The Phantom Planet
Directed by William Marshall
Written by William Telaak, Fred De Gorter and Fred Gebhardt
1961/USA
Four Crown Production Inc.
First viewing/Amazon Prime
[box] [last lines] Narrator: What the future will reveal of this story is only the beginning, only the beginning, only the beginning…[/box]
Sometimes wooden acting and a ridiculous alien are not enough to make an enjoyably bad movie.
Rheton is a small invisible asteroid which can evade its enemies by moving in and out of galaxies. When a team is sent from Earth to investigate, its spaceship is drawn into Rheton’s force field and all but one of the astronauts perish. The survivor has become six inches tall like the rest of the folk on the planet. He blusters and tries to establish himself as alpha-male but to no avail. Rheton’s rulers have no intention of letting him go. So he spends his time dabbling in a love triangle and battling a Solorite.
That’s Richard (“Jaws”) Kiel in the alien costumeThis plays it a little too earnestly to make a good “bad” movie. Quite missable.
Trailer
