Menace From Outer Space (1956)
[+]
(Foreign Titles)
Nomination Year: 2015
SYNOPSIS: Menace from Outer
Space, like Manhunt in Space, is a film cobbled
together from the old Rocky Jones serials.
And gosh, it's swell. Really keen! Right, Rocky?
It has your stock pulp serial figures -- The Hero (Rocky Jones), The Sidekick (Winky), The Professor, The Professor's Hot Daughter, and The Little Kid Who Gets To Come Along Gee Whillikers!
A rocket hits The Professor's lab. It's made of a funky sort of crystal that is powered by friction. Much more powerful than our atomic energy. It came from Jupiter's moon Furnax, which is super-hot and very dense. This logically means that any life there must be made of crystal.
Of course they all head right out, and when they get there, they discover (non-crystal) people, and no mention whatsoever is made of either the extreme heat or the super-density (except for a joke involving a scale -- at the expense of The Professor's Daughter, of course).
Let's be realistic, though. In 1956, nothing would really be hot-and-heavy. Some miscellaneous pulpy things happen. Rocky is a Hero, Winky Sidekicks, The Professor is Smart, The Little Kid Helps Out In Unexpected Ways, and The Professor's Daughter is a pretty tag-along who befriends the wife of the sultan of Furnax.
Your standard fifties sci-fi action reel. You could play Fifties Sci-Fi Tropes Bingo pretty easily with this one. We'd all be winners!
And gosh, it's swell. Really keen! Right, Rocky?
It has your stock pulp serial figures -- The Hero (Rocky Jones), The Sidekick (Winky), The Professor, The Professor's Hot Daughter, and The Little Kid Who Gets To Come Along Gee Whillikers!
A rocket hits The Professor's lab. It's made of a funky sort of crystal that is powered by friction. Much more powerful than our atomic energy. It came from Jupiter's moon Furnax, which is super-hot and very dense. This logically means that any life there must be made of crystal.
Of course they all head right out, and when they get there, they discover (non-crystal) people, and no mention whatsoever is made of either the extreme heat or the super-density (except for a joke involving a scale -- at the expense of The Professor's Daughter, of course).
Let's be realistic, though. In 1956, nothing would really be hot-and-heavy. Some miscellaneous pulpy things happen. Rocky is a Hero, Winky Sidekicks, The Professor is Smart, The Little Kid Helps Out In Unexpected Ways, and The Professor's Daughter is a pretty tag-along who befriends the wife of the sultan of Furnax.
Your standard fifties sci-fi action reel. You could play Fifties Sci-Fi Tropes Bingo pretty easily with this one. We'd all be winners!
Kevin Hogan
Hollingsworth Morse
