The Flying Saucer (1950)
Starring Mikel Conrad, Pat Garrison, Hanz von Teuffen. Released January 5, 1950, this film warrants prominent status by default simply because it is considered the very first sci-fi movie to launch the cosmic cinema explosion of the fifties.
Beyond the default however, this film contributed little or no significant prominence to the on-the-horizon sci-fi booming period.The Flying Saucer did not rise above its B film origins. Its low budget production doomed it to the bottom end of theater playbills and drive-ins.
The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther observed: "A film called 'The Flying Saucer' flew into the Rialto yesterday and, except for some nice Alaskan scenery, it can go right on flying, for all we care. In fact, it is such a clumsy item that we doubt if it will go very far, and we hesitate, out of mercy, to fire even a critical shot at it".
STORY: American Intelligence officials learn that Soviet spies have begun exploring a remote region of the Alaskan Territory in search of answers to the worldwide reports of "flying saucers".
A wealthy American playboy, Mike Trent (Mikel Conrad), who was raised in that remote region, is recruited by intelligence officer Hank Thorn (Russell Hicks) to assist a Secret Service agent in exploring that area to discover what the Soviets may have found.
To
his pleasant surprise, Mike discovers the agent is an attractive woman named Vee Langley (Pat Garrison). They set off together and slowly become mutually attracted to each other. Their cover story is that Mike is suffering from a nervous breakdown and she is his private nurse.
At Mike's family's wilderness lodge, they are met by a foreign-accented caretaker named Hans (Hantz von Teuffen), new to the job. Mike is very skeptical of the flying saucer reports until he spots one flying over the lodge. Assorted complications ensue until Mike and Vee finally discover that Hans is one of the Soviet agents who is trying to acquire the flying saucer.
It turns out that the saucer is an invention of American scientist Dr. Lawton (Roy Engel). But Turner (Denver Pyle), Lawton's assistant, is a communist sympathizer and has other ideas: he tries to make a deal to sell the saucer to the Soviets for one million dollars.
Mike's trip to Juneau to see old friends, including Matt Mitchell (Frank Darrien), is ill-advised. When Vee tracks him down, he is in the company of a bar girl, named Nanette (Virginia Hewitt). Matt gets mixed up with the Soviet agents who are trying to obtain control of the saucer.
When he tries to strike a bargain with ring leader Colonel Marikoff (Lester Sharpe), at the spy's headquarters, Matt is knocked unconscious. He is able to escape and seeks out Mike, but they are attacked by the Soviets, who kill Matt.
Before he dies, however, Matt reveals the location of the saucer: Twin Lakes. Mike rents an aircraft and flies to where the saucer is hidden at an isolated cabin. After flying back to his lodge, he tries to find Vee, who has tried to spirit Lawton away.
The trio are captured by the turncoat Taylor and a group of Soviet agents. The Soviets lead their prisoners through a secret tunnel hidden under the glacier. An avalanche begins and wipes them out.
Mike, Vee, and Lawton escape the tunnel just in time to see Turner fly off in the saucer. It suddenly explodes in mid-air, due to a time bomb that Lawton had planted on board for such an eventuality. Their mission now accomplished, Mike and Vee embrace and kiss.
Prehistoric Women (1950)
Prehistoric Women is a 1950 American low-budget film, written and directed by Gregg G. Tallas and starring Laurette Luez and Allan Nixon. It also features Joan Shawlee, Judy Landon, and Mara Lynn. Released by Alliance Productions, the independent film was also titled The Virgin Goddess. The film was later distributed in the United States as a double feature with Man Beast.
Tigri (Luez) and her Stone Age friends, all of which are women, hate all men. However, she and her Amazon tribe see men as a "necessary evil" and capture them as potential husbands. Engor (Nixon), who is smarter than the rest of the men, is able to escape them. He discovers fire and battles enormous beasts.
After he is recaptured by the women, he uses fire to drive off a dragon-like creature. The women are impressed with him, including their prehistoric queen. Engor marries Tigri and they begin a new, more civilized, tribe.
Two Lost Worlds (1950)
Starring James Arness, Laura Elliot, Bill Kennedy. Two Lost Worlds presents James Arness in his first starring role. The film was produced independently by Boris Petroff from his original story. The film was scripted by Phyllis Parker (with later, added scenes written by Tom Hubbard and voice-over narrative by Bill Shaw), directed by Norman Dawn, and distributed by Eagle-Lion Classics Inc., with a 1952 reissue by Classic Pictures Inc.
There are no original dinosaur effects in the film. The dinosaurs appear 58 minutes into the film during the final reel. They were taken from stock footage recycled from the film One Million B.C. (1940). The film was shot in Red Canyon State Park in Cantil, California.
The year is 1830. The American clipper ship, the Queen, is attacked by pirates in the Hebrides (present day Vanuatu). The ship's mate Kirk Hamilton (Arness) is wounded and heads to Queensland Colony in Australia for medical treatment.
While at the hospital, he meets and falls in love with Elaine Jeffries, the fiancee of Martin Shannon (Kennedy) a rancher. A romantic rivalry develops and the pirates, who attacked Kirk and his ship kidnap her along with her friend, Nancy Holden. Kirk and Shannon pursue the pirates and they soon wind up on a volcanic island, inhabited by dinosaurs.
Rocketship X-M (1950)
Starring Lloyd Bridges, Noah Beery, Jr., Hugh O'Brian. Rocketship X-M was the second of the American science fiction feature films of the space adventure genre begun in the post-war era.
Because expensive special effects and production value delayed the release of Destination Moon, this black-and-white film was quickly shot (in 18 days) so as to be able to make it to the cinemas first with the story of a moon expedition that instead lands on Mars.
In the original 1950 theatrical release directed by Kurt Neumann, the Martian landscape was shown with a red tint. The film was scored by American composer Ferde Grof . Instruments and technical equipment were supplied by Allied Aircraft Company of North Hollywood. The film is also known as Expedition Moon and originally as Rocketship XM-1.
In the 1970s the rights to the film were acquired by collector Wade Williams, who set about re-shooting some of its special effects scenes in order to improve the film's look. The DVD release incorporates the re-shot footage.
Destination Moon (1950)
Starring Warner Anderson, Tom Powers, John Archer, Dick Wesson
Destination Moon was the first major science fiction film produced in the United States and lifted the genre from the realm of the fantastic to the world of the believable. Co-scripted by Robert Heinlein from his novel Rocketship Galileo, Destination Moon's suspenseful plot relates the saga of man's first voyage to the moon amid a series of scientific cliffhangers.
It also marked producer George Pal's initial association with the genre. Later, Pal would produce some of Hollywood's most popular sci-fi films, including War of the Worlds, When Worlds Collide and The Time Machine. Breathtakingly photographed in vivid Technicolor, Destination Moon remains a science fiction landmark.
When their latest rocket test fails and government funding collapses, rocket scientist Dr. Charles Cargraves (Warner Anderson) and space enthusiast General Thayer (Tom Powers) enlist the aid of aircraft magnate Jim Barnes (John Archer).
With the necessary millions raised privately from a group of patriotic U. S. industrialists, Cargraves, Warner, and Barnes build an advanced single-stage-to-orbit atomic powered spaceship, named Luna, at their desert manufacturing and launch facility; the project is soon threatened by a ginned-up public uproar over "radiation safety."
The three idealists circumvent legal efforts to stop their expedition by simply launching the world's first Moon mission well ahead of schedule; as a result, they must quickly substitute Joe Sweeney (Dick Wesson) as their expedition's radar and radio operator.
On their way to Moon, they are forced to go outside Luna in zero gravity, wearing magnetic boots to stay on the hull, in order to free a frozen piloting radar antenna greased-up by the inexperienced Sweeney hours before the launch. In the process they carelessly lose one of the crew overboard, untethered in free fall; he is cleverly retrieved by using a large oxygen cylinder as a retro rocket.
After achieving orbit around the Moon, the crew begins the complex landing procedure, using too much fuel during the Luna's descent phase. On the Moon, after exploring the lunar surface, they begin to calculate the mass needed to lighten their spaceship in the Moon's one-sixth gravity to get them back home with their remaining fuel.
No matter how much non-critical equipment they remove and leave on the lunar surface, the hard numbers radioed from Earth continue to point to one conclusion: someone will have to stay behind on the Moon if the other three crew are to return safely to Earth.
With time running out for their return launch window, the crew engineers their way home: They jettison the ship's heavy radio equipment and their sole remaining space suit, with air tanks and space helmet, directly through the spaceship's open airlock.
The critical take-off weight is finally achieved, and with just minutes remaining, Luna safely blasts off from the Moon with all aboard. As the crew approaches the Earth, the film's traditional "The End" title card heralds the dawn of the Space Age: "This is THE END...of the Beginning."
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