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Alien Invasion

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The Man From Planet X

The Man From Planet X

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: What a wacky creature design....
Review: The alien man design for this movie was, well original. Glowing man's head in a fish bowl with a mostly robot body. It never actually talks, but then again with the dialoge in this movie being what it was, maybe the script writer did not have any time to type it.Movie is currently out of stock. No wonder.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: man from planet x
Review: i am glad i purchased this video, it has taken 50yrs for me to see this picture again. i last saw it at our local theatre when i was a kid. all i could remember about it was near the ending was a person coming up on the spaceship with a bazooka and blowing it up. i have been in touch with many picture buffs here in australia and they could not tell me any thing about the film. now i have my own copy and am enjoying seeing it and reliving the day so long ago.
roy ludlow

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Scared the living daylights outta me when I was six.
Review: I don't have time to write a lenghty treatise here, but this film was successful in scaring the living daylights out of me when I saw it in the theater as a six year old. I have to give it 5 stars because of the impact it had on me. Looking at it now as an adult, it seems almost comical. But it was effective then. Also, this is one of the first films (if not the first) with the theme of alien invasion. Important film in my life. It definitely is worth a look. This is a classic film of the sci-fi genre. Watch it and enjoy.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Ah childhood memories!
Review: I saw this as a kid and loved it. Years later i saw pics and read an article on this movie in a sci fi magazine in the late 70's. After that, I wanted to once again see this low budget classic but never got the opportunity until i saw it a couple years ago on AMC. Buy this video and enjoy! I can still remember the face of the Man From Planet X looking through the spaceship window!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Great but not the same
Review: I saw this movie on tv when I was a kid more than 30 years ago and never had an opportunity to see it again. Until it appeared at the Suncoast video store, last week. The movie scared me as a kid because of a couple of unique themes. The movie was about a relatively harmless alien who we earthlings believe is planning to invade (colonize) the earth. Maybe my memory is faulty but the DVD version seemed different than the version I saw on televison in the 60's. In my remembered version, in the climatic scene where the two planets are about to collide, I remember a group shot of a bunch of people on Planet X waiting for word from their earthly explorer, but to no avail. But in the DVD version all you see are the planets about to collide and then separate. No shot of alien families about to be doomed. The 60's tv version bothered me when I was a kid. Yeah, I wanted the earth to win, but the shot of the Planet X alien mother holding her Planet X alien child, did not make for a sweet ending. Oh well this version ends much more pleasant (ahh come on now this was a 50's movie, I didn't spoil anything). None the less, this cheap film is still surprising effective. But there is a certain cliff/bluff scene that had to have been used at least four times.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: The WEIRDEST Visitor the Earth has ever seen!
Review: That's one of the taglines for this United Artists release. After watching this movie, my first impression was "Man, what a cornball movie." But after a little more thought, and realizing that this came out in 1951, I soften a bit. Yeah, it was corny, but it did have its' charms.

Robert Clarke stars as John Lawrence, a newspaper reporter called to a Scottish moor by his friend, Professor Elliot, to cover what will be the story of his lifetime. A seemingly stray planet is headed in the general direction of Earth, and the moor is the location that it will pass closest to Earth. Prior to this event, they find a strange, alien object on the moors, followed by actual alien spaceship fashioned in classic 50's sci-fi fashion. Not only that, but the alien spacecraft is inhabited by a pretty funky looking humanoid creature. If you've ever seen the Honeymooners episode where Ralph dresses up as a spaceman, then you will have a pretty good idea of what this alien looks like.

Anyway, they try to communicate with it, with the help of another scientist, Dr. Mears, played by William Schallert, the only actor I recognized as he's been on like a bazillion TV shows, probably most famous being The Patty Duke Show, and a whole mess of movies. Seems he has rather a dubious past, and his intentions are less than admirable when dealing with this advanced creature from another world.

When Mears starts throttling the alien for his space secrets, the alien takes off, and things start to get a little hairy as the alien begins to set his plans into action. What is this alien's connection to planet X? What are his intentions on our planet? Wait until the end of the movie to find out, because while throughout most of the movie the plot slides along at the pacing somewhat akin to a snail, we see the pace quicken like a jackrabbit in the last ten minutes or so, including a huge, steaming pile of rather clunky exposition to fill the viewers in to what's going on...and a really unintentional question asked at the end by the female lead that made me wonder if she had even experienced the events in the movie because the question really contradicted everything that happened, at least in my opinion.

My only real gripe with the movie is Robert Clarke. Quite a handsome man at the time, looking sort of like Errol Flynn, he just didn't seem to fit in well in this genre. He seemed a little too sophisticated, a little to debonair, with his pencil thin mustache, to play the part he was given. I envisioned sci-fi veteran Richard Carlson playing the part much better.

This is a really good-looking print, but don't expect any extras other than a trailer. I do appreciate MGM releasing these Midnight Movies at a reasonable price, and I know they've started doing double bills for the same price, but not here, as this DVD was released prior to that worthwhile change. Are there better sci-fi movies of that time period out there? Sure, The Thing, and War of the Worlds to mention two, but this one ain't so bad, if you got 71 minutes to kill and an interest in classic science fiction movies.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: The WEIRDEST Visitor the Earth has ever seen!
Review: That's one of the taglines for this United Artists release. After watching this movie, my first impression was "Man, what a cornball movie." But after a little more thought, and realizing that this came out in 1951, I soften a bit. Yeah, it was corny, but it did have its' charms.

Robert Clarke stars as John Lawrence, a newspaper reporter called to a Scottish moor by his friend, Professor Elliot, to cover what will be the story of his lifetime. A seemingly stray planet is headed in the general direction of Earth, and the moor is the location that it will pass closest to Earth. Prior to this event, they find a strange, alien object on the moors, followed by actual alien spaceship fashioned in classic 50's sci-fi fashion. Not only that, but the alien spacecraft is inhabited by a pretty funky looking humanoid creature. If you've ever seen the Honeymooners episode where Ralph dresses up as a spaceman, then you will have a pretty good idea of what this alien looks like.

Anyway, they try to communicate with it, with the help of another scientist, Dr. Mears, played by William Schallert, the only actor I recognized as he's been on like a bazillion TV shows, probably most famous being The Patty Duke Show, and a whole mess of movies. Seems he has rather a dubious past, and his intentions are less than admirable when dealing with this advanced creature from another world.

When Mears starts throttling the alien for his space secrets, the alien takes off, and things start to get a little hairy as the alien begins to set his plans into action. What is this alien's connection to planet X? What are his intentions on our planet? Wait until the end of the movie to find out, because while throughout most of the movie the plot slides along at the pacing somewhat akin to a snail, we see the pace quicken like a jackrabbit in the last ten minutes or so, including a huge, steaming pile of rather clunky exposition to fill the viewers in to what's going on...and a really unintentional question asked at the end by the female lead that made me wonder if she had even experienced the events in the movie because the question really contradicted everything that happened, at least in my opinion.

My only real gripe with the movie is Robert Clarke. Quite a handsome man at the time, looking sort of like Errol Flynn, he just didn't seem to fit in well in this genre. He seemed a little too sophisticated, a little to debonair, with his pencil thin mustache, to play the part he was given. I envisioned sci-fi veteran Richard Carlson playing the part much better.

This is a really good-looking print, but don't expect any extras other than a trailer. I do appreciate MGM releasing these Midnight Movies at a reasonable price, and I know they've started doing double bills for the same price, but not here, as this DVD was released prior to that worthwhile change. Are there better sci-fi movies of that time period out there? Sure, The Thing, and War of the Worlds to mention two, but this one ain't so bad, if you got 71 minutes to kill and an interest in classic science fiction movies.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: The WEIRDEST Visitor the Earth has ever seen!
Review: That's one of the taglines for this United Artists release. After watching this movie, my first impression was "Man, what a cornball movie." But after a little more thought, and realizing that this came out in 1951, I soften a bit. Yeah, it was corny, but it did have its' charms.

Robert Clarke stars as John Lawrence, a newspaper reporter called to a Scottish moor by his friend, Professor Elliot, to cover what will be the story of his lifetime. A seemingly stray planet is headed in the general direction of Earth, and the moor is the location that it will pass closest to Earth. Prior to this event, they find a strange, alien object on the moors, followed by actual alien spaceship fashioned in classic 50's sci-fi fashion. Not only that, but the alien spacecraft is inhabited by a pretty funky looking humanoid creature. If you've ever seen the Honeymooners episode where Ralph dresses up as a spaceman, then you will have a pretty good idea of what this alien looks like.

Anyway, they try to communicate with it, with the help of another scientist, Dr. Mears, played by William Schallert, the only actor I recognized as he's been on like a bazillion TV shows, probably most famous being The Patty Duke Show, and a whole mess of movies. Seems he has rather a dubious past, and his intentions are less than admirable when dealing with this advanced creature from another world.

When Mears starts throttling the alien for his space secrets, the alien takes off, and things start to get a little hairy as the alien begins to set his plans into action. What is this alien's connection to planet X? What are his intentions on our planet? Wait until the end of the movie to find out, because while throughout most of the movie the plot slides along at the pacing somewhat akin to a snail, we see the pace quicken like a jackrabbit in the last ten minutes or so, including a huge, steaming pile of rather clunky exposition to fill the viewers in to what's going on...and a really unintentional question asked at the end by the female lead that made me wonder if she had even experienced the events in the movie because the question really contradicted everything that happened, at least in my opinion.

My only real gripe with the movie is Robert Clarke. Quite a handsome man at the time, looking sort of like Errol Flynn, he just didn't seem to fit in well in this genre. He seemed a little too sophisticated, a little to debonair, with his pencil thin mustache, to play the part he was given. I envisioned sci-fi veteran Richard Carlson playing the part much better.

This is a really good-looking print, but don't expect any extras other than a trailer. I do appreciate MGM releasing these Midnight Movies at a reasonable price, and I know they've started doing double bills for the same price, but not here, as this DVD was released prior to that worthwhile change. Are there better sci-fi movies of that time period out there? Sure, The Thing, and War of the Worlds to mention two, but this one ain't so bad, if you got 71 minutes to kill and an interest in classic science fiction movies.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: FILM SCHOOL - 101
Review: THE MAN FROM PLANET X is not without it's charms. More intelligent than you might imagine, better scripted than you could beleive it to be, and far more fun than it should be - it is a solid film that is first out of the gate with ideas (invsion from outer space) and themes (old scientist father, hot daughter, Mother dead - just what happened to all these Mothers? I swear these movies existed in another universe where the women went off to fight WWII leaving the men behind) that would find their way into the larger, bigger, and far better remembered British Horror film industry - but there is something else about THE MAN FROM PLANET X that is also worth the price of admission alone - and that's lessons in how to make a film fast, cheap and easy. Count the shots. Count the cast... count the sets... there is very little here that wasn't borrowed or reused from other films (even the box states that the ENITRE film was shot on a standing set left behind from Ingrid Bergman's JOAN OF ARC). It's a lesson in filmaking - take what little you've got, add a lot of fog and a solid script and you've got yourself a movie. Overall - a classy little feature with a highly effective alien and atmosphere - a solid addition to your DVD library.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: B SciFi Movie for the Thinking Man
Review: There is more than meets the eye here. Alien space ships not withstanding, this is an intelligent film with good characters bolstered by good dialogue. The deliberate pace of the film and the intelligent point of view displayed through the characters make this good filmmaking. Not your conventional ending either.


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