Welcome to Zombie Strains, the podcast where we watch all of the zombie movies. This week, we head back to 1951 for the science fiction thriller, The Man From Planet X.

You know, I've seen people act like that in pictures.

What do they call them, zombies or something?

Zombie.

What's a zombie?

Just what is a zombie?

Well, a zombie? There's, Mr. Bill, there's...

The living dead.

There's a living dead.

Get it, the zombies.

He's a zombie.

Because a zombie has no will of his own.

It's an army of zombies.

No armies could stand.

What is wrong, what is wrong.

Gang, it feels like forever since I heard that. I'm John.

I'm Andy.

And I'm Brad.

Hello, producer Brad. I've been talking to you lately as just Brad and not producer Brad because I've seen you in person recently.

But you got to get back on your game. Yeah. Come on.

We're back in our seats.

Yes. Who's excited for The Man From Planet X? Well, you know, I mean, come on. Who's excited to speak and I quote, the basic and universal language of geometry or are you perhaps feeling helpless before the voiceless threat of the unknown? Which of those do you think describes you better?

Well, I do use the language of pure geometry just to chat with my family members around the house.

Well, yeah, that makes sense.

So how do you ask someone to do the laundry with geometry?

I have no idea. I actually was really bad at math. I'm still really bad at math, but nobody tests me on it anymore. So at least in theory, I just took a major exam like a professional certification and there was math involved. I was like, oh my God. But anyway, that's what we're talking about today. 1951's The Man From Planet X, a really science fictiony, alien invasiony movie that we haven't seen in a while, but slots right in with 1951 actually.

The farther in time away we get from this type of movie, the more I do find myself missing its comfortable rhythms, if you will, these sci-fi morality tales of the Atomic Age.

Yes, I agree. We just came through the holidays. Anybody have anything zombie or horror related that they watched or received as a gift or anything like that?

No, not really. I did watch the original Terminator movie for the first time in 35 years. We've talked about that as having some shared DNA with early zombie movies.

Yes, you made that point which I thought was very interesting.

That was a fun watch, but nothing more explicitly zombie than that, I'm afraid.

I got a fun book called Scream With Me, Horror Films and the Rise of American Feminism, 1968 to 1980 by Eleanor Johnson.

That sounds good.

We're not a political podcast. There are some politics in this book, and I'm not going to make everybody listen to them. What she does is she takes the major films from 1968 to 1980 and reflect on how women are represented and treated in those movies. It's Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, The Stepford Wives, The Omen, Alien, The Shining, and then a few summaries. I just thought it was an interesting take.

That is a hell of a list of movies with feminist concepts lurking behind them.

Yeah. I'm excited to read it. I've just read the introduction. It sounds really good. I'll report back as I read more.

All right. Sounds good.

How about you, producer Brad?

My holidays were pretty zombie free.

Okay. We got rid of the zombies for a few days, reset. We're ready to go back into pure zombie form here.

It's a new year. Let's go.

All right. Let's go.

We're in the part of the movie where we're safe and secure in our bunker. Everything's going to be fine. Of course, someone left the back door a jar and a zombie is going to burst in.

The scientist's daughter hasn't been kidnapped. We haven't had to call Scotland Yard in to help us.

Now, you're spoiling some of the thrills that The Man From Planet X has to offer.

But I feel like those are spoilers for many films.

Yes. All right. With all that said, why don't you take us into how this thing got made, Brad?

All right. The Man From Planet X was released on April 27th, 1951. In zombie film chronology, this comes between two films we've already covered, Valley of the Zombies from 1946 and Zombies of the Stratosphere from 1952.

One of those two movies is really good.

Neither of them had a valley in it, if I recall correctly.

No, they didn't.

Neither of them really had zombies.

No. It was a weird time.

It was a weird time.

But we'll talk about the Zombies of the Stratosphere because there are some links from that film to this film. I missed this film because it isn't on zombie movie list, mostly because it presents as a sci-fi film. I got lucky and found it because I was going through the AFI Online Catalog and they have, you can search by genres, and zombies was listed as a secondary genre.

You know what? I don't know that our listeners understand the gift they have having producer Brad do our research for this show. Like just that statement, I was viewing the AFI Film Index. Like not a lot of people do that, but producer Brad does, and then we get these gems from him.

But once you go there, it's great because they cite all their sources. They say, they tell you, is in this issue a variety, like on this page, so everything is present. So you really feel satisfied that it's a legitimate statement or fact.

Yes, yes, absolutely.

On Wikipedia, you know, it's not always the case.

Let's just say that that's hit or miss. So sorry, I interrupted. Carry on.

That's all right. The popular movies from 1951 include An American in Paris, which won the Oscar for Best Picture, The Day the Earth Stood Still, A Streetcar Named Desire and The African Queen. There weren't many horror movies in 51. Bride of Gorilla, Death is a Number, The Son of Dr. Jekyll and the Strange Door with Boris Karloff, The Thing from Another World and Ghost Chasers, a horror comedy starring the Bowery Boys.

Well, The Thing from Another World is both Howard Hawks and the original material for John Carpenter's The Thing. So I have a lot of affection for that.

Did you say Bride of Gorilla? I just, did I hear that right?

You did say that.

You did. You did. Are you adding it to your list?

Is it the guy in the suit? Is he here?

I just want to know why there's no the in there. I'm intrigued.

So is it the Mrs. Corrigan suit? I just have questions about gorillas and Corrigan suits and brides of gorillas. So perhaps another podcast.

I am double checking my work. There is no the in front of it. It is just Bride of Gorilla.

Well, it was Bride of Frankenstein. So, okay.

Edward G. Ulmer directed The Man From Planet X. He was an Austrian director who moved to Hollywood in the 1920s. His first American feature was the 1933 exploitation film called Damaged Lives about the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases.

Nice.

His second film was the 1934 horror film, The Black Cat, starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. It was a big success. But Ulmer was having an affair with the wife of Universal Studios, the boss of Universal Studios' nephew.

Oops.

And so after that, he was only able to find work at Poverty Row Studios.

I guess when true love strikes, you just can't say no, right?

And it looks like it's true love. He did marry her and she worked on many of his films. Oh, okay. He then worked at Poverty Row Studios doing low-budget melodramas. He called himself the Frank Capra of PRC, PRC being Producers Releasing Corporations, and PRC was the smallest of the Poverty Row Studios. Now, we talked about Monogram and some of the other ones. This was the lesser of all of them.

Oh, wow. Okay.

That's where he found his work. The Man From Planet X was the first sci-fi horror film he made, and after, he made The Daughter of Dr. Jekyll, The Amazing Transparent Man and Beyond the Time Barrier.

Can I just comment that in 1951, the son of Dr. Jekyll came out, and then he directed The Daughter of Dr. Jekyll. Like, I had no idea we got so much mileage out of Dr. Jekyll.

Do they inherit his switching personalities?

You know what? If they didn't, it would probably be pretty boring.

I guess they really need to.

You never know.

That's right. It's just a documentary. What was it like to grow up with your tempestuously... Yeah. So we have a son and a daughter. What if one is super nice and the other is just a monster? One of those movies would be good.

Yeah, I think so.

All right. Jack Polluxfin and Aubrey Weisberg wrote the script and decided to produce it themselves. It was shot in six days. We're using sets from the 1948 film Joan of Arc.

That's amazing. Is that why that background looks so out of place?

Well, it was the interiors, I think, of that castle.

So they were like, we have to be in an old castle.

So it cost $38,000 to make this movie, which is pretty cheap.

Necessity is the mother of invention. Suddenly you have a castle in your movie because you have a castle set available, and then it comes to, oh, it's a castle on a moor, and we're in Scotland, like...

Yeah, I wish they'd spent some money on dialogue coaches because I'm not sure I heard a real Scottish accent in there. I'm not sure what I heard.

I can't wait till we talk about this.

Though the gospel took a really big swing, at least. So I admire him for that.

He swung, I think he landed in Ireland for a little bit too. Now, we talked about Pollux Finn in our episode on monstrosity. He produced that and was an uncredited writer on it. Pollux Finn said he was proud of The Man From Planet X and stated it was one of the first sci-fi films with sound. And I think that depends on your definition of sci-fi, but it does seem that there weren't that many before this film. He also said The Man From Planet X was his favorite film he made, and monstrosity was his least favorite film.

Oh, interesting.

And we've seen both.

Yes, we have.

So what do we think of his opinion?

I have a hot take that this isn't actually a terrible movie. It's somewhat engaging, and the characters are kind of interesting, and the plot's kind of good?

I agree. I mean, again, the possibility of Stockholm Syndrome, yes, always a risk in this podcast. I don't know. Comparing it to monstrosity, I think swings a little harder, I think, than this one.

This one's a little restrained.

It has certain manic energy that this one doesn't, but yeah.

Well, I think what you're also responding to is this director Ulmer, later, after his death, there were retrospectives on his work and people apply the auteur theory to him that there's a visual style and feel of his films that carries from one to the other. So he was later respected and he also worked in very low budget, so he didn't have a lot to work with. So what he did achieve with a little money is kind of impressive.

Yeah.

All right, let's go on to the cast. Robert Clarke stars as Newspaper Man John Lawrence. I didn't count how many times he said Newspaper Man, but he said it several times.

It was a lot.

He had an uncredited role in Zombies on Broadway. He went on to star in several sci-fi B-movie classics, The Incredible Petrified World, The Astounding She-Monster, From the Earth to the Moon, Beyond the Time Barrier, and he wrote, directed, and produced, and starred in The Hideous Sun Demon. He will return to Zombie Strains in 1980 for the film Frankenstein's Island, which was directed by Jerry Warren, director of Teenage Zombies.

Oh, wow.

And we talked about it, because also in the cast is John Carradine.

Yes. Oh, my gosh. That's right. Okay. I'm kind of looking forward to that one now.

Yeah. Well, we got, what, 16 years to go.

And a lot of movies.

And hundreds of films. All right. Margaret Field plays Enid, daughter of the older scientist. She had a contract with Paramount Studios and had small roles and two dozen films. The Man From Planet X is cited as her most memorable film. She is also the mother of Academy Award-winning actress Sally Field.

Oh, no way.

Wow. Now I want to go back and watch it again and be like, oh yeah, I see it.

Well, I was watching it for that and there's nothing that jumped out at me as, oh my God, I see Sally Field.

Okay.

But you can watch again with your eyes and see what you see.

John, I'm not going to watch this one again, but you're welcome to do so if you wish.

It's only an hour and 10 minutes long though. Don't forget.

Yes, that's true.

William Schallert plays Dr. Mears. This film is early in his career. It's his eighth film. He has close to 400 acting credits on his IMDB page. He has credits for nearly every year from 1947 to 2010.

His credits are amazing. He was in Singing in the Rain, he was in the Philip Marlowe TV show, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, and of course my favorite, The Patty Duke Show.

Right. The early ones, the first couple you mentioned, he probably had bit parts and was uncredited, but he was known as playing the father in the Patty Duke Show from 1963 to 66. And if you've been paying attention to Zombie Strains, you know that means both of Patty Duke's parents have been in zombie films because Gene Bryan, who played Patty Duke's mother, was in Invisible Invaders. He played Mayor Schubert in In the Heat of the Night. And this one, I don't know if you guys noticed this, he played Nils Barris in the Star Trek episode, The Trouble with Tribbles.

I did not notice that, but that's amazing. I have some thoughts about this guy, but when we get into the movie.

Is that the guy who brings the Tribbles to the Enterprise?

I believe so, yes. He's the Federation, whatever the title was. I don't know Star Trek like you guys do.

All right, well, carry on.

Our generation recognizes him as Nancy Drew's father, Carson Drew from the 1970s TV show, The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew Mysteries.

Nice.

I just got my wife that show for Christmas.

Really?

Yeah.

On DVD or?

On DVD, yes.

Was that a favorite of hers?

My wife likes Colombo style shows, and so I did some deep diving and tried to scoop up as many shows in that time period and genre as I could.

Nice.

Well, I saw them when they came out. I don't remember any zombie episodes, but if there is one, you'll have to let us know.

I'll ask my wife as she watches through to-

That was the next question. Are you going to watch with her?

I think I'll just trust her judgment. She can tell me if it's good or not.

All right. Well, Schallert also played Dr. Green Bush in the 1987 film Innerspace with Dennis Quaid, Martin Short, and Meg Ryan. And just to show you how long his career was, his last credits included appearances on How I Met Your Mother, The Sweet Life of Zack and Cody, Desperate Housewives, True Blood, and Two Broke Girls.

Wow.

Wow. That is a long career.

One of those just quietly professional actors who just worked and worked and worked. I'm sure people would be like, yeah, just call Bill. He'll come and do it. I'm sure he was just one of those guys.

In his New York Times obit, he said he wasn't selective with, he just took roles. He just kept working and he figured things would work out.

And they did.

He also was president of the Screen Actors Guild for two years from 79 to 81. And if you remember last week, I mentioned that I remembered him from commercials. I couldn't remember what they were. See if you remember this. This is mostly for people in the Midwest and Michigan, but here we go.

Lots of people advertise film processing with special offers, but there's only one Picture Picture and it's only at Arbor Drugs. With Arbor's Picture Picture, you always get two prints for the price of one. Overnight, seven days a week, or your pictures are free. And if you're not satisfied, Arbor prints your pictures over. Your photos deserve the high quality and attention Picture Picture delivers. Don't accept imitations. If you're not getting Arbor's Picture Picture, you're not getting the whole picture.

I remember that guarantee to reprint them.

I don't, I haven't heard that, but I'm sold. I mean, they sold me.

Now, here's the problem with that, which I encountered about 10 years ago. When my mom died, I inherited all the photos. So I take the boxes to a place to get scanned, not knowing there's doubles of almost every photo in there. And so the scans come back and I have double. So I have to go through the digital collection now and peel out the duplicates.

It's probably easier anyway this way, but yes.

Yeah. All right. So Harold Gould plays the frightened villager that stays at the house while Lawrence and the constables search for Enid. This was his first film. He was a great character actor and whose name you might not know, but whose face you recognize, especially as an older man. He was in The Sting. He was in Woody Allen's Love and Death and Mel Brooks' Silent Movie. On TV, he appeared in the Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda, Family and Soap. And a more contemporary reference is he was in the Robin Williams movie Patch Adams. He played the wealthy benefactor who helps Dr. Adams set up his clinic.

Nice. One of the other actors, Roy Angle, who is the constable. I swear, like he looked really familiar to me and I don't know because he does have a million acting credits. I don't know if that's me or he just looks like a bunch of other people. I can't tell you. He almost looks like the skipper on Gilligan's Island. So maybe that's why he looks familiar.

He looked familiar and I was going through his credits and nothing jumped out at me. But I think he's just been, he's done a ton of stuff too. He's got a face. Now, no box office records are available, but Jack Pollack has been quoted as saying, all of his pictures made money except for monstrosity. So this movie made money.

All right. I believe it. I would also just quickly like to say, the poster is an absolute banger actually. It's really well done, but we'll have that in the show notes.

That's what I have.

All right. Yeah, I won't go into super depth on 1951 in particular, but the 1950s episode is a great reference for this film because actually, Andy, we complain that all of the theories you had from the 50s movies, like they were happening just not in the movies we watched in many cases. In this case, they're actually all here. We have Alien Vaders, we have Paranoia, we have the Red Scare, we have the fear of atomic power, all of that is kind of here. Really, it's that sort of the Red Scare, Cold War, nuclear annihilation fears bubble up in this movie a lot. I think those are the only big reminders we need.

Hey, do we want to jump right into the discussion now? John, would you care to take a shot at a 60-second overview, and then I will lead the actual discussion of The Man From Planet X.

Yes, absolutely. So, the movie starts actually with a narration, and it is of our main character, Newspaper Man John Lawrence, and he is reflecting on how he's the only survivor of their encounter with The Man From Planet X. And then we go back in time, and our Newspaper Man talks to a professor who realizes that a new planet is hurdling towards Earth, Planet X, and there's one expert, Professor Elliott, who is the doctor who has been studying this. So our Newspaper Man goes to, I believe, an isolated island in Scotland, where he runs into a young woman, the professor's daughter, Enid, and then another doctor, Dr. Mears. Dr. Mears has some sort of dark past. They come across some artifacts and then a spaceship that has landed on Earth and find an alien in the spaceship, the titular Man From Planet X. They bring him back to their Scottish castle. They try to communicate with him. Dr. Mears threatens him and frightens the alien, who then turns everybody in town into zombies using his special zombie ray, and sort of fortifies his spaceship as the army comes in to save the day. Is that about right?

Yeah, that's perfect. All right. Well, let's go ahead and jump right in. The first thing I want to bring up is, as you mentioned, this movie's framing is interesting in that we start in the now, and then most of the movie is an extended flashback that eventually catches back up to the now for the movie's final act.

Which is interesting. You went through two acts, like there was narration at the beginning, no narration for 40 minutes, and then it came back suddenly and was like, oh, that's right, there was narration in this movie.

It was actually almost a little clever. I wasn't expecting it to seamlessly just catch up to the now again. I was going to ask, so what else, have we seen anything before this movie that employed that retrospective framing? I know The Last Man on Earth does it, but that's in the 60s.

Well, technically, Plan 9 From Outer Space does it. It's just the grammar is so poor, you couldn't sort out if that were actually the case.

The tense was difficult. I do have some tense discussions, discussions about tense, I should say, coming up.

And Invisible Invaders has some of that, but it has like, I don't know, it's not nearly as clever as it is here, I will say.

Yeah, well, this was the best done, I think, of the ones we've seen. So anyway, the movie opens with a lot of dramatic music, a lot of thunder and lightning, and we see an empty barren landscape. We are to be told that this is the Scottish Moors with a kind of medieval looking tower, castle tower in the distance. Right. This landscape looked a lot like a model railroad, like miniature landscape to me, I don't know. Maybe they, at any rate, but in the tower, it opens, I appreciate this kind of opening, it's opening up with a man, a very worried looking man saying, basically, I think we've screwed everything up, and I'm writing down what happened for posterity, and then I'm going to go and see if humanity survives the next couple of minutes or not. Then the movie flashes back in time to tell us what has led up to this really dramatic moment. Do you have any thoughts on that opening segment?

Well, a couple of things. I think it's interesting. So this is a sort of melodramatic, corny sci-fi movie, but the screenplay is like a good melodramatic. There's a lot of, in a movie like this, you want a lot of dramatic moral statements and sort of big moments and stuff. It's actually not bad. But the scene in particular, you don't actually see his face. His face is in shadow. When he goes to write, his hand is covering his face. There's clearly an intention to create more mystery with this little intro. I actually think it's really well executed because it does. It's a movie of its time. It's not like some modern thriller, but it does grab you and say, oh, what's going on here? This is cool. I think it's actually well executed.

Yeah, I think so too. But then we flashback basically to the start of this whole sordid affair. And we go back in time and we learn, we see some astronomers that are discussing some new developments in the world of astronomy. We learn that a Professor Elliott, an astronomer, has discovered something they're calling Planet X. It's a rogue planet that's actually racing towards Earth. And if it doesn't change course, it's going to pass extremely close to the Earth.

Can I ask you a question?

Please.

Do you think the X stands for 10? Because now scientists, what are scientists looking for now, Andy? They're looking for Planet 9. Because since this movie was made, we lost a planet.

I think they just called things, you know, like Planet X, although it does nicely fit into being a mystery planet.

Fair enough.

I don't know. But it's racing towards Earth and reports are already coming in from around the globe of strange astronomical phenomena.

Now, that scene with the telescope was actually shot at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, which was used in many films memorably in Rebel Without a Cause with James Dean.

Huh. All right.

Okay. I do kind of like, you know, just as a side note, like the history of film is so much the history of Los Angeles as well in America. Like, you feel you get to know Los Angeles just from watching basically cheap movies. The cheaper the movie, the more likely it is it's shot in Los Angeles. Like, John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness is shot in Los Angeles, you know, as is this movie, as is that Star Trek episode with the Gorn and everybody recognizes that canyon. You know what I mean? Like, all of those things, they sort of become part of your mental picture of the world and they're all in Los Angeles. So sorry to digress, but.

No, that's fine. So I have a history question for both of you. I'm genuinely curious if you know this one. So the way that they are learning about the way that they are learning about these astronomical discoveries is via what do you remember? The medium cable gram.

Cable gram. I've never what is a cable? It's like a telegram, but like.

So yeah, I was going to ask, do either of you guys know what a cable gram is? I had, I mean, I had to Google it. I didn't know. So no.

Well, they do mention later in the film that they can transmit through cables under the ocean.

Yes. So a cable gram is basically a telegram sent across a transcontinental underwater cable.

Isn't it bonkers to think that at one point, the way we communicated with Europe is that we ran a cable from New York to London under the water?

Yes.

But isn't that how the internet goes now?

Well, now you can use satellites, but maybe, I don't know, but it's just so bonkers that that just seems like so much effort. That's thousands of miles.

Well, my jaw dropped when I read what year the first undersea cable was laid. Do you happen to remember, John?

I don't. 1937, that's a guess.

I'll guess 1865.

Oh my gosh. 1866.

Oh, Brad wins.

Oh, no, no. Sorry, sorry, sorry. 1858, the first permanent one that didn't degrade within like three weeks was 1866. So in 1858, they laid a 2,000 miles worth of cable between continents. Isn't that bonkers?

That is bonkers.

So anyway, that's a cable gram. I think the last time you were able to get a cable gram was like maybe the early 2000s or late 90s or something.

You know what? That makes sense. If I thought about it, I remember if you read On Walden Pond by Henry David Thoreau, which you don't have to, but he makes a comment about how now we can get telegrams from England. His point is that, what possible use could information from England have for us? That we'll know that the princess has a cold. He's very dismissive of it. So I think people were wondering at this invention and being the Luddite that he was, he was like, that's dumb.

Last history question, and then I promise I'll get back to the movie. Queen Victoria sent the first cablegram. Who was the recipient?

Queen Victoria?

Yeah, she sent it.

Did she send it to her grandson Nicholas?

She did not. She sent it to President Buchanan. Buchanan. Is that the most, the thing he's best known for, receiving the first cablegram? It might be.

Yeah, I'd forgotten he existed, so maybe.

All right, well, listeners, thank you so much for indulging that. Now we're going to get back to the movie, I promise. So there's more, this is a big expositional sequence. So I'm just going to summarize what we learned. And John, if you have specific comments about how it's delivered, pop in. But basically, we learned a couple more things. Something is bouncing weird waves off of Earth. They're not radio waves, but they're something like them. And they can't identify what is sending them. And we're also told that as Planet X gets near to Earth, it's going to cause tidal waves and hurricanes and all sorts of environmental chaos.

None of which they show or explain in detail, they just say it. One weird thing about the beginning of this movie is a lot of it is dubbed, this becomes less of a problem later. There's a lot of people speaking while not looking at the camera. Yeah. Like when they're speaking to Newspaper Man John Lawrence, they're looking at him like in a modern film, like that's not how you would shoot that. So yeah, it's very strange and possibly the fact that it was six days, they couldn't do coverage or that kind of stuff.

Yeah. But the long and the short of this all is that Professor Elliott, the leading expert on Planet X, is out on an isolated island. It's on an island, right?

It is on an island.

It's on an island.

Yeah. At one point, they lose communication via underground cable with the mainland.

That's right. So he's out on this Scottish Isle, because that's the place on Earth that Planet X is going to come closest to, according to the projections. So that is all just a big info dump to set things up, because now we meet our hero, Newspaper Man John Lawrence.

We've had other Newspaper Man. Was it Monstrosity that had the Newspaper Man? What was the one where the guy died and he had to keep stealing human hearts to come back to life, and his wife was a singer? We just watched it.

The Mad Ghoul.

The Mad Ghoul. That was our last movie. Also Newspaper Man Hero, though that was in the 60s. No, that was in the 40s.

I think Newspaper Man is, it just feels like a really safe choice for a protagonist occupation at this time in the 40s, 50s. It's not a profession viewed with quite the same cynicism that we might look at journalism generally now. Yeah.

There's probably a separate parallel world where we have a podcast talking about newspaper heroes where we talk about this and Aaron Brockovich and all the president's men, like the China syndrome, like they used to be quite the hero.

Are you putting this movie in the category with Aaron Brockovich and all the president's men?

No.

I'm making a parallel comparison saying, if we weren't doing zombies, if we were doing newspaper heroes.

We all heard the hot take and it's been recorded. Producer Brad saved that sound.

Yeah. Here's a clip. You can play it later. This movie is better than Aaron Brockovich.

No. I know we got to increase the speed here. John Lawrence is our hero and he's picked up at the doc. He's going to go out to, I guess, just report on Professor Elliott's findings and hypotheses about Planet X. He's picked up at the doc by Elliott's daughter Enid, continuing the long tradition of old scientists with young, beautiful daughters.

Yes. I believe this is our first Enid and probably our last Enid.

So yeah, we're going to talk about Enid for a minute here. What year do you think the name Enid peaked in popularity?

I assume it was when that song came out.

What song? Sing it.

The one from, that one from the guys from Canada. I have no idea. I can't remember anything but the name.

1920 is the year its popularity peaked. So I did check. So the actress Margaret Field was born in 1922. For a woman that age that is a reasonable name, I think, to pick.

I'm curious about the history of this name, but we'll move on.

What show caused a brief bump in Enid's popularity in 2023?

I don't know.

I don't know.

Wednesday.

Wednesday.

I haven't seen it.

I didn't watch it.

There's a character in there named Enid, apparently. Apart from that, it's just a big decline though for Enid's popularity. I'm sorry to say. Well, anyway, if you're an Enid, write in and let us know. That's pretty great. Okay. My last thing, what does Lawrence say to Elliot when she says, shall I drive you off? What does he say? Did you guys watch this movie?

I did watch this movie.

Okay. He says, drive on, Macduff.

That's right. I know I've heard that phrase before, but I didn't think to look into it.

Do you guys know what this is riffing on?

I don't.

So in the play Macbeth.

That's right.

The phrase lay on Macduff is said. In its original context, it's a taunt. It means bring it on Macduff.

I see.

But it came to be misquoted as lead on Macduff. Then they've taken that misquotation and they've tried to modernize it in this movie by saying drive on Macduff. So it's a big linguistic game of telephone going back to Shakespeare.

Well, and the Shakespeare reference is just more evidence about how good this movie is compared to Aaron Brockovich.

But anyway, carry on. All right. So Enid drives Lawrence out to the Moors. It turns out that Enid and Lawrence go way back, that they knew each other as children. I'm sorry, I'm going to derail this again.

But also, I feel like Lawrence was older than Enid by a lot. I feel like their relationship is actually weird.

Well, it could be. So Lawrence does not recognize Enid because according to both of them, Enid was so hideously ugly as a child, and now she's gorgeous. He might describe her as having had buck teeth and other various things.

The gawky legs, I think he said.

He makes a sexist comment about her legs later.

Yes. They also say this was six years ago. So her appearance has changed. So she was like a goblin six years ago.

She was like a 16-year-old goblin or something. Yeah.

So I think this is in the movies we have watched. This is, I think, the first time we've seen that common movie trope where a really attractive actor or actress, everyone pretends they're hideously ugly, and then they take their glasses off.

Yes.

Anyway, well, right now, she looks like a perfectly attractive actor. So, all right, we learn that Lawrence is not the only one here to meet with Professor Elliott. The other person here is the sinister Dr. Mears.

We only know he's sinister. They don't say why he's sinister.

No, they say there's obvious tension between Lawrence and Mears, some history.

Yes.

We learn that Mears spent time in prison, and Lawrence thinks he should have spent his life in prison.

Yeah, he says he should have gotten 20 years.

Yeah, it's never specified what he did, I don't think. But Mears just showed up two weeks ago, and he was one of Elliott's old students, and Elliott doesn't pick up on any of Mears' obvious sinister vibes. But Lawrence is suspicious from the get-go.

Can I say something about him here? Because this observation I have about Mears.

Yeah.

He has a beard, and just not like a sinister beard, it's just a beard. There's not a lot of bearded people in our movies up to this point. Like almost none, except for the occasional like Bell LaGosie having a beard to make him look like the devil. But there's nobody just wearing a beard like a regular dude. You know what I mean? It just struck me like, why is this supposed to be sinister or does he just have a beard? I don't know. It was weird.

It's an Amish beard too. It's only like from the chin down. There's nothing above the lip.

Yeah, it's different. It's very strange. And it just struck me like, how many beards have we actually seen? And it can't be that many because like everybody has a beard now. I mean, heck, every movie, everybody in a TV show has like that five o'clock shadow, like having shaved Don Johnson in five days kind of thing going on.

I think we need to add to our list of questions we ask about every movie. Was there a beard in this movie?

Was there a beard? Did the villain have a beard?

All right. Well, we get our first actual look at Planet X now because Professor Elliott invites Lawrence to look through the telescope at Planet X. John, you want to just quickly describe it?

Yeah. It's like a white ball that looks a little like the moon floating in space.

Yes.

Yeah. We do get a close up of it later as it gets closer.

Yeah.

So we see it moving around later, which is very exciting.

Yes. Then it looks like a tennis ball.

Yes, it does. So Lawrence and Eden go out on a flirty walk on the moors, and they witness lightning without any accompanying thunder.

I just think that's another very good tension builder. This movie does a good job of building tension. Eden says, they say if you count from when you see the lightning, you can tell how far away the thunder is. And they do that, and they never hear it. And again, it's just another nice, it's sort of like that same scene is really amped up and poltergeist, right? Where it does the reverse, where the increments become really small. But it's the same concept, like that's out of the ordinary. So again, it's just another mystery builder. Like again, I don't want to give this movie too much credit, but I think the screenplay is halfway decent.

I think so too. I mean, this isn't super scary, but this could be creepy in a modern film like that. Lightning with No Thunder. Enid, does she claim to be British in this scene? Because she is not sporting a British accent.

Oh, I don't recall that.

Okay.

I don't think so, because Newspaper Man Lawrence met her father in the US.

Okay.

As a student.

I thought she identified herself as British. John, on one of your rewatches of this film, just to check.

I will, when I watch to see, if I can see Sally Field and Margaret Field, I'll let you know.

My only other comment is this is one of a couple of flirty walks that Lawrence and Edith go on, and I think during all of these walks, her main type of dialogue she says is things like, well, it's getting late. I think you should take me home, and he just doesn't do it. I think in this time in movies, it was romantic to just, I guess, completely ignore the fact that this woman is not really interested in you. All right, well, they stumble across a strange machine while they're out on their walk. It's out on the moors. It looks like a rocket or a bomb, and they bring it back to Professor Elliott. John, tell us a little bit about what they learn about this piece of fantastic technology.

Well, the first thing they do is, he's like, we should take it back to the castle, and she's like, you can't possibly lift that, and then he just picks it up one-handed, and they're like, oh, this is incredibly light. So they get it back. So what they discover through science, there's a science moment, is that this is this type of metal. You know what it reminded me of is the transparent aluminum scene from Star Trek IV, where they're talking about, like, there's this crazy metal, and Dr. Mears is like, this is amazing. If we could figure out how this is made or what this is made of, we could become rich. And this is sort of the first moment where we get an insight into Dr. Mears' personality and motivations, I think.

So, the promise of this technology is that it's stronger than steel but much lighter than steel. And that feels to me like a very mid-century sort of, like, exciting development, right? I mean, that's a, that is a boring thing, but in the middle of the early Cold War, I mean, that would revolutionize, you know, industry and technology and the military and stuff like that. So, it's just like a different kind of MacGuffin than, I think, movies before or after this.

It's a very space race, right? Like, one of the things we always heard about the space race when we were young is that a lot of these, the internet, all these, you know, millions of these absolutely essential technologies from Tang to the internet were invented. Solid state drives, Voyager, the Voyager spacecraft actually had a solid state style hard drive in it. Like, all of these things were invented for the space race as part of the space race. And it has that vibe to it.

Yeah. So as you said, Mears sees just immense profit in the Strange Medal. And we can see that he's going to be the greedy jerk in this one, basically. Enid and Lawrence kind of confer, and they both kind of confirm that neither of them really likes Mears. So she drops him off back at town, but on the way back, she gets a flat tire. And something very exciting happens as she, because she has to get out of the car and then walk home across the moor, because it's late at night. What does she see as she...

Before we get to that, this is the only car in the movie. Other than that, they ride bikes. And according to the Internet Car Movie Database, it is a 1946 Standard 8 Tourer. If we were to say that now, we would call it a touring, but it's a tourer. And the Standard 8, of course, refers to eight cylinders. So anyway, carry on.

Well, it's a pretty cool car.

It is. It is a convertible, and it's a cool-looking car, actually.

And so she sees something amazing out on the moors. And what is that, John?

It is a glowing light in the mist. This is actually, of all the effect shots, this might be the one decent one in the movie, where there's a hidden glowing light that's strobing gently under the mist. So she goes to check it out, and she sees what we come to learn later is a spaceship.

Yes. And so she goes to investigate. It's a very 1940s, 50s looking spaceship, I'd say.

It's like a ball with pointy things sticking out of it.

Yeah, like whatever you're imagining. It looks like that.

It's like a giant diving bell. It's like one of those round, it's one of those round things they would drop into the water, with porthole windows and stuff.

Yeah, so I want to, she sees something terrifying in the spaceship, and I want to hear an audio clip of her recounting after what she has seen.

The light flickered on and off. It wasn't very bright. A ghastly greenish color. When I got close to it, it looked like a giant glass ball, girdled with something like a steel belt. Three of them, I think. When I got close enough to look in, there it was.

It what?

That face, right on the other side of the glass, looking right into mine, I was terrified.

Face? A human face?

A ghastly caricature, or like something distorted by pressure. I can't think how else to describe it. A horrible, grotesque imitation of the face looking right into my eyes.

You know what it looked like? I would not be surprised if you told me they reused this guy's mask for the Tholians in the original Star Trek. Oh. Like it's a totally flat, like the face is really flat with a super long, pointed nose, the mouth doesn't move. Yeah. It looks like a mind's mask.

You're right, but not the Tholians, because the Tholians look like gems or crystals, kind of.

No, who was it?

I know...

You know, you can think of the one I'm thinking of. Yeah.

It's the weird-looking alien. Yeah, for sure. So anything else you want to say about this alien who is basically in a pressure suit, essentially?

Yes.

Anything else you want to say about him, John?

I just thought it was an effective... Actually, not an effective scare when he just sort of came to the window. You know, like, whoa, like a jump scare. Yeah.

Yeah.

I would add, I'll save you a little time later, John. You don't have to watch the film again. Listening to that clip of Margaret Field, I could hear a quiver and a waver to her voice that was reminiscent of her daughter, Sally.

Interesting. Yeah, I think you're right, actually. She just had that little quaver, which is very endearing. It doesn't sound, it just speaks of, it does such a good job of relating fear in a really interesting way.

Well, John, I think we're up to, I think, are you on your fourth or fifth mandatory re-watch of this?

I know. I'm going to be doing this all week, so I'll report back.

Just report back next episode how it went. Let's see, Enid leads Elliot out onto the Moors to show him the spaceship, and Mears creeps creepily behind them quietly. Yes. They peer into the spaceship, but I keep tossing the ball to you for these exciting moments. John, what happens when they get too close to the spaceship?

There's like a beam and a sound come out of it, and I wrote in my notes is like the searching eye of Sauron. There's like a beam on top of the ship, and it captures Professor Elliot, not Enid Elliot, in its light, and he goes sort of catatonic for a moment.

Yes. And although we won't know this for a while, I think technically this is our first zombie of the movie.

Yes. And he felt very zombie-like. As soon as it happened, I'm like, oh, he's a zombie now.

Yeah. Yeah. So what this does, we'll learn it later in the film, but what this beam does is it can zombify people that are exposed to it, where for a couple of hours, they... Well, actually, let's hear... I have an audio clip of this. Let's hear Elliot. He eventually snaps out of this after a couple of hours. Let's hear him describe the experience.

All I was capable of was obedience when I heard a command. It was a complete paralysis of the faculties other than blind, slavish movement.

Well, we seem to be confronted by a concrete menace.

Willful. Hostile.

Do you think could it possibly have something to do with that planet?

I don't know, John, do you think that this could have anything to do with the planet?

The alien spaceship could have something to do with the new planet we just discovered, which is just a crazy theory. Really close right now.

The planet that's in the title of the film.

Yeah, I would like to point out is that it's Mears who points out it's a concrete threat. Like he's clearly both the paranoid and the villain.

Yes.

Yes. At some point during this, they talk about the difference. When maybe it's later, they talk about his pressure suit and the air he needs, and they say, the only difference between water and space is a matter of density. I just wrote, I'm pretty sure that's not true. Anyway, I didn't mean to make fun of old sci-fi movies for getting science wrong. That was pretty far off.

You heard it here, folks. So that actually reminds me, though, they use a cool metaphor or simile here. Lawrence thinks that the ship looks like a diving bell.

Oh, I didn't even remember him saying that, and I said that, so I'm sorry to steal Lawrence's thunder.

It's kind of a cool idea that the aliens are kind of dropping deep sea explorer, deep sea suited people onto the surface of Earth to check it out. That's kind of a cool idea. Yeah. All right. Now they're bike, okay, we're done with cars. Now they just bike everywhere from here on out. Yes.

The car got a flat tire presumably because they ran out of money and couldn't afford the gas. Anyway, carry on.

Yes. They investigate the ship some more. They speculate that it might have come from outer space. It's like another crazy theory that they're lofting out there. But this time when they're back, they're all investigating the ship again.

They refuse to bring anybody else in. It's not until things go way south that they're like, well, maybe we should call the cops. It takes them a long time to get there.

They keep going out there in groups of two to investigate this.

Tell you what, I'll go, you go, and I'll stay here and we'll be fine. I'll catch up with you later. This happens eight times. This is one place where maybe the screenplay falls down a little bit. No, let's not leave Enid alone with the alien to get abducted. How about that for an idea?

But this time when they're there, the alien actually shambles out of the ship and it staggers towards them, and it's wielding what looks like a weird gun, and they are better at first contact than people in a lot of movies. I'll say this, because they approach it with their hands raised, and they notice that the creature is staggering around as if it's hurt. It's fumbling with a lever on its mechanical suit, and they discern that it has some sort of like, basically it's a version of an oxygen tank, and the setting is off. So they turn a knob on its helmet, which snaps the alien back to full health.

Yeah, just to clarify here, what is happening is the alien is trying to adjust basically his airflow and he sort of passes out, and then Lawrence, John Lawrence steps in and fixes it for him, and actually they managed to, this is how they sort of form a peaceful bond with the alien temporarily.

Yes, so yeah, we actually have a non-hostile encounter here, and the humans do this gesture of goodwill towards the alien, and it kind of decides to go along with them. It's communicating in a sort of strange humming sound. It took me a while to realize that wasn't just like a spooky theremin-like noise meant to, and then as the actual noise that the creature is making. How would you describe it, John?

It's like an electrical hum, like when you have a giant electrical object humming, it's like a lot of energy coursing through something.

So they bring it back to the castle, and they obviously can't understand.

Well, they don't, though, but they walk away from it, and it follows them.

That's right, yes.

Which is kind of hilarious. They're like, we better get out of here, and just leave the alien here? That's cool. Hey.

Yes.

But we're not going to call anybody, but we are going to leave the alien here, just to be clear.

Did you catch what they did with Enid when the alien arrived? No. They gave her a sedative.

That's right. That's right. They gave her. Whoo.

Yeah. Yeah. That's the era we're in. All right. So they head into the lab with, they take the alien down to the lab, and they're basically trying to figure out how to communicate with it. You know, this isn't a very, I mean, this scene isn't amazing, but I do like the premise of it.

The premise being that they're going to communicate it with the universal language of geometry.

Yes, exactly. So they try like sign language and using gestures. That doesn't really work. And then it's Mears, the sinister guy who suggests that they try using, yeah, the universal language of math and geometry. Although that's, it's never explained what that means.

I love this. And for some reason, again, you will accuse me of saying that that band from Planet X is better than this film. It sort of was a moment where I thought about the arrival.

I thought of the arrival too. Except I wasn't going to embarrass myself by-

We're on to you, Denny Villeneuve. We've been ripping off ancient American sci-fi movies to make your supposedly original creations. We're on to you.

So, I don't know anything about this, but don't we have some space probes that we sent out that- Do we put mathematical equations on them? You know that one that has the Da Vinci picture?

There was a record that we sent, a golden record on the Voyager space program. It had some binary on it and it had some recorded music. But yes, it's essentially that kind of thing.

All right. That hasn't paid off yet.

Though it is technically an interstellar space now.

Oh yeah. That's right. Professor Elliott has fallen sick. I wasn't sure if this was like, were we supposed to think that he's been infected by something, or is this just a plot thing to get him out of the way for a little while?

I think it is just a plot thing to get him out of the way. But that was my first assumption too, was that somehow the zombifying Ray that he briefly experienced made him ill. But I think it's just a coincidence, or not a coincidence, but a plot device.

Yeah, so the next sequence, so they just kind of leave the alien down in the lab.

Yeah, just go, no, well, they leave Mears with the alien to try to communicate with the alien.

Oh, yes, that's right. However, Mears is not on the same team as everyone else, so what does he do when he's alone with the alien?

Well, go back to this bizarre metal that has been discovered. He immediately is like, I'm going to get your secrets out of you. He attacks the alien and shuts off its airflow, and then he says, I'm going to give it to you a little bit at a time, like threatening the alien, as if the alien can understand what he's saying. But he's basically saying, I'm bending you to my will, right? And the alien, until then, was sort of trying to communicate with him and be friendly, right?

Yes. Yeah, he's going to torture it until it reveals all its tech, basically.

Yes.

John, if you were captured by aliens and they demanded to know how, like, steel was created, would you be able to answer?

A Neanderthal captures me and asks me how my smartphone works. I'm like, I don't know. It's electric and has a screen. Exactly. Yeah.

So Enid goes, so Enid, then, a little bit later, goes down to check on, like, something in the lab. And I have an audio clip of this just because it's a, well, you'll hear it.

Well, actually, just for a moment, like, it took actually a great shot. So they shoot this low, like the camera's on the ground, and they shoot Enid walking to the door. Like, her feet are close and she walks away to the door. Anyway, it's just a good shot. And then John Lawrence takes the same path later, so.

That was just too fun, not too grand. So that's a good scream, queen scream, and then a dramatic music sting. I always appreciate that. So later, they realize that Enid has gone missing. So like, we know she went into the lab, she screamed at whatever she found down there, and now she's gone. So Lawrence and Mears, Mears, the sinister guy who's, they don't know what he's been up to, head out to the moor to check on the spaceship. And Lawrence is suspicious of Mears, but doesn't have any evidence that he's done something yet.

He's the only other warm body, right? Like Enid's missing, Professor Elliott's laid down with the flu, there's nobody else to help him.

And at some point, I think it is Lawrence who utters the timeless line, I really should have gotten this audio clip, if I only were not so helpless against the voiceless threat of the unknown.

I know, I wrote that down too. That was so great.

He's a heck of a sentence. Can I ask a little grammar question?

Yes.

Welcome to Andy's Grammar Corner.

All right. What is the mood of this sentence?

It's past tense. If I only weren't feeling so helpless before the voiceless threat of the unknown.

It is, this is the subjunctive mood. Oh. And this particular type of sentence is called a present unreal conditional.

Whoa.

You use a verb that's in the present tense to hypothesize about an unlikely future event.

Wow. You know what? I do that all the time when I'm thinking about the future. So.

Exactly.

There's a little bit of judginess in that grammatical definition.

Yes, I think so.

All right. So finally, though, someone has called the police. So the police show up back at the castle and they want to talk to Elliot because villagers have started to go missing from the village.

Right. And I think they just end up at the castle because they're out in the moors looking for them. And they're like, hey, did they come here?

Yes.

And I think the constable, who's supposedly Scottish, but maybe is from Ireland.

Do we want to talk about this constable? Because he really goes all in on the Scottish.

Yeah. But he sounds like a leprechaun, like a cartoon leprechaun. But you know what, man? Go for it. If you're going to do it, go all the way. If you're going to fail, swing big. So the accent is consistent. I just think it's the wrong one.

So a word occurs twice in this movie that I had never heard before, uttered by this Scottish police detector, and that is the word clapper claw. Did you guys heard this?

I did not hear that word.

Okay. I can't really figure out from context.

Now you've cost me another re-watch, Andy, so I can hear clapper claw.

I think it might mean gibberish or something like that, or nonsense, but let us know after your re-watch.

It's one of the many small delights this film offers.

Will one of our Scottish listeners write us and tell us if clapper claw? Or Irish, well, those two.

I have another delight for you. He also says, this is the constable, you take the taste of tea right out of my mouth.

Yes, that was another good one. Yeah, he's colorful.

I don't know if that's a real phrase or written for the movie. I tried to find it and I couldn't find an example of it elsewhere.

And is that good or bad? I mean, I guess we, you know.

Well, it's a tea-loving country, so I think it's bad to lose the taste.

Yeah, okay, fair enough. So Lawrence takes the police inspector out to the moor, but the spaceship is gone, and Mears, who is left behind supposedly like Stand Watch, Mears is also gone. They just find his binoculars laying there.

Yeah, and he's like, I only left him here three hours ago. What could possibly have happened? Like, I don't know, quit leaving people places.

Stay out here in the moor with no way to communicate with us, because this is 1951. All right. So now, so believe it or not, guys, we are getting into the part of the movie that has zombies in it. Yes.

We've had a taste of a zombie in Professor Elliott, but now there's like a lot of them.

So we switch back to the village, where the police inspector is debriefing, basically, a bunch of locals, because locals have gone missing, and they're organizing a thorough search of the moors. And we get a new term. We've been recording terms that people use to describe zombies. We've had, you know, we have zombie, we have walker, we have the dead.

What was the one from The Girl with All the Gifts?

The Hungrys.

The Hungrys, yeah.

Do you guys remember what they call them in this movie?

Well, at one point, they say zombie.

They do say zombie, but they have an even better word. They call them bogeys.

That's right. Are they referring to them, or are they referring to the alien as a bogey? I wasn't sure.

Yeah, I guess I'm not sure.

But either way, it's amazing.

It's just a good word, so yeah. So one of the Villagers' reports that he saw that Mears came and took the Professor to the alien.

That's right.

And Lawrence thinks that, comes to the conclusion, that the spaceman is using Mears somehow to kidnap the Professor.

Yes.

And then once everyone knows there's a space alien, everyone like panics. People go home, they lock their houses, and the radio has gone dead.

Yes.

And so this is, there's some biking. Oh yeah. Lawrence bikes back to the castle, and on the way, he's attacked by two men. Yes. He escapes them, but...

They're very zombie-like attacking men.

Yes. These are some village, some, basically, the alien is kidnapping villagers and zombifying them. And these are two zombie villagers that almost got him. So let's hear an audio clip about these guys.

These two must have undergone the same treatment. You mean they were often independent of their own inclinations and will? They were acting just like slaves and seeking other villagers to be enslaved with them. But for what purpose? Can't you see, man?

He's building an army.

An army.

And if he isn't stopped, he'll have every man in this village to carry out his orders.

I take back what I said about his accent being consistent.

Right. So he's going to have an army of what? Like 17 people just? Yes. It's the same scale problem that we ran into in Plan 9 from Matterspace.

So we have a weird sequence where we just heard him talk to the constable. Then they separate again, but then we immediately cut back to the same setting as if it's a different conversation with the constable in their office.

Oh, yeah. So they decide they can't radio anyone. So what is the technology they're going to use to get the message out?

They call it a heliograph.

Yes. Did you know what that was when they said it?

It's essentially Morse code using a light.

Yes.

You use the shutters of a light on a ship to send a Morse signal.

But yes. Yeah. It was a little lower tech than I was hoping from a cool term. So did you catch what the message is that they Morse code to a passing ship?

Something about calling Scotland Yard. I don't know how long it would take to Morse Scotland, the word Scotland Yard.

But this is what they broadcast. Emergency, village terror stricken. I mean, like you have to economy of communication. You know, are you really going to use your precious Morse code letters to spell out terror stricken?

Especially when you've got to spell out Scotland Yard.

And how would you interpret that if you were the passing ship?

Well, here's the thing. You know what I love is that everybody in this movie is credulous. Like when they tell the constable about the alien, he's like, oh my gosh, we have an alien. And they like, tell Scotland Yard that the tears in the Scotland Yard comes right away.

Like, yeah, that's a good point.

You know, in a more modern movie or a more cynical movie, they'd be like, terror stricken. What is this nonsense?

Yeah, like half the movie would be that no one believes them. Correct. In this one, it's yeah. So yeah, they morse code to a passing ship to contact Scotland Yard for help.

And it's not sure. They're not sure if it works, but 30 seconds later, Scotland Yard lands in a plane.

The weakest attempt at tension I've seen in quite a while. Yeah. Meanwhile, though, the zombies are grabbing more villagers. And this movie actually does use the word zombie. So let's get a quick clip of them saying it.

Two more of the men of the village have been taken.

How did that happen?

Young Wilkie and Bobby Harris. Young Wilkie went down to look at his cows. They hadn't been milked for two days. His sister said he left a little before sunrise. He didn't return. Bobby went down to look at his boat, to see if it were up above the midnight tide line. He didn't return neither.

If the men left, don't buckle down to the job.

This is going to be a village of zombies.

There it is.

I do think it's interesting. So just, it's a little hard to kind of transport ourselves back to 1951. But remember, in 1951, the zombie film genre is really only like 15 or 16 years old.

Yes.

And they're already using the word zombie to describe something that has nothing to do with Haitian voodoo or the supernatural or anything. And they don't need to explain it at all. The audience understands completely what they mean.

Yeah. And in other movies, like Zombies of the Stratus, where they use it to refer to aliens. And in other movies, it's corpses. And in other movies, it's hypnotized people. So yeah, but it's this idea of sort of mindless servants or slaves in a way.

Yes. So around this time, two inspectors from Scotland Yard arrive. So yeah, like 30 seconds before they tried to get us all nervous that maybe the message didn't come through, and then the doorbell rings and Scotland Yard arrives. They tell the inspectors everything. The inspectors are also credulous.

Yeah. They're like, well, we better help you out right away.

So they all head out to the spaceship, but the inspectors want to bring in the military. And Lawrence doesn't like that idea at all. He doesn't want to risk the military coming in and basically starting blowing things up or just ruining everything. Because remember, from, they don't yet know why, I mean, they had a pretty positive encounter with the alien and they don't know that Mears has kind of turned hostile, basically. Right. So Lawrence is like, look, can I have a few hours? I have a different plan. Before you bring in the military to just blow this up, can you give me a couple hours to try my other plans? The Scotland Yard people are like, all right. Well, Planet X is going to arrive here at midnight. So you have until like 11 p.m. to do your plan. But if you can't get the situation resolved, we're just going to send in the military at that time. So that's a tried and true setup for attention. So this is where we have now caught back up to the beginning of the movie. Yes.

And the narration comes back.

What Lawrence was doing at the beginning is having just learned he has a very short amount of time to try and find a peaceful resolution to this before the military goes in with guns blazing. So he writes down and he is worried that the fate of humanity rests on whether or not they can pull this off successfully. So then Lawrence approaches the spaceship and he finds basically a bunch of the zombified villagers including zombie Professor Elliott.

Yeah.

And Zombie Mears is there. Go ahead.

Well, what's interesting about this scene is that the zombies will follow the direction of anybody who gives them direction. They're not under the control of the alien because when he says walk, go escape and walk straight that way, they comply. So I just thought that was a fascinating take. Like I just assumed they would be under mind control of the alien and that he wouldn't be able to affect them. But all he has to do is just tell them to do something different. They're mindless in the truest sense. They don't care who's bossing them around. They just do whatever they're told.

Yeah. It's like they're just extremely suggestible all of a sudden.

Yes.

So he gets Lawrence out and he gets Mears out. And the other zombie villagers are being used to dig these little like bulwark type of fortifications. This seems like a not... This won't prove very effective when the military comes in. But I guess props to the alien for making an effort. I mean, another option would be to take off in your ship or something. But what do I know? Maybe he can't. So where are we? All right. We're in the movie's final moments now. So Lawrence interrogates Mears, who he's saved from his zombie state. And from this, we learn the alien's plan. We learn that when Planet X arrives near Earth, an invasion is going to begin. Because this alien is... And his species are from a dying planet. So they've moved their planet out of its original orbit somewhere to go fly around the galaxy in search of a new home.

Which is what ties us to Zombies of the Stratosphere. Because they wanted to move Mars into Earth's orbit. So it's another planet being driven by someone or something.

Also, Space 1999. But that's another story.

Yeah, you know, planets flying around just don't seem very cool these days. I think as a concept, it has kind of faded away.

Well, that's because you haven't seen The Wandering Earth, the Chinese movie that's on Netflix.

Oh, am I going to watch this now?

Oh yeah, they attached giant thrusters on one side of the planet to move it out of the way of the sun.

Amazing.

And they start flying the earth through the solar system.

I'm in.

Okay, yeah, you had me at that. Sold. Okay. I'm sorry, I've got to stay focused, Andy, come on. And we already know it's confirmed that the alien uses its ray to induce that zombie state, but it has to be reapplied every couple hours. So here we are again with the early zombie movie trope that has been abandoned, which is the idea that the zombie state is reversible.

Or temporary, yeah.

Or temporary, yes. So lightning strikes, and this was another cool special effect. Lightning strikes some of the spaceships' antennae.

Yes.

I thought that was kind of cool looking. The alien is roaming around, it's got its gun, it's obviously hostile now. Lawrence sneaks behind it easily and wrestles with it and he subdues it by switching off its oxygen, and it's air supply. He then goes in, he drags Enid out of the spaceship. The spaceman is managed to restore its oxygen flow, and it clenches its fist in anger. But Jonathan has gotten Enid and the other villagers out just in time because the clock strikes 11 or midnight or whatever, and the military opens fire.

Yes. This impressive military, which is I think one squad of soldiers with a bazooka and some pistols, but that's okay. Again, filmed in six days for $38,000.

Yes. In classic villain form, Mears freaks out when he realizes what's happening because he's about to lose his ticket to wealth, so he runs back to the spaceship that the military is shooting at, and he gets killed in the crossfire.

Yes. He's like Paul Reiser from Alien.

Yes, totally. Or the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and the woman who is...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know who you mean.

Anyway. All right. Mears is shot. Mears dies. And then a bazooka hits the spaceship and it explodes.

Yes.

Then, however, things look like it's uncertain what's going to happen because suddenly we see Planet X sailing right across the sky. It's like zooming right at us. Yes. The weather is going crazy. There's wind. There's the environment is getting all chaotic. But then the planet zooms off. And then we get a romantic final scene, sort of, in which Enid hypothesizes that it kind of seemed like the feature was friendly. What a bummer.

Yeah. And there's actually this moment where he's like, it could have been wonderful. Like, we don't know. Maybe they would have been our...

If only Dr. Mears hadn't done what he did, she says.

Yeah. And then they flirt a little more and the movie ends.

And that's a wrap. All right.

All right.

Okay. So, hey, John, we have a bunch of questions we ask at the end of every movie.

Let's do it.

And let's jump right in. I'm going to ask some of you and then you're going to ask some of me.

Yes.

John, in The Man From Planet X, is there a hero party?

There is. In fact, we have like a hero team in like a bastion where they hide. It's Dr. Elliott, his daughter, John Lawrence and technically Mears. Yeah.

I want to put Mears in the hero party.

Yeah.

Because I think a hero party, a member of the hero party who turns on the rest of them is a good trope.

Is a still member of the hero party.

Yeah. How does the party do, John?

They do pretty well except for Mears.

Yeah. All of them survive except Mears, who gets his just desserts. In this movie, what kind of zombie are we dealing with? What's the strain of zombie here?

We have science created and controlled zombies. It's pure technology used to overcome your will. So, they're science zombies. They're mindless science zombies.

Alien mind control.

Alien mind control. Science zombies. It's alien science, but science, yes.

This is yet another alien species whose plan is to go to a planet and use that planet's own people to become their soldiers.

That's right.

Rather than bringing soldiers with them.

Yes, like invisible invaders or zombies in the stratosphere.

Is there a zombie horde?

Yes, it's a tiny horde, but he does get chased by two zombies on his bike. There's a suggestion that they get together. At one point, three or four of them abduct another person to make him a zombie. It's horde-ish, but it's a low budget, so the hordes are very small.

Yeah. We'll call it a zombie squad. Yes. Do we learn how zombies are destroyed or killed?

Not really. It just wears off. Yes, it wears off. How about that? If you're not exposed to the ray with the right frequency, you stop being a zombie.

What's the kill count in this movie versus previous, and compared to other zombie films we've seen?

Assuming all the villagers who became zombies live, it's just the alien, the man from Planet X, and Mears, as far as I can tell.

Yeah. And the zombies don't kill anyone?

No. They abduct people, they try to turn you into a zombie, but they don't kill anybody.

Is the world threatened?

Yes. Planet X is trying to invade our planet.

Do we know why Planet X... I mean, why do you think Planet X veers off?

Like, I don't know that they have total control. Like, they were just trying to swing in close, and then it... then it went away. Like, I just assumed it was a natural phenomenon. I guess I missed the part where it was controlled by them, so I don't know.

Well, I guess, um, I mean, so did they decide that Earth wasn't worth invading? Like, it was too much of a hassle based on...

Oh, maybe...

.like, experience of their one explorer that they sent?

Yeah, I don't know the answer to that. I'm not sure.

I mean, I'm asking this in the, is the world threatened? Because, like, did we narrowly avert an alien invasion? Like, because one other natural reaction to, like, your explorer getting killed by the natives might be to invade and wipe out this hostile planet, right?

Yeah, I don't know. I think it's actually not that clear.

So, I mean, and I don't think it's bad that it's unclear. It's just a little nebulous. Yes. All right. And do we have any new strains or zombie firsts in this movie? And remember, we're in 1951.

I feel like, can I make a case that this is contagion? Now, one zombie does not directly turn another person into a zombie, but they abduct them and take them to the machine where they get turned into the zombie.

So the zombies, they do execute their own propagation?

Yes.

Kind of.

Yeah. I keep reaching for that. I tried to reach for this in Plan 9 too. And I don't think it was quite there yet.

Yeah. I mean, so if you imagined, I mean, the thing with Contagion is it suggests that there's going to be exponential growth.

Right.

Which is what would happen as more and more people were zombified here. They'd go out and kidnap more and more people.

And I think that's kind of what's happening, right? They do have a couple of scenes where zombies are trying to kidnap people and make more zombies in that kind of way, where we get to the point where it's really just Lawrence and the constable who aren't zombies.

So, when was... This is not the first time we've had kind of a Craven party member turn on the rest of them, right?

No, I don't think so. I think that happened before.

Yeah, I think so, too. What was... I always forget this one. What was that one with the zombie bunker where they were all in and they figured out that certain sounds could kill...

That was Invisible Invaders.

Invisible Invaders. Because that was earlier than this, right?

It was after this.

After this. Because that one had a cowardly person who...

This might be our first villain of this sort. The Call is Inside the House kind of villain.

Yeah, this is like your Paul Reiser from Aliens. I'm sure we've seen this in one or two other movies. I just don't remember if they were before this.

But I feel like we called it out as a first-time thing in Invisible Invaders.

Yeah.

If we did, that means this is actually an earlier example of that.

Yes. John, you identified at the beginning of this podcast four pillars of the zombie genre. Let's find out how many of those pillars can be found in The Man From Planet X. John, in The Man From Planet X, is there an apocalypse?

Potentially, but not really. They avoid one. How about that?

Yeah, it's the threat of one, which is common in these early movies. Is there contagion? And you just made a bold attempt to fit this into the contagion category, which I will halfway buy.

Yeah, I'd say halfway to contagion, because that's like the zombies swarm somebody, take them away, and then they're a zombie. So it's not like people are getting bitten and turning immediately, but the principle is there. So I'm going to say contagion-ish, yes-ish, maybe. I'm going to say maybe.

And in this movie, are there tough moral choices?

Um, I don't think so. You know, a tough moral choice would be sacrificing Mears to get him to stop what he's doing or something like that, and Mears sacrifices himself. So I'll say no.

I agree. I would say there's maybe a... I'm going to give this movie half credit for the difficult choice of, like, how to respond to the alien.

Yes.

Which, when it appears it's got a gun and it looks threatening.

That's true.

But they make the choice to kind of embrace, to like reach out in peace. So I think it deserves half credit for... That's a moral choice kind of, right? Yeah. And lastly, does this movie have loved ones turning against you?

Not really, because when people turn, they're not really against you. They're just following whatever the last person said to them.

Yeah, so I mean, technically, one of your loved ones could be dispatched to grab you and zombify you.

Right.

Doesn't really happen in this movie though.

Like what we really mean by that is not only that your loved ones are unrecognizable, but that they are aggressive and trying to harm you, which is not necessary. Like if Professor Elliot had turned on Lawrence at the end and like given him up to the alien or something, I'd say yes, but that's not what happens. Lawrence becomes a zombie, or excuse me, Elliot becomes a zombie, but Lawrence can still connect with him and Elliot knows who he is. So I think no, I'll say no.

All right, then I'm going to turn it over to you, John, to ask some questions specifically about zombie films in the 50s.

Yes. So is paranoia a major theme in this film?

It is.

Yeah.

Yes. This movie is shot through with themes of paranoia.

How about hypocrisy and dark secrets?

Yes. Yes to both. Mirs, right? Yes. Mirs is a smart, sharp scientist whose motives are sinister. Are they're greedy and selfish? This is not the first movie we've seen. A lot of these moral fables of the atomic age, the big worry is that we're humans are going to screw this up. We're going to wipe ourselves out, right? It's been in a couple of movies we watched. It's kind of in Plan 9 from Outer Space. So yeah, I don't know. I think this fits really well into that 50s paranoia of the early atomic age.

It's just occurring to me that growing up in the 70s, the idea that between the environment and atomic weapons, that we would create our own end, was just sort of accepted by me as truth. That concept did not exist really in 1950. It wasn't until we'd lived with atomic weapons for a while that that became an idea, something I've always taken for granted, that that would be something that would happen. That's never occurred to anybody before 1945. You know what I mean?

Yes. Probably.

I don't know, I shouldn't speak that broadly. Yeah, so did our movie heroes change? Are they younger, maybe more diverse, socially diverse backgrounds?

Not really. These are pretty 1940s-style movie heroes. They're young, professional adults.

Yeah, though I would argue, I think newspaper men maybe weren't the professionals that they are today back in 1950.

Okay.

I think it was more sort of a blue-collarish kind of job, except for at the super high levels.

Yeah, I'll accept that. It is noteworthy that it actually isn't like the authority figures that kind of do most of the action in this movie. The scientists don't solve the problem. It's the newspaper guy who does.

Yeah, and they give him a jacket like a bomber pilot, so I think they're trying to make him the sort of blue-collar action hero. Yeah. Does science and sci-fi take on a new role in zombie movies? I mean...

Well, this is a very sci-fi movie. Yeah. I mean, obviously, there's the space alien and its spaceship. I think it is pretty interesting that the promise, that the glorious promise that the alien offers is lightweight steel. Yeah. It's a very unglamorous but incredibly useful thing that we stand to acquire. So that feels like, like you said, that feels real space age, like, yeah.

And does this film leave its sort of Caribbean or Voodoo Haitian roots and move on to the broader American world stage?

Yes. It has nothing to do with Haiti, magic, the supernatural, Voodoo or anything.

And it's got Americans in Scotland.

And it's got Americans in Scotland and the threat is definitely global. It's not one of those like four people in the jungle run afoul, you know, run afoul of a single local witch doctor or something.

You know, and it's funny, like another like, this is another movie we're sort of catching up on that, that has all of the things you predicted from the 50s, but we're catching up with a little late. So it's just, you know, I just want you to feel validated, Andy. That's all I'm saying.

If we had done this in order, I'd have felt so much better about all those.

So.

All right, John, we always close with three questions.

Yes.

Number one, John, would you and I survive in the zombie world of The Man From Planet X?

I think so, because the only one who really dies is the villain who sort of got hoisted by his own petard, so to speak. I think we, you know, assuming we're good guys, assume we were villagers, right? Like we might get turned into zombies, but they all survive, is the suggestion. So, yes.

And I think you and I would approach the alien with peace in our hearts.

Sure.

Right?

I'll say yes to that.

OK, well.

I'd like to think so.

I'm learning something new about you today. All right. John, is The Man From Planet X a zombie movie or are we dealing with a movie with zombies?

Since they don't really show up till Act III in a meaningful way, I'll say it's a movie with zombies. But good zombies, interesting zombies with some precursor behaviors, but it's not really a zombie movie. It's a sci-fi alien invasion movie.

Yeah. I mean, the zombies aren't really that important to the plot. Like the alien doesn't really need the zombie anyway. Okay. Lastly, John, do you recommend this movie first, generally as a movie that everyone should go out and watch? Secondly, do you recommend it specifically to the zombie-loving listeners of this podcast?

I will say again, I never know if it's Stockholm Syndrome. I had a decent time watching this movie, but I can't say like go see this movie. I'm going to say no on the recommendation. For zombie fans, I think I'll say yes, because I think there's enough interesting stuff here that if you're following along, you'll be intrigued by some of the stuff.

I'm going to say, I think I'm going to say no to both.

All right, fair enough.

Although my no on the second one is a soft no, because there is some zombie coolness here. I just don't think it's really anything that we aren't seeing in a lot of other films.

It's interesting, I would have said a no to the zombie too, until John said that these zombies are self-propagating in a way, which is something new for us, and that's interesting.

Yeah, so that's the only reason I give it a soft yes on that.

All right, well, we usually agree on this question, so I'm excited that we have different answers.

Yeah.

Well, hey, it's now time for the scariest part of the episode, and that's when producer Brad reveals to me and John what we're going to be watching next.

All right, for our next film, we are going back to the 60s in 1964 and returning to our Zombie film chronology, and here is the poster for our next film, which was released on June 1st, 1964.

Okay, back to the 60s.

Whoa!

Oh, my gosh.

Oh, wow. All right.

The horror of Party Beach.

Oh, so I couldn't tell. There's a tagline, and I thought the tagline was the title of the movie and I got really excited. Because the tagline is, weird atomic beasts who live off human blood with three exclamation marks.

I can see why you thought it was that because it's at the top of the poster and bigger than the actual title. I only know it's the horror of Party Beach because that's an MST 3K episode. So that's if that gives you a clue into what we're interested. But the other thing it says here is, the first horror monster musical, which might not be true. What about the incredibly strange creatures who stopped living and became make-up zombies? Excuse me.

Yes. Well, we kind of discussed whether that one could truly be considered a musical, right? So what is a musical? Does the musical need to have some of its musical numbers drive the plot or be relevant to the plot in some way?

That's the modern definition of a musical. I think we're learning that this is not the previous definition of the musical.

Well, two things. One is in, as Andy knows the grammar. So the incredibly strange creatures use the tagline, the first monster musical. This is the first horror monster musical. And secondly, to get a sample of the music, here's a clip from the trailer.

While the beat set twists to the big beat sound of the del airs, swinging out with six rocking hits. While the cycle gangs burn up the road and strong on their way into the party with fists flying. While teenagers prepare for a secluded slumber party, ghoulish atomic beasts who live off human blood.

That's amazing.

That sounds incredible.

So two more things. First of all, the creature is has a not coincidental passing resemblance to the creature from the Black Lagoon.

Yes, it looks exactly like the creature in the Black Lagoon.

And second, it's got a woman in a bikini on the front. But third, that last line about the slumber party feels like a proto slasher as well. Kind of like Teenage Zombies, actually.

It does.

Yeah. So there's a lot of things I'm interested in here.

I got to rewind. I really think our, I really think Scared Stiff was our first musical because it-

That's right.

It technically had songs that conveyed plot information.

You're right. No, it did. It was a musical in the way we currently understand musicals. So yes. But maybe it's not a horror movie. I don't know. It's hard to-

Well, I'm excited. So that music sounded very cheesy, but that is the sort of rock and roll I've been waiting to hear in these movies. Yes.

It is.

Yes. I'm feeling I got a strong Happy Days vibe from this one.

I have a good feeling about this. I know. Not that it'll be a good movie, but that it'll be fun to watch.

I think we're going to have a good time, is what I'll say. Well, thanks, everybody. And hey, do us a favor. Rate our podcast in your podcast app of choice because it really does help us out. And please tell your friends because we want everyone... Think about this, people. There could be people who desperately want to know about the history of zombie movies, and they don't because you haven't mentioned it to them. I'm just saying. If you get a chance, please.

That's rough, but hard truths from John.

Yes. So in any case, thank you everyone for listening, and we'll see you next time for the horror of Party Beach. You've been listening to Zombie Strains. We'll be back next episode to talk about another zombie movie. If you enjoyed our podcast, please take a moment to rate us in your podcast app of choice. Tell a friend, follow us on Instagram at Zombie Strains. All of this helps like-minded people find the show. See you next time.