THIS ISLAND EARTH

Domergue, Reason and Morrow

THIS ISLAND EARTH (1955). Director: Joseph M. Newman. 

Scientist Cal Meachum (Rex Reason) is sent a manual that has instructions for building a device called an "interlociter." Being a genius, Cal is able to construct the machine, and through it is contacted by a mysterious man called Exeter (Jeff Morrow of Legacy of Blood). Exeter makes Cal an offer: to get in a plane he is sending for him and come work for him. His curiosity ignited, Cal soon arrives at Exeter's estate, where he meets fellow physicists Ruth Adams (Faith Domergue of It Came from Beneath the Sea) and Steve Carlson (Russell Johnson of Attack of the Crab Monsters), as well as other scientists who walk around like zombies. There is also another guy named Brack (Lance Fuller), who resembles Exeter. It isn't long before Cal realizes that something about this operation is not on the up and up, and Exeter is actually an alien ... Flown off of the earth, he and Ruth find themselves helplessly embroiled in a war between planets. 

This Island Earth was one of the big sci fi "thrill" pictures of the fifties and all these years later it is still a well-made and very entertaining movie. Morrow is excellent as Exeter, and both Reason and Domergue are effective as the lead characters. The film benefits from the blaring score that Universal-International used for virtually all of its sci fi films in the fifties (the work of various composers) and its FX work is fine for the period and still works well enough by today's standards. There is a certain inevitable quaintness to the film, however. A hilarious moment occurs when Exeter says to Ruth "don't tell me that as a woman you're not curious about our destination?" They're heading for a distant planet light years away but Exeter thinks it's only Ruth's sex that might make her curious? Really?

The scenes that take place on Metaluna, Exeter's planet, employ cartoon animation to good effect. There are also those wonderful, tall, bug-eyed "mutants" that serve as especially ugly security guards and come after poor Ruth at one point. The "science" in the film as it pertains to space travel and other matters is strictly of the "fantastic" variety. 

Verdict: Well,paced, exciting -- a big colorful comic book of a movie. ***.