More Classic 50's SF
Earlier this week, I was fortunate enough to see two classic SF films of the 50's (shown on TCM, of course; what, you thought that the Sci-Fi Channel would show them?); I Married A Monster From Outer Space! and a Toho masterpiece, The H-Man.
I Married A Monster is one of the great hidden jewels of the 50's SF scene, all the more so for the way it jars current sensibilities. The single ladies in Norristown want to get the guys to marry them. Sadly, the guys they want spend all their time at the local bar, boozing, gambling, and chasing the town floozy. (One wonders why these women want them, really.) The girls seem doomed to spinsterhood... and then all of a sudden, the men want to get married. They stop drinking, they become dutiful and loving husbands, gosh, what could be wrong with this?
Needless to say this is all because aliens are invading Earth. They're hiding themselves as human men because the females of their own species are dead, and they want to see their race continue. One woman finds out that her husband is now an alien after he kills their pet puppy (dogs hate the aliens; as it turns out, they're the only things that can kill them) and spends most of the rest of the film trying to find someone who'll believe her. She finally does find someone, a local doctor. He rounds up a posse and they get rid of the aliens, who are then shown fleeing Earth with their massive army of flying saucers. The local men are freed, and the women have the dubious honor of getting their old human deadbeat guys back.
In the 50's this was supposed to be an upbeat ending. Yet when I see it, I feel sorta sorry for the aliens. They didn't want to rule Earth, and they did seem to have some morals (as compared to the usual soulless monsters in 50's SF films) -- they don't kill people at random, and the transformed aliens show what seems to be real affection for their human wives. Indeed, at the end, when the earthlings are driving them off, they don't simply descend and start blasting everything in sight. They just leave. "Earth is unsuitable for us. All personnel lost... recommend try again in another galaxy." The villains possessed an odd humanity that put this film above so many 50's paranoia-fests, and were even pitiable in some ways. The invaders just wanted to live and to see their children live. It was a very realistic, very human goal, and it's hard not to feel sorry for them when they lose.
As for the second film, The H-Man, that was just good old-fashioned Japanese SF horror. Cops investigating a Tokyo drug deal gone sour learn that sentient slimes, once human beings (!) have been mutated into flesh-dissolving monsters by radiation. There are several scenes of the monsters either running up someone's leg or dropping on them from above to reduce them to bubbling ooze. I have to say, the visual impact of seeing slime-covered human faces (actually rubber masks) slowly collapsing into themselves with what sound like gurgling whimpers from their victims as they're dissolved and digested is more insanely creepy than any "toss a bucket of pig guts at the camera" 'special' FX I've ever seen.
Picking up from yesterday...
The Tokyo cops initially refuse to believe that radioactive slime men are eating Tokyoites until they raid a nightclub looking for dope-dealing Yakuza members... and several of the H-men invade and start noshing on the help, the dancing girls, the crooks, and the cops! After seeing their fellow officers turned into pools of bubbling ooze, the cops decide that there just might be a wee problem here after all. But no worries! They have a solution: they'll pour gasoline into the sewers of Tokyo and ignite it. What could possibly go wrong?
Meanwhile, the Yakuza oyabun takes the hero's girlfriend down into the sewers s he can get some information from her concerning the hidden drugs that are the MacGuffin of this flick. Of course this is just before the cops turn the sewers into Japan's largest open-air barbecue. And of course the hungry H-man shows up and slurps down the gangster. But the hero saves the girl, the H-men are roasted, and Tokyo Harbor is turned into a sea of fire, so everything's okay in the end. Not a really deep movie, but a fun and creepy one.
I Married A Monster is one of the great hidden jewels of the 50's SF scene, all the more so for the way it jars current sensibilities. The single ladies in Norristown want to get the guys to marry them. Sadly, the guys they want spend all their time at the local bar, boozing, gambling, and chasing the town floozy. (One wonders why these women want them, really.) The girls seem doomed to spinsterhood... and then all of a sudden, the men want to get married. They stop drinking, they become dutiful and loving husbands, gosh, what could be wrong with this?
Needless to say this is all because aliens are invading Earth. They're hiding themselves as human men because the females of their own species are dead, and they want to see their race continue. One woman finds out that her husband is now an alien after he kills their pet puppy (dogs hate the aliens; as it turns out, they're the only things that can kill them) and spends most of the rest of the film trying to find someone who'll believe her. She finally does find someone, a local doctor. He rounds up a posse and they get rid of the aliens, who are then shown fleeing Earth with their massive army of flying saucers. The local men are freed, and the women have the dubious honor of getting their old human deadbeat guys back.
In the 50's this was supposed to be an upbeat ending. Yet when I see it, I feel sorta sorry for the aliens. They didn't want to rule Earth, and they did seem to have some morals (as compared to the usual soulless monsters in 50's SF films) -- they don't kill people at random, and the transformed aliens show what seems to be real affection for their human wives. Indeed, at the end, when the earthlings are driving them off, they don't simply descend and start blasting everything in sight. They just leave. "Earth is unsuitable for us. All personnel lost... recommend try again in another galaxy." The villains possessed an odd humanity that put this film above so many 50's paranoia-fests, and were even pitiable in some ways. The invaders just wanted to live and to see their children live. It was a very realistic, very human goal, and it's hard not to feel sorry for them when they lose.
As for the second film, The H-Man, that was just good old-fashioned Japanese SF horror. Cops investigating a Tokyo drug deal gone sour learn that sentient slimes, once human beings (!) have been mutated into flesh-dissolving monsters by radiation. There are several scenes of the monsters either running up someone's leg or dropping on them from above to reduce them to bubbling ooze. I have to say, the visual impact of seeing slime-covered human faces (actually rubber masks) slowly collapsing into themselves with what sound like gurgling whimpers from their victims as they're dissolved and digested is more insanely creepy than any "toss a bucket of pig guts at the camera" 'special' FX I've ever seen.
Picking up from yesterday...
The Tokyo cops initially refuse to believe that radioactive slime men are eating Tokyoites until they raid a nightclub looking for dope-dealing Yakuza members... and several of the H-men invade and start noshing on the help, the dancing girls, the crooks, and the cops! After seeing their fellow officers turned into pools of bubbling ooze, the cops decide that there just might be a wee problem here after all. But no worries! They have a solution: they'll pour gasoline into the sewers of Tokyo and ignite it. What could possibly go wrong?
Meanwhile, the Yakuza oyabun takes the hero's girlfriend down into the sewers s he can get some information from her concerning the hidden drugs that are the MacGuffin of this flick. Of course this is just before the cops turn the sewers into Japan's largest open-air barbecue. And of course the hungry H-man shows up and slurps down the gangster. But the hero saves the girl, the H-men are roasted, and Tokyo Harbor is turned into a sea of fire, so everything's okay in the end. Not a really deep movie, but a fun and creepy one.