Rocky Jones

 

 (imdb)

MANHUNT IN SPACE-1954-Rocky Jones (Richard Crane) & Winky (Scotty Beckett) race to save Vina (Sally Mansefield) from space pirates led by Earth renegades, Rinkman (Henry Brandon) and Dr. Venco (Gabriel Curtiz). She's saved and they go to Cassa-7 to visit her brother, Paul (Tom Brown). The pirates are working for Cheolanta (Patsy Parsons), the ice queen of planet Ophesius. Her assistant is Atlasan (Harry Lauter). Rocky uses Cold Light, the invention of Prof. Newton (Maurice Cass) to find the bad guys. James Griffith is a traitor working on Cassas-7. Hagar Nu (Ted Hecht) a Martian, fits into the story too. Also with Judd Holdren who was the third actor to play Commando Cody in a serial and on TV around the same time. This is three episodes of the popular TV space adventure “Rocky Jones, Space Ranger”. It's pretty low budget and also features Robert Leyden as little know it all Bobby.

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Long Day's Journey Into Space

 

 

 (themoviedb.org)

JOURNEY TO THE SEVENTH PLANET-1962-In the year 2001 when the world is run by The United Nations, an international manned rocket ship is heading for Uranus. On the way their minds are taken over by an alien presence that learns their innermost feelings. Exploring the big U, they encounter a one-eyed creature (Terrible stop motion). They meet a village girl Ingrid (Greta Thyssen) and 2 other women. Ladies man Capt. Don Graham (John Agar; in HAND OF DEATH the same year) sees illusions of her. There's a giant spider and a one-eyed spongy monster wants to take over Earth. 

Techno-color Sci-Fi cheapie filmed in Denmark, directed and co-written by Sidney Pink (the English language version of REPTILICUS (1961)) and Ib Melchoir who had already teamed with Pink for THE ANGRY RED PLANET in 1959. 

Lead actress Thyssen was once groomed as a new Marilyn Monroe but now might be more well known to some of us from the trio of Joe Besser 3 Stooges shorts she co-starred in.

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To The Moon

 

 (themoviedatabase)

FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON-1958-Florida 1868: The International Armament Club, a group whose members profited by making weapons for both sides during the Civil War are about listen to Victor Barbicane (Joseph Cotton) explain that he's invented Power X, an explosive so devastating it's too powerful to detonate on Earth! He plans to shoot a projectile to the moon and test it. Meanwhile industrialist and southern sympathizer Nicholl (George Sanders) wants to stop Barbicane from destroying the world. He has created a metal that could be used to send the explosive to the moon. He agrees to build a casing only because he thinks it will fail. President Grant (Morris Ankrum) tells Barbicane he must not send a charge to the moon because 22 nations see it as an act of war. He gives up Power X and everyone hates him. He breaks with his colleagues (Henry Daniel, Patrick Knowles and Ludwig Stossel) but his assistants (Carl Esmond and Don Dubbins) stand by him. With Nicholl's help, Barbicane wants to go to the moon and back. To slow things down, Ben (Don Dubbins) romances Nicholl's daughter, Virginia (Debra Paget). With Nicholl's help, he, Barbicane and Ben man a rocket into space with Virginia as a stowaway but the flight seems doomed as Nicholl's has sabotaged it. 

Melville Cooper is also in it as well as the voices of Robert Clarke (same year as THE HIDEOUS SUN DEMON) and Les Tremayne. This Technicolor science fiction is based on a novel by Jules Verne. It was originally produced by RKO but they went out of business and it was picked up and released by Warner Brothers. It's a farfetched but enjoyable tale with the two leads great when they butt heads. Byron Haskin (THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953)) directed. This would be his last S.F. movie until 1964's ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS.

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Moe and Larry and Curly Joe

 

 HAVE ROCKET WILL, TRAVEL-1959-The Three Stooges (Moe, Larry and Curly Joe) are maintenance men for a NASA like rocket foundation headed by JP Morse (Jerome Cowan). Inga Naarvey (Anna-Lisa) heads the project and admits she's “married to science” when psychologist Ted Benson (Robert Colbert; later in Irwin Allen's "Time Tunnel on TV) suggests marriage. 

When JP tells Inga the foundation might close down the trio (who have taken a liking to Inga and vice versa) decide to make their own rocket fuel. Moe tries to stuff Larry down a sink and they make a general mess of the place (and JP). They hide out in the supposedly abandoned rocket and when it's accidentally launched, they go into space headed for Venus. 

After some hi-jinx with no gravity they land on Venus and encounter a giant spider and then a unicorn whose horn is stuck in a rock. They help him and he takes them to a city. Along the way they sing a song. Later they meet a talking flying electric car and then a weird robot with multiple arms. It shrinks the trio and puts them in a cage. The machine makes robot doubles of them but they botch up everything as well. Somehow the zany three make it back to Earth and are hailed as heroes. At a party in their honor the stooges wind up making all the party goers fight each other. Their doubles show up too!

This was the "new" Three Stooges first feature length film as the team had a resurgence in the late '50's due to their Columbia shorts being shown on TV. It's also Curly Joe DeRita's debut. He replaced jolly Joe Besser who co-starred in the last series of their short comedies. Though this black and white movie was a box office success Moe didn't like it and really it's that good. Later efforts were much funnier. 

Director David Lowell Rich was a busy TV director who later made many TV movies and the blaxploitation film THAT MAN BOLT. 

https://moviemeltdown.blogspot.com/2018/10/bolt.html

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The Boring Red Planet

MISSION MARS-1968-Astronauts Mike (Darren McGavin), Nick (Nick Adams) and Duncan (George De Vries) take a rocket ship to the Red Planet where some cosmonauts disappeared. Two of them leave behind anxious wives. They have a pretty ordinary flight (if flying to Mars is ordinary…) until they hit a meteor shower and see 2 dead cosmonauts floating in space. Once they land they find the third Russian frozen to death. They are attacked by some weird creatures and then ordered by their commanders to leave. But a giant orb seems to be holding them there. Later while examining the orb Duncan is killed. Back on Earth the wives worry but don't seem very proud of their heroic husbands. The dead cosmonaut comes back to life (he was in a coma) and Nick destroys the orb but at the cost of his own life. Mike returns home. 

This outer space adventure isn't very good but what can your expect from director Nicholas Webster, the guy who made SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS?

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Corman, Cabot, Devon and Miller

WAR OF THE SATELLITES-1958- After 10 failed manned missions to the Sigma Barrier, Dr. Pol Van Ponder (Richard Devon) decides to take number 11 up himself. His assistants Dave Boyer (Dick Miller) and Sybil Carrington (Susan Cabot) plan to go with him. His scientist friend Hotch (Robert Shayne) supports him but Jason ibn Akad (Michael Fox), LeMoine (Bruno VeSota) and others don't. Just when it looks like the project will be shut down, it's announced Van Ponder is killed in a car accident. No sooner is this declared and the doctor shows up! However it's no miracle. He’s been taken over by an alien being (who caused the crash). Now he can split into two people and  repair his hand after it’s charred by a blow torch. He also can’t deter the efforts to send more rockets into space so the aliens make their presence known and create natural disasters around the world (stock footage). The alien as doctor declares an end to the project but when he sends Boyer to deliver the news, Boyer instead convinces the UN reps that Earth should fight the aliens. This makes the possessed doctor not happy. Boyer becomes suspicious when he notices some bruises on Devon arms. They all go into space and Boyer tries to convince the crew of the truth while Van Ponder acts weird and kills. It's said this sci-fi space film (perhaps director Roger Corman’s weakest '50's effort) was rushed into production after the 1957 Sputnik launch. There's not much action but it's nice to see usual supporting actors Miller & Devon in the lead roles. And I love those reclining space.chairs! 

With the death of Miller in late 2018 I believe the last living cast member of WOTS is Corman who has a small role as a rocket operator. Strangely this was the only movie Miller made in 1958! He starred in A BUCKET OF BLOOD the next year. Cabot starred in THE WASP WOMAN the next year. They had both been in CARNIVAL ROCK for Corman in 1957. She and Richard Devon were in Corman's MACHINE GUN KELLY the same year as WOTS.

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UK Satellite

SATELLITE IN THE SKY-1956-Great Britain is getting ready to send some kind of manned rocket into space (Project Stardust). Com-mander Hayden (Kieron Moore) is in charge. The war office wants the ship to take along a “J-Bomb”, more powerful than a hydrogen bomb. Larry Noble (Jimmy Hanley) is another astronaut. A woman reporter (Lois Maxwell) stows away on the ship. A pompous military scientist (Donald Wolfit)) is in charge of releasing the bomb into space but there's a screw up and the bomb attaches itself to the ship. Hayden takes a space walk but to no avail. They seem to have no choice but to stay up in space and die when the bomb explodes. The army scientist (Donald Grey) and Lefty (Barry Keegan), the ship's engineer sacrifice themselves to save everyone. Very talky and unexciting. 

The cheesy effects were provided by Wally Veevers who later worked with Stanley Kubrick on 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. Director Paul Dickson had done documentaries and short films and later went into TV.

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Robby The R Returns

THE INVISIBLE BOY-1957-A giant computer created by Dr. Merrinoe (Phillip Abbott) turns the scientist's son Timmie (Richard Eyer) invisible and plots to enslave the Earth with some rockets the US had ready to launch. The doc gets help from Robby The Robot who plants metal disks in the head of an army general (Harold J Stone) and some government scientists (including Robert H Harris and Than Wyenn). Eventually Robby and Timmie wind up on a rocketship. After they think the computer is finished it comes back and nearly succeeds in enslaving father and son but Robby saves the day and prevents the boy from being spanked by dad. The plot alternates from very dumb to very eerie. 

The actress who plays Timmie's mom is Diane Brewster who a few years later played the doomed Helen Kimble (in flashback scenes) on TV's THE FUGITIVE!

Director Herman Hoffman did mostly TV after this. The screenplay is by Cyril Hume who the year before wrote Robby the Robot's debut film FORBIDDEN PLANET. Eyer later played the genie in THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD. 

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