On the Beach

From my 1950s Science Fiction Marathon, part 12 of 12.



On the Beach, 1959. After nuclear war, Australia waits for the fallout to arrive.

Directed by Stanley Kramer. Written by John Paxton, based on a book by Nevil Shute. Starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire & Anthony Perkins.

Concept: 4/4 (Great)
Story: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Characters: 3/4 (Good)
Dialog: 4/4 (Great)
Pacing: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Cinematography: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Special effects/design: 2/4 (Indifferent). Bad sound.
Acting: 4/4 (Great). I feel like I need to take a point off for the sad, half-assed attempt at silly accents. But I'm not going to. So there.
Music: 0/4 (Terrible)
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good, 3/4). I can't find a trailer online, but I can imagine the tag line: "Watch as your favorite stars die a slow and pointless death!" I guess I can see why it's not more popular than it is, but I like it. Great writing, great acting, and the apocalypse - what more do you need?
Objective Rating (Average): 2.6/4 (Good)

The Blob

From my 1950s Science Fiction Marathon, part 11 of 12.



The Blob, 1958. Teenagers try to warn their town about a space blob that blobs people.

Directed by Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr. Written by Theodore Simonson & Kay Linaker, from an idea by Irvine H. Millgate. Starring Steve McQueen & Aneta Corsaut.

Concept: 1/4 (Bad)
Story: 0/4 (Terrible). But you've got to believe me! You've just got to! Oh, shut up and go kill the monster already.
Characters: 1/4 (Bad)
Dialog: 1/4 (Bad)
Pacing: 1/4 (Bad)
Cinematography: 0/4 (Terrible)
Special effects/design: 1/4 (Bad). Although, it is a nice touch how the blob turns red after it starts eating people.
Acting: 1/4 (Bad). Minus a point for the random yelling child.
Music: 3/4 (Good). I love the theme song.
Subjective Rating: 5/10 (Indifferent, 2/4). There's a fair amount of heckling value, but too much of the movie is tedious for it to be much fun to laugh at.
Objective Rating (Average): 1.1/4 (Bad)

The Fly

From my 1950s Science Fiction Marathon, part 10 of 12.



The Fly, 1958. A teleportation experiment goes horribly wrong.

Directed by Kurt Neumann. Written by James Clavell, based on a story by George Langelaan. Starring Patricia Owens, David Hedison & Vincent Price.

Concept: 4/4 (Great)
Story: 3/4 (Good)
Characters: 1/4 (Bad). I can't get over the fact that a perfectly sane scientist, who personally acknowledges both (1) the importance of his discovery and (2) that he can't figure it out, insists on working in complete isolation.
Dialog: 1/4 (Bad). Yeah, buddy, teleportation is just like television. Whatever you say.
Pacing: 2/4 (Indifferent). In some places, there's excellent suspense. In other places, such as when flashbacks duplicate stuff we've already been given in exposition, it can get pretty dull.
Cinematography: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good)
Acting: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Music: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good, 3/4). Pretty damn awesome. There's plenty of corniness and bad science. But there's also disturbing psychological horror, rooted in empathy. My wife observes that she had her "heart strings tugged by a man wearing a rubber fly mask." And there's actually a good ending - very rare for this type of movie.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.3/4 (Okay)

The Incredible Shrinking Man

From my 1950s Science Fiction Marathon, part 9 of 12.



The Incredible Shrinking Man, 1957. A man shrinks, incredibly.

Directed by Jack Arnold. Written by Richard Matheson, based on his book. Starring Grant Williams.

Concept: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Story: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Characters: 1/4 (Bad)
Dialog: 1/4 (Bad)
Pacing: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Cinematography: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Special effects/design: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Acting: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Music: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Subjective Rating: 6/10 (Okay, 2/4). It changes tone, and quality, drastically in a few places.  At first, it's a corny, B-movie attempt at suspense, which is amusing.  Then it turns into a drama, briefly but tediously.  Finally, he shrinks to a few inches tall, and it becomes an adventure.  That part is great - clever and exciting - but they sure take a long time getting there.  Oh, and then there's the ending. What the hell is that ending? I'd have given the movie a strong 7/10 if it weren't for that.
Objective Rating (Average): 1.8/4 (Eh)

Forbidden Planet

From my 1950s Science Fiction Marathon, part 8 of 12.



Forbidden Planet, 1956. A planet's last surviving colonist doesn't want to be rescued.

Directed by Fred M. Wilcox. Written by Cyril Hume; story by Irving Block & Allen Adler. Starring Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis & Leslie Nielsen.

Concept: 4/4 (Great)
Story: 3/4 (Good)
Characters: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Dialog: 3/4 (Good)
Pacing: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Cinematography: 3/4 (Good)
Special effects/design: 4/4 (Great)
Acting: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Music: 3/4 (Good)
Subjective Rating: 9/10 (One of my favorites, 4/4 5/4). Star Trek wishes it could be Forbidden Planet. (At least, that's the case when Star Trek is at its best. Somebody should force J.J. Abrams and his writers to watch this movie a few hundred times.)
Objective Rating (Average): 3.0/4 (Good) 3.1/4 (Very good)

[Update of a previous post - original is here. I really don't know what I was thinking back then. Has my taste really changed that much in less than three years?]

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

From my 1950s Science Fiction Marathon, part 7 of 12.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956. Plants from space are replacing people.

Directed by Don Siegel. Written by Daniel Mainwaring, based on a book by Jack Finney. Starring Kevin McCarthy & Dana Wynter.

Concept: 3/4 (Good)
Story: 2/4 (Indifferent). The best thing about the book is the ending, and yet they felt the need to mess it up in both movie versions.  In the 70s, they gave it a mindless zombie movie ending.  But in this version, they don't even bother to replace it with anything. There's just... no ending. The last 20 minutes of the movie is nothing but flailing gibberish.
Characters: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Dialog: 1/4 (Bad)
Pacing: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Cinematography: 3/4 (Good)
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good)
Acting: 3/4 (Good)
Music: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Subjective Rating: 6/10 (Okay, 2/4). Maybe I would have liked it if I hadn't read the book. I can't tell. During the time when suspense might (or might not) have been building, the adaptation is so close to the book that I couldn't really separate the two.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.3/4 (Okay)

Godzilla

From my 1950s Science Fiction Marathon, part 6 of 12.

Gojira, 1954. Giant dinosaur monster smash.

Directed by Ishirô Honda. Written by Honda & Takeo Murata; story by Shigeru Kayama. Starring Akira Takarada, Momoko Kôchi, Akihiko Hirata & Takashi Shimura.

Concept: 4/4 (Great)
Story: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Characters: 1/4 (Bad)
Dialog: 1/4 (Bad)
Pacing: 0/4 (Terrible)
Cinematography: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Special effects/design: 2/4 (Indifferent). Exceptionally terrible visual effects. Nice design. Great sound effects.
Acting: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Music: 3/4 (Good)
Subjective Rating: 5/10 (Indifferent, 2/4). I never would have thought that a 90-minute movie about a giant monster could possibly be this boring.
Objective Rating (Average): 1.9/4 (Eh)

Them!

From my 1950s Science Fiction Marathon, part 5 of 12.

Them!, 1954. A colony of giant ants emerges from the New Mexico desert.

Directed by Gordon Douglas. Written by Ted Sherdeman; adapted by Russell S. Hughes; story by George Worthing Yates. Starring James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon & James Arness.

Concept: 4/4 (Great)
Story: 3/4 (Good). It's based in bad science (clearly the writers have no concept of what a genetic mutation is, or how evolution works), but if you ignore that and just take the Giant Ants as a given, everything else follows with remarkable logic. Much more clever than the corny monster movie I was expecting.
Characters: 1/4 (Bad)
Dialog: 1/4 (Bad). Very uneven.
Pacing: 3/4 (Good)
Cinematography: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Special effects/design: 2/4 (Indifferent). The ants themselves are just silly, but everything else is mostly good.
Acting: 1/4 (Bad). Okay, but with moments of awful due to stumbling over horribly-written dialog.
Music: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good, 3/4).  The Thing from Another World is the 1950s' Alien, and this is the 1950s' Aliens. It's nowhere near as scary or exciting as Aliens, but the parallels are strong enough that you could almost call it a remake. They really seem to have put some thought into the question, "Well, what would happen if there were giant, man-eating insect monsters?"  Not that anyone was dying to know the answer, but it turns out to make a pretty cool movie.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.2/4 (Okay)

The War of the Worlds

From my 1950s Science Fiction Marathon, part 4 of 12.

The War of the Worlds, 1953. Martians invade Earth. Directed by Byron Haskin. Written by Barré Lyndon, based on a book by H.G. Wells. Starring Gene Barry & Ann Robinson.

Concept: 4/4 (Great)
Story: 1/4 (Bad)
Characters: 0/4 (Terrible)
Dialog: 0/4 (Terrible)
Pacing: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Cinematography: 1/4 (Bad)
Special effects/design: 2/4 (Indifferent). I like the alien, but he's only on screen for a few seconds. Mostly it's ships on strings. Oh, and the sound effects are good - probably the only good thing about the movie.
Acting: 1/4 (Bad)
Music: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Subjective Rating: 3/10 (Bad, 1/4). Sadly, this is probably the most influential science fiction film ever, even more so than Star Wars. And that made me angry with it. Otherwise, I probably would have liked it. Sure, it's an awful movie, but it's the kind of awful that's good for a laugh - and sometimes it's really very funny. But its not just a harmless B movie - it's a big, successful, influential movie that happens to be B movie quality. And all of its awfulness persists in big budget Hollywood "science fiction" movies to this day. The writers would seem to hate science, and the source material, and especially women. Everyone involved in the production must either be incompetent, or think so little of the audience that they don't care. The potential for the movie to be great is so high that its hard to imagine them making a movie this bad without trying. In short, it's Michael Bay with strings instead of CGI.
Objective Rating (Average): 1.3/4 (Bad)

The Day the Earth Stood Still

From my 1950s Science Fiction Marathon, part 3 of 12.

The Day the Earth Stood Still, 1951. An alien visitor wants humans to live in peace. Directed by Robert Wise. Written by Edmund H. North, based on a story by Harry Bates. Starring Michael Rennie.

Concept: 3/4 (Good)
Story: 3/4 (Good)
Characters: 3/4 (Good)
Dialog: 3/4 (Good)
Pacing: 3/4 (Good)
Cinematography: 3/4 (Good)
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good)
Acting: 3/4 (Good). Rennie is excellent.
Music: 4/4 (Great)
Subjective Rating: 8/10 (Great, 4/4). One of the only movies that's faithful to the spirit of the science fiction literature of its day. Also, Bernard Herrmann.
Objective Rating (Average): 3.2/4 (Very good)

(updated from a previous post - original is here)

The Thing from Another World

From my 1950s Science Fiction Marathon, part 2 of 12.

The Thing from Another World, 1951. An alien spaceship crashes in the arctic. Directed by Christian Nyby. Written by Charles Lederer, based on a story by John W. Campbell Jr.. Starring Kenneth Tobey, Robert Cornthwaite & Margaret Sheridan.

Concept: 4/4 (Great)
Story: 3/4 (Good)
Characters: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Dialog: 3/4 (Good)
Pacing: 3/4 (Good)
Cinematography: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good)
Acting: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Music: 3/4 (Good)
Subjective Rating: 8/10 (Great, 4/4). Very cool. It's more like Alien than Carpenter's Thing - if Alien had been a Howard Hawks movie. There's a level of intelligence and detail to the dialog that does a lot for the suspense - the scenario has some weight to it, rather than just being an excuse for a monster.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.9/4 (Good)

Destination Moon

From my 1950s Science Fiction Marathon, part 1 of 12.

Destination Moon, 1950. American industry joins forces to win the space race. Directed by Irving Pichel. Written by Alford Van Ronkel, Robert A. Heinlein & James O'Hanlon, based on Heinlein's novel. Starring John Archer, Warner Anderson, Tom Powers & Dick Wesson.

Concept: 3/4 (Good)
Story: 3/4 (Good). Bonus points for not having a villain.
Characters: 0/4 (Terrible)
Dialog: 1/4 (Bad)
Pacing: 3/4 (Good)
Cinematography: 1/4 (Bad)
Special effects/design: 4/4 (Great)
Acting: 1/4 (Bad)
Music: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Subjective Rating: 6/10 (Okay, 2/4). Classic pulp-inspired art direction, and near-perfect scientific accuracy (I mean, seriously - you don't get this level of good science on film outside of a documentary). Who'd have thought you could have both in one movie?
Objective Rating (Average): 2.0/4 (Indifferent)

VSM: 1950s Science Fiction

Okay, enough with the foreign art films. Time for some fun.

Very Slow Marathon #9 – 1950s Science Fiction
[note: You can find this list from the sidebar, under "Very Slow Marathons."]

1. Destination Moon, 1950
2. The Thing from Another World, 1951
3. The Day the Earth Stood Still, 1951
4. The War of the Worlds, 1953
5. Them!, 1954
6. Godzilla, 1954
7. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956
8. Forbidden Planet, 1956
9. The Incredible Shrinking Man, 1957
10. The Fly, 1958
11. The Blob, 1958
12. On the Beach, 1959