"This Island Earth" -1955.

Tagline: "Two mortals trapped in outer space... challenging the unearthly furies of an outlaw planet gone mad!" Surprisingly enough, that's pretty accurate, if a bit poetic.

Plot: The ridiculously handsome and ludicrously macho Dr. Cal Meacham

is a scientist/test pilot. (What? It happens all the time.) Meacham is saved by a mysterious green light after the engines in his jet fail.

Shortly after that, Dr. Meacham and his plain-looking assistant, Joe Wilson,

are sent a series of increasingly unusual electronics. First a resistor that seems nearly indestructible

and then crates of parts

and a book on how to assemble the...whatever it is.

Being two curious types, Meacham and Wilson make short work of it

and soon a strange looking individual with a forehead that would make Kevin Spacey envious appears on a screen. He is Exeter,

and invites Meacham to join him and his team of top scientists in marrying atomic energy and electricity. (Apparently, Wilson can go to Hell.) Exeter sends a plane to get Meacham

(minus a pilot) and soon he finds himself in a strange and terrifying world!...Georgia!...Ee-Gad! What fresh Hell be this? Anyway, Cal is greeted by a female scientist whom Meacham remembers from a conference a while back, but Dr. Ruth (no, not that one) Adams

insists she has never met Cal. Hmmm....Meeting the other scientists, Cal soon notices two of them, Ruth and Dr. Steve Carlson, ("The Professor" from "Gilligan's Island" in another Sci-Fi classic).....Ooh! Side note! Let's make a B-movie comedy about an alien stranded on Earth with only a few survivors after Earth is bombarded by comets! Starring Russell Johnson as "Dr. Steve 'The Professor' Carlson"...we'll call it "This Gilligan Island Earth"! I can see it now: "Alien! Drop those coconuts!" Clunk, clunk, clunk! Yuk, yuk, yuk! I tell ya, it can't miss!....where was I? Oh yes...

They are a bit jumpy. After using lead shields to hide from Exeter's prying eyes, Ruth and Steve inform Cal that all the other scientists have been brainwashed. That's why Ruth pretended not to know Cal, I guess. Only the three stars have been allowed to remain free-thinking. Because that's the way (uh-huh, uh-huh,) Exeter likes it. Meanwhile, Exeter and his gung-ho assistant, Brack,

(what a brown-noser!) are revealed to be aliens (gasp!) who are enslaving the world's top scientific minds to further a weapon they plan to use on their home planet's enemies. A bitter war (has there ever been a "sweet" war?) has been raging for a long time and the Metalunans (the Kevin Spacey wannabes) are losing. They have a back up plan though: Take over Earth!                                          Mooo-hahahahahaha!!....Well, you get the idea. But Council on Metaluna wants them to get their butts back to Metaluna and save them first. So they

blow up the laboratory (after zapping Steve and a few others just for kicks).

Ruth and Cal try to get away in an air plane, but are beamed aboard the spaceship.

Outer space is dangerous, though, so Exeter puts them in giant glass Pringles cans

and uses Space-Age Simon to zap them with neat-looking effects

until they are prepared for Metaluna's atmosphere. After breaking through the "thermal barrier"

they have to deal with hostile aliens hucking comets at their ship.

It's just one damn thing after another! Luckily, they have these super-comfy seats to relax in! (Is it just me, or does Exeter always look like he's selling a used car?)

Once they make it to Exeter's home planet, they see it is not as beautiful as the brochures indicated.

I guess bombarding it with comets didn't help the commercial value. The Zaygons (I'm guessing on the spelling) are winning. Exeter gives them the ten cent tour anyway, (Exeter looks like he's explaining that this little baby has only one previous owner),

on the way to check in with "The Monitor". The Monitor is not feeling generous today, (I guess he's a little blue)

and orders Ruth and Cal reprogrammed. Cal and Ruth decide to run for it...in spite of being trapped on a distant planet that is slowly being destroyed...and make their way back to the ship.

Exeter eventually sees his planet is doomed and helps them get to the ship and away from Metaluna, but not before a bug-eyed "MYU-tahnt"

(they say it with the em-FA-sis on the wrong sy-LA-bull) has a go at them and mortally wounds Exeter.

But he's a tough old...whatever he is...

and lives long enough to get Cal and Ruth back to Earth

before going down in a blaze of glory.

Earth is saved! Yipee!

Things I learned from this movie: 1- Metaluna is an equal-opportunity planet,

2- in the 50s Earth had no cloud cover of any kind and only North America could be seen from space,

3-  if you're watching "This Island Earth" with your kids and this scene comes up don't bother making a "Willy Wonka" reference because they just won't get it,

4- there is plenty of time to stop a car, let people run down to a river and duck for cover, but not enough time for "The Professor" to do the same,

5- can you say "Fake N' Bake"?,

6- according to Faith Domergue (Dr. Ruth "Not That One" Adams) her costume was so skin-tight that she couldn't wear underwear...which makes me wonder if this scene was necessary or if Regis Parton (the guy in the Mutant costume) tossed the director a few bucks,

7- the Mutant costume cost $24,000 to make in 1955!...accounting for inflation that's about 643 trillion dollars...or so,

8- while we're still on the"MYU-tahnt", the special effects department admitted that the "Mutant" costume originally had legs that matched the upper body but they had so much trouble making the legs look and work properly that the studio deadline forced them to just have the mutant wear a pair of pants. However, look at the poster of the movie at the top and you'll see the mutant as it was supposed to appear,

9- why are super-advanced alien life forms so keen on "minimalist" furnishings? How about a nice hanging ivy or a beech bookcase in the corner.....hello?...."feng shui" anyone?

Bonus facts!
Rex Reason never wanted to be an actor. His mother was worried because Rex had trouble speaking before audiences and enrolled him in drama classes. He adapted quite nicely and also starred in "The Creature Walks Among Us"

as Dr. Thomas Morgan alongside Jeff Morrow, who played Exeter in this movie. In the early 1960s Reason quit acting and became a realtor. He is still alive and still lives in L.A..
Faith Domergue had an excellent year in 1955, starring in three B-movie classics: This Island Earth, The Cult Of The Cobra, and It Came From Beneath The Sea. Ironically, before her death in 1999 Domergue admitted she didn't much care for the B-movie genre. On a side note, Faith supposedly was a lover of billionaire and full-time wacko Howard Hughes.

Her beauty infatuated Hughes, who not only bought many pretty things for (an underage at the time) Domergue, but also bought her parents a house. All the more impressive, considering Domergue was in a terrible car accident shortly after graduation and had to have nearly 18 months of reconstructive surgery on her face.

"Guess That Mess!":

I know what you're saying: "Dude, what's with all the shark pictures?" To which I say "It's not my fault that all the weird pictures have sharks in them".