Fri 16 Aug 2019
A Science Fiction Movie Review: THIS ISLAND EARTH (1955).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , SF & Fantasy films[8] Comments
THIS ISLAND EARTH. Universal International, 1955. Jeff Morrow, Faith Domergue, Rex Reason, Lance Fuller, Robert Nichols. Based on the book by Raymond F. Jones (Shasta, hardcover, 1952), a fixup novel comprised of stories appearing in three separate issues of Thrilling Wonder Stories, 1949-50. Director: Joseph M. Newman.
There is an old saying that you can’t go home again, and I know it’s true, as this movie proves. When I saw this movie the first time, I was 13 years old, and I thought it was the best science fiction movie I’d ever seen. It was in color, first of all, and all of the gadgets in the movie simply knocked my socks off.
Forbidden Planet came along the very next year, but while that one was also in color and had Robby the Robot and even better special effects, I still liked This Island Earth better. Why? Two scenes have stood out over all these past 60 years. The two scientists building a communications device called the interlocutor from scratch using blueprints and parts send by mail from an anonymous source.
I tried doing the same thing in my basement at home, but some of the parts must have gotten lost in the mail.
The other scene I remember is Jeff Morrow and Faith Domergue standing in clear vertical tubes designed as either compression or decompression devices so as to condition them for either space travel or life on the aliens’ planet on their way to the latter to save their civilization. I’ve always been a little vague about the details, but details don’t matter, when you see the two Earthlings in skeletal form as the tubes do what ever is is they did.
What I didn’t remember — and how could I forget? — is the weird ugly mutated monster that threatens the pair as they make their way back to Earth having failed their mission. A convenient form of amnesia, I guess.
Nor do I remember when I was 13 wondering why it was the aliens who had so much power and could do many wondrous things on Earth needed all those scientists from Earth to help them fight their battles with other aliens back home.
I don’t think that Faith Domergue impersonated a atomic scientist very well, but she certainly wore her tight fitting space uniform quite nicely, long before Racquel Welch did in Fantastic Voyage. This Island Earth was there first in a number of ways, but once the group of four left the planet Earth for Metaluna, the story seems to lose its way. Some nice memories were lost along the way as well. I was disappointed.
August 16th, 2019 at 9:48 pm
It’s one of those classics that isn’t quite as classic as we remember it. Still fun, but hardly in a class with FORBIDDEN PLANET. If I’m going to watch a Jeff Morrow SF film I prefer KRONOS.
Still, there are some decent FX for the time, some memorable scenes and a certain class most SF films only aspired to, it’s just these days I prefer the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version.
August 16th, 2019 at 10:52 pm
I’m a big fan of this movie.
I agree with Steve about the two best scenes.
And yes, the color is great.
August 17th, 2019 at 6:34 am
Okay, bear with me here as I natter a bit.
There are some really fine books about movies, but I can only think of a few that tackle the whole sprawling, gaudy panoply of THE MOVIES successfully — by which I mean they are neither superficial nor duller than dishwater.
One of the best of these is FILMS AND FEELINGS (1967) by Raymond Durgnat. In a 300 page survey of a whole art form, writing when genre films were still less than respectable, Durgnat takes a dozen pages to explain the poetry, thematic complexity, and sheer fun of THIS ISLAND EARTH.
August 17th, 2019 at 12:09 pm
Dan
Obviously my younger self was more in sync with this film than the present day me. It happens!
August 17th, 2019 at 5:01 pm
Much, much worse than I imagined. Clumsy, flat, unsophisticated and empty.Now those words do not reflect analysis merely a gut reaction, which based on the two minutes is more than warranted.
August 17th, 2019 at 6:04 pm
I can see why you might say so, Barry, especially if the two minutes you mention refers to the trailer (truly awful) but as ungood as the movie itself is, I’m going to disagree a bit and say that it isn’t really that bad. Well, that is, not until the monster comes along.
August 17th, 2019 at 7:17 pm
Okay.
August 18th, 2019 at 10:37 pm
I suspect I would feel much different about this film if I had first seen it as boy or teen, but I was in my thirties by the time I finally saw it, and much of the “magic” just didn’t work as well.