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.
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| "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.
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| 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.
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| "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.
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| 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.)
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| "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.
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| 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.
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| "Hold still, let me get that fly that's landed on your jacket!" |
Where to find it: Streaming | DVD
