Eurospies in Space: The Wild, Wild Planet

Now Playing: The Wild, Wild Planet (aka I criminali della galassia, 1966)

Pros: The kind of crazy, go-for-broke energy that’s characteristic of ambitious, yet low-budget filmmaking; A plethora of surreal moments requires repeat viewings to take it all in
Cons: Laughably bad SFX, especially the miniatures of futuristic cities and vehicles

It’s often said that we need the bad in order to appreciate the good. What fan hasn’t embraced at least one movie that, despite being completely inartistic, demands repeat viewings and brings a smile every time? This post is part of the seventh “So Bad They’re Good Blogathon” being hosted by Rebecca at her Taking Up Room blog. Almost every genre is represented, so after you visit The Wild, Wild Planet, wander over to Rebecca’s blog for many more guilty pleasures.

1966 was a watershed year for science fiction fans. In September, Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek debuted on national television, establishing a major franchise that's still going like a dilithium crystal-powered Energizer Bunny to this very day. Pitched as a “Wagon train to the stars” by Roddenberry himself, Star Trek was far more than that -- a high concept show that embraced an unapologetically optimistic vision of the future, dealt with sophisticated themes, and attracted fans of all ages.

Around the same time that Roddenberry was launching the Enterprise to seek out new life and new civilizations, Italian director Antonio Margheriti boldly set out on his own mission to make a series of space epics on a shoestring budget and a prayer.

At the dawn of the 1960s, as the space race between the U.S. and the Soviets was heating up, Margheriti raced ahead of the competition to direct Italy’s first space opera, Assignment: Outer Space (aka Space Men, 1960). Then, in the mid-60s, as the two superpowers kept trying to upstage each other with marathon manned missions and spacewalks, Margheriti took on mission control duties for a series of four sci-fi films: The Wild, Wild Planet, The War of the Planets, War Between the Planets, and The Snow Devils.

Co-produced in Italy, Spain and the U.S., and originally intended to be shown on American TV, the films were released in rapid-fire succession in 1966 and early ‘67. Incredibly, by reusing spaceship models and props from previous films, and shooting back-to-back with the same sets and many of the same cast members, Margheriti took only three months to deliver the films.

Wild, Wild Planet was the first release in what came to be known as the Gamma One Quadrilogy. “Gamma One” is a reference to the United Democracies Space Command (UDSCO) space station that is a major set piece in each of the films. [See the blog An Echo That’s Reversing for a rundown of the quadrilogy].

Although set in a nearer future than Star Trek’s 23rd century, UDSCO is a sort of precursor to Roddenberry’s United Federation of Planets. (The space station as a major location and jumping off point for the action also prefigures such series as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Babylon One.)

But what earns the extra “Wild” in Wild, Wild Planet is an overlay of secret agents, conspiracies and a Bond-like supervillain that would have been very much at home in the more conventional spy pictures that were wildly popular at the time. In the mid-60s, the success of the James Bond franchise unleashed swarms of imitators on TV and in theaters, from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964-1968) in the U.S., to Secret Agent (1964-1967) in the UK, to more 007 knock-offs in Italy and France than you could shake a Walther PPK at.

"Of course we're trying to be inconspicuous, why do you ask?"

One clue that the film is not your typical space opera is the opening scene in which the camera pans past various dissected organs enclosed in a group of transparent cabinets, like a futuristic cannibal butcher shop. The organs are part of a research project being conducted by Dr. Nurmi (Massimo Surrato), the weirdly intense head of Chem Bio Med (CBM), a research outfit belonging to The Corporations.

Nurmi is conducting his Frankenstein-like experiments in miniaturizing body parts (?!) on board the Gamma One space station, and station commander Mike Halstead (Tony Russel) is none too happy. Not to mention, Nurmi is putting creepy moves on Lt. Connie Gomez (Lisa Gastoni), Gamma One’s Communications and Control Officer.

Connie is not too sure about a man who's into miniatures.

But soon, Nurmi becomes the least of Halstead’s worries, as Earth is rocked by the mysterious disappearances of a number of its leading citizens, including Halstead’s old friend General Fowler (Enzo Fiermonte). Space Command is called in to investigate.

While Halstead takes charge (including investigating the attempted kidnapping of his own nephew), Nurmi somehow convinces Connie to accompany him to his home base, the planet Delphos, where he can show her his etchings, er, uh, his scientific work and the future he has in store for humanity.

Halstead and his peeps (including a young Franco Nero as Lt. Jake Jacowitz) gradually uncover a fiendish plot involving teams of field agents -- always a beautiful woman accompanied by a tall, pale goon wearing a shiny black cloak and sunglasses -- who stalk their victims and then wrap them up in the goon’s cloak, whereupon they’re reduced to the size of a Barbie doll and hauled away in an attache case (?!).

A big break comes when one of the abductions is interrupted in mid-miniaturization, reducing the intended target, a renowned scientist, to half his normal size. The scientist escapes his kidnappers, but then falls into a deep coma, leaving Halstead and the authorities to wonder who’s next on the list for this extreme weight-loss plan.

"For crying out loud, couldn't you at least have given him a longer hospital gown?"

Meanwhile, Connie is alarmed by what she sees on Delphos. She soon realizes she’s become a prisoner, and that Nurmi’s designs on her are a lot more nefarious than your garden-variety sleazeball’s.

Not being a complete dummy, Halstead traces the plot back to Nurmi, but is stymied by his superiors, who don’t want to rock the boat by confronting a powerful and influential member of the Corporations.

It’s a race against time as Halstead struggles to free himself from the bureaucratic red tape and rescue Connie before she becomes Nurmi’s latest, most diabolical experiment in bio-engineered humans.

James Bondian influences are everywhere in this mash-up of spaceships and eurospies. Nurmi is the quintessential supervillain, suave and creepy at the same time, and as megalomaniacal as they come. Plus, there’s a healthy dose of mad scientist thrown in for added entertainment value, complete with speeches that would make Dr. Frankenstein proud:

“Halstead, you better get used to it. Tissue grafts and transplants are a fact of life. They’re revolutionizing medicine, and will transform mankind. They are the key to a new people, a race of perfect men!”

Like any self-respecting supervillain, Nurmi has an army of minions, including the gorgeous femme-fatales and the bio-engineered goons. At one point, Halstead and company mix it up with Nurmi’s agents, barely prevailing over the women after a lengthy fight scene full of karate chops and judo throws.

Biff! Pow! Zap! Kapow! Wham! Klonk!

And of course, there’s Nurmi’s super-scientific lair on Delphos, which, in typical Bondian fashion, is infiltrated by the Space Command forces at the climax.

Filling in the role of Bond girl is Gastoni as Lt. Connie Gomez, who in an opening scene is shown throwing men around Pussy Galore-style in a martial arts demonstration. She quickly gets Nurmi’s attention, who wants to enlist her in his quest to perfect the human race. (I won’t spoil things by revealing exactly how Connie figures into his plans -- let’s just say he’s mad about her DNA.)

With all that wild, wild genre blending going on, author Matt Blake’s estimate that the film’s piece of the budget pie was only $30,000 (“titchy even back in 1965”) is hard to believe, even given all the recycling of cast, crew and resources. [Matt Blake, Science Fiction Italian Style, The Wildeye Press, 2019, p.31].

On the other hand, viewers might think “where did all that money go?” when they get a look at the model work depicting futuristic cities and space stations. One of the film’s first guffaw-inducing moments comes with an early establishing shot of a cityscape, complete with toy vehicles zipping along an elevated track. It’s on par with a clever 12-year-old’s honorable mention science fair diorama. (Later, a flying car dangling from wires is good for a chuckle or two.)

"And the Science Fair honorable mention goes to..."

But viewers who are undeterred by the cheap toy modelwork will be treated to some supremely surreal moments. Nurmi’s pale henchmen opening up their slick black raincoats to envelop and miniaturize their victims has a distinct exhibitionist vibe to it (or maybe an even grosser vibe, but let’s not go there). Later, when one of the goons is captured, there’s another eeewww! moment when it’s revealed he has 4 arms -- the result of Nurmi’s limb grafting experiments.

And then there’s the end product of the miniaturization. One of Wild, Wild Planet’s more uncanny moments comes with a quick but fascinating close-up of a case full of doll-sized people lying in little foam-lined compartments, their faces covered with tiny oxygen masks.

Also intriguing are all the little background details of 21st century life as imagined in the mid-20th. Prophetically, surveillance cameras and commercial advertising are everywhere. Also prophetic is the government's (i.e., Space Command’s) deference to the powerful Corporations. Less so is the futuristic slang and epithets like “helium-headed idiot!” directed at incompetent bureaucrats by the hot-headed Cmdr. Halstead.

The Wild, Wild Planet is filled with so much weirdness that it’s like watching a live action Hieronymus Bosch painting -- just as you’re wondering what the hell that was, something else comes along to flummox you. And you can’t take it all in with just one viewing.

Supervillains have a fatal flaw: they prefer to brag instead of quickly eliminating their foes.

Some time after the dust had settled on the Gamma One Quadrilogy, Margheriti reminisced, somewhat apologetically, about the experience of making it:

“Two episodes were produced by an Italian TV station, the other ones by an American one. Unfortunately, the stupid producer had the idea of releasing them to the cinema. You can imagine a TV movie from the sixties dealing with space ships and such FX on the big screen. It doesn’t make for a very good impression (laughs). I remember we had three months to shoot the entire series, including the post-production. I directed four complete movies in only three months, and believe me, it was very hard work. For everyone else involved it was a fun project without any real stories or ideas and the results look exactly like that!” [Blake, p. 29]

He needn’t have been so apologetic. Sure, The Wild, Wild Planet is no 2001: A Space Odyssey or Star Wars, but somehow, the combination of low budget and accelerated shooting schedule resulted in a wild, crazy ride that is far more memorable than many of the slick, corporate blockbusters that followed in its wake.

"Hold still, let me get that fly that's landed on your jacket!"

Where to find it: Streaming | DVD

Frankenstein meets Elizabeth Bathory: I Vampiri

Now Playing: I Vampiri (aka The Vampires, aka Lust of the Vampire, 1957)

Pros: Great production design, cinematography and high Gothic atmosphere
Cons: Uneven pacing; Sets up a mystery that really isn’t a mystery; Timid producers nixed certain plot elements that could have made the film extraordinary

This post is part of the Journey to Italy Blogathon co-hosted by Gill at Realweegiemidget Reviews and Kristina at Speakeasy. Have an interest in older movies or TV (1950-1990) featuring Italian connections? When you’re done here, journey over to Gill’s and Kristina’s blogs for more cinematic tours.

Well here we are, just shy of a month into the new year, and it’s already sizing up to be another unnerving one. It’s no use worrying about things you can’t control, but if you need a sense of purpose and a distraction from worrying headlines, there’s always New Year’s resolutions. Show of hands -- how many of you succumbed to the temptation to make one or two? Another show of hands -- how many have already given up on a hastily made resolution?

If you fall into the second category, don’t feel too bad -- you’re in good company. The tendency to bail out early on resolutions is so widespread, it’s become enshrined as a commemorative day, National Quitter’s Day, on the second Friday of January. The site National Today explains:

“New studies have found that about two-thirds of people abandon their New Year’s resolution within a month. One of the major problems with achieving new year resolutions is that those who set them are over-ambitious. People usually start with high levels of motivation, but as time progresses, the drive begins to wane. The key in achieving goals is to set short, medium, and long-term goals as opposed to one large unrealistic stretch goal.” [Nationaltoday.com]

While quitting is not commonly associated with the elite sectors of society (yeah, that’s what they want you to believe), even prominent go-getters can feel the urge to bail once in a while. Consider the case of Italian filmmaker Riccardo Freda (1909-1999).

By the mid-1950s, Freda was an experienced writer/director with a couple of dozen films and several film festival award nominations under his belt. And, he was set to direct I Vampiri, which would go down in history as the first Italian horror film of the sound era.

Riccardo Freda (Wikimedia Commons)

Freda, who also co-wrote the I Vampiri screenplay along with collaborators Piero Ragnoli and Mario Bava (the cinematographer on the project), reportedly told his producers that he could “have a treatment ready in 24 hours and make the picture itself in a fortnight.” [Jonathon Rigby, Euro Gothic: Classics of Continental Horror Cinema, Signum Books, 2016, p. 71.]

Freda’s over-ambitiousness ultimately turned sour. Depending on which source you believe, Freda either walked off the set 10 days into filming when it became clear he wouldn’t meet his deadline [IMDb], or, he stormed off the set when his producers, worried about censorship, nixed several of the more horrific and lurid aspects of the film [Rigby, p. 71]. In any event, Bava took over the directing reins for the rest of the production.

This wouldn’t be the last time Freda walked off a production and Bava filled in for him. Some years later, it was deja vu all over again when, during the shooting of Calitiki, The Immortal Monster (a Blob knock-off released in 1959) Freda again feuded with the producers, and Bava stepped in to complete the project.

Oh the horror, the HORROR!... of walking off yet another set.

Later, Freda claimed that he purposely abandoned Calitiki to give his multi-talented cinematographer another shot at directing. [IMDb] Whatever the motivation, it certainly worked, with Bava quickly going on to direct Black Sunday (La maschera del demonio, 1960), ultimately a far more seminal Italian horror film than I Vampiri, and the jump-start to a career that would see Bava hailed as one of the great masters of the genre.

Still, there is something to being involved in a cinematic first, even if later films in the genre eclipse yours in terms of style and critical and audience reception. Rather than being a radical leap into new film territory, I Vampiri is more of a bridge between Universal’s horrors of the ‘30s and ‘40s and the far more graphic, bloody fare that Bava and Hammer films would introduce to the world starting in the late '50s.

Set in contemporaneous Paris, I Vampiri opens with a body being hauled out of the Seine, accompanied by closeups of newspaper headlines blaring about a “vampire” killer terrorizing the city, having claimed the lives of four young women in a matter of months.

It seems that the victims were completely drained of blood, with needle marks on their arms (not to mention they all shared the same blood type). Quickly, the shadowy killer strikes again, brazenly abducting Nora, a showgirl (Ronny Holiday), from the theater where she works.

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!"

The police are stymied, but nosy newspaper reporter Pierre Lantin (Dario Michaelis) is on the case, much to the chagrin of perpetually grumpy police inspector Chantal (Carlo D’Angelo). With one clue -- a photo of Nora with a suspicious-looking character in a trenchcoat hovering in the background -- Lantin proceeds to interview the friends of one of the murdered women. Lantin takes an immediate shine to one of the friends, beautiful Laurette (Wandisa Guida).

When Lantin sees the trenchcoated stranger lurking around Lauette’s neighborhood, he follows him to a tenement apartment. Lantin rushes to bring the police back to the suspect’s lair, but when he returns with the inspector, he’s dumbfounded to find, instead of the sinister character, just an old pensioner who says he’s been living there for years. Chantal is peeved with the newspaperman for wasting his time.

I Vampiri tips its hand early on. Instead of keeping the menace to the shadows after Nora’s dance hall abduction, the script has Lantin flushing out a conspiracy in which Joseph, a wretched drug addict (Paul Muller), is employed by a mad scientist, Julien du Grand (Antoine Balpêtrè) to abduct young women for his unholy experiments.

Pierre draws up plans to catch the vampire killer.

Joseph, panicked that the police are on to him, runs to du Grand, who in turn is worried about the attention that his dimwitted henchman has stirred up. The Professor decides now is the time to fake his own death with the help of his cousin, the wealthy and mysterious duchess Margherita du Grand.

The Duchess, wearing a thick black veil, leads the mourners -- the cream of the crop of Paris society -- at the fake funeral held at her crumbling estate outside of the city.

Also in attendance is Lantin, who is unaware that he is the cause of the ostentatious funeral. He explains to a colleague that he has issues with the Duchess, who in her youth was obsessed with his father, and almost ruined his parents’ marriage. Lantin cattily remarks that although the Duchess was once very beautiful, she now wears veils because she can’t deal with being old.

Coincidentally, the Duchess’ niece Giselle (Gianna Maria Canale), whom many regard as the most beautiful woman in Paris, seems similarly fascinated with Lantin, popping up in unexpected places as the newspaperman continues his hunt for the vampire killer. But, given their families’ histories, he gives her the cold shoulder.

"Hey Pierre, my eyes are up here!"

Little does he know that his real love interest, the lovely Laurette, will soon get caught up in the sinister du Grands’ web, and will be tricked and then abducted to the Duchess’ castle, where a grisly fate awaits her. Will Lantin and the clueless police get wise in time to save her?

At first glance, I Vampiri looks less like a groundbreaking film and more like an eccentric project mired in past tropes. Euro Gothic author Jonathan Rigby points to the black gloves worn by sinister Joseph as prefiguring the fashion preferences of the killers in later Giallo films. But after the initial dance hall scene, the henchman is yanked out of the shadows (not to mention revealed as a garden variety drug addict), and the suspense of seeing a faceless figure wearing black gloves dissipates.

I Vampiri is definitely inspired by Hollywood’s mystery-thrillers of the 1930s. Lantin is the very embodiment of the perennial gutsy reporter who clashes with the blundering police and looks for clues in old dark houses. The only thing missing is the plucky girl reporter to act as a foil and generate non-stop hard-boiled patter.

Just as prominent is the nod to mad scientists of the past. Julien has a very impressive laboratory in the castle’s dungeons, with all sorts of newfangled doodads, beakers and tubes… and a scar-faced assistant dressed in medical scrubs to complete the set-up.

"Don't worry Joseph, you're completely covered for head replacement surgery!"

The only thing missing is showy Kenneth Strickfaden equipment sending electrical currents arcing through the gloomy lab. Du Grand sounds like he stepped right out of a Universal Frankenstein picture when he brags to his assistant,

“Some day, I’ll discover the very energy that generates life and make it flow forever through living beings. That will be my moment of triumph, because it will mean that all my work was not in vain!”

But instead of using electricity to revitalize dead tissue, I Vampiri’s mad doctor uses the blood of involuntary donors, plus some sort of enhancement process, to revitalize old tissue and smooth out those fine lines and wrinkles (sort of like Botox injections, but with dead bodies lying around after the treatment).

So, no supernatural vampires here, just metaphorical ones that use their wealth and mad science to relieve the peasants of their blood supply in the pursuit of a few fleeting moments of restored youth. Dr. Frankenstein, meet Elizabeth Bathory.

Laurette suddenly realizes this is not the relaxing spa experience she signed up for.

Also, there's no real mystery as to who is benefitting from Julien’s mad schemes; hint: there are two characters, supposedly related to one another and living on the same estate, but who are never seen together. What the audience is left with is the anticipation of a dramatic (if obvious) reveal and the villains getting their just deserts.

The real stars of the show are the sets and Bava’s beautiful black and white Cinemascope photography, itself a sort of bridge between eras: black and white to accentuate the high Gothic atmosphere, and Cinemascope for that mid-century immersive experience.

It’s hard not to feel at least a slight shiver as Bava’s camera roams through darkened castle interiors full of menacing shadows, cobwebs, skulls and monstrous statuary. Or when it surveys Julien and his sketchy assistant hovering over a body on a gurney, framed by evil-looking medical equipment. Prosaic scenes of Lantin clashing with his boss or the police, or chatting up the school girls, serve as a stark contrast between the modern, daylit 20th century world and the dark, decaying one of the Du Grands.

Apparently, Freda’s original vision for the film would have far exceeded the exercise in Gothic atmosphere that it ended up being. But I Vampiri’s producers were reluctant to get too far out over their skis:

“Wary of censorship, Freda’s producers dropped all of his nastier conceits, several of which he claimed to have actually filmed. A drug addict called Joseph Signoret … is the robotic pawn who supplies the Duchesse du Grand and her scientist cousin with the victims they need; scenes in which he was guillotined, put back together by the mad Professor, and literally lost his transplanted head while under police supervision were all deleted. … These changes, plus the general drift towards making I Vampiri into a standard police procedural, presumably explain why Freda -- always a tempestuous kind of director -- stormed off the set towards the end of the production.” [Rigby, p. 71]

(Yikes! I would love to see that director’s cut!)

A visible scar on Joseph's neck hints at scenes that were excised from the final cut (click on the image to enlarge).

Alas, it would fall to others -- namely Hammer Studios -- to break horror’s nasty barrier, riling up audiences and critics alike with the colorful, never-before-seen gruesomeness of The Curse of Frankenstein, which was released not quite a month after I Vampiri.

While Curse was racking up box office records, Freda was chagrined that I Vampiri had difficulty scaring up decent attendance, even in Italy:

“At that time I’d sometimes go into the auditorium to study the audience's reaction. I don’t know why, but the theatre was almost empty. Anyway, plenty of people were attracted by the posters, which were extremely beautiful. The people would read I Vampiri…I Vampiri… And that appeared to tempt them. Then at the very last moment they’d notice the name Freda. The reaction was kind of automatic. ‘Freda? But it’s Italian -- it must be terrible, Italians can’t make this kind of movie.’” [Rigby, p. 73]

Not long after I Vampiri's disappointing reception, Freda, perhaps thinking, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” took on Caltiki, a sci-fi knock-off (although, he couldn't help giving it the dark, atmospheric, Freda-esque treatment). A year after that, his trusty collaborator Mario Bava would direct Black Sunday, solidifying the worldwide comeback of Gothic horror and proving that yeah, Italians can make that kind of movie.

Whether he realized it at the time or not, Riccardo Freda and I Vampiri helped set it all in motion.

The Duchess du Grand stealthily creeps her way into Italian horror history.

Where to find it: DVD/Blu-ray | Streaming