Streaming Phantom Planet - In COLOR! Also Includes the Original Black-and-White Version which has been Beautifully Restored and Enhanced! Online
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Streaming Phantom Planet - In COLOR! Also Includes the Original Black-and-White Version which has been Beautifully Restored and Enhanced! Online.
Movie Title: Phantom Planet - In COLOR! Also Includes the Original Black-and-White Version which has been Beautifully Restored and Enhanced! Phantom Planet - In COLOR! Also Includes the Original Black-and-White Version which has been Beautifully Restored and Enhanced! is available for streaming or downloading. |
Phantom Planet is a generally-overlooked but thoroughly savory gash of early-60s SF cheese. Not really respectable enough to be a “edifying movie,” not really abominable enough to carry out Trash status; but I could survey this one every six months without getting tired of it. Dean Fredericks in the lead makes a quite unappealing, unsympathetic `hero,’ lending a peculiar atmosphere to the movie correct off the bat. Francis X. Bushman (the mute Ben Hur) and Anthony Dexter (fallen far from 1951’s Valentino) lend kitsch appeal, and Coleen Gray and Dolores Faith, as the `mute girl,’ provide potential admire interest for drippy Fredericks. If you examine this with the mindset of a 10-year-old there’s lots of fun and clever ideas and effects: the afraid thing, passable outer space/rocketship sequences, the disintegrator floor panels and duel of death, the flaming Solarite death ships, etc. And the dark sack monster, played by clumsy giant-for-hire Richard Kiel (`Jaws’), has to be one of the most lovably moth-eaten, pathetically unthreatening creations to grace any B-flick; kind of Paul Blaisdell-meets-Harry Thomas at the thrift store. You could probably suspend your disbelief and really relish this movie on a laughable book level, or have a few friends over and laugh yourselves comical. Highly recommended.
For long-time fans of this movie, Image’s DVD delivers a elegant print of the film: though-provoking and detailed, stout tonal scale, virtually spotless set aside for some very light speckling and a rare blemished frame. You’ll never need to trouble about upgrading from this one. It blows my VHS TV prints just off the blueprint. Unfortunately, there is no trailer for the feature, and the only other `extra’ is the chapter stops. There are five trailers included in an `easter egg,’ but they’re the same ones as on every other Image release. Considering all the movies in their catalog, they could dish out a few fresh ones already! A minor gripe though, and if you esteem this movie you’ll want this disc anyway.
I fair watched this yesterday, with very vulgar expectations, and was glowing surprised at how worthy it was. Definitely worth viewing, esp if you can track it down on a multi-movie area. (The transfer mature in Mill Creek’s Sci-Fi Classics box area is unprejudiced dazzling.)
Others have talked about the yarn and the acting, but I want to mention is the non-stop exercise of special effects. Distinct, they’re hokey, but they retain coming, and that’s what keeps your (or at least my) interest. There’s the ping-pong-table Moon putrid, complete with whirling radar dish; plenty of spaceship shots, a spot dart, meteor shower, invisible asteroid, shy astronaut/tiny people, Rock of Oblivion… and that’s not even mentioning the monster. I don’t judge 3 minutes pass by in this movie without some “special finish” or other. That makes for fine fun, inviting viewing, in my idea.
Also, you can practically count the future Star Bound episodes… The one with the hollow asteroid traveling across status… The one where Kirk and Spock catch in mortal combat… The one where the girl falls for Kirk. (Oh wait, that’s all of them.) And so on. Even the Rock of Oblivion acts suspiciously like the transporter, residence on one-way of course.
All in all this is a fun film that rarely flags, perfect for a rainy weekend afternoon.
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