SCI-FI SET #1

Eight "classic" sci-fi movies from days of yesteryear!!

ROCKET SHIP(1936)

This is the movie version of the serial "Flash
Gordon Conquers The Universe"! Not a bad
edit, but it really does jump right through the
whole serial quickly! As with the original
serial, this is a great story, great acting,
great actors and an all-around great movie! A-

From Amazon.com:

They took the FLASH GORDON serial, 13
chapters of non-stop laughs, thrills, sexy
drama, and excitement, carved it down
to featurette length, slashed the tops and
bottom of the screen off to make it
"widescreen", and then colorized it.
And they're charging MONEY for it. Yes,
they're asking you to PAY them to sit
and look at garbage. Come to my house.
I will let you look at my garbage for
nothing. Well, okay, not the wastebasket
in my bedroom. That's where I throw my
torn underwear. Weirdo. - Laughing Gravy

The problem with this one isn't the acting, nor
the story line, nor the actors themselves! The
problem here is the editing, and the fact that
this is a terrible transfer!!! This was edited
from the serial of the same name from 1939! Hard
to follow, and harder to hear! This was probably
a great serial, unfortunate that it suffered so
from bad editing! C+

A review from IMDb.com:

Edited-down serial which, science fiction disbelief
aside, remains pretty lame by any reasonable
standard, another in a long line of inept vehicles
wasting the great Bela Lugosi's acting talent.
Here he plays a demented scientist who, after
inhaling a rare meteor gas, develops (among other
things) a power source which can cure the world
of its ills, or, destroy it depending on his mood.
When his wife is killed in a plane crash, he elects
to use his prowess to destroy those who sought
to contain him, but is seemingly cornered at
every turn by relentless G-men (Kent and Toomey).

Lugosi isn't as hammy as he's been known to get,
more-so his endless array of inventions (giant
headed robot, invisibility, magic potions, ray
guns etc etc) becomes tired and clichéd very
quickly. The cast has depth with Toomey and
Van Sloan in particular, while vivacious blonde
Dorothy Arnold has some sizable screen-time
as a tenacious reporter.

The picture is frenetic, racing from one catastrophe
to the next with much repetition and little in
the way of sophistication. The climax seems
hackneyed and unimaginative, with spy rings
and stock footage of burning blimps and battleships
apparently substituting for any coherent or realistic
attempt at a conclusion. Even at eighty minutes
(the original serial is listed as more than
four hours), it's overlong and underwhelming.

A very intriguing movie, with better than
average special effects! The picture quality
is pretty good, and the acting is fine. The story
is about a being from space that is invisible.
Pretty good movie! B-

A review from Amazon.com:

This film stats out with the standard and fun
50's sci-fi formula. We are treated to a thesis
on the use of radar. Something foreign approaches
Santa Monica (a beautiful beach community
off the cost of southern California.) Then we
are confronted by a stranger in a diving suite with
pipes coming out of his helmet. It is only human
nature that we should beat the snot out of him.
But wait he defends himself. Could this deadly
stranger have anything to do with the UFO? As
he is tracked down and cornered by the authorities,
he ditches his fancy suite and we are in for a
surprise.

Not as much of a shootemup as it is a study
of physiology. - bernie "xyzzy"

A very typical movie from Japan! Planet's
in peril, and some aliens from another
planet come to try to save us, cause if we
are destroyed, so will their planet be!
Not terrible, but not the best! C+

A review from Amazon.com:

This is the kind of thing I would watch when
I had time to waste as a kid: it has monsters
(kind of waddling stars with an eye in the
middle), quirky details (they choose Japan
to communicate with earthlings), and a bigger
theme (don't want to play the spoiler, but
it isn't what you're led to think).

The execution is laughably clunky - campy
and yet not so bad that it spoils the concept.
The acting is also mediocre, but passable.
Recommended, even if it is not classic, for
afficianados of good bad scifi. - Robert J. Crawford

I'm not sure where they got the idea for the name,
as there is no mention of the "Petrified World" in
this anywhere!! John Carradine(The Mummy's Ghost,
House Of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man's Revenge,
ect) creates a diving bell and a team of divers, ect,
heads down to try to set a record for depth!
Unfortunately the line breaks holding the bell
and it plummets down to the sea floor! This
leads our team to abandon the bell and they
find a catacomb of tunnels leading who knows
where! The acting is pretty good, especially John,
but Phyliis Coates'(from the Superman series and
1rst movie!) character is really, REALLY obnoxious!!!
The story is interesting enough but the picture
quality is not the best! B-

A review from Amazon.com:

Not enough action or monsters in the movie.

It could run on a TV show on weekends.

John Caradine, Good - Ricardo

This is not, repeat not, The Day The Earth Stood
Still! However this is rather entertaining! The age
of this is very obvious, and there is no real restoration
here. But the story is enjoyable, the acting wasn't
bad, there weren't a lot of special effects, but
those that there was were pretty well done! No
real music and the setting was 90% in the control
center, which was pretty realistic for the time.
All-in-all, not a bad movie! B-

A review from Amazon.com:

i had never seen his movie before and was surprised
at how much i enjoyed it. the picture quality was
good. the story line was good. i really enjoyed
it.. bonnie dean

While not really a sci-fi movie, it does deal with
UFOs, and in a very interesting way! From the point
of view of what happens to military personnel who
sight a UFO. And it's not a very pretty picture either!
With Glen Ford as one of the main characters, along
with Bradford Dillman(West Wing) and David Soul,
this is a very well done piece that all UFOlogists
should watch at least once! Very engaging! B+

A review from an Amazon.com customer:

This movie was made during the huge controversy
over UFO sightings and the lengths that the Air force
was willing to go to protect their official 'story'
about "swamp gases" and other such explanations.
I was not aware of the attempts to brainwash
pilots who had experienced sightings by keeping
them in forced seclusion as a unused airbase in
the desert. I DON'T know if this part was true or
not. The end where the Colonel, played by Glenn
Ford being passed over for promotion I could well
believe. - Glenn Davis

This is really a stretch for sci-fi, it's actually nothing
more than a horror movie in the vein of Alien! I don't
do horror!!!!! D

A review from Amazon.com:

I'm giving this movie 5 stars to counter the 1 and 2
star reviews because this isn't that bad of a movie.
I was happy to add it to my collection because
it has an element to it that separated it from others,
in that not only is there a alien with a nasty attitude
but it can reanimate the people it kills and make
them just as nasty. Even though the acting here is
admittedly not the greatest in the world, it's still
a good creepy scifi/horror movie and I recommend
it just for the creep effect. Side note: They redesigned
the artwork for this DVD, I wish they would've left
it alone, it looked good enough as it was. -kd5-

COMPLETE LIST OF DVDs
LIST OF MOVIE DVDs
LIST OF ANIME/ANIMATION DVDs
LIST OF BOND DVDs
LIST OF DISNEY DVDs
LIST OF ELVIS DVDs
LIST OF MUSIC DVDs
LIST OF STAR TREK/STAR WARS DVDs
LIST OF SUPERHERO DVDs
LIST OF TELEVISION DVDs

TO PHOTO PAGES OF MOVIES:

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J-K
L
M
N
O
P-Q
R
S
T
U-V
W
X-Z

ANIME/ANIMATION
ANIME SUPERHERO
BOND
DISNEY
ELVIS
HOLIDAY
MUSIC
MUSICALS
OTHER
SERIALS
SETS #-M
SETS N-Z
STAR TREK/STAR WARS
SUPERHERO
TELEVISION A-B
TELEVISION C-D
TELEVISION E-F
TELEVISION G-H
TELEVISION I-K
TELEVISION L
TELEVISION M
TELEVISION N-O
TELEVISION P-Q
TELEVISION R
TELEVISION Gene Roddenberry
TELEVISION S
TELEVISION T
TELEVISION U-W
TELEVISION X-Z
TELEVISION STAR TREK/STAR WARS
TELEVISION SUPERHERO