"The Man From Planet X"
When I was a kid, about 9 or 10 years of age, I used to be allowed to go and see films on holidays unaccompanied. One afternoon I went to the "RENOWN" in Elsternwick and saw a film called
"THE MAN FROM PLANET X"
It was touch and go, but I did survive this terrible ordeal and went on to love sci-fi movies for the rest of my life, including the very best and also the very worst.
Unfortunately the very best were far outnumbered by the extremely poor ones.
So let me start by giving you an approximate scale from those days when I was young and impressionable:
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea 10/10
The Thing From Another World 10/10
Invasion of the Body Snatchers 11/10
The Day The World Stood Still 10/10
Forbidden Planet 12/10
Down near the bottom of the pool...
"The Creature From The Black Lagoon" what a doozy... the dregs! Sure hope I haven't offended anybody!
Much later I saw that film again as an adult at Valhalla in 3D and it was a lot of fun, cringe territory fun.
Now I'm not going to bother you much further with these reminiscences from 1950 - 1960... I'm sure you get the picture.
Simply to say this: "The Man From Planet X" was no masterpiece but I loved it, even though I was more frightened by it than almost any film I saw in those days.
Here's a piece I found on the net which does it some justice:
"The first visitor from outer space in the ’50s sci-fi boom is one very curious guy, dropping to Earth in a ship like a diving bell and scaring the bejesus out of Sally Field’s mother. Micro-budgeted space invasion fantasy gets off to a great start thanks to the filmmaking genius of our old pal Edgar G. Ulmer."JUN 16, 2017
https://trailersfromhell.com/the-man-from-planet-x/
One reason I put this out to my friends is just to see if it raises any memories and feedback for this genre. Please feel free to write about any movies like this which bowled you over as a child or a teenager.
Don't feel constrained by the fact that I started with the 1950's. Please feel free to write about any films which made a deep and lasting impression upon you, whatever the reason.
By the way, you can view the film on Daily Motion:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x22y5m9
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You didn't scare so easily. I got spooked at a Hopalong Cassidy movie where everyone was creeping in the dark. Ran all the way home!!!
ReplyDeleteCrikey, I thought you would have been a bit tougher than that Geoff. The things which formed us!
ReplyDeleteOf course, the seminal sci fi film for me has to be '2001: A Space Odyssey' which some regard as the best sci fi film ever made and others as the worst.
ReplyDeleteBut - as well as that life-changing trip as a 13-year old school boy to the now-sadly-defunct Pix Cinema in West Geelong where you could have heard a pin drop, such was the gob-smacked awe of the massed classes of 12 - 13 year olds in that cinema that day we saw '2001' for the first time - I also remember the 'Fantastic Voyage' which blew me away for its incredible visualization of the inside of the human body.
Apart from that, for a very long time after '2001', NOTHING in the sci fi realm came up to scratch for me. Not until I saw a revival of Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis' at the Palais Theatre in St. Kilda around 1981 -2, did sci fi excite me again.
Then of course, we were collectively blown away by Ridley Scott's 'Blade Runner' and 'Alien' not to mention Ken Russell's 'Altered States' (about the same time) and life in sci fi was never the poor cousin to serious drama again.
One sci fi film which was just plain psychedelic fun in the late 70's was 'Liquid Sky'. Others in the hippy-trippy 70's realm included 'Zardoz', 'Soylent Green'. and 'Silent Running' which was meant to be a piss-take on '2001'.
Digressing a bit, could Ken Russell's' 'Tommy' have been called sci fi? If so, that also blew me away circa 1972.
The only sci fi films to stand out for me in the early or mid 60's were 'The Forbidden Planet' and "The Day The Earth Stood Still'. I never saw the original 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' until much later on TV in the 90's.
How exciting it is today that we can make sci fi or sci-fi-themed films with minuscule budgets thanks to digital editing platforms and amazing access to stock footage.
One of my earliest memories is wandering into our living room in my pjs during a screening of Nosferatu for the Eltham Film Society(?) and being allowed to stay and watch (I'm guessing I was 5 or 6).
ReplyDeleteI watched far too many interesting films as a child/teen to pick only one or two. Mum used to take us into LaTrobe during school holidays and we would spend our days with the black and white reel to reel video library of the film school (?). When I was older I sought out my own copies of many of the films we watched over and over on those occasions. The Seven Faces of Dr Lau, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Them, Patrick, White Zombie, The day the earth stood still, The Thing, Creature from the Black lagoon, The cars that ate Paris, ( I want a DVD copy of this if anyone has it), Mad Max. I'm not sure if we watched all these first in black and white at the uni, some may have been later on VHS once I was in high school. Mum bought a lot of stuff home over the years she was teaching.
But overall I have been left with a great appreciation for "B" grade Sci-fi and I loved the Valhalla 24 hour sci-fi marathons when I was at uni. Such fun to see Barbarella, Flash Gordon, Fantastic Planet and The day the Earth Stood Still on the big screen.
-Heather
Great to get this feedback David... I hope a few more will put in their thoughts.
ReplyDeleteThanks for you comment Unknown, can I releavl your secrety identity? Glad we share this passion in common!
ReplyDeletept
I thought I'd already revealed myself💜
DeletePlease forgive my typos... some alien has taken charge of the fingers.
ReplyDeleteAlso, The Day of the Triffids!
My subconscious must have wiped all 'scary movies' from my mind because all I can think of is Friday afternoon's at Primary School in the 70s where we'd all be shuffled down to the uninspiringly named 'General Purpose Room' to watch films projected on 16mm. Some stand-outs were: Walkabout, A City Awakens, that Disney production which animated all sorts of maths concepts (like Mikey Mouse playing pool and, hitting one in the pocket after quick mental calculations and bouncing the white ball off about 10 sides of the table!)
ReplyDeleteBut back to the scares; I was told as a small child I was obsessed with one particular scene in Sesame Street where a man holding multiple pies came out from a building and stumbled down multiple flights of stairs, cream-topped pies ending up in a complete mess. Apparently I ended up in tears of terror, but I couldn't bear to NOT watch it every time. So strange.
Ah the things that are seared into our brain!
Bobby Boy, that was one hell of a scary programme that "Sesame Street"! Imagine such a weird and disturbing sequence of images being allowed on air to be viewed by impressionable young children who have no skills to deal with it? Where were the censors in those days? But the sequence you've mentioned is very interesting. As you describe it, it is chaotic and unreasonable. It is also nightmarish.
ReplyDeleteIt also astonishes me that other films which might be considered more disturbing have been erased from your memories of childhood. Your parents may have protected you from things which my parents failed to protect me from... e.g., my Mum and Dad had no idea what I was reading from the age of 7 and 8 when I was into E.A.Poe. I think they were just glad that that I was showing an interest in reading. I'm sure they had no idea of the horrors described in that book which fed my nightmares. And yet I grew up to become a normal model citizen. Some may disagree...
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This has become an exceeding interesting exercise. It never occurred to me that my memories of "the Man From Planet X" might lead us back to "Sesame Street".
please excuse the repeats after my first "pt"... I'm still struggling with the vagaries of Blogger.
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