“The Supreme Excitement of Our Time!”
Even the Russians respected 1955’s This Island Earth: in the middle of their Sputnik-celebrating, Yankee slamming Cold War sci-fi show Nebo Zoyvot, we’re shown a montage of decadent neon advertisements in New York City, where predatory capitalists have begun hawking vacation property on Mars even though nobody’s landed there yet. There in the middle of the montage is a shot of a Manhattan movie marquee, and This Island Earth is playing. Somebody at Mosfilm had a sense of humor.
A core classic of 1950s Science Fiction, This Island Earth carries the decade’s most poetic title. The story for the first interstellar space opera in color comes right out of the pulp magazines, featuring a two-fisted scientist playboy hero who matches wits with extraterrestrials and sexy Faith Domergue. As with Star Wars twenty-two years later we’re lifted from the mundane cares of a complacent world into the middle of an interplanetary war. The terrific title is perhaps the only positive contribution from the film’s pulp-fiction source. I once was delighted to find a reprint of the original compiled Raymond F. Jones novel. It turned out to be a muddled, juvenile mess about intergalactic agents and secret factories. At the very end, they go to the home planet of the aliens (called the Llannan; or maybe it’s just a planet where the ruling council is at the moment). Cal pleads with the Llannan council to defend the Earth against their enemy the Guarra, who will destroy it knowing it had served as a Llanan base.
The Technicolor production was a considerable expense for Universal, which committed a sizeable budget for costly props, costumes and wall-to-wall optical effects. It was the high point of producer William Alland’s monster cycle, made just when the market for fantasy & Sci-fi was flooded with inexpensive shows with little to show besides gaudy poster art. With a couple of exceptions fantastic subject matter at Universal would be downgraded to the likes of The Mole People and The Deadly Mantis. The only classic-quality ’50s show to follow at Uni was the marvelous The Incredible Shrinking Man, a wonder film produced outside the Alland unit.
I did see This Island Earth once in all of its garish Technicolor 35mm glory, at the FILMEX science fiction marathon in 1975. But it has had a sad life on home video. An inferior Image DVD was released way back in 1997. Contributing to the show’s lack of status was its selection as the punching bag featured victim for the sarcasm-fest Mystery Science Theater movie. This Universal-International classic may have its amusing moments but it is NOT a Zero Hour, waiting to be turned into a sarcastic comedy like Airplane!
The storyline is a strange combination of naïve notions attached to a bizarre Cold War plot about a ‘Brain Drain’ from outer space. Scientist, playboy and pilot Dr. Cal Meacham (Rex Reason) returns to the Ryberg Lab in California from Washington D.C. to find an impressive invitation waiting for him in a weird form: a catalog for an unassembled piece of space-age electronic hardware called an Interociter, with no instructions for its construction. Cal and his trusty sidekick Joe Wilson (Robert Nichols) build the strange piece of machinery, which when complete proves to be a communication device sent by Exeter (Jeff Morrow), a confident man with white hair and an unnaturally high forehead. The assembly-kit Interociter serves as a kind of entry exam — Exeter sends a mystery DC-3 airplane to spirit Cal to a research center at an undisclosed location. The curious Cal accepts, tempted by Exeter’s promise of even more sophisticated technology — knowledge too advanced to have originated on Earth. On the way Cal meets up with fellow invitee Dr. Ruth Adams (Faith Domergue), with whom he had a ‘summer fling’ a few seasons back. Only Ruth now denies it ever happened. Is this a big opportunity for science or some foreign enemy’s attempt to snatch America’s best nuclear engineers? Fellow invitee/kidnapee Dr. Steve Carlson (Russell Johnson) confesses that the national origin of Exeter and his sinister aide Brack (Lance Fuller) is difficult to suss out: their white hair and subtly ‘different’ foreheads may be a clue…
The print ads and posters for This Island Earth promised the heavens to Sci Fi fans. Ad art for the Universal release showed a vast alien landscape and hordes of bug-brained mutated extraterrestrials, plus the added pulp thrill of warring space armadas clashing in the skies. By 1955 the expensive sci-fi shows produced by Walt Disney and George Pal were the exception. Pictures by Columbia’s Sam Katzman cost a fraction of what Universal had been spending, and earned just as much. And American-International would soon be siphoning off the market with product that could almost be called no-budget.
In its dramatics This Island Earth is just a few clicks above the level of ‘space cadet’ television programming. Its conception of science and scientists is naïve. Cal Meachum is the kind of nuclear physicist that might be imagined by David Maclean of Invaders from Mars, a guy who can assemble an alien electronics kit. Cal would seem to be in the pocket of the Military Industrial Complex. He flies his own Air Force jet and hobnobs with ‘the big boys’ at the Pentagon. This inverted Oppenheimer and brainiac superstar is such a celebrity that he can dictate his own agenda. He has time for quickie romances at summer seminars in Vermont. The wholly independent Cal can duck the responsibilities of his lab work, to volunteer to be ‘kidnapped’ by the amiably mysterious Exeter.
In short, Cal is a handsome, deep-voiced version of the too-cool-for-school cartoon scientist in Disney’s lampoon of ‘the typical space monster story’ in the ‘Man in Space’ chapter of their TV edu-tainment science special Disney in Space (Also 1955). As embodied by the booming baritone Rex Reason, Cal mixes male hauteur with pacifist sensitivity. It is no wonder that babes like Ruth Adams all but swoon in his presence. One of the film’s genuinely warm touches is its sympathetic farewell to Cal’s assistant Joe Wilson (Robert Nichols of The Thing from Another World). Exciting space adventures with sexy partners are the exclusive domain of handsome heroes. Poor Joe watches his boss disappear, and must walk away alone in the fog.
Once installed in Exeter’s secret lab (in the state of Georgia!), Cal finds himself with a group of international scientists working to synthesize new sources of atomic power. Incredibly trusting, Cal, Ruth and Steve Carlson go along with the mysterious mission until they decide that (duh) there’s a lot about their associates that needs explaining: both Exeter and his creepy assistant Brack (Lance Fuller) have the same ‘subtle’ indentations in their foreheads …
It’s the old ‘Metaluna Factor,’ a phenomenon in rushed productions with insufficient coordination between the director/writing team and the effects/design team. The script and dialogue mention easy-to-overlook differences in the head shape of the Metalunan characters, but when we see the aliens their foreheads are almost laughably exaggerated, like the ConeHeads from Saturday Night Live. Cal, Ruth and Steve look foolish for only suspecting that Exeter may be foreign in origin, as he and his minion Brack are obvious aliens from the get-go.
Politically the film is a silly mess. America’s top scientists foolishly lend their talents to a blatant conspiracy to steal our top tech secrets — a ‘brain drain.’ The scientists determine that they’re coddled prisoners and decide to escape. That’s when the poetry of This Island Earth kicks in. When the space-age trappings catch up to the kiddie plot, Cal & Ruth are “hurtled into an adventure beyond the stars” to “challenge the unearthly furies of an outlaw planet gone mad.”
(Spoiler) Exeter is really an enlistment agent for his home planet of Metaluna, which is desperate for outside technical assistance. His superiors are fighting a losing war with the planet Zahgon, whose dart-shaped siege spaceships are blasting Metaluna to bits. With Metaluna’s ‘ionization shield’ about to give out, Exeter brings Cal and Ruth with him across the galaxy to help formulate a last-ditch defense.
The last third of the film feels rushed. Some effects feel like place holders for more complicated literary sci-fi concepts. In the same way that the space soldiers in Forbidden Planet need to be dematerialized while their ship slips into Hyperdrive, the passengers on Exeter’s palatial spaceship must have their molecules reconfigured to exist in the altered pressure of Metaluna. Cal and Ruth enter narrow tubes and are electronically disintegrated and reconstructed before our eyes, almost like Claude Rains in The Invisible Man. The simple matte effect is a startling expression of Science Fiction’s ‘fear of the unknown”: to exist in the unnatural future we’ll have to be transformed by our own technology. You know, like what’s happening with The Internet.
Our Earth couple has barely arrived before Metaluna is destroyed in an atomic war. The planet is surrounded by a crumbling outer shell dotted with ‘Swiss cheese’ craters created by Zahgonian bombs that have penetrated an artificial force field, which is itself giving way to constant bombardment. In cautionary Cold War parlance we might reason that Metaluna suffers annihilation because it was too pacifist. We see no ordinary citizens, just ruins. “That was an educational complex,” wails Exeter, reminding all of us ingrates that our right to higher thinking has been secured only through military vigilance. The sympathetic Exeter has little stomach for expedient brutality. He rebels when the sinister Monitor (Douglas Spencer) orders that Cal and Ruth be brainwashed.
When Exeter’s superiors turn out to be such cold-hearted SOB’s we’re no longer certain that Metaluna can still call itself The Good Guys. The Monitor is Hitler in his Berlin bunker, desperate to hold off implacable invaders. For all we know, the Zahgonians may actually be freedom fighters, avenging Metalunan war crimes.
The Durgnat Files: The Zahgons Are Out There
This Island Earth had the distinction of being the first ’50s Sci Fi opus to be given a thorough cinematic analysis, courtesy of Raymond Durgnat in his 1967 book Films and Feelings. Alongside chapters on Johnny Guitar and Psycho, Durgnat distilled the space movie into its component themes. One chosen category is, ‘Brains.’ Cal Meacham is smart, and is therefore an attractive, Brainy guy. The Metalunans have a Brain Shortage and therefore must enlist and even kidnap Brains to save themselves. They’re so Brainy that their heads have apparently expanded. But too much Brains is not good: the Metaluna Mutant has a grossly overdeveloped Brain, yet is a moron. Durgnat described this construction of contrary notions as ‘Paradox Cut Paradox.’
Durgnat’s other stated themes are 2. Remote control, 3. Penetration, 4. Crescendo of voyages, 5. Unusual landings, 6. Crescendo of altruistic suicides, 7. Tension of malevolence. Durgnat also works up the movie as an analogy for the Cold War: Earth scientists Meacham and Adams are caught between warring civilizations. To save themselves from the barbaric Zahgonians, the Metalunans are forced to adopt morally reprehensible methods — kidnapping, brainwashing. This moral bankruptcy is expressed in the planet’s strange geography — the damn orb is a crumbling shell, as hollow as a Whiffle Ball. No matter what Meacham and Adams believe, Earth can no longer be isolationist. We’re just an island amid many others in space, but in terms of morality No Planet Is an Island.
Durgnat used This Island Earth to illustrate the convergence of art and exploitation in the commercial mainstream — ‘The Wedding of Poetry and Pulp.’ The robot airplane is a modern version of a gothic Ghost Coach. A cat that detects Neutrino Rays is an atom-age ‘familiar.’ Every chapter has a revelation, such as a green hill that turns out to be a flying saucer hangar, or an airplane captured in the saucer’s belly. Durgnat calls it a birth in reverse. I’m wondering if it is the movies’ first ‘tractor beam.’
Durgnat sees the visual poetry yet also admits that the script has a lot of klunky exposition. Scientist Cal ‘protects’ the suddenly cowering Ruth and when things get tough comes up with stalwart Hero-speak. His craziest speech reads as if it were inserted to assure church groups that Faith still rules the future: “Our true size is the size of our God.” When Cal says that we really expect the entire cast — Exteter, The Monitor, and even the Mutant — to stare at each other in search of an explanation. At the finale Exeter under-reacts to the obliteration of an entire planet with the trite ‘feel good’ observation that maybe it will become a new star and provide sunshine for ‘some other world.’ That’s too similar to the Fascist sentiment that the best use for ‘unfortunate races’ is to become the fertilzer for a more deserving society.
The only well-defined character is Jeff Morrow’s Exeter, the Alien Without A Country. Exeter tries to remain moral amid all the interplanetary double-crossing. Unlike the complacent, somewhat clueless Cal, his integrity is heavily compromised: what’s the penalty for Transporting Atomic Scientists across State Lines to Build Weapons of Mass Destruction? This Island Earth is split between high pulp art and dime-store scripting, but its juvenile surface hides a fascinating interior.
This Island Earth features special effects that were state-of-the-art for 1955. Just one year later it was greatly surpassed by the more sophisticated production values of MGM’s Forbidden Planet. That show wasn’t bettered until 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Wars. Universal’s work has a gaudy Technicolor sheen lacking in depth and detail. The flying saucer model actually looks smaller than it is. Too much of Metaluna is depicted with matte paintings with faulty perspectives. Yet the look of Metaluna comes closer to the pulp-novel fantasy ethos than any other ’50s sci fi film. Real rocketry science would soon make this romantic view of outer space obsolete.
In the end, budget concerns took top priority. Universal-International had just spent a small fortune on rubber suits for its Creature monster and wasn’t interested in repeating the experience. Both this film’s Metaluna Mutant and the upcoming Mole People wear clothing to simplify their design. The show was begun just as 3-Strip Technicolor was abandoned, and behind-the-scenes stills show ordinary Mitchell cameras being used on the special effects stage. Technicolor printing made possible some gaudy effects tricks, as when Neutrino ray explosions are rendered in contrasting primary colors. Being transparent, these quickly lose their appeal, as does a space view of a retreating Earth that lacks both clouds and color in the oceans. A few years later Japan would give us fabulous orbital views of our planet in color and Tohoscope, with oversized paintings and better spaceships on wires.
Only briefly does This Island Earth generate real suspense. I’m a big fan of the film’s ‘on the run montage’ when Cal and Ruth stumble across a sunset landscape as strange noises begin to howl on the soundtrack. The opening titles are also pretty wonderful, evoking a new kind of adventure in space. And the scene were Cal’s jet glows green is nicely handled, with a sound effect that seems a variation on the spider sizzle heard in the same year’s Tarantula. The lackluster dialogue is more than offset by the frequent visual set pieces. The show can be conventional and unchallenging, but when it’s good, it’s great.
