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Man from Planet X (The)
R2 - United Kingdom - Fabulous Films Review written by and copyright: Matthew Crossman (19th October 2016). |
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The Film
 A rogue planet, known only as Planet X, is likely to make a near pass of the Earth. Professor Elliot (Raymond Bond) has a set up a laboratory on a remote part of the Scottish moors and has invited his friend, a war time colleague and now newspaper reporter, John Lawrence (Robert Clarke) to come to the moors and be the first reporter to write about the phenomenon. Lawrence arrives and is met by Professor Elliot's daughter Enid (Margaret Field), whom Lawrence knew as a child. Enid has now blossomed into a beautiful woman and Lawrence is naturally attracted to her. Lawrence goes to meet the Professor and is disturbed to find that he is being assisted by a man called Doctor Meers (William Schalbert). Meers and Lawrence have some history together and it involves some shady practices that Meers was engaged in, practices that Lawrence believes should have seen Meers go to jail for at least twenty years. After a brief supper Lawrence and Enid go for a walk on the moors and discover an alien device. Lawrence takes it back and Professor Elliot and Meers conclude that because of it structure it must be alien. The device is stronger than steel and weighs just a fifth of steel. Meers automatically sees that if the formula can be duplicated the person with that formula will control all of the industry on Earth. Enid takes Lawrence to an inn in the town to stay for the night. On her way back she suffers a puncture and decides to walk the remaining distance back to her Father. On the way she sees what seems to be an alien spacecraft. Upon investigating Enid sees a figure inside. Frightened she returns to her Father and tells him about the discovery. Elliot and Enid return to the spacecraft and for a moment Elliot seems to be under some kind of mind control. Lawrence then accompanies Elliot back to the spacecraft and attempt to communicate with the creature. It appears that the creature is suffering from a malfunction in his suit and follows Lawrence and Elliot back to the Professor's lab. Once there Meers tells the others that he will work on a method of communication with the creature but once left alone tries to steal the secrets of the mysterious metal and manages to force the formula from the creature. Once Meers has the formula he turns the creatures breathing apparatus off and leaves it to die. Meers reports that communication with the creature was impossible and when the rest of the group return to see the alien they discover that it has vanished but so has Enid. I think it's fair to say that anyone wishing watch or purchase 'The Man From Planet X' will pretty much know what they are letting themselves in for. This is a pretty bog standard science fiction film but what may surprise potential viewers is that the production standards are pretty high for this B movie. It's nice to see a cast take the material so seriously and the only thing really stopping it from becoming a 'classic' B movie is the production values. The alien's spacecraft has had very little thought or design go into it and it's a standard rocket ship seen in countless out films of this type from this era. Having said that the realisation of the building where the laboratory is set is well done and looks like something out of a 1930's Universal horror film. In fact, barring the smattering of science that runs through the film, 'The Man From Planet X' plays just like a monster on the loose movie from twenty years previous to this film's 1951 release. The character of Enid is portrayed as a slightly more wiley character than most females were portrayed in these films and contributes to movie but ultimately is reduced back to swooning type. Lawrence is your standard hero character who doesn't quite understand what's going on (allowing other to extrapolate for the benefit of the audience as well as Lawrence) and Professor Elliot is the one doing the explaining. It was also novel to see a human character, Meers, being as bad, if not worse, than the threat of the alien. With a bit more thought, and probably a fair bit more money too, 'The Man From Planet X' may just have been fondly remembered as other science fiction classics such as 'The Thing From Another World' and 'Them' but instead it's just another 1950's sci-fi movie but with some nice touches.
Video
The presentation of 'The Man From Planet X' is presented here in it's original aspect ratio of 1.37:1. I was pleasantly surprised with the picture quality. Whilst there are some scratches on the print mostly these are reserved for the first reel. The picture soon settles down and is quite watch-able. The blacks are nowhere near as deep as they should be lending a softness to the picture quality but for a film of such little note I think it has worn quite well. As long as you are not expecting miracles I suspect that most people will be happy with the presentation of the film on this DVD.
Audio
The only soundtrack option available on the DVD is an English Dolby Digital dual mono one. As you can imagine all the music and dialogue is centred but it is clear throughout. Dialogue is crisp and clear, but sadly no subtitles of any kind are offered on the disc.
Extras
Theatrical Trailer (1:53) - A trailer for the feature presentation is the bare minimum I would expect from a disc such as this and the trailer here is of a slightly lesser picture quality than the actual film. As with most trailers from this era it gives away all the best bits from the film and you could watch the trailer and the last ten minutes of the actual film and not miss a great deal.
Overall
I'm always pleased to see a film such as 'The Man From Planet X' get resurrected on DVD. Often these films are overlooked and scorned but as a slice of 1950's sci-fi it's not a bad one. If you are throwing a Halloween Horror marathon this October then you could do worse than open the night's viewing with this. At seventy minutes it doesn't outstay it's welcome and will go down well with a few beers and a pizza.
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