Weird Worlds Collection
© Image Entertainment

Mania Grade: B-
Show Grade: B
Disc Grade: C+
Reviewed Format: DVD
Cast: John Archer, Donna Martell, Francis X. Bushman
Writers: Robert A. Heinlein, William Telaak
Directors: Irving Pichel, Richard Talmadge, William Marshall
Extras: none
Suggested Retail: $24.99
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"Weird Worlds Collection: Part Two"

Image has packaged four 50’s-early 60’s SF movies together (all previously released on stand alone discs) in a very attractively priced set awkwardly titles The Weird Worlds Collection.  I reviewed the first two films in part one, and now I’m back to look at the final two offerings. 

Phantom Planet (1961):  

This film has a lot of great SF themes thrown into it.  There's a lost civilization, space battles, meteor storms, shrunken astronauts and a horrible monster.  What more could you want?  Well, a good script and adequate direction for starters.  This film totally wastes the promise it has with stodgy direction, nearly incomprehensible dialog, and seemingly endless scenes of two people just standing around and talking.  

While investigating a series of mysterious space shop crashes Astronaut Frank Chapman crash lands of the Phantom Planet. He's unharmed, but when he falls and his helmet opens up the air on the planet causes him to shrink in size. He then discovers that the planet, one that resembles a piece of Kentucky Fried Chicken, is inhabited. The little people tell Frank how they have been under attack by the Solanites for years. They've been trying to steal their gravity control system, but so far have been unsuccessful. How can Chapman defeat the Solanite invasion, enlarge himself, and get back to his base on the moon without a space ship?  

There's so much wrong with this film, it's hard to know where to begin.  The direction is probably the biggest offense, so I'll start there.  Just about the whole film is done in medium shots and each scene plays out nearly the same way: two people in a room talk and talk and talk, then the end of the conversation is punctuated with a close-up.  The camera doesn't move and even the setups and angles are seldom varied.  

The script has a lot of interesting aspects, but they don't come about naturally from the plot, it's more like they just threw everything in and hoped that something would strike a cord with viewers.  The shrinking Frank Chapman is a good example.  There's no reason for him to shrink.  He doesn’t have to pilot his ship while mini-sized, he's not attacked by regular sized creatures, there's nothing in the plot that needs for him to be six inches tall, but he is.  

The dialog (and there's a lot of it) that is delivered much too earnestly.  It's also so filled with techno-babble that it's unintentionally funny.  It's amazing that the actors could recite lines like "We managed, just in time, to control your landing by releasing the pressure in our space warp."  What?  Is that supposed to explain anything?  

Mystery Science Theater did a great job of sending up this movie and it really deserved it.  

First Rocketship on Venus (1962):  

The final movie in this set is an oddity; it is one of the few SF films from behind the Iron Curtain that was theatrically released in the US.  A co-production between East Germany and Polish film makers, this film was based on a novel by Stanislaw Lem (Solaris) and has everything that you'd want in an early 60's SF film.  There's a cool looking spaceship, a wildly creative alien landscape, and some intriguing mysteries for that the explorers have to solve before they can return home.  

Taking place in far off 1985, a strange rock is discovered that isn't of Earthly origin.  When scientists examine it, they discover an audio message encoded in the artifact and determine that it originated from a space ship from the planet Venus.  A team of scientists and explorers from a wide variety of countries is assembled and a rocketship built to take the brave crew to "Earth's sister planet."  

On the way to Venus more of the alien artifact is deciphered, and what is discovered isn't good.  Apparently the Venusians were planning on attacking Earth and conquering it.  Why this plan didn't come off is discovered when the crew gets to the neighboring planet: a nuclear accident wiped out Venus’ the entire population.  The only things that are left are the automatic systems which are still running.  Systems that start to launch the attack on Earth when the visitors accidentally activate them.  

It's hard to say anything definitive about this movie based on this version included in this set however since 17 minutes have been cut out of the original film.  Instead of the 95 minutes, this version only last 78.  (This is the way it appeared theatrically in the US too.  The uncut version of the film is available on DVD in R1 under the title The Silent Star. This version is also included in the three film boxed set DEFA Sci-Fi Collection.)  In any case, this was a good film, though not prefect.  The film starts off well with the mystery of the strange object, and the ending is very good with many creative touches that put it above similar films released at that time.  There is a large chunk of the middle that really drags however.  When the crew is on their way to Venus, and just before the launch too, things start to move really slowly and don't pick up for a good 15 minutes.  Playing chess with a robot and hypothesizing about the planet they are going to doesn't make for an exciting film.  

The end makes up for it however.  The last 25-30 minutes of the film are very good.  The aliens are actually alien in nature, having many odd and unusual devices and instruments, and the problems that the crew faces keep the viewer's attention.  The conclusion is big in scope and well worth slogging through the boring middle section.  
 

The set itself is nice.  The four discs come in a double width case with two DVDs on each cover.  The discs are placed above each other but displaced so the titles of each disc can be read.  The case is clear and comes with a two sided cover.  Image has previously released each of these films separately in snapper cases, and these discs are identical to those.  The only difference is the art on the discs themselves.  

As far as the audio and video quality, these films are all acceptable, but they aren’t outstanding.  The picture is sharp and the colors are generally bright, but the prints are all showing their age. There are scratches and specks throughout all of the films, which can be distracting at times. There are a couple of instances where it is clear that a film has been spliced after a film break, and each film seems to have a few frames missing.  For films that are over 50 years old and have generally been neglected, they could have been much worse.  As it is they look like a typical unrestored movie from that time period.  

Though the title is really stupid (who came up with Weird Worlds anyway?), this is a great example of 50's and 60's low budget science fiction. Destination Moon is an important movie that belongs in any collection of early SF films, and First Spaceship on Venus is also a lot of fun.  While the other two are a bit plodding in places, they both have their moments.  For a mere $25 MSRP for the collection of four films, and available for much less at several e-tailers, this is a great bargain for fans of old school SF.