A nifty 1950's sci-fi film that is chock full
of ideas for its time and almost certainly influenced The Planet of the Apes.
This was produced by Allied Artists formerly Monogram before they upgraded
their image. And though the sets and special effects look very low budget,
the film was shot in Technicolor and CinemaScope. The Technicolor helps in
particular with the females in the cast. I have had a mini-crush on Lisa
Montell since I saw this on my VCR years ago. The ideas are interesting as
they pit a humanitarian but static vision vs our urge to explore, conquer
and settle. I actually found myself siding with the former because we know
through history that eventually the latter will lead to war. It always does.
Four astronauts (Hugh Marlowe, Rod Taylor,
Nelson Leigh and Christopher Dark) are on a routine exploratory trip around
Mars when their ship is suddenly propelled forward at incredible speed. Eventually,
they crash land in snow, having no idea where they are but it isn't Mars.
Oddly, there is oxygen to breathe and no issue with gravity. They set off
across mountainous country and upon entering a cave are set upon by two incredibly
fake looking giant spiders. Further on, they come across tombstones. In English.
With dates far into what was their future.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, they have landed
on Earth, 500 years in the future. It is an apocalyptic world. We finally
really did it. YOU MANIACS!!! YOU BLEW IT UP!' AH, DAMN YOU! GOD! DAMN YOU
ALL TO HELL. Ok, that was another 1,500 years later after this film. They
aren't apes, but mutated humans that roam the earth and attack them with
primitive hatchets. Fortunately, they brought guns on their mission to circle
Mars because you never know. When one of them says, look, this is Earth,
I fully expected it to be the Statue of Liberty, but it was the Rockies.
They come upon the remnants of men, in comfortable
modernish structures underground where they live in peace, have no weapons,
never go to the surface, grow all their food. And have beautiful women while
the men have lost all their masculinity. Naturally, the four of them are
babe magnets to Lisa Montell, Nancy Gates and Shawn Smith. Ooh, real men.
The four of them want to go to the surface, produce weapons to kill the Mutants
and have sex with the women. The Underground people say no. We have seen
what weapons have wrought on this planet. Never again. Oh don't worry say
the Astronauts, we would never let that happen again.
