During that time, special effects have undergone quantum changes. In 1968, 2001: A Space Odyssey set a standard that held until 1977 and the first Star Wars installment. As computer-generated imagery (CGI) grew exponentially in the 1980s with the concurrent advancements in computer hardware and software, effects became more elaborate—and more convincing. True, what had been considered state-of-the-art at any given time (think: 1982's Tron) could look stale or dated only a few years later—but hasn't that always been the case with films?—although by the time of The Matrix in 1999 spectacular special effects were simply a given.
All of which renders science-fiction films of yesteryear, in our case the 1950s, looking very . . . quaint. And, often enough, cheesy. Which for me is all part of their charm. But for me also, what makes any movie, in any genre, made at any time, compelling enough to follow is its story and characters. Those two elements will make any movie timeless, including our subjects here. That goes for movies of any genre, of course, and that is the challenge that any movie faces. But because science fiction relies so heavily on effects of some sort, any narrative deficiencies, whether with the story or the characters, can seem magnified. If the effects are cheesy, they will make a shaky story or cardboard characters even more so while, conversely, bad special effects can overshadow otherwise sturdy plotting and characters.
Make no mistake: None of the movies here are great, and to be frank, a couple of the movies from our first list were a little sketchy: Both Forbidden Planet and The Fly, from that first list, contained ideas that were stronger in concept than in execution, but those ideas were innovative enough to transcend their narrative deficiencies.
No, the ten movies below are as the title of this article puts it—pretty good. Some might seem derivative, while others might have special effects that do not match the story or performances, but all ten are, I believe, worthy science-fiction films of above-average value that will satisfy fans and won't disappoint the merely curious. Presented in chronological order—and with no spoilers!
Destination Moon (1950)
"Two years in the making!" trumpets the posters, and this George Pal extravaganza is filmed in glorious Technicolor. Recall how we saw 1950s sci-fi as a reflection of Cold War fears and tensions? A decade before President John Kennedy spurred American efforts to reach the moon, Destination Moon had already urged this endeavor as a necessary expedient of the Cold War. Robert Heinlein, who co-wrote the screenplay with James O'Hanlon and Rip Van Ronkel, based partly on Heinlein's novel Rocket Ship Galileo, salts the story with paeans to American industry, brickbats for government officiousness, and mild alarmism about ceding the high ground of space before Destination Moon settles into a fairly engrossing examination of the nuts-and-bolts issues involved in sending astronauts to the moon.
After watching their conventional rocket fail, scientist Charles Cargraves (Warner Anderson) and space crusader General Thayer (Tom Powers) enlist aviation entrepreneur Jim Barnes (John Archer) to help build an atomic-powered rocket that can reach the moon, convincing other industrialists to contribute using—get this—a Woody Woodpecker cartoon to explain the concept. No joke: Woody Woodpecker illustrator Walter Lantz was a pal of producer George Pal. Spurred by patriotism, they agree, but when bureaucrats try to prohibit the project, Barnes, Cargraves, and Thayer decide to elope with the ship, bringing technician Joe Sweeney (Dick Wesson) with them.
Lee Zavitz's Oscar-winning special effects enhance the hammer-and-tongs efforts of the astronauts to reach the moon—and, having used up too much fuel landing, their desperate attempts to return to Earth, underscored by Leith Stevens's subtly urgent score. Despite its impressive technical aspects, Destination Moon fails to convey the wonder and grandeur of space exploration. That is partly due to the telegrammatic script and to the equally taciturn performances—only Wesson, as the skeptical, wisecracking Everyman, stands out—although the assured direction by veteran Irving Pichel makes full use of the film's efficient running time. (Ironically, Pichel had been among the first Hollywood figures to be blacklisted as a suspected communist, or at least fellow traveler—hardly to be expected in a film that emphasizes the space race to the Moon with the Soviet Union.) Destination Moon salutes the engineer, not the poet, in this not-so-giant leap for mankind.
The Man from Planet X (1951)
Just how celebrated would director Edgar G. Ulmer have been had he actually had a budget to work with on his films? Instead, Ulmer's legacy is as a wizard of "Poverty Row" who managed to work minor miracles—check out his terrific 1945 film noir Detour, which made near-greatness out of nothing. In The Man from Planet X, filmed in black and white, Ulmer came pretty close again—no small feat as he had to accomplish it in a science-fiction thriller about an impending invasion of Earth.
Ulmer did have some help from his actors, who included Robert Clarke, Margaret Field (Sally Field's mother), and William Schallert, and while the story by co-writers and -producers Jack Pollexfen and Aubrey Wisberg became shopworn through repetition, Planet X was among the first to dramatize this familiar story.
Tipped to the mysterious appearance of a planet soon to pass close to the Earth, California reporter John Lawrence (Clarke) travels to remote Scotland and the observatory of Professor Elliot (Raymond Bond), his daughter Enid (Field), and Elliot's assistant Dr. Mears (Schallert). On the moors, Enid discovers a spaceship and comes face to face with its diminutive occupant (Pat Goldin), and when she brings Lawrence to see it, Mears secretly trails them in shots nicely framed by Ulmer. The alien experiences some distress, which the Earthlings try to help him with, although Mears clearly has a malicious intent, and when the alien disappears, so does Enid—and Lawrence soon learns of greater peril.
Seldom have fog machines, stock footage, scale models, and recycled sets been blended so effectively, with Goldin's mask and costume giving him a creepy otherworldly appearance, while Charles Koff's score carries substantial dramatic weight. Clarke is sufficiently lantern-jawed as the hero, with Schallert a credible villain. Edgar Ulmer gets The Man from Planet X close to being out of this world.
Red Planet Mars (1952)
In our first installment we saw how science-fiction films of the 1950s explored a variety of fears such as the fear of communism—godless communism to be exact. Well, the hand of this Cold War propaganda tract could not be heavier as Red Planet Mars uses science fiction as a cudgel to bludgeon viewers with Western superiority over the godless communism behind the Iron Curtain.
In fact, this political screed was written by John Balderston and co-producer Anthony Veiller, and it was based on the play Red Planet Balderston had co-written with John Hoare. Balderston had been a member of the Committee on Public Information (also known as the Creel Committee), the propaganda body formed by President Woodrow Wilson in 1917 to muster enthusiasm for America's entry into the First World War.
Despite the polemics pounded home throughout and the ginned-up ending, Red Planet Mars is smartly acted and executed by director Harry Horner, enough to sustain interest as a historical curio. Two attempts to contact Mars establish right away the dichotomy: Suburban couple Chris (Peter Graves) and Linda Cronyn (Andrea King) run a cozy mom-and-pop transmitting station near San Diego while former Nazi scientist Franz Calder (Herbert Berghof), now working for the Soviet Union, huddles in a transmitting hovel high in the icy Andes; the Cronyns enjoy middle-class affluence with their two boys while Calder is threatened by his communist handlers. This is in case you have any doubts about the generous superiority of the beneficent West or the bankrupt wickedness of the repressive East.
The science fiction pretense arises when the Cronyns begin to receive messages from Mars that astonish the world before causing global sociological and economic panics—the messages from the Red Planet are apparently so compelling that the Earth's population is helpless to resist acting on them. Furthermore, the increasingly Biblical nature of the short but pointed Martian messages also sparks a religious war behind the Iron Curtain.
Plausibility is highly suspect at this point, but Red Planet Mars proceeds with self-righteous confidence as Calder delivers a startling revelation in a finale that tries to paint a more credible—and terrestrial—explanation before going blooey. Graves and King sell the domestic angle while Berghof and Marvin Miller, as Calder's handler Arjenian, play to stereotype. Nominally sci-fi, Red Planet Mars boldly oversells its message, which is as black and white as its photography. However, this isn't only a must for science-fiction fans—it's de rigueur for Cold War historians as well.
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)
A groundbreaking film in two respects, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was the first science-fiction movie to feature a creature awoken by a nuclear test—predating Gojira (Godzilla)—and the first to showcase Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion animation and filming techniques. Those two qualities remain the highlights of a tale, based on a Ray Bradbury short story, that sports a sturdy schematic, courtesy of credited screenwriters Lou Morheim and Fred Freiburger, with little filigree or flair.
An atomic test in the Arctic stirs a prehistoric (fictional) Rhedosaurus from its million-year slumber, but only scientist Tom Nesbitt (Paul Christian) witnessed it. He is dismissed as a kook, particularly by eminent paleontologist Thurgood Elson (Cecil Kellaway), until reports surface of fishing boats off the Grand Banks being attacked by a "sea monster." Elson's assistant, Lee Hunter (Paula Raymond), begins to believe Nesbitt as she begins to fall for him, and when one of the fishing-boat survivors corroborates Nesbitt's account, Elson signs aboard too, convincing skeptical military man Jack Evans (Kenneth Tobey) along the way. However, by then the Beast has landed in New York City and prepares to destroy Gotham unless the humans can find a way to arrest its carnage.
Harryhausen's animation techniques might look quaint in the CGI era but for their time they managed to blend plausible models into the live-action shot while establishing a distinctive appearance. Director Eugène Lourié keeps the story moving with a minimum of flab. As the lead, Christian is workmanlike even if his Swiss accent (his real surname was Hubschmid) distracts from his ostensible all-American-ness, while he and Raymond try to strike sparks. Kellaway lends delightful character as Tobey recalls his role in The Thing from Another World; the opening Arctic shots suggest that as well. The concept and techniques trump the standard narrative here. Filmed in black and white, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is an essential sci-fi film from the nuclear-mutations wing of the genre.
Spaceways (1953)
Like Red Planet Mars, Spaceways uses science fiction as a device to introduce other genres. In this case, espionage, police procedural, and a love quadrangle get blended into this efficient rocket-into-space story.
Michael Carreras, Jimmy Sangster, and especially Terence Fisher are the Hammer Film Studios' stalwarts who contribute to this early, black and white science-fiction effort by the studio better known for its horror films. Director Fisher keeps the story moving briskly—a Hammer trademark—while eliciting dimension from his actors, enough to unify the seemingly disparate strands drawn by writers Richard Landau and Paul Tabori, adapting Charles Eric Maine's radio play.
Stephen Mitchell (Howard Duff) and Lisa Frank (Eva Bartok) are part of the team developing manned rocket flight at a high-security base in England amidst interpersonal strife: Mitchell's marriage to Vanessa (Cecile Chevreau) is failing as Vanessa dallies with another team member, Philip Crenshaw (Andrew Osborn), whose suspicious behavior suggests that he might have a more sinister agenda. When Vanessa and Crenshaw disappear, suspicion falls on Mitchell, and when intelligence investigator Smith (Alan Wheatley) arrives, he speculates that Mitchell killed the couple, stashed the bodies in the rocket's fuel tanks, and when the unmanned rocket is launched into orbit—there's your perfect crime, right? Chagrined, Mitchell decides to disprove Smith's hypothesis by flying into orbit in another rocket to retrieve the first rocket while Frank, revealing her feelings to Mitchell, plots to accompany him.
Credible performances, particularly by seriocomic Wheatley, keep the quietly far-fetched ideas in check as Fisher paces their interactions, the better to minimize scrutiny of the unlikely melodrama and the budgetary limitations that mismatch stock footage with the model work. As the central focus, Duff and Bartok try to strike sparks with intermittent effectiveness. With its noirish approach, Spaceways is more space opera than it is sci-fi, a recipe that could fall very flat were it not for Hammer's earnest determination to succeed.
Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956)
Yes, you saw the influence of this sci-fi stalwart in Tim Burton's wonderful send-up of 1950s science-fiction (among other things), Mars Attacks! The straightforward, prosaic description delivered by the title Earth vs. the Flying Saucers sums up in a nutshell all you need to know about this standard science-fiction yarn: We are being invaded by alien spacecraft—so how do we stop them?
That is the problem faced by Russell Marvin (Hugh Marlowe), head of Project Skyhook, a satellite program discovered by General Hanley (Morris Ankrum) to have been losing those satellites. On their way to the launching site, Russell and his new bride Carol (Joan Taylor) are buzzed by a flying saucer. At the base, a saucer disrupts the latest launch; it lands, is attacked, then destroys the base and abducts Hanley while Russell and Carol are trapped in a basement. As their tape recorder loses power, the recording of the saucer that buzzed them slows down, revealing that it was actually a message from the occupants requesting a meeting at the base, which is why they landed there. Oops—missed communication, and guess who's responsible for the missing satellites?
Inspired by pioneering ufologist Donald Keyhoe, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers features the iconic flying-saucer design described by Keyhoe and realized by celebrated stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen, becoming the most distinctive aspect to the film as the narrative trundles down a pedestrian path: After reinitiating contact with the aliens, Russell and Carol find themselves aboard a saucer for the requisite why-are-you-here exposition: Their civilization is dying and they want to negotiate a joint occupation of Earth in eight weeks' time—just long enough to develop a weapon to help neutralize the threat, right?
B-movie stalwart Marlowe carries the story, filmed in black and white, on squared shoulders to its conclusion, with Taylor dutifully filling the female-appendage role. Workmanlike director Fred Sears paces efficiently but without finesse, rendering Earth vs. the Flying Saucers a smartly-packaged if derivative sci-fi distraction. Still, with Harryhausen's animation becoming influential—check the Washington Monument footage against what Burton did with it in Mars Attacks!—if you haven't seen Earth vs. the Flying Saucers yet, you just ain't with it.
The Gamma People (1956)
How do you classify this one? Genre blending gets a sly reading in The Gamma People, part spoof, part political thriller, part science fiction, but making full use of its limited budget (no surprise—it's filmed in black and white). With a potential to do too much with its broad palette, the lively script by director John Gilling and producer John Gossage, based on a story by Robert Aldrich and Louis Pollock, keeps the narrative and the action focused on the pair of intrepids who find themselves suddenly plunged into a bizarre, ominous environment.
En route by train to Austria, reporter Mike Wilson (Paul Douglas) and photographer Howard Meade (Leslie Phillips) find the carriage they are traveling in becomes uncoupled, and they are literally sidetracked into Gudavia, a tiny, mountainous regime tucked behind the Iron Curtain. As if the Marx Brothers had stumbled into The Prisoner of Zenda, Meade and Wilson suffer the comic indignities of obsequious if officious bureaucracy—a telegraph office with no telegraph, and promise by solicitous Kommandant Koerner (Philip Leaver) of a car that might not exist.
Stuck in Gudavia, the pair witnesses the brusque treatment of youthful piano prodigy Hedda (Pauline Drewett) while hotel maid Anna (Jocelyn Lane) slips them a note begging for help against the regime. All is not good in Gudavia, and driven scientist Boronski (Walter Rilla) is the culprit: His gamma-ray experiments can alter humans into geniuses, such as uber-brat Hugo (Michael Caridia), or zombielike drones—and opposition from those such as teacher Paula Wendt (Eva Bartok) is mounting.
Director Gilling marks the transition from subtle farce to quiet thriller with unobtrusive strokes—although George Melachrino's score tends to overemphasize in the second half—while Douglas and Phillips strike an effective balance between jaded observers and engaged participants. Despite some missing pieces—how exactly did they get sidetracked, and by whom?—The Gamma People radiates witty intrigue. And some of its imagery surely found itself woven into the 1960s television cult classic The Prisoner.
X the Unknown (1956)
Atomic anxieties surface as X the Unknown in this black and white science-fiction/horror blend produced with typically quiet efficiency by Hammer Film Productions. Hammer ace Jimmy Sangster penned the able script with suggestions of the studio's previously successful The Quatermass Xperiment in mind, notably the resourceful scientist, Adam Royston (Dean Jagger), who spearheads the effort to repel the spreading menace. Sangster's story emphasizes the sincere, competent efforts of the characters to stave off disaster rather than the melodramatic outbursts typical of the genre, rendering X the Unknown a more thoughtful rather than exciting thriller.
British soldiers in Scotland practicing radiation-detection exercises encounter an unexpected radiation source that kills a soldier before it moves through the countryside, claiming a young boy and a doctor at the hospital. Atomic energy inspector McGill (Leo McKern) begins investigating and soon joins forces with Royston at the local nuclear research facility. Royston speculates that the entity was trapped beneath the Earth's crust eons ago and periodically it tries to surface, seeking radiation sources—and killing living creatures in its path.
Director Leslie Norman (replacing original choice Joseph Losey, a blacklisted American and fired at Jagger's demand—more Cold War maneuvering) uses point-of-view shots to capture the victims' terror, a wise approach given the modest special effects that portray the unknown threat as an angry, glowing lava flow, although it's difficult to tell whether the entity projects deliberate malevolence or is simply a force of nature. American Jagger is clearly the star, and the veteran character actor commands the center with unassuming confidence while McKern and Edward Chapman, as the research facility's head, flank him competently. Filling background roles are Kenneth Cope, Anthony Newley, and Michael Ripper along with wee Frazer Hines (later a Doctor Who companion). Tense and earnest, X the Unknown doesn't embarrass itself—but it doesn't distinguish itself, either. A solid if unspectacular sci-fi thriller.
I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)
Ignore the lurid title—I Married a Monster from Outer Space is really a bargain-basement Invasion of the Body Snatchers (itself hardly an "A" picture), albeit one that isn't as fully realized as that science-fiction classic. Still, this unassuming black and white flick is much better than you might think.
Louis Vittes's orderly script keeps the focus on the tension between Marge Farrell (Gloria Talbott) and her husband Bill (Tom Tryon), whose body becomes absorbed by an alien the night before his wedding. Talk about cold feet. That and the running cracks about marriage provide an intriguing sexual and psychological subtext to this monster story, particularly when Marge goes to her doctor complaining about "trying to have children for a year," followed by Bill's obvious reluctance to go for tests once Marge has been pronounced in fine form.
Director Gene Fowler, Jr., doesn't dwell on that too much, though, as he does have a monster story to tell. Secretly following Bill on a late-night walk into the woods, Marge discovers his spaceship and his terrifying secret. However, her attempts to warn others prove fruitless as other men have also become absorbed before their purpose is revealed: The aliens, all male, fled their planet when their sun's physical changes killed off their women; meanwhile, their scientists are developing methods to enable them to impregnate Earth women.
The missing alternative in Marge's options underscore the era's sexist presumptions—as always, it's only men to the rescue—but Talbott becomes a credible B-movie heroine while Tryon meets the challenge of his cold, unemotional character. Additionally, Fowler and Vittes manage some sly wit: a neighborhood bar is located next to a church-supplies store, and in a nod to The Day the Earth Stood Still, Marge's woman friend (Jean Carson) becomes, through marriage, Helen Benson—the name of Patricia Neal's character in that classic film. This modest but effective effort is a sci-fi match made in low-budget heaven.
The Giant Behemoth (1959)
Just how many times can you make The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms? And are there any behemoths other than giant ones?
The budget size is obvious from the black and white photography and the dodgy special effects—although the crew included Willis O'Brien, famous for his stop-motion work on 1933's King Kong—but despite some dubious sequences during the climax, The Giant Behemoth actually hangs together quite effectively.
This is thanks partly to the co-director (with Douglas Hickox) being Eugène Lourié, who had already directed Beast, and partly to a tight script by Daniel James and Lourié, from a story by Robert Abel and Alan Adler, that emphasizes the detective aspect of two scientific investigators, James Bickford (André Morell) and Steve Karnes (Gene Evans), pursuing reports of radiation and carnage. Other favorable factors are a largely British cast, which includes Jack McGowran, Leonard Sachs, and John Turner, that is used to working with little resources, and a sprightly Edwin Astley score that only occasionally approaches cliché. (Astley had done the hip scoring for the Patrick McGoohan spy series Danger Man, which in its one-hour format was known as Secret Agent in the United States.)
After warnings about atomic testing, dead fish wash up on Cornwall shores and a fisherman dies from radiation poisoning while muttering "behemoth!" Bickford and Karnes eventually uncover the existence of a plesiosaurus with electrical properties, as explained by paleontologist Sampson (McGowran), and the big beast soon advances on London.
The Giant Behemoth shows its shaky legs during the dinosaur's attack on London as crowd scenes, stock footage, and model work stumble into glaring contrasts and continuity lapses. (One type of helicopter takes off—but a helicopter of a different model blows up!) Only slightly more plausible is Karnes's plan to destroy the beast using a mini-submarine, but again the cast seems to believe in it, so why not? Evans and Morell are invested in their characters, which lends the story more credibility than the special effects and gives The Giant Behemoth a more procedural feel atypical of monster movies of the time—even recycled ones.
Epilogue
All right, no one is going to mistake The Giant Behemoth for a classic sci-fi film—it's a remake, not one superior to its source, and on technical grounds it does look suspect. Quite honestly, I had been prepared to file it in the not-so-good pile until I watched it again, and I was impressed with how well the story and performances came off—overshadowing the technical deficiencies.Furthermore, Red Planet Mars, Spaceways, and The Gamma People fold various other genres into their science fiction, while X the Unknown splits the difference between sci-fi and monster movies. But once you get past the classics The Day the Earth Stood Still, War of the Worlds, and Forbidden Planet, there are still a passel of second-division sci-fi flicks left to entertain and even stimulate you: Destination Moon, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, and even I Married a Monster from Outer Space are solid sci-fi fare from the 1950s. Meanwhile, The Man from Planet X remains a prime example of how to make the most of limited resources.
Again, though, we are on the downward slide, and it only gets worse—or, depending on your point of view, better—from here on in. Next up in our particular Twilight Zone of 1950s science-fiction films: Ten not-so-good ones. You've been warned.
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