1959 science fiction, dir. Ed Wood, Gregory Walcott, Bela Lugosi:
IMDb /
allmovie. The aliens land
with a message for humanity, but that message is apparently "Your
stupid brains!" Original vt: Grave Robbers From Outer Space.
So the basic message here is the same as in The Day The Earth
Stood Still, which is why we made the podcast a double episode: the
aliens want humans to stop fighting, or at least not to develop the
bomb which could potentially destroy the universe. Pity the guy they
sent to deliver the message isn't entirely competent.
But one has to admire the thinking that tells you to combine the story
of Day with creature-feature exploitation. That doesn't let your own
incompetence or lack of funds reduce the scope of the story. That
doesn't let you change your plans just because your biggest name star
has dropped dead…
It used to be said that Lugosi had died during filming, but it's more
complex than that: Wood had tracked down Lugosi, whose morphine and
methadone addictions had made him unhirable, insisted on employing him
anyway, and paid a clinic to help him get clean. They'd been working
on several projects when Lugosi suddenly died, and Wood used what
footage he had here. Was Wood exploiting Lugosi by paying him much
less than he'd been getting in his prime? Maybeso, but nobody else was
prepared to pay him anything at all.
This is fun, is the thing. It never drags. If some of one's
enjoyment comes from thinking "wow, did that tombstone just wobble?"
then fair enough, but this isn't a film I watch just to deride it;
unlike some of the more modern things I've watched and not enjoyed,
there is at least a single coherent vision behind this, and if that
vision has to make a wooden half-disc on a stick stand in for an
aircraft control column, well, the viewers know perfectly well that
it's meant to depict a control column, what more do you really need?
This is nothing like the worst film ever made, as Michael Medved
claimed in 1980 (rather closer to the making of this film than we are
to it). The job of a film is to entertain, not to be ground down by
Corporate until it is as bland and inoffensive as possible. I've seen
The Mummy (2017). I've seen Future World. I've seen Spy and
Parts Per Billion and Despicable Me 2. I would happily watch Plan
9 again before any of those.
As usual if you want more of my witterings you should listen to
Ribbon of Memes.
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