I can't remember seeing The Man From Planet X before. It's certainly not on my movie list so I might have seen it as a kid on tv. Turner Classic Movies was running it and the 1959 Hammer film The Hound of the Baskervilles last night. I watched The Hound of the Baskervilles first and there is no science fiction in there. Not a bad film version of the story, glad to see it. The Man From Planet X is a 1951 low-budget science fiction film by Edgar G. Ulmer. Made in 6 days for under $60,000 it was shot on some of the sets of Joan of Arc. They use lots of smoke for fog and it's hard to see them. It set in Scotland, on an island. A spaceship lands there and the man from Planet X is a weird looking guy. That's him in a bubble on the cover. He can't communicate with the earth people but he has a hypnoray to put them under his control. He's found by a science guy's beautiful daughter, who is played by Margaret Field, Sally Field's mother. The science guy brings the alien into his house so they can communicate with him. There's a reporter, played by Robert Clarke. William Schallert plays the assistant who wants to use the alien for his own dreams of glory and power. It doesn't go to well for him or the man from Planet X, especially after the authorities show up. The man from Planet X shows his true colors and they learn he's the first of an invasion force. He's got to call home at midnight to start the invasion. Will they blow him up in time? Sure. It's the 1950's and a nogood alien isn't gonna take over our planet Earth.
It's the same with robots that go out of control, they get smashed down. That's the sad story of The Colossus of New York. It's a low-budget film from 1958 directed by Eugène Lourié. He did not direct many films, he mostly worked as a production designer or art director. His directorial debut was 1953's The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms which is based on a Ray Bradbury story. I like it, it's fun to watch, and Ray Harryhausen worked on the stop motion beast. Lourié would go on to direct The Giant Behemoth and Gorgo would be his last directed film in 1961.In TCONY Ross Martin is a brilliant doctor. He's the son of another brilliant doctor played by Otto Kruger. Ross is hit by a truck and dies. Oh, no. His dad saves the brain. Good idea? I don't think so but the deed is done. The dead doctor's brother is a mechanical genius and he works with dad to put the brain in a robot body. Much as I might like to get my brain put into a robot body so I could take over the word, I would not want to be in this hulking behemoth. He's huge. Well, as you might image things get worse and worse for everyone and robot man has to be destroyed. Seen that coming. Don't put brains into robots I guess. It hardly ever seems to work out well.
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