The 50s sci-fi movie poll

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I love this stuff. Sorry if I've missed out your favourite, yada yada.

Poll Results

OptionVotes
Forbidden Planet 11
Invasion of the Bodysnatchers 10
The Day the Earth Stood Still 6
The Time Machine 5
The Thing 2
Them! 2
Plan 9 From Outer Space 1
War of the Worlds1
This Island Earth 0
On the Beach 0


chap, Friday, 18 January 2008 13:34 (eighteen years ago)

Gotta be one of the first three really, hasn't it?

chap, Friday, 18 January 2008 13:34 (eighteen years ago)

The Time Machine.

nate woolls, Friday, 18 January 2008 13:37 (eighteen years ago)

You *have* missed off my favourite, but I can't remember what it was called anyway. Similar to Body Snatchers but without the pods and greenhouse stuff. A little kid witnessed people disappearing near a bridge, it kept showing this sand open up and swallow folk.

I've gone for War of teh Worlds here, a fine martian invading tale.

Ste, Friday, 18 January 2008 13:38 (eighteen years ago)

For me it is between the Time Machine and Forbidden Planet, but there are a number of great films there, including a couple I haven't seen.

Ed, Friday, 18 January 2008 13:39 (eighteen years ago)

Shit, missed out Village of the Damned.

chap, Friday, 18 January 2008 13:40 (eighteen years ago)

This Island Earth the only one I've never seen...this is my kinda poll! I'm going for Forbidden Planet for truly frightening me as a child.

nickalicious, Friday, 18 January 2008 13:54 (eighteen years ago)

This Island Earth isn't all that.

chap, Friday, 18 January 2008 13:55 (eighteen years ago)

> A little kid witnessed people disappearing near a bridge

invaders from mars. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045917/

(not a bridge - that's a fench going over a little hillock towards the dunes. but yes, know what you mean)

koogs, Friday, 18 January 2008 15:15 (eighteen years ago)

I love Forbidden Planet and its crypto Lovecraftianism.

The Real Dirty Vicar, Friday, 18 January 2008 15:39 (eighteen years ago)

and crypto (well not so crypto) shakespearianism!

s1ocki, Friday, 18 January 2008 15:39 (eighteen years ago)

I think I've narrowed it down to FP and Bodysnatchers myself. I'll probably go with the latter as FP seems to be getting more votes so far.

chap, Friday, 18 January 2008 15:40 (eighteen years ago)

Time Machine.

James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, 18 January 2008 15:40 (eighteen years ago)

"Teenagers From Outer Space" (1959) is pretty special in a "Plan 9" kinda way. The guy who made it literally went nuts and proclaimed himself the second coming of Jesus Christ, and later committed suicide. You can download it free from the iTunes store.

Zelda Zonk, Friday, 18 January 2008 15:47 (eighteen years ago)

Time Machine is '60, dingalings.

Dr Morbius, Friday, 18 January 2008 15:52 (eighteen years ago)

War of the Worlds gets points for having genuinely creative, creepy-looking aliens

http://www.cedmagic.com/featured/war-worlds/martian-1211.jpg

latebloomer, Friday, 18 January 2008 16:45 (eighteen years ago)

bodysnatchers scared the bejesus out of me as a kid. (then i saw the donald sutherland version, which really scared the bejesus out of me.) still seems totally contemporary; then an allegory for communism or conformist paranoia, take your pick, now an allegory for bioengineering.

another one i'd put on the list is the creepy, snatchers-ish i married a monster from outer space.

tipsy mothra, Friday, 18 January 2008 16:50 (eighteen years ago)

also, the fly!

tipsy mothra, Friday, 18 January 2008 16:52 (eighteen years ago)

i voted for time machine, fuck the system

n/a, Friday, 18 January 2008 16:52 (eighteen years ago)

i did not know that keanu is playing klaatu in an earth stood still remake.

tipsy mothra, Friday, 18 January 2008 16:55 (eighteen years ago)

60s didn't really start until '63 anyway, Beatles, Kennedy assn etc.

James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, 18 January 2008 16:57 (eighteen years ago)

Body Snatchers for sure

gosh I wonder which one Morbz will vote for lolz

Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 18 January 2008 16:58 (eighteen years ago)

Keanu barata nikto

James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, 18 January 2008 16:58 (eighteen years ago)

Maybe he'll go for a "can't vote for myself" policy, Shakey.

James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, 18 January 2008 16:59 (eighteen years ago)

"Invaders from Mars" has stock footage of the northrop flying wing bomber in it, which was awesome. It was pretty good IIRC.

I voted for "Them!" it scared the shit out of me when I was a kid, when I watched it a few years ago, it was still pretty intense in places.

Pashmina, Friday, 18 January 2008 16:59 (eighteen years ago)

It's funny that the rabid Keanu haters (has there ever been a movie star more loathed by straight men? jealous, much?) aren't as upset that the Day remake is from the writer of The Last Castle and the director of The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

An intelligent remake of FP could work (can the cook-Robbie scenes, expand the id stuff). I think it should be titled Morbius.

Dr Morbius, Friday, 18 January 2008 17:04 (eighteen years ago)

Body Snatchers for the win

Elvis Telecom, Friday, 18 January 2008 17:27 (eighteen years ago)

NO GODZILLA! NO CRED!

Elvis Telecom, Friday, 18 January 2008 17:29 (eighteen years ago)

^a monster movie^

On the Beach isn't really sci-fi either.

Dr Morbius, Friday, 18 January 2008 17:29 (eighteen years ago)

god i am so jealous of keanu

remy bean, Friday, 18 January 2008 17:30 (eighteen years ago)

I'll admit that Keanu has made one great movie and that movie was the River's Edge.

Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 18 January 2008 17:30 (eighteen years ago)

^a monster movie^

So is Them!

Elvis Telecom, Friday, 18 January 2008 17:31 (eighteen years ago)

xp

Elvis Telecom, Friday, 18 January 2008 17:31 (eighteen years ago)

Also missing from this list... Kronos, It Came From Outer Space, Invisible Invaders, and hell... Destination Moon too

Elvis Telecom, Friday, 18 January 2008 17:33 (eighteen years ago)

The Beast from 20000 Fathoms?

Elvis Telecom, Friday, 18 January 2008 17:36 (eighteen years ago)

There's a half-dozen Russian films that are missing too

Elvis Telecom, Friday, 18 January 2008 17:37 (eighteen years ago)

Forbidden Planet, best movie of the '50s.

DavidM, Friday, 18 January 2008 17:40 (eighteen years ago)

chap, you really should have just let Elvis Telecom start this thread. For example, I wouldn't think of starting an Eden Ahbez thread without his say-so.

James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, 18 January 2008 17:46 (eighteen years ago)

I went with "bodysnatchers." There is a fine little film called "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" from this era that I recommend to fans of the others. It's suspenseful and brisk, but fun, too. Not hammy.

Abbott, Friday, 18 January 2008 18:29 (eighteen years ago)

There was an episode of Perfect Strangers that ripped off the pod people idea. It was scary! It dealth with xenophobia because all the pod people had Myposian characteristics.

Abbott, Friday, 18 January 2008 18:30 (eighteen years ago)

There is a fine little film called "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" from this era that I recommend to fans of the others.

Good film - and not just because Ray Harryhausen was involved with it. Much of Independence Day ripped it off.

Elvis Telecom, Friday, 18 January 2008 19:16 (eighteen years ago)

^inspired brilliant Washington Monument gag in Mars Attacks!^

god i am so jealous of keanu

photographic evidence?

Dr Morbius, Friday, 18 January 2008 19:19 (eighteen years ago)

On the Beach isn't really sci-fi either.

I suppose not but you could argue that for the time it was released (1959) it was pretty sci-fi despite being, well, sappy in it's self-professed nobility. The other post-nuclear war movie from that year, The World, The Flesh, And The Devil, is a great piece of 50s American sociology that not just takes on nuclear war, but racism, imperialism, and a handful of Deadly Sins. Worth the effort to track down (TCM shows it occasionally)

Also worth tracking down is Five which I believe is the first post-nuclear war movie ever (it's from 1951). It plays out like an extended Twilight Zone episode but it gets kinda ponderous and DO YOU SEE at times. It's cool for the Frank Lloyd Wright house setting though.

Elvis Telecom, Friday, 18 January 2008 19:42 (eighteen years ago)

Ha. Mrs. Redd was just doing a crossword and asked "What's food for Morlocks?"

James Redd and the Blecchs, Saturday, 19 January 2008 03:25 (eighteen years ago)

On the Beach is definately the least 'genre' film I've included, and it will be interesting to see if it gets votes (I suspect not).

chap, Saturday, 19 January 2008 22:51 (eighteen years ago)

god i love all these films so much

J.D., Saturday, 19 January 2008 23:22 (eighteen years ago)

The makers of Indpendence Day owe the makers of Earth Vs The Flying Saucers and War of the Worlds some kind of compensation (and possibly an apology).

latebloomer, Sunday, 20 January 2008 03:55 (eighteen years ago)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

ILX System, Friday, 25 January 2008 00:01 (eighteen years ago)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

ILX System, Saturday, 26 January 2008 00:01 (eighteen years ago)

TDESS got fucking ROBBED

El Tomboto, Saturday, 26 January 2008 01:03 (eighteen years ago)

for real

Milton Parker, Saturday, 26 January 2008 01:05 (eighteen years ago)

I'd say you people barely dodged a bullet ... but I voted for Body Snathchers. (FP has too much tin can, not enough me.)

TDESS fans: are you claiming that Klaatu's hilariously hypocritical "Be peaceful, or we'll blow you to smithereens" shit is conscious on the film's part? or just natural for Cold War Americans?

Dr Morbius, Friday, 1 February 2008 14:17 (eighteen years ago)


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