This Island Earth - 1955
This Island Earth is an American science fiction film directed by Joseph M. Newman. It is based on the novel of the same name by Raymond F. Jones. The film stars Jeff Morrow as the alien Exeter, Faith Domergue as Dr. Ruth Adams, and Rex Reason as Dr. Cal Meacham.
STORY & SCREENSHOTS: Dr. Cal Meacham is flying to his laboratory in a loaned Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star. Just before landing, the jet's engine fails, but he is saved from crashing by a mysterious green glow that surrounds his aircraft. At the lab is an unusual substitute for the electronic condensers that he had ordered.
Instead, he discovers instructions and parts to build a complex device called an "interocitor". Neither Meacham nor his assistant, Joe Wilson, have heard of such a device, but they immediately begin its construction. When they finish, a mysterious man named Exeter appears on the interocitor's screen and informs Meacham that he has passed a test.
His ability to build the interocitor demonstrates that he is gifted enough to be part of Exeter's special research project. Intrigued, Meacham is picked up at the fog-shrouded airport by an unmanned, computer-controlled Douglas DC-3 aircraft with no windows.
Landing in a remote area of Georgia, he finds an international group of top atomic scientists already present, including an old flame, Dr. Ruth Adams. Cal is confused by Ruth's failure to recognize him and suspicious of Exeter, his assistant Brack, and other odd-looking men leading the project.
Cal and Ruth flee with a third scientist, Steve Carlson, but their car is attacked and Carlson is killed. When they take off in a Stinson 108 single engine aircraft, Cal and Ruth watch as the research facility and all its inhabitants are incinerated. Their aircraft is then drawn up by a bright green beam into a flying saucer.
Exeter explains that he and his men are from the planet Metaluna and are locked in a war with the Zagons. They defend against Zagon attacks with a planetary energy field, but are running out of uranium to keep it operational. They have enlisted humans in an effort to transmute lead into uranium, but time has now run out.
Exeter takes both Earthers back to his world, sealing them in conditioning tubes to normalize the pressure differences between the planets. They land safely on Metaluna, but the planet is under bombardment by Zagon spaceships guiding flaming meteors as weapons against them.
The defensive "ionization layer" is failing, and the battle is entering its final stage. Metaluna's leader, the Monitor, reveals that the Metalunans intend to flee to Earth. He insists that Meacham and Adams be subjected to a Thought Transference Chamber to subjugate their free will.
He further indicates this will be the fate of the rest of humanity after Metalunan relocation. Exeter believes that this is immoral and misguided. Before the couple can be sent into the device, Exeter helps them escape. Exeter is badly injured by a mutant guard while he, Cal, and Ruth flee from Metaluna in the saucer.
The planet's ionization layer becomes totally ineffective as they leave. Under the constant Zagon bombardment, Metaluna begins heating up and turns into a lifeless "radioactive sun". The mutant guard has also boarded the saucer and attacks Ruth, but dies as a result of the pressure barrier differences on the way back to Earth.
As they enter the Earth's atmosphere, Exeter sends Cal and Ruth away in their Stinson aircraft, declining to join them. Exeter is dying and the ship's energy is nearly depleted. The saucer flies out over the ocean, rapidly accelerates until it is enclosed in a fireball, and crashes into the water where it explodes.
This Island Earth - FILM INFO
In 1996, This Island Earth was edited down and lampooned in the film Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie. When initially released, the film was praised by critics, who cited the special effects, well-written script and eye-popping color (prints by Technicolor) as being its major assets.
This Island Earth was released in June 1955 and by the end of that year had accrued US$1,700,000 in distributors' domestic (U.S. and Canada) rentals, making it the year's 74th biggest earner.
The New York Times review opined, "The technical effects of This Island Earth, Universal's first science-fiction excursion in color, are so superlatively bizarre and beautiful that some serious shortcomings can be excused, if not overlooked."
"Whit" in Variety wrote "Special effects of the most realistic type rival the story and characterizations in capturing the interest in this exciting science-fiction chiller, one of the most imaginative, fantastic and cleverly-conceived entries to date in the outer-space film field. "
Since its original release, the critical response to the film has continued to be mostly positive. Bill Warren has written that the film was "the best and most significant science fiction movie of 1955 it remains a decent, competent example of any era's science fiction output.."
In Phil Hardy's The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction the film was described as "a full-blooded space opera complete with interplanetary warfare and bug-eyed monsters the film's space operatics are given a dreamlike quality and a moral dimension that makes the dramatic situation far more interesting."
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