Invisible Invaders / Journey to the Seventh Planet (1959)

INVISIBLE INVADERS JOURNEY TO THE SEVENTH PLANET

Tongue-in-cheek 1959 sci-fi cult film

The story: Earth's scientists are fooling around with the atom again and inhabitants of the Earth's Moon are quite unhappy about it. Of course, once atomic energy becomes a household word, the next thing you know, man will be on the Moon -- and the Moon Aliens plan to put the skids to THAT!

To prevent earthlings from exploring space, the "Invisible Invaders" (alien Moon residents) plan to attack, invade, and take over planet Earth, killing all the Earthlings in the process. Since these moon folks and their spacecraft are invisible it's clearly difficult to do battle with them. The invaders DO pre-warn Earth's residents to just give up the planet, but you know how stubborn Earthlings are. The Invisible Invaders can re-animate corpses so we end up with a sort of either "Night of the Living Dead" or "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" -type scenario as the battle for earth ensues.

As the situation deteriorates for the Earthlings a small band of Earth's scientists ultimately retreat to a secret military bunker where they attempt to devise a new weapon which will derail their alien attackers. It soon becomes apparent to these scientists that the only real weapon that the Moonsters (my word) have is invisibility itself. I'll have to stop there to avoid giving rise to a Spoiler!

The 1959 film, "Invisible Invaders" is shot in black-and-white and runs 67 minutes in duration. The aspect is full frame. Produced by Premium Films, the movie was directed by Edward L. Cahn and the big stars are John Carradine (superb!), John Agar, and Robert Hutton. The music was composed by Paul Dunlap (pretty good) and the special effects are by Roger George.

I'm a huge fan of this genre of period films and this one is okay - the actors played their roles quite well but both the story and the special effects are just a little too silly and absurd. Still, if you savor the old Drive-in Movie sci-fi flicks, "Invisible Invaders" might be right up your alley.
July 30, 2008

What's That Smell, oh it's this little piece of cheese from the past, that I really like

Fond Memories of after school movies and rainy days flooded me as I watched these moldy oldies again. Sure they both stink and are bottom of the barrel sci-fi movies, but I happen to like the bottom of this barrel very much.
The feeling of being a kid again as I watched these with my sons was great and even though they said the fx's were bad, they had fun with the movie. Not for all taste, but if you grew up in the 60's and 70's or you are a young person looking for some cheesy fun you can stop looking and get this set. April 18, 2007

Charming B-movie with potential

I have currently only watched one half of the double feature: Journey to the seventh planet.

The movie has an actually exciting plot which, as in every other B-movie, is being totally neglected and drives on without any real building up to anything.

The movie is however interesting for all Danes as they can recognize all the famous and belowed Danish actors of the time in some higly unordinary situations.

ESPECIALLY the fact that the danish actor Ove Sprogøe - the Danish actor who has played the most movie roles in danish filmhistory - acording to legend for many years refused to have played the part Barry'o'Sullivan in this movie makes it more fun to watch.

enjoy April 5, 2007

Great sci-fi double feature

The clarity of both pictures where very good.One could see everything very clearly and of course I enjoyed both of them.Brought back "old times" for me.Anyone that is collecting "old sci-fi" movies on dvd will I am sure enjoy these two. January 19, 2007

An odd paring of movies

"Invisible Invaders"

You can't see me

It is the 50's and Dr. Karol Noymann (John Carradine) is messing around with atomics and gets irradiated. His carcass is buried. His friend Dr. Adam Penner (Philip Tonge) and co-worker decides his demise is not from any radiation but from trying to use it for military purposes.

Invisible beings who own the universe figure it is time to invade earth as they are getting too uppity with their new found atomics and rockets. So the give Dr. Adam Penner self comfiest pacifist the chance to spread the news of surrender or die. To get their point across they barrow Dr. Karol Noymann's carcass for a farewell performance.

The movie has all the standard sci-fi clichés and formula where the girl half betrothed to the wimp second in command really goes for the strong willed military type.

Lots of stock film and a "Plan 9" feel make this a film classic. No mater how campy if your are a kid this is one spooky movie.
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"Journey to the Seventh Planet"

The original blue light special

The year 2001. The earth has learned to live together. We all live under the U.N. and have turned our attention to exploring the planets.

A spaceship full of, shall we say girl starved, spacemen is headed for Uranus to investigate strange radiation and the possibility of life.
The crew:

John Agar .... Capt. Don Graham
Carl Ottosen .... Eric
Peter Monch .... Karl
Ove Sprogøe .... Barry O'Sullivan
Louis Miehe-Renard .... Svend
They are not prepaird for what they will encounter. I can not tell of most but some encounters are:

Ann Smyrner .... Ingrid
Greta Thyssen .... Greta
Ulla Moritz .... Lise
Mimi Heinrich .... Ursula
Annie Birgit Garde .... Ellen
Bente Juel .... Colleen

As an added treat we get to hear the song "Journey to the Seventh Planet" sung by Otto Brandenburg.

June 11, 2006

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