of human individuality, sense of identity, and all that constitutes who we are as individuals.
Whatever the case, Finney’s story in whatever format it appears maintains its relevance as it can be viewed through the unique lens of any particular era thereby giving it an enduring quality.
The Four-Sided Triangle”
(by William F. Temple)
William F. Temple's novel of 1949 was an expansion of his short story, The Four Sided Triangle published in 1939!
In both Temple’s novel and the 1953 film adaptation we have two scientists falling in love with the same woman (Lena). Having invented a duplicating machine, the dilemma it is hoped will be resolved by creating another Lena.
The question is: Can the use of a scientific device that can reproduce anything possibly be a solution to the eternal love triangle?
Temple’s novel delves more thoroughly into the characters' difficulties and sorrow before and after the duplication of a second Lena. There is also a greater emphasis on philosophical and moral considerations as well as on the relationships between the characters.
The story is told from the point of view of an aging doctor who was involved in the events and lives of the characters. It is very well written, in a style that sadly belongs to another era in which words and their use actually mattered!
Four Sided Triangle (1953) is one of the earliest movies about cloning / duplicating a person. Like the original book version, the story involves a love triangle which soon develops into a four sided love triangle with the addition of a complicating fourth side. The film is in the tradition of Frankenstein-type films in which a man almost takes on the role of God and creates life with terrible consequences for himself and those around him.
Four Sided Triangle is a thought-provoking and engaging film despite its low budget constraints and somewhat disappointing ending.
“The War of the Worlds”
(by H.G. Wells)
Science fiction novel, The War of the Worlds was written by H.G. Wells and was first published serially by Pearson's Magazine in the UK. and by The Cosmopolitan magazine in the US. in 1897.
The War of the Worlds is set in the late 1890s in England and is one of the earliest stories to feature an alien invasion of Earth and the subsequent conflict between humanity and the invading extraterrestrials
Wells’ novel is a first-person narrative of both an unnamed protagonist in Surrey and of his younger brother in London as southern England is invaded by Martians.
Wells may have used the British impact on indigenous Tasmanians as a model or template for his own story which offers a consideration of what could happen if the technologically advanced Martians did to Britain what the British had done to the Tasmanians.
Orson Welles' 1938 radio broadcast of War of the Worlds was part of CBS’s "Mercury Theater on the Air" program and was based on the H.G. Wells’ story of a Martian invasion. It achieved notoriety through the widely reported effect it had by frightening many listeners who thought Martians had really invaded and were attacking.
During the broadcast, Welles was to interrupt a music performance with apparent news reports of a Martian invasion in Grover's Mill, New Jersey. Many startled listeners missed the broadcast's opening, which mentioned that it was a work of fiction. The show was supposed to have caused widespread panic and hysteria across New Jersey and the country. More than likely it generated a lot more anger and annoyance!
The year 1953 saw producer George Pal's and director Byron Haskin’s film adaptation of Wells’ novel. In the film, a small town in California is attacked by Martians as a prelude to a worldwide invasion. At first the residents of the town are thrown into a bit of a flap when what looks like a flaming meteor lands in the hills. Scientist Clayton Forrester and Sylvia Van Buren are among the first to arrive at the site of the meteorite crash. Soon after, an alien war machine emerges and begins killing and destroying with a death ray. The aliens possess machines that fly and hover and are protected by force fields. Even the military is no match for these alien invaders. The race is on to discover the aliens' weakness – if indeed they have one!
In 2005, Steven Spielberg released his adaptation of War of the Worlds. The film can be seen as being a reflection of the time and events surrounding the 9/11 terrorist attacks and their aftermath. The story begins in New York City, and this is where the alien attack first begins. The scenes that follow the destruction of the city would remind audiences of the horror and trauma that accompanied the events of 9/11.
The BBC One three-part series is set in Surrey at the turn of the 20th century, in keeping with Wells’ original story. Overall, it is quite well worth watching. It is good to see yet another well-made science fiction TV series coming out of Britain.
There do seem to be a few references being made back to HG Wells’ original story from the opening narration, setting and time period, to the nature of the alien tripod machines through to the consideration of the effect of British colonialism. I felt that this last point could’ve been made in a far more considered and reflective manner than was the case.
The treatment of the story is not surprisingly made with modern audiences in mind. For instance, unlike Wells’ story, we have in addition to male characters, a central unconventional female protagonist who tries to make her way through a rather admonishing conservative patriarchal society. At least it is not laid on too thickly and rammed too forcefully down audiences’ throats as has often recently been the case in other films and series.
Instead of focusing exclusively on the carnage and destruction being visited on the earth by the aliens, the series almost uses that as a backdrop to an exploration of the relationships between the characters and the kinds of choices they find themselves forced to make depending on the circumstances they find themselves in.
I must say that I had to modify my original preconceptions about the series and found myself being pleasantly surprised. My recommendation is that you should go ahead and enjoy it for what it is and try not to be too nit-picky about it.
The 27th Day (1956)
by John Mantley.
A 1957 film screenplay adaptation by Mantley, directed by William Asher and starring Gene Barry, Valerie French, George Voskovec, and Arnold Moss.
Set during the Cold War, aliens give weapons to each of five random people in the form of capsules in a box that are capable of destroying all life on Earth. The human recipients consist of, an American writer, an English actress, a German scientist, a Russian soldier, and a Chinese peasant girl. If the human race manages to destroy itself with the weapons, they will take over the Earth, but if humanity manages to survive for 27 days without destroying itself, the aliens will leave in peace.
The five humans cannot resort to simply not telling anyone about the boxes and what they contain as the aliens inform the world about them and where they five.
Donovan’s Brain
by Curt Siodmak (1942)
Donovan’s Brain (1953) directed by Felix E. Feist is based on the novel by Curt Siodmak. There was also an Orson Welles’ radio adaptation in 1944, a horror film The Lady and the Monster (1944) and a British film The Brain (1962)
Both the 1953 film and book plots are similar but there are some differences.
In the book Cory is ruthlessly single-minded in his pursuit of science while the cold-hearted and unlikable Donovan is just as ruthless in his pursuit of money, In the film, Cory is portrayed as a driven but kind-hearted character who elicits sympathy from the audience. In the book the similarities and parallels between Cory and Donovan are highlighted whereas in the film they come across as distinctly different personalities.
Cory’s relationship with his wife and the plot endings are also dealt with quite differently in the book and film versions as well….but you’ll just have to find out for yourself, wont you?
Afterword
I hope you enjoyed this final volume of the Sci-Fi Film Fiesta eBook series along with the other volumes. My original intention in writing about classic science fiction films of the 1950s was to present it in the form of a book but I instead chose to do so via a blog entitled, Sci-Fi Film Fiesta. Having completed featuring sci-fi films of the 1950s and moving on to films of the 1960s through to the 1980s, I decided to go back to my original idea. With the amount of information such a book would encompass, I then decided to present it in a freely available eBook format consisting of 11 manageable volumes devoted to various general themes.
With so many excellent reviews available on-line and in reference books for the films featured in my eBook, I tried to come up with an approach that is a bit different that would engage and entertain the reader, be accessible and foster curiosity about and interest in these pioneering sci-fi films. In other words, having a bit of fun and taking a bit of license with it all.
Will there be further eBooks from me covering other classic science fiction films from other decades? I honestly don’t know. My problematic eye-sight and the work-a-rounds I used made the process of putting this eBook together a really lengthy one! There was also a lot of swearing in five languages (only two of which I know) as I tackled the many technical gremlins that were determined to make life difficult. Notwithstanding all that, I enjoyed putting it all together and I hope you derived something positive from it too. Also, never say never.
Until next time, do yourself a favor and…….
KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES!
No….really, I mean it….Watch them skies!
Useful Resources
Atkinson, Barry., Atomic Age Cinema The Offbeat, the Classic and the Obscure, Midnight Marquee Press, Inc.; 2013
Bliss, Michael., Invasions USA The Essential Science Fiction Films of the 1950s, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2014.
Dalton, Tony., The Art of Ray Harryhausen, Aurum Press, 2005
Fischer, Dennis., Science Fiction Film Directors, 1895-1998, McFarland, 2011
Geraghty, Lincoln., American Science Fiction Film and Television, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2009
Hendershot, Cyndy., Paranoia, The Bomb, And 1950s Science Fiction Films, University of Wisconsin Press, 1999
Hickman, Gail Morgan., The Films of George Pal, A. S. Barnes,1977
Hogan, David J. (Editor)., Invasion USA: Essays on Anti-Communist Movies of the 1950s and 1960s, McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers, 2017
Johnson, John., Cheap Tricks and Class Acts Special Effects, Makeup, and Stunts from the Films of the Fantastic Fifties, McFarland & Company, 1996
Jordan, Joe., Robert Wise: The Motion Pictures, Contributors: Gavin MacLeod, Douglas E. Wise, Illustrated, BearManor Media, 2020
Koca, Gary., Good and Bad Sci-Fi/Horror Movies of the 1950s: And the Stars Who Were in Those Films, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017
Moore, Theresa M., & Carlyle, Patrick C., Science Fiction Films of The 20th Century 1950-1954, Antellus, 2019
Moore, Theresa M., Science Fiction Films of The 20th Century 1955-1956, Antellus, 2019
Moore, Theresa M., Science Fiction Films of The 20th Century 1958 Anrellus, 2019
Seed, David., Science Fiction: A Very Short Introduction., Oxford University Press, 2011
Warren, Bill., Keep Watching the Skies! American Science Fiction Films of the Fifties: McFarland; 21st Century Edition, 2016
Weaver Tom., Return of the B Science Fiction and Horror Heroes The Mutant Melding of Two Volumes of Classic Interviews · Volumes 1-2, McFarland Classics, 2000
Weaver Tom., Interviews with ""B"" Science Fiction and Horror Movie Makers: Writers, Producers, Directors, Actors, Moguls and Makeup, Paperback – Illustrated, McFarland, 2006
Useful Links To On-Line Resources
“1950's Sci-Fi & Horror Stars” @IMDb
“List of science fiction films of the 1950s” @Wikipedia
“How Director Jack Arnold Defined American Sci-Fi Movies” @screenrant.com
“Willis O’Brien: Unsung Pioneer of Animation and Special Effects” by Christian A. Bice @faculty.etsu.edu
“Godzilla’s Conscience: The Monstrous Humanism of Ishiro Honda” by Steve Ryfle @criterion.com
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