James Steven Beverly Posted April 1, 2009 Share Posted April 1, 2009 (edited) I LOVE Sci / Fi movies and TCM was running a "50s" Sci /Fi classics evening so I started thinking what are my FAVORITE Sci / Fi films from the era of Eisenhower, Tail Fins, Poodle skirts and Soviet Nuclear annihilation. So I came up with these: War Of the Worlds- I LOVE THIS MOVIE!!!! In my opinion it was WAY ahead of it's time. The FX hold up even after all these years as does the story. Screw Tom Cruise, Gene Barry is da man!! The Thing From Another World- Again LOVE IT!!!! It's just plain great and although I admire Carpenter on SOOOOO many levels, it's just plain hard to beat Howard Hawks on this one. The BLOB What I love about this movie is there IS no message except beware of rapidly growing, flesh eating Jello OH and if you DO see Rapidly growing, flesh eating Jello in a movie theater, get the Hell OUT of there even if IS equipped with AIR CONDITIONING for your comfort!! Oddly enough, I even liked the remake of this, though again did NOT beat the original. Forbidden Planet-Annie Francis in a micro mini-skirt in 1956 with her own a robot chauffeur driven car that has tail fins, a front grill that's actually the driver's door and individual bowl shaped windshields for the passengers.......enough said!! Waiting to see how they screw UP the re-make of this. Plan 9 From Outer Space......................I have no excuse. :P OH and no one would ever dare make a re-make of this!! So what's your's?? B) Edited April 1, 2009 by James Steven Beverly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member David Auner aac Posted April 1, 2009 Premium Member Share Posted April 1, 2009 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956. Directed by Don Siegel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Marc Alucard Posted April 1, 2009 Premium Member Share Posted April 1, 2009 The Day the Earth Stood Still The Thing From Another World The War of the Worlds The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms Forbidden Planet Brain From Planet Arous The Tingler Robot Monster Plan 9 from Outer Space When Worlds Collide Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K Borowski Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 F*CK! Someone beat me to "Plan 9". Great movie. I thought "Ed Wood" was really really really exagerating how bad the man of the same name was at making movies, and then I actually saw the real "Plan 9". Wow, even the cop scratching the gun against his head, unbelievable how a movie that is this bad can be so good and such a guilty pleasure to watch. . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member David Mullen ASC Posted April 2, 2009 Premium Member Share Posted April 2, 2009 All the one's listed are some of my favorites. A few more: Godzilla (1954) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) There's a good list here: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=38972 One of my favorites from the 1960's, a movie which I found very disturbing, was "Five Million Years to Earth" (aka "Quartermass and the Pit"), about a long-buried spaceship discovered during the construction of a London underground subway line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leo Anthony Vale Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 One of my favorites from the 1960's, a movie which I found very disturbing, was "Five Million Years to Earth" (aka "Quartermass and the Pit"), about a long-buried spaceship discovered during the construction of a London underground subway line. The prequels, which were made in the 50s are also quite good. 'Quatermass II/ Enemy from Space' is a favorite. & I recently got "quatermass IV" 1979 from the library. Okay and depressing. the 4 part TV version has one of the ugliest Xfers I've ever seen. The feature version looked much better. Some foreign 50s FX I'm particularly fond of: one of the first TohoScope movies, 'The Mysterians' -Ishiro Honda'. Honda was Kurosawa's BFF. Both apprenticed together under the same mentor & have similar styles. In the 50s and 60s they were the 2 most popular Japanese directors in the US. Honda co-wrote and co-directed Kurosawa's last movies. Since Kurosawa had the bigger ego he got the director's credit, while Honda gets odd credits like 'directing consulant'. When I 1st saw this as a kid, I was very impressed by the cutting between the flame throwers and the giant robot at the bridge. Great score and Takashi Shimura as Dr. Adachi. When I first saw 'The Seven Samurai' I was excited that the chief samurai was the scientist from 'The Mysterians'. to be continued... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leo Anthony Vale Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 Great score and Takashi Shimura as Dr. Adachi. When I first saw 'The Seven Samurai' I was excited that the chief samurai was the scientist from 'The Mysterians'. to be continued... english: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBsE2W6Qj00 music only: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAIddiHIIdM...feature=related Love the flute at 4:30. Speaking of TohoScope, 'H-Man' was on tcm, in pan&scan ( damn columbia/sony). Since there were frequent scenes with flashlights pointing toward the camera, we can observe how minimal the horizontal flares are with tohoscope attachments. 'assignment-outer space' 1960(technically still the 50s, '51-60) italian, extremely cheap, most space craft are off the shelf plastic kits: revell space station, lindberg moon ship. original italian title: 'spacemen'; proper italian pronounciation ought to be 'spah-chey-men rather than 'spays-men. The tortured grammar of the english dubbing also gives it a weirdly surreal poetry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Hayes Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 Funny how as a kid I saw all these films and particularly 20,000 Leagues under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth were the films that inspired me to become a film maker. I was seeing re-releases of many of these films and thought they were new. I've probably seen each of the following films five times. Beast from 20,000 Fathoms Destination Moon Forbidden Planet Godzilla Invaders from Mars Invasion of the Body Snatchers On the Beach Radar Men from the Moon The Amazing Colossal Man The Blob The Creature from the Black Lagoon The Day the Earth Stood Still The Fly The Incredible Shrinking Man The thing Them! This Island Earth War of the Worlds When World Collide Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Waite Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 I've watched Invasion of the Body Snatchers a few times over the years & it's close to perfect as an intelligent sci-fi noir film. The '70s remake is also not bad, but you can see how acting changed over a couple of decades, they are much more flamboyant & I prefer the restrained, low key style of the '50s. The great thing about this story is that the monsters are people & all they do is change their behaviour slightly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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