Raiders of the Lost Aliens: Maureen O’Sullivan in Stranded

Now Playing: Stranded (1987)

Pros: A low-budget sci-fi thriller that masterfully builds suspense, respects its audience and features solid performances
Cons: Fans of CGI and big budget effects won’t find much to like

Thanks to everyone who has participated in the ‘Favorite Stars in B Movies’ blogathon! This post on Maureen O’Sullivan is my contribution to the effort. If you haven’t already, please explore all the other marvellous posts on famous film stars and their B movie appearances: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3

I have reminisced many times here at Films From Beyond about my Monster Kid days, before the internet era and streaming, before VCRs and time shifting, and even before the advent of basic cable.

Yep, it was just me and the family’s black and white console TV with the rabbit ears antenna that brought in 3 clear channels and maybe another fuzzy one on a good day. But, as an eager young member of the Monster Kid Club, that was good enough. At the height of those salad days, growing up in a small university town in the midwest, I was in TV reissue/syndication heaven.

On Friday nights I had my ‘50s sci-fi movies (broadcast from the big city station 30 miles to the south), and on Saturday nights I eagerly watched the classic monsters (broadcast from the university station in my hometown). While weekend nights generally belonged to the monsters, there were plenty of opportunities to catch family friendlier, but still watchable, action-adventure movies on a number of TV movie matinees (not to mention the local downtown theater).

The Tarzan movies starring former Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller were among the more memorable offerings on those lazy weekend afternoons. Sure, Tarzan was no Frankenstein, Dracula or Wolf Man, but there were enough thrills and chills in those movies to get my 10 year old heart beating just a little faster. (There were even monsters here and there, like the time Boy was trapped in a giant spider’s web in Tarzan’s Desert Mystery).

Speaking of hearts beating a little faster, beautiful Maureen O’Sullivan as Jane Parker joined Weissmuller for a decade-long run in six of the MGM Tarzan films, starting with Tarzan the Ape Man in 1932 and ending with Tarzan’s New York Adventure (1942). The skimpy outfits she wore in those films revealed as much skin as ‘30s audiences were ever likely to see (or for that matter, naive ‘60s TV viewers during the height of Tarzan’s syndicated popularity). O’Sullivan undoubtedly was the first movie crush for thousands (if not a whole generation) of fans (and yes, I was a member of that legion).

In an interview with film historian Tom Weaver, O’Sullivan had a good laugh over the fan mail she received as a result of the Tarzan costumes:

"[Weaver:] In the earliest Tarzan movies, your wardrobe was very skimpy. Did that make you self-conscious at all?
[O'Sullivan:] I didn’t think it was so skimpy. What was it now, I’ve forgotten… the outfit torn up the side? No, I thought it was appropriate for where I was. It wouldn’t have been appropriate to wear at Buckingham Palace, or to church or something [laughs], but it was appropriate for what I was doing. So no, it didn’t worry me at all -- until I started getting mail about it. And I thought, 'Well, people are crazy. They have to write about something.' If they didn’t write about that, then they wrote about how they liked me -- it was one thing or the other. I did get a lot of mail on my costume and I thought, 'Do people really have nothing to do except write to strangers?' [Laughs]" [Tom Weaver, I Was a Monster Movie Maker, McFarland, 2010, p. 185]

Fortunately, the talented Miss O’Sullivan got roles that required more than just baring her legs and keeping Tarzan out of trouble. Even as her mailbox was filling up with fan letters appreciative of her jungle wardrobe, she was donning elaborate period costumes in such prestige films as The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934), David Copperfield (1935) and Anna Karenina (1935).

After the last Tarzan film in 1942, O’Sullivan took a break from acting to devote time to her husband, writer/director John Farrow, and her growing family (ultimately having seven children, six of whom -- including Mia Farrow -- went on to work in movies and TV).

Upon returning to acting in 1948, O’Sullivan made a splash in a starring role opposite Ray Milland in the film noir classic The Big Clock. Several undistinguished B movies later, O'Sullivan settled into guest shots on TV shows and theater appearances until she played an alcoholic show business mother to her real life daughter Mia Farrow in Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters (1986).

While Hannah and Her Sisters and the obscure, low-budget sci-fi drama Stranded (released a year later) might seem to be worlds or even universes apart, they both share the theme of families weathering adversity.

In Stranded, O’Sullivan’s movie family is a small one. She plays Grace Clark, an elderly but scrappily independent woman living with her granddaughter Deirdre (Ione Skye) in a farmhouse on the edge of town (later on we learn that Deirdre’s parents were killed in a car crash).

On a dark and stormy night, what seems at first like a lightning hit that takes out the power instead turns out to be a weird energy beam that has delivered something very strange to the Clark house. Deirdre and Grace, who are upstairs, notice a weird blue light shining from the parlor on the ground floor. Grace bravely grabs a shotgun to confront the intruders, but when it becomes apparent these are no garden variety burglars, Grace and Deirdre hide in a bedroom.

Alien travel advisory: In the U.S. there are more guns than people, so exercise caution!

A tense situation turns tragic when Deirdre’s would-be boyfriend Jerry (Kevin Haley) and his dad Vernon choose exactly the wrong time to stop by the Clark house on their way home from a fishing trip. When no one responds to his calls from the darkened house, Jerry gets worried and grabs a gun from the glove compartment.

Instead of finding Deirdre and Grace, Jerry and Vernon are startled by a tall humanoid figure with long white hair standing in the parlor, a glowing blue crystal hovering in front of her. A weird gnome-like humanoid suddenly jumps up and hisses, and before you can say “guns and surprise alien visits don’t mix,” a panicked Jerry shoots the tall figure. In turn, another figure at the top of the stairs blasts Jerry with some sort of energy beam, sending him flying out the front door. Vernon, grief-stricken and vowing revenge, drags his son’s body back to the truck and hightails it out of there.

The only thing Deirdre and Grace have to fear is fear itself.

When things get quiet, Deirdre and Grace tiptoe down the stairs, lamp and shotgun in hand. The creature that blasted Jerry suddenly intercepts them in the hallway, grabbing Grace’s shotgun and then herding them into the front parlor.

The sight that greets them is surreal: The gnome creature and two other slender, pale humanoids with high foreheads and long, flowing hair are huddled around their stricken companion who is lying on the floor. They look like they could be a family -- one of the uninjured aliens is a young, almost androgynous-looking male, and the other is older, with a stiff, regal bearing. Grace whispers, “They almost look like angels!”, to which Deirdre responds “I don’t think so…” The film’s credits list them simply as Prince (the young alien; played by Brendon Hughes), Sir (Dennis Vero) and Queen (the gunshot victim played by Florence Schauffler).

Surprise alien visits and guns don't mix.

There’s alien-looking, and then there’s alien-looking. In the latter category is the short, squat gnome with a huge creased dome of a head and long whiskers growing out of the bottom of his chin-less face (played to great effect by Michael Balzary, aka Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers fame). The creature seems more like a humanoid pet to the aliens, and just wants to please. After the initial shock, Grace takes to the adorably homely creature, dubbing him “Jester.”

But most alarming is the creature that seems to be the alien family’s bodyguard. Despite having female curves, Warrior (Spice Williams-Crosby) is malevolent-looking, dressed in a form-fitting suit (or is it her skin?) and is mostly faceless with the exception of two large, glowing eyes (not to mention the deadly energy-beam weapon she wears on one arm).

This is not something you want to see in your house at night.

Meanwhile, the aliens and the Clarks are attending to the mortally wounded Queen. Grace deescalates the tense situation, exhibiting clear concern for the alien she calls “dear lady,” saying they need to get her to a hospital (Deirdre patiently explains to her grandmother that “they can’t go to a hospital.”) The Queen passes a brightly glowing blue crystal to Prince before expiring (Sir doesn’t seem to be in the line of succession -- you have to wonder if he’s the Prince Andrew of this royal alien court).

And before you can say “gee, that’s a surprisingly quick response time for a rural area,” multiple Sheriff’s squad cars are pulling up to the house. Even before the sheriff himself (Joe Morton) has had a chance to arrive, Vernon, with nothing but bloody revenge on his mind, goads one of the deputies to seize the day, with predictable results -- the deputy is zapped to death by Warrior, who is only defending her group.

When Sheriff McMahon finally arrives, he realizes he has inherited a cluster-you-know-what, with a dead deputy on the grounds, Deirdre and Grace bewilderingly shouting from the house that they’re not in danger, and deputies who are either too spooked to think straight or are ready to charge the house like brain-dead Rambos.

As if that situation wasn’t bad enough for a newly installed African American sheriff, a caravan of Vernon’s redneck buddies arrive just itching to blast them some aliens to kingdom come. The coup-de-grace is the sudden appearance of a solitary federal agent, Helen Anderson (Susan Barnes), complete in trenchcoat, warning McMahon that if he doesn’t quickly get control of things a military “clean-up” team will do the work for him. It just isn’t his day.

Guns and angry mobs really don't mix.

The best thing about Stranded is that the people behind it realized they didn’t have the budget to make something even remotely resembling Star Wars, so they settled for good writing, believable characters and solid performances. Not only that, but they decided to respect the intelligence of their audience.

For something so low-budget and small scale (just a single location), the film manages to pack a lot of suspense and unease (as well as pathos) into the proceedings. Much is left to the imagination. The visitors don’t arrive in a conventional spaceship, but rather some sort of transporter beam/wormhole that is never explained (and doesn’t need to be).

The aliens don’t speak English, nor is there a convenient Star Trek-style autotranslator. They are mute through most of the film (the implication being that they communicate telepathically), so the actors portraying them have to rely on facial expressions and gestures. Most expressive of all is Jester, the aliens’ “pet,” who wears his simple emotions on his sleeve, so to speak. The “angelic” aliens are a mix of the uncanny (human-looking, yet somehow not), a royal-like reserve, and gentleness.

The visitors’ backstory is communicated first to Deirdre through a series of telepathic images (aided by the blue crystal manipulated by the Prince). The rapid-fire succession of other-worldly images tells a tale of the aliens’ imprisonment, and a daring escape and pursuit by mysterious captors who aren’t shown in their entirety -- just their repulsive, reptilian legs. The sequence is simple and imaginative without requiring expensive effects or indulging in extraneous exposition.

Who needs Star Wars-style holograms when you can just beam what you want straight into somebody's mind?

Somehow, in a cosmic stroke of luck, the escapees managed to beam themselves to just about the only farmhouse in rural America where intruders -- especially such weird-looking ones -- wouldn’t be shot on sight. With their own history of tragedy and loss, Deirdre and Grace aren’t about to greet visitors, especially “angels,” with shotgun blasts.

As a result of their forbearance, Deirdre is given a telepathic glimpse of worlds no human has ever seen before -- not to mention forming a proto-romantic attachment to the angelically handsome Prince -- and Grace forms her own special bond with the alien goofball Jester. But with rival alien assassins on their trail and uncomprehending police with guns encircling the house, the peace won’t last long.

It's the Clarks and their alien visitors against the world (and part of the universe).

Joe Morton as Sheriff McMahon is in a position where, as the new sheriff in town (and an African American one at that), he is made to feel somewhat like an alien intruder in a rural area where racism is still rampant. In his confrontation with the would-be lynch mob, Vernon keeps calling the sheriff “boy,” but McMahon maintains his cool, and his deputies back him up, forcing the mob to back down.

In another example of coolness under pressure, McMahon enters the house to size up the situation and possibly negotiate what looks like a hostage situation. With Deirdre’s encouragement, the aliens give him the same telepathic briefing through the crystal. Outside the house, federal agent Barnes, who has some sort of hidden agenda of her own, suggests to the chief deputy that the aliens are using mind control on the sheriff, and that he needs to be prepared to take charge. With friends like these…

Interestingly, just a few years before, Joe Morton played the title role in the cult hit The Brother from Another Planet (1987), in which he was the alien being pursued by extraterrestrial bounty hunters.

Joe Morton has a moment of sci-fi-induced deja-vu.

Stranded was only the second movie role for UK-born Ione Skye (daughter of ‘60s pop-rock singer Donovan), who debuted in the gut-wrenching River’s Edge (1986). Although she is still working, the height of Skye’s career came with her appearance in one of the great coming-of-age comedies, Say Anything (1989), opposite John Cusack.

On the career flip side, Stranded was the second to last feature film Maureen O’Sullivan made (not counting three TV movies and a series guest shot). With the Grace Clark role O’Sullivan proved she hadn’t lost any of her acting chops, as she seemed to effortlessly combine a bit of steely resolve, a bit of elderly naivete, and a lot of empathy. Perhaps her best scene in Stranded is at the end credits, which are superimposed over footage of a local TV reporter interviewing Grace and Deirdre about their amazing alien encounter. O’Sullivan is completely natural and even a little impish in answering the reporter’s questions. It’s a delightful scene.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the other, behind-the-scenes talents that contributed to this stand-out (but highly neglected) sci-fi drama. Jeffrey Jur’s cinematography is exceptional, making expert use of light and shadow, and avoiding the overly dark, muddled night photography characteristic of other low-budget films. Subtly, the early scenes with the aliens -- when it’s not clear if they're dangerous or not -- are tinged with red, and then gradually, as they gain the trust of Deirdre and Grace, calming blues take over.

The alien design and make-up (credited to Vera Yurtchuk and Brian Wade) is simple yet effective. The Prince and his family seem to be inspired by the Nordic aliens of UFO lore. Warrior looks to be wearing a modified wetsuit, but the large eyes that dominate an otherwise featureless face make her very intimidating. Much less intimidating is Jester, who looks like he could be a cousin to the Ferengi, who were introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation around the same time.

Separated at birth? Top row: Nordic aliens and the Prince. Bottom: a Ferengi and Jester

According to IMDb, director Fleming B. Fuller only directed two other feature films and one TV movie. Stranded is a solid sci-fi thriller that masterfully ratchets up the suspense, stimulates the imagination, and delivers some very good, affecting performances. I don’t know Fuller’s story, but it seems a shame he didn’t do more.

Where to find it: A soft-looking, but still watchable stream can be found here.

A Rolling Reporter Gathers Some Moss: “The Spanish Moss Murders”

Now Playing: “The Spanish Moss Murders,” episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker (S1, E9; first aired Dec. 6, 1974)

Pros: Everyman hero Kolchak runs circles around not one but three clueless authority figures in this episode
Cons: The monster design is just average

This post is part of The 11th Annual Favourite TV Show Episode blogathon, hosted by the talented and knowledgeable Terence Towles Canote at A Shroud of Thoughts. This year's offerings run the gamut of TV genres, and have something for just about everyone.

At the height of the New Jersey Drones flap, while thousands were peering into the night skies, unnerved by all the weird lights that made it seem like there was some sort of alien superhighway above their heads, and the Feds were dismissively insisting “there’s nothing to see here,” I was thinking, where is Carl Kolchak when we need him?

Acclaimed physicist and professional skeptic Carl Sagan once famously said, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Through two made-for-TV movies and a short-lived TV series, intrepid investigative reporter Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) kept unearthing extraordinary evidence of a parallel, paranormal world undreamt of by sober-minded people, from classic vampires, demons, zombies and werewolves, to such exotic manifestations as shape-shifting entities and headless, sword-wielding motorcyclists.

If Kolchak had been on the New Jersey drones case, there’s no doubt he would have discovered the weirdest, most exotic explanation possible for the phenomenon… like flying, shape-shifting Jersey Devils with neon lights for eyes. 

While Kolchak only got two TV movies and one 20 episode season to dig around the dark underbelly of the paranormal world, his exploits would inspire the far longer TV careers of Mulder and Scully in The X-Files. The key to the FBI duo’s success was their Yin and Yang relationship, where Mulder’s insatiable curiosity and Scully’s innate skepticism formed an effective, if often contentious, team. Plus, the sexual tension between the two certainly helped the ratings. By contrast, Kolchak was always going it alone, relying on his own wits and worn shoe leather to bring it all to light.

Carl Kolchak specialized in shining a light into the dark corners of conventional reality.

Kolchak’s editor and foil at the Chicago-based Independent News Service, Tony Vincenzo (Simon Oakland) was certainly no help. Week after week, the relentless reporter would glom onto hints of something unworldly, then nose around like a bloodhound until the uncanny secrets were exposed in spectacular fashion -- and all the while, his boss would huff, puff, wince, gnash his teeth, and plead with Kolchak to stop wasting his time. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Carl Kolchak was born out of an unpublished novel, The Kolchak Papers, by long-time Las Vegas resident Jeff Rice. Rice’s agent recognized the novel’s potential, and before long, it was being adapted by producer Dan Curtis (of Dark Shadows fame) and acclaimed fantasy writer Richard Matheson for a TV movie. Directed by TV and film veteran John Llewlyn Moxey, The Night Stalker (1972) -- featuring newspaperman Kolchak trying to convince unbelieving Las Vegas authorities that they have a super-powered vampire in their midst -- generated the highest ratings ever for an original made-for-TV movie at the time. [Wikipedia] 

Naturally, another TV movie, The Night Strangler (1973) and the TV series followed in quick succession. “The Spanish Moss Murders,” the 9th episode of the series, follows the Kolchak formula to a T.

In classic Night Stalker fashion, the episode opens with Kolchak, looking like he’s been dragged through a mud bath, sitting in a hospital emergency room, narrating recent events into his omnipresent tape recorder.

As always, there are mysterious killings involving unwary victims wandering the streets at night and paying with their lives. The first victim, a young grad student and sleep research lab assistant is accosted on a dark street and crushed to death (make a note of her occupation -- it will be relevant later). The police brush it off as the aftermath of a hit-and-run accident, but Kolchak is skeptical.

It's never a good idea to go wandering the streets at night in a Night Stalker episode.

Which brings us to the puzzling clues that only Kolchak, with his reporter’s sixth sense, recognizes as crucial to the mystery -- in this case, small pieces of vegetable matter that inexplicably show up on each of the victims’ bodies. Relying on shoe leather in an age before Google, Kolchak finds out from a local botanical expert that the stuff is Spanish moss, not exactly common in the northern climes of Chicago.

But the real lifeblood of the series was the intrepid, relentless reporter going up against bumbling, dissembling authority figures, deflating their pretentions with his pointed questions and driving them to distraction with his “What, me? What did I do?” disingenuousness.

Kolchak came into his own during the Watergate revelations and the subsequent collapse of public trust in government. He was a rumpled, one man Watergate committee, making endless runs around authorities sputtering that there was “nothing to see here,” and seeing things -- especially paranormal things -- with a special clarity. (It’s perhaps no coincidence that another rumpled everyman from the era, Columbo, gained huge popularity matching wits with arrogant elites.)

“The Spanish Moss Murders” presents not one but three sputtering, clueless authority figures for Kolchak to run rings around. Police Captain Joe “Mad Dog” Siska (Keenan Wynn), investigating the second strange death involving Spanish moss, is not quite mad, but he’s teetering on the edge, and Kolchak nosing around is not helping matters. He’s so stressed out, that he admits to Kolchak in an unguarded moment that he’s in group therapy. (This was the first of two appearances Wynn would make on the show.)

Capt. Joe "Mad Dog" Siska is driven mad by Kolchak's relentless prodding.

Medical science comes in for a roasting when Kolchak makes the connection between the first victim and a sleep research laboratory that is conducting some sketchy experiments with a subject who has been put in an extended period of REM sleep. (Yes, the victims all have something in common besides Spanish moss, and it all traces back to the sleep lab, but I’ll leave it there.)

The lab director, Dr. Pollack (Severn Darden) is so wrapped up in his research that he seems blithely unconcerned about the health of his prize sleep subject, and he has to be reminded by a colleague of the name of the recently deceased grad assistant who was working for him.

Darden, who made a career out of playing effete doctors, professors and assorted politicians (and was in two Planet of the Apes movies, Conquest of and Battle for), amps up the pompous condescension as his character wearily lectures Kolchak on his all-important research.

(In an amusing epilogue, after all the dust has settled on the murderous events that Dr. Pollack unwittingly set in motion, Kolchak relates that the good doctor “had lost his taste for pure research. He’d shaved off his beard and gone back to Long Island to work in the family shoe business.”)

"To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the opportunity for lots of grant money..."

And then there’s Kolchak’s boss at the news service, Tony Vincenzo. Simon Oakland’s character spent most of the series screwing up his face and blustering at Kolchak as if every interaction with the reporter was the equivalent of a root canal. And yet, Kolchak always returned the next week with his job intact, so there had to be some grudging respect there.

In “The Spanish Moss Murders” we see a somewhat more relaxed boss, determined this time around to be clueless as to Kolchak’s latest crusade (presumably for his mental health). Instead, Vincenzo is fixated on a speech that he will be giving to a civic organization on freedom of the press, to the point that he corrals everyone in the office to drop what they’re doing and listen to him rehearse. In an amusing bit of business, Kolchak distractedly butters up Vincenzo while maneuvering around the office, trying to figure out how to steal away without being noticed.

Tony Vincenzo wears his signature skeptical frown along with a natty tie and vest.

If the lifeblood of the series was Kolchak’s defiance of authority, then the heart that kept it all pumping was the monster of the week. Kolchak: The Night Stalker was a delectable (detestable?) smorgasbord of night creatures, some familiar, like werewolves and vampires, some more obscure.

The obscure monster in "The Spanish Moss Murders" is the Père Malfait (roughly translated as “father of mischief”), popularly known as the Cajun Boogeyman. According to an article on "Louisiana Cajun Folklore" at The Moonlit Road website, the myth of the Père Malfait was imported to Louisiana Cajun country from France, where generations of parents used it to keep their children in line. A cross between Swamp Thing of comic book fame and Bigfoot, the Cajun Boogeyman crushes its victims to death before mysteriously vanishing, leaving only fragments of moss and leaves behind. Like the cinematic vampire, it can only be killed by driving a stake made from the swamp gum tree through its heart.

7’2” Richard Kiel, who made a career out of portraying imposing villains and creatures (and was most famously known for his Jaws character from the James Bond films The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker), was enlisted to step into the Père Malfait suit. Interestingly, he had just been seen the week before as the “Diablero” in episode 8 of the series, “Bad Medicine.” [IMDb]

The Père Malfait prefers the Louisiana bayous, but in a pinch Chicago's sewers will do.

Besides the plethora of monsters, another endearing feature of the series was that for all the effort the intrepid reporter put in exposing and thwarting the various paranormal perils, at the end of each week the evidence would conveniently disappear, and Kolchak would be left with nothing but his verbal notes on his trusty tape recorder. True to both series form and myth, after Kolchak’s encounter with the Père Malfait in Chicago’s dank sewer system, all traces of the creature disappear down the drains.

So, how exactly did a folkloric monster from Louisiana bayou country end up in Chicago’s sewers? You’ll have to watch the episode to find out!

Kolchak and his trusty tape recorder live to fight another day.

Where to find it: DVD | Streaming 

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

The Amazing Colossal Man's New Year's Resolutions

On October 4, 1957, at a secret nuclear test site in the Nevada desert, Lt. Col. Glenn Manning was waiting with his colleagues for the detonation of an experimental plutonium bomb. When a civilian aircraft flew into the area and crashed, Manning heroically ran to the crash site to give aid, but then was caught in the test explosion.

Somehow still alive but horribly burned, the military doctors gave Manning little chance of survival. But miraculously, his skin began healing at a fantastic rate. At the same time, he began growing to the point where the army had to erect a circus tent to house him and bring in meat by the truckload to feed him.

Manning’s doctors soon found a new threat to his life -- the Colonel’s heart was not growing proportionally with his body, and the lack of blood flow to his brain would drive Manning insane before it ultimately killed him.

So, as you contemplate the hopes and challenges of a new year, consider the fate of Col. Manning, and try to imagine yourself in his shoes (size 70, 10xEEE).

In a Films From Beyond exclusive, we have unearthed Col. Manning’s journal from those amazing days after his accident, including his New Year’s resolutions for 1958. Surprisingly (or maybe not), they don’t differ much from most people’s resolutions, even in 2025.

1. Always wear sunscreen when strolling around the nuclear test site.

2. Ask doctor about Oozemplic® for weight gain problem.

3. Find a bigger apartment.

4. Deal with the gambling problem.

5. Look into anger management therapy.

Films From Beyond wishes you an Amazingly Colossal New Year, and may all your resolutions come true!

John Saxon vs. the Space Vampire: Queen of Blood

Now Playing: Queen of Blood (1966)

Pros: Dark, noirish sci-fi thriller that cleverly breaks from the conventions of the day
Cons: Most of the special effects consist of footage borrowed from an earlier Russian film; The mix of American and Russian-shot footage is not seamless

This post is part of the John Saxon Blogathon hosted by the distinguished and prolific duo of Gill at Realweegiemidget Reviews and Barry at Cinematic Catharsis. After you’ve paid your respects to the Queen of Blood, head on over to their blogs for more insights on John Saxon’s multi-faceted acting career.

John Saxon was way too cool for school, and his dark, brooding good looks got him a break in Hollywood that would last for six decades.

Born Carmine Orrico in Brooklyn, NY in 1936, the newly minted actor John Saxon started out his movie career in the mid-’50s playing smoldering teen delinquents for Universal. The period was a high mark for juvenile delinquent movies, and Saxon was so good doing the teen angst thing in films like Running Wild (1955, with Mamie Van Doren), Rock, Pretty Baby (1956) and Summer Love (1958) that he began receiving fan mail by the truckload.

Saxon’s career took a detour when he secured a plum supporting role in John Huston’s Western The Unforgiven (1960; with Burt Lancaster and Audrey Hepburn). For a short time it looked like he might spend the rest of his career riding horses, with The Plunderers (1960) and Posse from Hell (1961) following in quick succession.

While Saxon never became an A-list leading man, the versatile actor avoided being typecast or limited to any particular genre. And in his long career, he had the privilege of appearing in some truly remarkable and influential films.

Not content to hang around Hollywood, like a number of other contemporary actors he traveled to Europe to make films (the fact that he was fluent in Italian and had some proficiency in Spanish helped a lot. Wikipedia.). In Italy, he made The Evil Eye (aka The Girl Who Knew Too Much, 1963) with Mario Bava, which most regard as the first Giallo film.

A decade later, Saxon put his karate and judo expertise to good use, appearing with Bruce Lee and Jim Kelly in the mother of all martial arts films, Enter the Dragon (1973). A short while later he appeared in yet another seminal genre film, playing a police detective in Bob Clark’s pioneering slasher Black Christmas (1974).

Saxon's likeness didn't always make it onto the posters, but
he appeared in quite a few fun and influential genre films.

Fast forward another decade, and Saxon played yet another detective in the first of the phenomenally successful A Nightmare on Elm Street movies. The horror genre, always lurking around the corner during Saxon’s long career, gave him his one and only opportunity at directing, when he took over the reins of Death House (1988) after the original director withdrew. (While the reviews for Death House are not good, Saxon is on record as saying the producers and he differed in their vision for the film, and the producers won. IMDb.) 

Saxon’s sci-fi credits are not as numerous, but there are some interesting projects here and there. The actor’s first stab at sci-fi came while he was overseas. In the UK production The Night Caller (aka Blood Beast from Outer Space, 1965) Saxon plays a scientist battling aliens bent on kidnapping earth females for breeding purposes (where have we heard that one before?). Despite the ambitious premise, the low-budget film is very set-bound, with limited special effects.

More interesting is the TV movie Planet Earth (1974) that he made for Gene Roddenberry. The movie was Roddenberry’s second attempt to sell a series about a Buck Rodgers-like protagonist, Dylan Hunt, who wakes up from suspended animation into a very different, post apocalyptic world (Alex Cord played the hero in the first pilot, Genesis II, broadcast the year before). Alas, Planet Earth became yet another in a string of failed pilots for Roddenberry in the ‘70s.

With almost 200 acting credits spanning six decades, chances were good that a genre character actor like Saxon would find himself working for the most prolific of all B-movie producers, Roger Corman. And indeed, the actor appeared in several Corman productions, including what many regard as the best of all the Star Wars imitators, Battle Beyond the Stars (1980).

The Queen is pleased by what she's seen after sitting through a John Saxon movie marathon.

Star Wars upped the ante considerably for cinematic sci-fi, so Roger felt compelled to spend more than ever before -- around $2 million -- loading up his epic space opera with such stars as George Peppard, Robert Vaughn, Richard Thomas, Sybil Danning, and of course Saxon. And contributing to special effects that were a distinct upgrade for a Corman production (and that would be reused in multiple later films), was none other than a young James Cameron! [IMDb]

But back in the Queen of Blood’s day, the mid-60s, it was still possible to make sci-fi on the cheap -- and there was no one better than Roger Corman for squeezing a nickel until it begged for mercy.

Reading Queen of Blood's plot synopsis, with all its sci-fi bells and whistles, you’d think, after having seen one bloated, effects-laden epic after another steamroll their way through the 20-teens and twenties, that you couldn’t possibly pull off something like that for less than millions (even accounting for 1960s dollars).

Indeed, it’s nothing if not ambitious. The film is set in 1990, a year that, from the perspective of the ‘60s space race, was far off but not too far off, with more than enough time to ensure the conquering of the moon and the nearer planets. (Ah, the vagaries of fickle public support for piloted space exploration, and the meager NASA budgets that followed… but I digress.)

In Queen of Blood’s 1990, humanity has established moon bases, and Mars and Venus are next on the agenda to be colonized. The Astro Communications division of the International Institute of Space Technology has received messages from a mysterious, advanced civilization beyond the solar system that they will be sending an ambassador to Earth.

Apparently, Queen of Blood's space program can also afford colossal statues.

The Institute’s senior scientist, Dr. Farraday (Basil Rathbone) assembles all the staff, including astronauts Allan Brenner (Saxon), Laura James (Judi Meredith), Paul Grant (Dennis Hopper) and Tony Barrata (Don Eitner) to reveal the momentous news.

But, as in all things involving B-movie space travel, the best laid plans always go awry. The institute picks up an alien probe that landed in the ocean (what, the so-called advanced aliens couldn’t aim better than that?), and after viewing footage from the aliens’ flight log, determine that the ambassador’s spacecraft has crash-landed on Mars.

Things get frenetic and complicated as Farraday and staff set up shop on their moon base, and a rescue ship, the Oceana, with Laura, Paul and Commander Brockman (Robert Boon) on board, is dispatched for the Red planet. (Wait, no handsome and intrepid Allan Brenner on the pioneering flight? Don’t worry, read on…)

To while away the time between missions, Allan and Dr. Farraday decide
to start their very own podcast.

The Oceana's instruments are damaged by an abrupt solar flare, but the astronauts manage to land near their target, where they find the crashed alien ship, but discover only one human-looking body and no ambassador. With the Oceana questionable and the ambassador still missing, Allan and Tony propose piloting a second ship to Mars with search satellites to help in hunt for the missing alien dignitary.

A-OK, except, as Farraday points out, the second ship doesn’t have the fuel capacity to get them to Mars and back. Thinking quickly, the brash space jockeys propose landing the second ship on the tiny Martian moon Phobos, and from there take a shuttle craft down to the Martian surface, where they’ll hook up with their colleagues and return on the Oceana.

As luck would have it, when Allan and Tony arrive on Phobos, they find yet another crashed ship -- the aliens’ emergency shuttle craft, complete with a very much alive alien dignitary (played by Florence Marly) -- conveniently near where they’ve set down. But then luck turns on them when they realize there’s only room for two on their own shuttle that will take them down to the Oceana, which is their ticket home. And, to add salt to the wound, the Oceana doesn’t have the fuel to pick up any lingering astronauts on Phobos and still make it home.

The daring space jockeys come to the alien Queen's rescue.

Tony gallantly insists that Allan accompany the ambassador (the consequence being that Tony will be marooned on Phobos until a relief ship can be dispatched to rescue him... sure, sure they will.).

Little do the astronauts know that, while the trips to Mars and Phobos were tense and hazardous, the trip back to Earth with their alien guest will be a doozy! At first the crew bend over backwards to keep their guest comfortable. It helps that, while her skin is a subtle shade of green, the alien is quite easy on the eyes in an exotic, outerspacey kind of way. She seems to have an aversion to earth women, glaring at Laura, but she takes quite nicely to dashing Paul, who acts like a smitten schoolboy as he helpfully shows her how to drink through a straw.

"It's called a Big Gulp, your highness, and everyone on Earth is addicted to them."

Commander Brockman takes his scientific curiosity a bit too far when he tries to draw the alien’s blood and she forcefully demurs. Brockman idiotically ventures to guess that she has a low threshold for pain (the consent thing seems to not have occurred to him).

But no worries, the Queen will soon turn the tables and draw blood from the earthmen -- she’s got a thirst, but not for scientific knowledge!

To say the least, that is a lot to cram into a 78 minute sci-fi B movie destined for the drive-in circuit. But this was child’s play for executive producer Roger Corman, who was extremely adept at making meager resources go where no resources had gone before.

Laura and Allan discuss how they're going to break it to the Queen that
they already gave at the office blood drive.

One tactic was to offer directing gigs to talented new and aspiring filmmakers who would jump at the opportunity and be willing to work cheaply. Corman hired Curtis Harrington to write and direct. At this point, Harrington had only one other feature film under his belt -- the dark and moody (and critically well-received) Night Tide (1961, starring Dennis Hopper). But the art house-adjacent Night Tide hadn’t opened many doors in Hollywood, so Harrington was happy for the opportunity even if he didn’t have complete artistic control.

Another tactic was to let skilled artists and technicians on other films do your effects work for you. Harrington, in his memoir Nice Guys Don’t Work in Hollywood, relates,

“The film would make use of some spectacular special effects footage from a Russian film to which [Corman] had acquired the American rights. Corman owned many of these films, and it seemed to have been a wise investment. I was to devise my own story that would incorporate scenes of a space station on the moon (from the Russian footage) with scenes of an alien spaceship stranded on one of the moons of Mars (which we would shoot).
  The Soviet film, Mechte Navstrechu [1963], was a fable about the world’s natural fears of the nature of aliens, and the discovery at the end of the film was that the ruler of the aliens simply wants to be friends with us. I turned my film, Queen of Blood, into the exact opposite of this. I devised a tale in which the queen of the aliens …is a vampiric creature who seeks a new food source for her dying planet. The food source, as it turns out, is the human race.” [Curtis Harrington, Nice Guys Don’t Work in Hollywood: The Adventures of an Aesthete in the Movie Business, Drag City Incorporated, 2013, p. 109]

(Alright, be honest, which movie would you rather see -- one about overcoming xenophobia and prejudice to unite with our spiritual brothers and sisters from another galaxy, or one about an evil alien monster in disguise stalking trusting, innocent humans and drinking their blood? I thought so.)

If there were just one or two scenes with the inserted footage, it would be one thing, But Queen of Blood relies extensively on the Soviet film for any sort of long, establishing shots, spaceships taking off, exteriors of moon bases, and weird, alien landscapes. The Mechte Navstrechu footage is dark, soft-focused and beautifully surreal, with reds and greens predominating, making the transition to the brightly lit American-shot interiors jarring.

I don't suppose the Soviet filmmakers ever imagined that their beautiful work would be sold as fodder for an American capitalist exploitation flick.

But as the tone of the film changes from one of triumph at rescuing the alien VIP, to suspicion and then disgust and horror at the monster in the astronauts' midst, Harrington’s scenes get progressively darker, with the ship’s interiors taking on a blood-red hue. Harrington also adds a subtle buzzing to the soundtrack as the alien stealthily moves around the ship, emphasizing that despite her appearance, she has more in common with a queen bee than a human being.

Not only does Harrington upend the tropes of Soviet Socialist filmmaking, he also slyly subverts those of his fellow American B moviemakers. In so many B sci-fi movies leading up to Queen of Blood, scientists were often first responders who discovered and tried to understand the threat, but it was the military that had to step in and take care of it. The granddaddy of such films was The Thing from Another World (1951), in which the tough military guys in bomber jackets shove aside the effete scientists who just want to communicate with the alien visitor, and roast the Thing like a big, humanoid marshmallow.

In Harrington’s contrary film, it’s the nerds in lab coats who win the day, overruling -- you guessed it -- our man of the hour, John Saxon, who, as the very straight-laced, all-American Allan Brenner, is repelled by the enigmatic Queen from the get-go (and very nearly loses his life to her).

Allan reacts in disgust at the sight of the blood-gorged alien Queen... or is it his meager paycheck?

SPOILERS: In spite of all the death and destruction the Queen has caused, the surviving astronauts (with the exception of Allan) are like automatons programmed to execute The Plan: defend and preserve the visitor at all costs for the benefit of scientific knowledge. When the ship returns to port, the scientists swarm around like kids in a candy store, collecting the eggs that the Queen has laid all over the ship (Ugh!). It’s a dark, cynical break with past tropes, and a harbinger of sci-fi to come.

As Harrington puts it in his memoir: “Some years later, it was very flattering to realize that I had created the prototype for a whole series of science-fiction movies dealing with monstrous creatures from outer space, beginning with Ridley Scott’s Alien.” [Harrington, p. 109]

A Space Institute scientist serves up a tray of the Queen's special holiday deviled eggs. (Played by Forry Ackerman, founder of every Monster Kid's favorite mag, Famous Monsters of Filmland.)

Where to find it: Streaming | DVD