This Island Earth
(1955)
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The Technicolor production was a huge expense for Universal, which committed a sizeable budget to a story requiring costly props, costumes and wall-to-wall optical effects. It was the high point of William Alland's monster cycle and the cost may have broken the studio's commitment to Science Fiction: After This Island Earth fantastic subject matter at Universal tapered off -- with the exception of the marvelous The Incredible Shrinking Man, a wonder film produced outside the Alland unit. This Island Earth appeared in the first months of DVD in an inferior Image Entertainment disc that has become a collector's item. The feature had already suffered a humiliating roasting in the theatrical Mystery Science Theater movie. Perhaps this DVD will help restore it to its deserved place near the top ranks of 50s Sci Fi. Synopsis: 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, 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 machine is an Interociter and its assembly is sort of an entry exam for Cal -- Exeter sends a mystery DC-3 airplane to spirit him to a research center at an undisclosed location. Cal is too curious not to accept, tempted by Exeter's promise of even more sophisticated technology -- knowledge almost 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. The print ads and posters for This Island Earth promised the heavens to Sci Fi fans. In 1955 the realm of fantastic films was beginning to taper off into low-budget production, and save for the infrequent George Pal extravaganza, space movies had given way to more economical monster thrillers. 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. In its dramatics, This Island Earth is barely 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 David Maclean of Invaders from Mars might imagine, a guy who knows his way around a do-it-yourself project like assembling an alien electronics kit. Deeply invested in military research, Cal flies his own Air Force jet, hobnobs with 'the big boys' at the Pentagon (no Oppenheimer he) and goes in for quickie romances at summer seminars in Vermont. The wholly independent Cal is able to determine his own agenda, even if it means ducking his responsibilities to volunteer to be 'kidnapped' by the benevolently brainy Exeter. 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 and sexy partners are the exclusive domain of handsome heroes. Poor Joe watches his boss disappear, and has to 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 Exeter and his odd associates that they don't understand: Exeter and his creepy assistant Brack (Lance Fuller) both have the same "subtle" indentations in their foreheads ... 2 Politically, the film is a silly mess, with America's top scientists foolishly lending their talents to what looks like a blatant conspiracy of 'foreigners' to steal our top tech secrets -- a 'brain drain.' The scientists determine that they're really coddled prisoners and decide to escape. That's when the real poetry of This Island Earth kicks in. The space-age trappings catch up to the kiddie plot, and 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. Exeter's superiors are fighting a losing war with the planet Zahgon, whose dart-shaped siege spaceships are blasting Metaluna to bits. With their 'ionization shield' about to give out, Metaluna has Exeter bring Cal and Ruth with him across the galaxy, to help formulate a last-ditch defense. This last third of the film goes rather quickly and consists mostly of an intergalactic Cook's Tour to Exeter's doomed home world. Some effects are expressive shorthand for more bizarre 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 conditions on Metaluna. Cal and Ruth enter narrow tubes and are electronically disintegrated and reconstructed before our eyes, almost like Claude Rains in the Invisible Man movies. 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. Our Earth couple stays on Metaluna barely long enough to see what's going on, as it's all about to be incinerated by Zahgonian missiles. We get the idea that Metaluna was an advanced but perhaps too cultured society that didn't properly prioritize planetary defense, and is now suffering annihilation at the hands of a barbaric enemy. We see no ordinary citizens, just ruins. "That was an educational complex," wails Exeter, letting all of us Earthly intellectuals know that our right to higher thinking has been secured only through military vigilance. The sympathetic Exeter has little stomach for expedient brutality, and rebels when the sinister Monitor (Douglas Spencer) orders that Cal and Ruth be immediately brainwashed. When Exeter's humanitarian sentiments turn out to be contrary to general Metalunan policies, we're no longer certain that Metaluna can still call itself "the good guys." The Monitor behaves like Hitler in his bunker, desperate to hold off implacable invaders. For all we know, the Zahgonians may actually be avenging greater Metalunan war crimes. This Island Earth has the distinction of being the first 50s Sci Fi picture to be given a thorough genre analysis, courtesy of Raymond Durgnat in his 1967 book Films and Feelings. Alongside brilliant chapters on Johnny Guitar and Psycho, Durgnat broke down the space movie into its component themes, such as "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 Brain is not a good thing. The Metaluna Mutant has a grossly overdeveloped Brain, and it is an unintelligent monster. 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 even works up the movie as an analogy for the Cold War: Earth scientists Meacham and Adams are caught between two warring civilizations. The 'bad' Zahgonians are implacable and barbaric, and to save themselves the 'good' Metalunans are 'forced' to adopt morally reprehensible methods -- kidnapping, mind control. No matter what Meacham and Adams believe, Earth can no longer be 'isolationist.' We're just an island amid many others in space. Durgnat used This Island Earth as a major argument in the part of his book devoted to the junction of art and exploitation in the commercial mainstream -- "The Wedding of Poetry and Pulp." The film is a visual knockout, using special effects that are state-of-the-art for 1955. The concepts of a robot plane as a modern version of a "ghost coach" and a cat that detects Neutrino Rays mix well with outrageous ideas such as an entire green hill revealed to be a hidden flying saucer, or an airplane captured in the belly of a gigantic spaceship. The planet Metaluna is surrounded by a crumbling outer shell dotted with 'Swiss cheese' craters. This outside barrier is scarred by Zahgonian bombs that have penetrated an artificial force field, which is itself giving way to constant bombardment. If the visuals are poetry, the script is at least half pulp junk, much of it klunky exposition inconsistent with what we're seeing on screen. Scientist Cal 'protects' the suddenly cowering Ruth and when things get tough comes up with stalwart Hero-speak. The craziest line reads as if it were inserted to assure church groups that Faith still rules the moral fabric of futurism: "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 sounds similar to the Fascist sentiment that the best use for 'unfortunate races' is to become the fertilzer for a more deserving society. None of the dialogue has much gravity and the characters aren't very well defined, except perhaps for Jeff Morrow's Exeter, the Alien Without A Country who tries to remain a moral being amid all the interplanetary double-crossing. Exeter is interesting because, unlike the faultless (and somewhat clueless) leads, his integrity is heavily compromised: Transporting Atomic Scientists across State Lines to Build Weapons of Mass Destruction? This Island Earth is hobbled by its split between high pulp art and artless dime-store scripting, but its juvenile surface hides a fascinating interior. This Island Earth established a benchmark for space opera not surpassed until the far more sophisticated MGM production values of the next year's Forbidden Planet. Universal's special effects have a gaudy Technicolor sheen yet are lacking in depth and detail. The flying saucer model actually looks smaller than it is, while too much of Metaluna is created through matte paintings with faulty perspectives. Just the same, the general look of Metaluna comes closer to the pulp-novel ethos than any other 50s sci fi film. Real rocketry science would soon make this romantic view of outer space obsolete. The movie was almost too big a project for Universal International, which had just finished spending a small fortune on rubber suits for its Creature monster and wasn't interested in repeating the experience. Both the Metaluna Mutant from this film and the upcoming Mole People wear substantial clothing to simplify their design. Over the course of filming the studio cancelled a number of planned shots, so the supervising optical wizard David S. Horsley quit and was never hired back. The studio had no intention of making expensive effects pictures an ongoing habit. 1 Some sources state that the film was shot in 3-Strip Technicolor, which author/researcher Robert Skotak confirms is partly true. Live action without effects was done 3-Strip but material needing optical effects was not. Behind-the-scenes stills show ordinary Mitchell cameras being used on the special effects stage. Technicolor printing made possible some jarringly photogenic effects tricks, as when Neutrino ray explosions are rendered in contrasting primary colors. --DVD Savant ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ DVD BEAVER ADDENDUM: Universal PAL WIDESCREEN EDITION - April 08': Although also single-layered this UK DVD resonates pure pleasure at having this classic finally shown in 'original' widescreen. The new PAL DVD shows more information on the sides and less on top (removing some of the gaping spaces above character's heads). So composition adheres to widescreen as well. As for the rest - colors on the Universals' seem to support each other. Light speckles are duplicated. The anamorphicity should make the PAL appear sharper (dependant on the system you watch it on) and there are no extras. They have included some optional English subtitles. It is coded for region's 2, 4 and 5 in the PAL standard. One note: I've seen the film so many times that the PAL speedup (4%) is noticeable in the dialogue - it brings Rex Reason's baritone voice up to an almost believable pitch. :) |
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