Customer Reviews

Invisible Invaders / Journey to the Seventh Planet

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

At last, the "Sid Pink Trilogy" is available on DVD! Sid got his ticket punched when his "Angry Red Planet" did well at the Saturday-matinee box office, and went on to direct the (in)famous "Reptilicus". (See my reviews of THOSE two, also here on Amazon.) Enamored with the Danish locations of that film epic, Pink decided his next film, "Journey to the 7th Planet", would be made there, too. The entire film was shot on a 22 by 44 foot soundstage (except for the stock footage and "special effects") for a total cost of $75,000 - and $25,000 of that went to Agar and the female lead, Gretta Thyssen! As a result, we get a spaceship with a wood-plank floor, a few scrap ejection seats, and LOTS of primary-color displays. Pink picked Uranus as the destination because he believed that it was unknown enough that he could depict ANY sort of environment and be able to get away with it. The plot owes a lot to Ray Bradbury's short story "Mars is Heaven!", wherein the crew of a ship landing on Mars is greeted by family and relatives in an old-fashioned front-porch-and-lemonade village. In "Journey", the crew meets up with assorted Danish femme fatales in a thatched-roofs-and-cocoa Danish village, all manifestations of a giant cave-dwelling brain intent on hitching a ride back to Earth with the ship. Fans of "Reptilicus" will recognize most of the rest of the cast, all of whom needed to have their voices dubbed because of their Danish accents. Superb print, outstanding rendering of the hallucinatory color schemes, and great fun all around.

"Invisible Invaders" was entirely new to me, and if you excised the stock footage, the film would be about 20 minutes long. Although willowy John Carradine gets top billing and a prominent feature on the cover, he's on-screen for less than 2 minutes. After being killed in an explosion at an atomic-weapons plant, invisible aliens who have been living on the moon for 20,000 years take over his body (as if there would be anything left to take over.) Hey, *I* didn't write it, OK? These "invisible invaders" shuffle around looking for corpses to inhabit so that they can carry out nefarious deeds of sabotage, since they don't actually have any weapons of their own. It's up to John Agar (wearing an ill-fitting flight suit and a flight cap seventeen sizes too small for him) and co-star Philip Tonge to find a way to defeat these poseurs from their underground bunker (actually the same cave in Bronson Canyon that "Robot Monster" was filmed in!) Again, a really nice, clean print (except for the stock footage, which varies wildly in quality) and a painless way to pass an hour. Recommended for all you fans of John Agar *and* the immortal Sid Pink.

Just one question - why is there an empty pair of shoes on the cover of the DVD case?

A two-for-one send up of silly b-movies. Alien invaders and space exploration make up the themes of these tales of exploration and caution.

Invisible Invaders si about some aliens who have made themselves and their stuff invisible. Atomic testing on Earth has pushed them to wanting to take over the Earth from their nearby base on the moon. They will use the bodies of the dead to further their plans. Either Earth must surrender or they will destroy all humans. John Carradine is excellent as an animated corpse. Although he is only on screen for a short time, his voice is used for most of the alien communications. A small group in a scientific bunker must find a way to stop the invaders before all humans are killed.

Seventh Planet has a UN exploration team in 2001 traveling to Uranus to search for life. None has been found on the nearer planets. When the arrive they find themselves in a small region of German forest complete with village and beautiful women. But the real answers lie on the real surface of the planet. It was funny to see then traipsing though a forest and claim they still had not found any life (talk about not seeing the forest for the trees). The pseudo Earth history is laughable at this time and sexism is very strong. But it still has its moments with monsters, special effects, and outrageously bright color added because its in color (I love the spider with mustard and ketchup for blood).

B-movie fans should rejoice to get two movies for a reasonable price. The only disadvantage of this DVD is that each film is on a different side so you can't watch them straight through. But it does mean that the picture quality is very good. The only special features are subtitles and the original trailers.

This is a wonderful double dose of silly sci-fi features from 1959 and 1962, the golden era of the genre. John Agar is a principal in both, and in both cases plays his role in his typical, formulaic, yet understated, way while chaos erupts around him and he takes on various monsters, including one with a "honeycomb cyclops brain".

In "Invisible Invaders" invisible invaders from the moon take over the corpse of scientist John Carradine who brings extra-terrestrial warnings from space to the protagonists of the film. (We also get to thrill to many Carradine voiceovers.) The Earth is engulfed in a stock footage war, but fortunate for us all, the brilliant cast is able to figure out not only how to make the aliens visible (it involves a latex bath, in part) but how to destroy them as well. (Whew!)

In "Journey to the Seventh Planet" John Agar and friends venture to Uranus in a ridiculously roomy spacecraft and discover lots of hilarious stock footage monsters (I am especially fond of the spider) and a brilliant opponent that can alter nature based on the memories of the humans. It is like a more primitive episode of "Star Trek" featuring John Agar as Kirk. This one is hysterical. It is set in the peaceful world of 2001, which is ruled by the brilliant and wise United Nations, and where everyone is happy and prosperous and there is no more war. (I will pause to let you collect yourselves now: I told you it was silly.) The film was made by the infamous Sid Pink in Denmark, with a mixed group of Danish and American actors. The result is a peculiar spectacle where only some voices are dubbed, It also features music you have no doubt heard in other movies of this ilk, most notably in "Zontar, The Thing from Venus" (also starring Agar, of course.)

This is a great little package of early cold war nostalgia, and I recommend it highly to anyone who likes B-movies.

INVISIBLE INVADERS "stars" John Carradine as a scientist who blows himself up, only to be re-animated / possessed by an invisible alien entity. He is used as a messenger to warn earth of an impending invasion. Well, the "invasion" mostly consists of stock footage of buildings burning or crumbling. The highlight has the dead rising from their graves, shambling along somewhat convincingly. Yep, it's a zombie holocaust! Meanwhile, another scientist, his cute daughter, her whiney boyfriend, and an army major (John Agar) seal themselves in an underground facility and frantically search for a way to thwart the alien onslaught. Not bad. JOURNEY TO THE SEVENTH PLANET has John Agar again. This time he's a captain Kirkish astronaut on a UN (?!) space mission in that distant year 2001. With his commander and crew of bumpkins, Agar sets out to explore the planet Uranus. Unbeknownst to them, a strange lifeform (aka: giant green brain-monster w/ one eye) has read their minds during their arrival, and recreated a familiar earth landscape from their memories. It has also inhabited the place with beautiful young überbabes, including the eye-popping Greta Thyssen! OK, I want to go to Uranus right now! Anyway, the big green brain also knows our heroes' deepest fears and creates a one-eyed rat beast, and a giant tarantula to attack them. Thankfully, John Agar smirks throughout. This is a good double feature w/ laughs aplenty. Go ahead and buy it...

when i first saw "journey to the seventh planet" on tv, it was a very good sci fi movie and one of the best parts of the movie was towards the end when one of the astronauts attacks the brain and the brain absorbs the astronaut. they showed the astronaut being absorbed in the original movie, which was pretty grusome, but they show none of the absorbtion on the dvd. the best part of the movie and it was cut out. all you see during this part is the brain and you just hear the sounds of the absortion. too bad they lost this part.

Two schlocky sci-fi movies for the price of one? I certainly give MGM credit for releasing these low end movies in this two for one format. Let's see, Invisible Invaders...I would call this a mix of The Day The Earth Stood Still and Plan 9 From Outer Space, with the end result leaning much closer to Plan 9. Apparently, aliens have been living on the moon for the last 20,000 years, and have decided the time was ripe to take over the Earth. Thier timing had something to do with the the fact that the Earthlings are just beginning to harness the power of the atom. They decide the best way to do this is by inhabiting the bodies of the recently deceased and sabotaging earths' ability to fight back and basically annihilate all earth men unless they surrender control of the planet to the aliens. A small group, two scientists, the daughter of the older scientist, and an army major secure themselves away in a bunker in order to devise a plan on how to deal with the alien invaders, specifically for a way to make the aliens visible...I think....anyway, it's all hokey stuff. John Caradine gets top billing, but he's only in the movie for about 4 minutes. John Agar was the real star in this goofball movie. The earth is coming to an end, and he still finds time to put the moves on the scientists daughter. Funny stuff, a bit slow at times, and lots o' stock footage. In the end, humanity prevails, and the aliens get their cumuppence.

Journey To The Seventh Planet...another Agar classic. The movie starts out with a bit of narration telling us how it's the year 2001, there is no more war, and the Earth is governed by the UN...[insert joke here]. Anyway, an international group *cough cough* of astronauts have been tasked to explore the Seventh planet, Uranus. On arriving, they discover the planet is very much like Earth with atmosphere, trees, grass, etc. , and it is all quite puzzling until they discover that a giant, pulsating space brain is manipulating them for its own nefarious purposes. Once the astronauts discover what's going on and what the Giant Space Brains' plans are, they try to come up with a scheme to destroy it before it destroys them. All of it is rather goofy, but I kinda enjoyed some of it. I did like the stop motion on the rat monster. It was nowhere near the level of Harryhausen, it was nice to see, especially in this era of CGI. John Agar is the star of this, and he plays a really frisky astronaut. I mean, he seems like he is always taking about getting women or coming on to women (yes, the Giant Space Brain creates space babes from the astronauts memories). Well, stuff happens, and the Giant Space Brain tries to destroy the astronauts with their own worst fears turned into reality. You see, now that the Giant Space Brain has learned about earth from the minds of the astronauts, it wants to make the earth it's new home, and plans on hitching a ride with the astronauts or something like that. In the end, humanity prevails, and the Giant Space Brain get its cumuppence.

I may be making these movies sound better than they are, but don't be fooled. With both of these movies I had to take numerous breaks while watching because they made my little gray matter hurt, but I did get quite a few laughs from them. Both movies are prime candidates for Mystery Science Theater 3000 (RIP).

I saw "Journey..."in my own mind long before I saw it on the screen, courtesy of FJA's "Spaceman" magazine. Too young to stay up late and watch it on Chiller Theater, I was lucky enough to attend a mid-sixties Saturday afternoon matinee showing it with "The Angry Red Planet". Believe me, neither of these films looked cheap up on a 60 foot screen. They were epic. TV cuts everything off at the knees, but that first impression stays and its with that part of the mind that I can sit and watch a film that I would now probably turn off after the first 5 minutes. However, the DVD is not the same film I saw way back then or what used to play on TV before it vanished. I had hoped that by some miracle (it has happened), the original special effects would have been re-inserted. Poor as these are supposed to have been, they at least would have made a better fit into the film than the re-shots. I happen to have the original lobby cards and the pressbook, plus the aforementioned "Spaceman" as well as some bubble gum cards showing scenes not in the film and they don't really seem that bad. One even indicates that there was a fifth astronaut; two of the others are shown investigating what appears to be the skeleton of a space-suited comrade. This is not in the film. What is different about this version is the demise of Karl (I think that was his name). Though he is supposedly absorbed by the brain at the end (actually, a recycled scene of Jack Kruschen's character's demise from "Angry Red Planet" (this was really noticeable when I saw both films back-to-back)), they no longer show the absorption. Instead, everyone reacts to, what appears to be, an air filter sitting on a table, totally lifeless. Not even a 60 foot screen could make that look epic. Now why would anybody go to the trouble of making such a ridiculous substitution? Ann Smyrner, unlike Greta Thyssen, is gorgeous.

"Invisible Invaders", not being in color, wasn't quite as epic but it's also lodged in that dusty old drawer in my brain that can still look at it and say "not great but I've seen worse". Even back then (I also saw it at a matinee, with "Enemy From Space")I would have shot Robert Hutton's whining, gutless character, the biggest drawback to this film.

Well, they're not great films; that's why only 3 stars but I enjoyed them then and I enjoy them now.

You know any movie that starts with John Carradine being blown to bits is destined for greatness. He plays a scientist playing with nuclear materials (didn't every '50s movie scientist do that?) who winds up extremely dead. He doesn't stay down for long, though. His corpse pays a visit to a fellow scientist and makes a rather stunning announcement: The corpse is occupied by an alien being, and the rest of his alien beings are gonna invade in 24 hours if Earth doesn't surrender. Well, Earth doesn't surrender, the scientist friend looks like a total loon, and the invasion begins. Lots of stock footage of stuff blowing up and collapsing follows, and the invisible aliens follow an unusual strategy: They possess the bodies of the recently dead and invade sporting events (represented, again, by much stock footage), spreading their message of surrender and impending doom. The scientist friend, his lovely daughter (Jean Byron) and another scientist (Robert Hutton) head out to the desert to work on a way to knock off the aliens, still wrecking havoc via stock footage. The party of three hooks up with John Agar, doing his best John Wayne impersonation, and they spend the rest of the movie dodging the walking dead and working on wiping the bad boys out.

This is all about as dumb as it sounds. The dead are sort of creepy, in a pre-Night-of-the-Living-Dead kind of way, but this flick was made on the cheap, so sets are minimal, acting is bad, and about half of the film is stock footage padding. In other words, it's totally entertaining.

The story: Earth's scientists are fooling around with the atom again and inhabitants of the Earth's Moon are quite unhappy about it. Of course, once atomic energy becomes a household word, the next thing you know, man will be on the Moon -- and the Moon Aliens plan to put the skids to THAT!

To prevent earthlings from exploring space, the "Invisible Invaders" (alien Moon residents) plan to attack, invade, and take over planet Earth, killing all the Earthlings in the process. Since these moon folks and their spacecraft are invisible it's clearly difficult to do battle with them. The invaders DO pre-warn Earth's residents to just give up the planet, but you know how stubborn Earthlings are. The Invisible Invaders can re-animate corpses so we end up with a sort of either "Night of the Living Dead" or "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" -type scenario as the battle for earth ensues.

As the situation deteriorates for the Earthlings a small band of Earth's scientists ultimately retreat to a secret military bunker where they attempt to devise a new weapon which will derail their alien attackers. It soon becomes apparent to these scientists that the only real weapon that the Moonsters (my word) have is invisibility itself. I'll have to stop there to avoid giving rise to a Spoiler!

The 1959 film, "Invisible Invaders" is shot in black-and-white and runs 67 minutes in duration. The aspect is full frame. Produced by Premium Films, the movie was directed by Edward L. Cahn and the big stars are John Carradine (superb!), John Agar, and Robert Hutton. The music was composed by Paul Dunlap (pretty good) and the special effects are by Roger George.

I'm a huge fan of this genre of period films and this one is okay - the actors played their roles quite well but both the story and the special effects are just a little too silly and absurd. Still, if you savor the old Drive-in Movie sci-fi flicks, "Invisible Invaders" might be right up your alley.

"Invisible Invaders"

You can't see me

It is the 50's and Dr. Karol Noymann (John Carradine) is messing around with atomics and gets irradiated. His carcass is buried. His friend Dr. Adam Penner (Philip Tonge) and co-worker decides his demise is not from any radiation but from trying to use it for military purposes.

Invisible beings who own the universe figure it is time to invade earth as they are getting too uppity with their new found atomics and rockets. So the give Dr. Adam Penner self comfiest pacifist the chance to spread the news of surrender or die. To get their point across they barrow Dr. Karol Noymann's carcass for a farewell performance.

The movie has all the standard sci-fi clichés and formula where the girl half betrothed to the wimp second in command really goes for the strong willed military type.

Lots of stock film and a "Plan 9" feel make this a film classic. No mater how campy if your are a kid this is one spooky movie.
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"Journey to the Seventh Planet"

The original blue light special

The year 2001. The earth has learned to live together. We all live under the U.N. and have turned our attention to exploring the planets.

A spaceship full of, shall we say girl starved, spacemen is headed for Uranus to investigate strange radiation and the possibility of life.
The crew:

John Agar .... Capt. Don Graham
Carl Ottosen .... Eric
Peter Monch .... Karl
Ove Sprogøe .... Barry O'Sullivan
Louis Miehe-Renard .... Svend
They are not prepaird for what they will encounter. I can not tell of most but some encounters are:

Ann Smyrner .... Ingrid
Greta Thyssen .... Greta
Ulla Moritz .... Lise
Mimi Heinrich .... Ursula
Annie Birgit Garde .... Ellen
Bente Juel .... Colleen

As an added treat we get to hear the song "Journey to the Seventh Planet" sung by Otto Brandenburg.


The Angry Red Planet