Million Monkey Theater
Phantom From Space (1953)
This early 1950s sci-fi movie tries hard, but really struggles at times to remain
interesting. Few movies of this
genre I have seen lately have been this overly talky, and not in a My Dinner
With Andre-good way, but a
middle act of Attack of the Clones-bad kind of way. It's only a slight
exaggeration to say that 80% of
the movie seems to be people sitting around talking, often spouting technobabble of
astonishing stupidity. Still, it's
not a totally bad film, there are a few good ideas that are worth exploring.
It was directed by W. Lee Wilder, who would give us the horrible Killers From
Space and The Snow Creature in the next year. He was working from
a lengthy script penned by
at least three different people, and you can really tell. Clearly one writer
wanted a traditional crime drama, and
another wanted a sci-fi film, and the mashing together of these two genres was not
done seamlessly. The film
also shows rather bland direction and seems to think it's a much better movie than
it really is. There are a few
neat optical effects, but they're lost in a sea of lame ones, and the budget must
have been tiny.
Phantom From Space opened on May 15, 1953. I will be using a new 2005
Brentwood DVD, black and
white and running just 73 minutes. The sound is tinny and staticy, forcing me to
turn the volume up to 40 just to
hear. The picture quality is not much better, murky and faded. They must have
found the original 16mm reel
lying out in the Arizona desert since 1962. Truly a rotten presentation of this
movie, a cheap-ass digital transfer
of a cheap-ass print stock if I ever saw one. Still, this is about the only way
anyone will ever see this movie again,
so I guess I should be happy.
And now on to our show...
We open with a long series of stock footage montage shots. A droll narrator tells
us that all we are about to see
comes from the secret files of the "Central Bureau" in Washington. It's the story
of a mysterious night that
frightened the world! Are you tingling with excitement yet?
The stock footage opening lasts a full 3:52, which is like 5% of our entire movie.
It's mostly industrial clips of
radar sets and communications gear, mixed in with public domain clips of military
forces and soldiers. In the
montage, I recognize a C-54 Skymaster transport plane, a radar picket submarine
(looks like a
Balao-class), and a flight of F-80 Shooting Star fighter jets.
Basically, the story is that one evening, an unidentified flying object was
detected on radar entering the Earth's
atmosphere over Alaska. The object was heading south-southeast at a tremendous
rate of speed and descending
rapidly. Attempts at interception were useless, and eventually the object
disappeared from radar near Santa
Monica, California.
Stunning optical effects provided by a five-year old
girl!
The next morning, agents of the Federal Communications Commission in Los Angeles detected some fairly severe electromagnetic interference in the area. This caused radio and television signals to white out and caused all sorts of trouble. So the FCC organized several teams of agents in cars to go out and look for the source of the interference, using RDF gear to try and triangulate the source. [Editor Pam: Check out the vintage cars with the huge antennas on top. No way to be inconspicuous in those.]
Band of studs!
We join one of these cars, Mobile One, and meet our film's hero. This will be dashing FCC agent Lieutenant Hazen, played by Ted Cooper. Cooper had a remarkably short career in movies, with only 11 total roles, almost all from 1951 to 54. Despite this, he had roles in some of the best films of that time period, including 1951's The Thing From Another World and 1954's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I wonder what became of him?
Lieutenant Hazen.
As Hazen fiddles with his RDF gear, a young woman comes running down the road
towards him, a frantic look on
her face. She says that her husband and their friend were just attacked down at
the campgrounds by a
mysterious man. She says this attacker was wearing a "suit like a diver".
Hazen tries to call for an ambulance but cannot get through, so he decides to go
down and see for himself. The
woman is named Betty, and her husband Ed has been killed. Their friend Pete, who
is also their boarder at their
house, is alive but injured. The police arrive soon and take Ed to the morgue and
Betty and Pete to the station for
questioning. Lieutenant Hazen is asked to come down and give a statement later.
And so he does, arriving just as Pete is being interrogated by a homicide detective
named Lieutenant Bowers.
Bowers will also be one of our heroes, played by 32-year old Harry Landers.
Landers had an average career in
movies and television, and nothing really stands out as especially noteworthy.
Lieutenant Bowers.
Bowers clearly thinks that Pete killed Ed, in some sort of lovers' triangle with
Betty. Pete is mad and defensive,
sticking to his story. He claims that the attacker was dressed like a "deep sea
diver", with a "crazy helmet with
pipes sticking up out of it". He also claims that there was "no head inside the
helmet". That's just crazy talk, man!
Police sketch of the
alleged "attacker".
Just then, a call comes for Bowers. Another murder has been reported in the same
area. While slightly
vindicated, Pete is still kept at the station for now. We follow Bowers down to
the murder site, where he
questions an old man who lives next door to the victim. The old man says he didn't
see much, but was watching TV
when suddenly it went all fuzzy.
Just then, Hazen and his RDF set drive up. Hazen confirms that the interference
seems to now be in this area.
He then leaves, as the interference has been triangulated moving northeast. They
arrive at the Huntington Oil
Fields, just in time to see an oil tank ablaze. Still they can't locate the
source of the interference, as it just
keeps moving around in random patterns. They don't think it's a transmitter set
in a car, but rather something a
man is carrying around that is causing the trouble.
Sometime later, we go back now to Detective Bowers. Hazen is here, too, having
been called in to discuss what is
happening lately. A police sketch artist is with Pete and Betty, and has made a
sketch of the mysterious suited
man. Both witnesses agree on the attacker's appearance. The night watchman from
the Huntington Oil Fields
arrives then, and his story and description dovetails with the others'. He says
the scary suited man walked into
the complex and blew up an oil storage tank.
Hazen and Bowers discuss Greek poetry and the
Lakers.
So, now Bowers and Hazen talk about what or who the man might be. They think that the suit is probably some sort of "flying suit" or a "high-altitude gear". They come to the conclusion that the man is probably an "enemy saboteur", parachuted into Santa Monica to cause havoc. Not really that crazy a suggestion, considering the facts and the paranoid climate of 1953, where Commie infiltrators were a common perceived threat. They send a message to Washington and agree to keep the press in the dark until they find this guy.
That same night, Washington cables back and tells Bowers and Hazen to go talk to two guys at the "Griffith Institute" at the Griffith Observatory. So they go and meet Air Force Major Andrews and Doctor Wyatt, and tell them everything that has happened up to this point.
Major Andrews is played by 39-year old James Seay. Seay worked in movies and television for 30 years, including several early sci-fi b-movies. He was Colonel Hallock in 1957's The Amazing Colossal Man and Colonel Banks in 1954's Killers From Space. He's a big man with a strong and proper military bearing.
Major Andrews.
Doctor Wyatt is played by 58-year old Rudolph Anders. The German-born Anders made a living playing Teutonic scientists and insidious Nazi generals, severely typecast with his thick accent and appearance. During the war years he wisely changed his screen name to Robert Davis, but in the 1950s he took up his birth name again.
Doctor Wyatt.
The four of them bounce ideas off each other for a bit, sharing all the information
that they know. The Major
lets everyone in on the mysterious UFO that was tracked coming down in the Santa
Monica area. After a lot of
rambling talk, they come to the conclusion that whoever they're looking for came in
on that UFO and is now
running around loose in west LA. Note in this scene that Detective Bowers is
wearing a suit about a size too
small, when he sits down, his pant legs ride up almost to his knees. [Editor
Pam: Not only that, he seems to like to sit with his knees drawn up close to his
chest. Not something you'd expect an adult to do. In subsequent scenes, if you
look fast, you can see his pants are very short even when he's standing up.]
So, the FCC now doubles their efforts to track the alien by its interference.
After some considerable effort,
they finally track it down to a warehouse somewhere in the area of the oil
refinery. A group of policemen and
FCC guys go there, and using Geiger counters, are hot on the trail of the alien.
And then, fully 25:50 into our movie (!), we finally get our first view of our
titular alien. He's indeed wearing a
white diving suit sort of thing, with a big helmet and a chest-mounted airpack.
The alien runs around a bit, trying
not to get caught, but is eventually cornered inside a shed. As the humans
prepare to storm the shed, the alien
frantically looks around for a way to escape.
Finding no other exit, the alien decides to remove his space suit, to reveal
that....the dude's invisible! Saw that
coming. The men barge in and find...zip. Well, they do find the suit and helmet.
They make the illogical deduction
that the man took off the suit to avoid detection, but don't worry about how he
managed to get out of the locked
shed, suit or no suit.
They wave the Geiger counter over it and it pegs. Despite the fact that they're
all standing about a foot away
from this highly radioactive suit, no one seems to care. If it was that hot, they
would all be poisoned just by being
in the same room, whether they touched it or not. [Editor Pam: The quality of
the print I watched was so poor that I couldn't read the scale on the instrument's
display, so I can't tell how much radiation the suit was supposed to be emitting.
However, if the suit really was radioactive, the amount of radiation the instrument
detects should increase as it gets closer to the suit, and the clicking we hear
should get faster. It doesn't, so the filmmakers probably foleyed in the sound,
which would certainly be easier and safer than obtaining real radioactive
material.] That's a 1953 knowledge of radioactive material right there.
They get a lead-lined box and put the suit inside, lifting it up with metal tongs
held in bare hands. [Editor Pam: Judging from the way the men carry it, the box
is too light to provide much shielding. It's a good-sized box, and lead is heavy.
Why would employees of the FCC be carrying lead-lined boxes around with them,
anyway?]
They take the box and put it in a car. The invisible alien slips in the back seat
and travels with them to the
Griffith Observatory labs.
Griffith Observatory.
There, the suit is brought in and given a full battery of tests. We also meet
two other scientists here, a husband
and wife team named Bill and Barbara Randall.
Bill is a nobody, but Barbara is played by 29-year old Noreen Nash. Nash made a
number of films in the 1940s and 50s, but
never really had a breakout role, though she was Lona Lane in 1956's Giant
with James Dean. She's a
pretty girl in real life, though the horrid film stock here is no proof of that.
[Editor Pam: We meet their dog, too, although it seems odd to have a dog at a
laboratory, where there are all sorts of dangerous things it could get into and
lots of expensive equipment for it to damage. The dog does come in handy at the
end of the movie, but that doesn't explain what it was doing there in the first
place.]
Barbara Randall.
They run a full series of tests on the suit, trying everything from acid drips,
bunsen burners, sharp shears, exacto
knives and even brute force to try and rip or puncture the fabric. Nothing works
at all, "Tougher than nylon!",
says the Major. Must be Morrow-issue Resistweave... They do determine that the
alien probably can't live long
without his suit and he'll be coming back for it eventually. The air inside the
tanks is so unique (11% methane!)
that certainly the alien can't survive without it.
While they talk, a reporter from the Chronicle arrives downstairs to talk
with them. The men leave, and
Barbara stays behind with the suit to run some more tests. You see where this is
leading, don't you? The
invisible alien enters the lab and locks the door, freaking Barbara out. [Editor
Pam: I wonder how an alien would know how to lock an Earth door?]
We don't see what actually happens here, but he apparently knocks Barbara out and
takes her out of the room
when her husband Bill returns to find the door locked. Why he didn't just put on
his suit is beyond me. Sure, he
was a little interrupted by Bill returning, but he had more than enough time to put
on the suit. Maybe he realized
that staying invisible for now was his best chance at escape. [Editor Pam: If I
were alone on an alien planet, being pursued by its bizarre creatures, I probably
wouldn't be thinking too straight, either.]
The optical effects for showing the invisible man are simple, just fishing line
holding up objects and clothes to
make it appear to be floating. With the minuscule budget of this movie, this was
the best they could do. There
are several neat matte produced shots, such as the key being pulled out of the door
lock, but generally nothing
stands out as really exciting or chilling.
Spooky floating helmet...
So, the alien takes the unconscious Barbara out and hides inside the huge
observatory. Bill, Major Andrews and
Doctor Wyatt all search frantically for her, but have no luck. Watch as they all
run around the Observatory, up
and down stairs, constantly yelling "Barbara!". For having his wife possibly
kidnapped, Bill seems fairly controlled.
Maybe they don't have the best marriage, or maybe Bill is just a wimp.
Eventually, the alien manages to make it back to the lab where his suit is and lock
them both in again. Barbara
regains her senses then, in time to see the invisible alien put his helmet back on.
Freaked even more, she demands
that the alien tell her who he's and what he wants with her. Kudos to the script
for not having Barbara faint
dead away every other scene, like most 1950s women were known to do.
"I worked with James Dean!" [Editor Pam: Does the hair
remind anybody of Eunice from Mama's Family?]
Apparently lacking the faculties for human speech, the alien picks up a pair of shears and uses them to tap out a series of numbers. This is assumed to be a crude attempt at communication, but never really plays much a part. Barbara scares the alien off once again, this time by shining an ultra-violet lamp on his hand, which exposes him as a humanoid with human-like limbs. So the alien runs out of the Observatory and into the woods surrounding it. [Editor Pam: He knows how Earth windows open, too! He didn't so much as hesitate to figure out how to open it.]
More endless banter with our cast. They discuss the alien and his morphology, coming to the wild conclusion that he's silicon-based, and his cellular structure somehow interacts with earth gases to make him invisible. Sure. They decide that the poor alien is just shipwrecked here, lost and alone. He killed those two men because they attacked him first, and then blew up the oil tank trying to get some more gasses to breathe. They're also sure that he will be back for his helmet, so they all camp out around the Observatory waiting for him. They don't want to kill the alien, just to capture and study him.
After several hours of waiting, the alien trips an alarm, he's back in the building. So for the next ten minutes or so we are treated to seemingly-endless scenes of people running around the cavernous Griffith Observatory chasing the invisible alien. Eventually they corner him back in the lab with his helmet. [Editor Pam: I've got to admire Barbara. When she finds out the alien is in the building, she feels the best way to handle it is to head for the lab and pour liquid from a beaker into a test tube. None of that running around for her.] They seem to be having some luck talking the alien down calmly when a dumbass reporter snaps a photo. The flash freaks out the alien, who rips off his helmet and flees the room. The helmet crashes to the floor, shattering and ending any chance the poor alien has of surviving.
More chasing and running, the alien on the loose. Before too long they trap him again, this time high on the gantry around the telescope. They shine their ultra-violet lamps on him and his true form is revealed. Pretty much just a tall pasty white nekkid dude with no hair. I should note here that the UV lamps they carry around have no power cords, they just hold the lamp and shield in their hands. They look cool, yes, but they have to be plugged into a wall socket to actually work. The prop master probably didn't think we would catch that, but I guess you can't be running around like that with a cord running behind you.
Gasping for his final breaths, the alien falls to his demise. Our cast rushes up, but he's too far gone. He is, however, now fully visible, his leg pulled up to discreetly hide his crotch. A lame attempt at scientifically justifying his loss of invisibility is mounted, but fails the logic test. As they lament the great loss to science, the body begins to disintegrate (!) and is soon completely gone. It's hard not to feel quite bad for the alien, especially watching his desperate attempts to retrieve his suit and helmet so he could live. [Editor Pam: His disintegration looks interestingly spooky, but I can think of no physical reason why any sort of living being would be invisible while he was alive, then turn visible and dissolve immediately once his heart stops beating.]
The alien breathes its last.
Ok, then, that's the end. Not too bad a little film, some nice ideas, just not enough there to keep most people awake. See it while you still can.
[Editor Pam: It's not that bad a movie, but as I watched it, I kept thinking how much better "Outer Limits" or "Twilight Zone" could have done this. There are too many things that are never explained, and too many dull stretches where nothing happens.]
Bonus! Some handy statistics for you.
32: Number of cigarettes smoked by our cast. Christ, all these actors must have died of lung cancer by the end of the shoot.
18: Number of times they shout "Barbara!" while searching for her, which really got annoying after awhile.
2: Number of people killed, both offscreen.
1: Number of moments of levity or humor, making this the most earnest, serious movie I've seen in a while. And that's not a good thing.
1: Movies I've seen (this one) that had normally uber-geeky Federal Communications Commission agents as main characters, and not as skinny tie-wearing losers who never gave up their AV Club membership cards.
Typical FCC geek.
Written in September 2005 by Nathan Decker
and edited by Pam Burda.
that's between you and the vengeful wrath of your personal god...