I'll never do it again. I thought it was a swell idea at the time. It turned out to be eight hours I'd never get back.
There are so many old nobody-wants-them-anymore b-horror and sci-fi films on the internet, it makes me cry. Especially when I look at my DVD collection and realize that I paid actual money to own a number of them. If I had known that one day they'd all be free to watch online, I'd have made a down payment on that house in Malibu I'd always dreamt about.
On this poorly judged day, however, I decided not to leave my bed, and point my tablet at some of the once-upon-a-more-innocent-time futuristic cinematic gems I'd always meant to catch, but had continually been distracted from. I now know that perhaps a divine hand had guided the distraction.
In hope of gaining something positive from my wasted day at the mooveys, my fevered brain has decided that an exorcism is in order, in the form of the following soul-cleansing rant about what I have endured. Consider this the instruction of a legless soldier after stepping on a landmine, who points the way for those following, to advance further than he could. Watch your step, or you'll be the next sacrifice for the survival of the squad.
Space Probe Taurus (1965)
Ohgawd.
It almost sounds like the nickname of a sex toy. If only it were that exciting.
On Wikipedia, the description of this movie states only that it "is a 1965 film." Period. Done. Nobody was willing to touch it any further. It's hard to imagine how Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space is regarded as the "worst of all time" when this flying streamer of jet-trash exists.
Produced by Burt Topper and penned by none other than Samuel Katzman, Space Probe Taurus is quite a study in amazing contrasts. Beautifully photographed. Epically scored. A main plot that is perhaps 75 years ahead of its time: In the year 2000 (which was 35 years in the future when the film was made), an intrepid team of space travelers venture into the vast galactic unknown in search of an Earthlike planet upon which humanity can begin colonization, as our home planet comes near depletion of its natural resources. That, by the way, is also basically the plot of Interstellar (2014), but who's noticed?
Pretty high-minded for a low-budget 60s sci-fi yarn. Sounds great so far.
Then, unfortunately, the opening credits end, and the film commences. Your dog shits things more interesting than what follows.
Katzman revives every bad plot device he likely first explored in high school creative writing class, and tacks them onto the story at random – as if to show up all those teachers who suggested he become an aluminum siding salesman. The film seems written to be cut into half-hour segments, which makes sense when one learns that Katzman did that on purpose. This movie was originally envisioned as episodes of a series, for the burgeoning TV market. But the tropes used seem a little Flash Gordonish, just slightly updated to reflect the then-current state of (bad) scientific knowledge.
In real life, the first moon landing was still four years away, and such marvelous technological concepts as atomic power and computers were still mysterious enough to reference in vague terms and lend a crude credibility to films like this. Katzman drives them into the ground here, while short-order cooking up subplots that leave the audience wondering why, when he abruptly abandons each to advance the script to the next one.
In the first half-hour, they encounter an alien spaceship, and board it to learn its origins. They meet the alien pilot, who promptly attacks – being a classic bug-eyed creature from beyond – and is stopped by a bullet from a revolver. Yes, of course. All Earthmen who explore the cosmos carry standard b-movie private-eye type black metal pistols, that work no matter what the physics. They then plant a bomb (more standard issue space exploration equipment) aboard the alien craft and blow it to smithereens.
Well, that's only logical. Isn't it?
Afterward, the crew's elder science officer laments what a shame it is to discover a new life form in the galaxy, and have to kill it. Oh well… that's done, let's be on our way. Let us never speak of it again.
And... they don't. We still have an hour of movie to go. That Katzman sure can pack his scripts!
The bluntly episodic nature of the screenplay, with each plot-point taking a path of least resistance to an unsatisfying "resolution," is testimony enough to what a pathetic, short-lived TV series Space Probe Taurus might have been. Pieced together into a feature film, the "adventures" of our heroic crew make a baffling, disconnected and rather unscientific narrative, about a bunch of space-faring self-important pricks.
Still to come in the film's drab 60 minutes, the lone female onboard keeps the 50s-style pent-up testosterone hopping, as the crew encounters deadly flaming meteor storms, giant sea crabs, and a low-rent underwater creature-man. All of them are brushed off as incidental sidebar material – until it's time to say "mission accomplished, let's head for home." Cue dramatic outro music. We can't wait for the pulse-pounding thrills of the next incredible mission.
The shit you say.
Target Earth (1954)
This one actually starts out well.
Hopes rise in the opening credits, where it's revealed that the script was based on a classic pulp sci-fi story. One envisions a well-constructed – albeit low budget – take on something akin to Harry Bates's Farewell To The Master which was filmed as The Day The Earth Stood Still.
No such friggin' luck.
The first half-hour shows some promise… opening with (dare I say) an artistically staged tableau of a young woman's attempted suicide. She lays on her bed passed out amid spilled pill bottles, sprawled in her undies, posed with self-abandon, in a visual worthy of a lurid pulp-novel cover. The camera rears away to reveal it all still just a reflection in a dresser mirror. It pans further to take a close-up inventory of the sorrowful scene, coming to rest upon the closed eyes of the poor self-destructive lass, which suddenly pop open. Suicide: Fail.
That one-take moment of cinema-noir is nearly worthy of Orson Welles.
Or was it? As she rises and stirs about to survey the extent of her prolonged misery, she discovers the entire city's populace beyond her door has been evacuated. The film is still mildly flirting with epicness at this point – the desolate cityscape portrayed is definitely not a studio set, but an actual portion of… Chicago? San Diego? Duluth? – devoid of life. Just the rope required alone must've driven the production to near bankruptcy.
When she finally ventures outside, stricken with epic curiosity, the plot nosedives quickly into cliché and contrivance. It gets worse from there, only not without a last spit wad of near-quality – to remind us what nuance we're leaving behind, in order for Target Earth's paltry tale to unfold.
She encounters the body of a nearly identical woman, laying on the sidewalk, propped grotesquely, having befallen whatever horror has laid waste to the unfortunate rest of humanity. The corpse stares tensely out, at something. No mere "dead body pose," this. The actress portraying the deceased is apparently following astute direction, to make this shot a stunning visage worthy of a much better film.
It's when our heroine runs into the first living character, that things slow to a dead crawl.
Richard Denning has just awoken from either a hangover, or a missed lunchbreak on the set of a neighboring noir film, cigarette butt firmly in his lips, and coat heroically over his shoulder. He now casually strolls the apocalypse. He does what any red-blooded he-man would do, upon discovering the only buxom dame at the end of the world… he intentionally nudges right into her from behind, scaring the crap out of her. Then he chases her down for the wonderful opportunity to slap her back to rational behavior.
And when he does exactly that, it's apparently just what she'd hoped for. That's a 1950s screenplay at its best, folks!
Together, they haplessly run into another sexually oppressed yet blithely less-than-promiscuous couple enjoying the bohemian freedom of post-invasion America. Mad lovemaking among the statuary in the town square? No, of course not – rather, its playing dinner theater piano and chugging the house champagne at one of the front tables of an abandoned nightclub. That is living, my friend.
The couples join forces for an exploratory double-date to see how well the apocalypse is going, further down the block. They wind up in a hotel to hide out from the shadow of what looks like a man wearing cardboard boxes and shooting randomly about with a death ray. That's always a downer, I admit.
There they meet the obligatory town nerd-psycho, who somehow relishes the arrival of intergalactic liquidators as a gene pool purifier, but who won't follow his cause loyally enough to march out and welcome them personally.
When we meet the invaders at last, we discover just how futuristic those old console TV sets actually were. The aliens are walking RCA Dynavisions. Their metal bodies angular and devoid of such needless things as bendable joints, the robotic aliens menacingly waddle after their prey, and inexplicably navigate such would-be obstacles as stairs, scaffolds and ladders – they just never seem to do it on camera.
Just like in The Day The Earth Stood Still; you never see the mighty robot Gort actually lift Patricia Neal into his arms – she suddenly, magically, is just in them.
Indestructible, save for the fragile toy plastic visors that serve as their faces, the marauding boxy nightmares relentlessly stalk the few remaining humans. Until, that is, scientists in a remote bunker discover that cracking the aliens' plastic visors causes them to shut down and fall over. Of course it does; they conquered the vastness of space and brought fearsome weapons of mass extinction to a neighboring galaxy with plans of planet-wide annihilation, but those darn plastic face visors – they never quite got the hang of those.
Did I spoil it for you? Don't worry, it was already spoiled. I took this one for the team. You're welcomed.
The Earth Dies Screaming (1964)
A more accurate title might be The Afternoon Dies Snoring, but that probably wouldn't have sold many tickets to this British sci-fi fizzler – er, sizzler, I meant.
Another post-apocalypse scenario finds everyone gone, as usual – and more robots roaming about, terminating any left-over squirmy humans who didn't get the hint that they were supposed to die. These stoic automatons-o'-doom happen to look like tall guys in cheap space suits, with light-bulb eyes and huge bong tubes mounted on their shoulders. Oh, they have rayguns, of course… which seems counter-productive since they can apparently kill victims by merely tapping them on the shoulder – a "touch of death."
They don't seem to run much, but merely trudge along with a determined gate, unconcerned that those they pursue can still jog, trot, skip, and haul ass aboard motorized fleeing aids like cars, scooters, etc. Luckily for the aliens, very few of the surviving humans seem to realize their advantage.
One jumps inside his car as protection from the slow marching terrors. He only remembers at the last second that the key is in the ignition. He can start the car, floor it, and beat the on-foot creatures to the end of the block well ahead of them – where he can re-park the vehicle and conveniently wait in horror for the aliens to catch up.
Oh goodie, games?
Speaking of which, not to seem outwardly racist, but just what is it about British protagonists in yarns like this? Heroism always seems to take a backseat to polite decorum and courteous fair-play. Waiting in ambush as one of the galactic goobers waddles by solo, instead of attacking, our gallant leading man patiently allows gentlemanly passage, then avoids direct confrontation, in lieu of fleeing to warn everyone in the alien's path to run away as well.
For the love of Whit Bissell, I thought bravery was a prerequisite for a leading man role.
When subdued by the aliens' terrible power, victims drop, but then awaken later sans eye-pupils, and wander about gazing in far off distraction – which seems to terrify the rest of the cast. They don't seem to possess any life-threatening powers themselves, but merely a tendency to shuffle in the direction of whomever screams the loudest. Seems that merely staying quiet and stepping aside would be all the counteraction needed against them.
So Brits are polite and unobtrusive to the invaders, but scared bladder-dry by their senseless victims. Seems legit.
When nothing proves worth a damn against the lurching, death merchant space-tards, the brave survivors decide that running away is the best option. The end. Cue music.
Huh? No figuring out the aliens' scientific Achilles heel? We didn't want to write a script that deep. We only had $150. Our uncle needed his camera back. Run away.
