A Classic 1950s Sci-Fi Flick - Cheesy But Entertaining
This film terrified me when I first saw it at the age of 9, but I doubt it will terrify anyone who has been raised in the era of sophisticated special effects. Nonetheless, it is a short (75 minutes), entertaining, and fun movie that captures the mood generated by the 1950s flying saucer scares.
The story centers on Nora and Frank, two strangers who've been left behind while the city was evacuated in response to an unknown (to them) threat. The eerie opening music creates the mood as Nora wakes from the stupor of an attempted suicide via sleeping pills. Alarmed to discover that both her rooming house and the entire city (as seen through her window) seem to be deserted, she gets dressed and goes off in search of someone.
With overhead photography worthy of Hitchcock, we follow Nora through the streets as she stumbles upon a dead body and eventually meets Frank, an out-of-town businessman who was also left behind after being mugged and knocked out the previous evening. They join forces, and eventually meet up with a drunken, bickering couple in an abandoned nightclub.
Together the four go outside, determined to find a way out of town. It is then that they have their first encounter with the invaders, robots from space armed with a deadly heat ray. Here is where you have to suspend judgment about the primitive special effects, but the rest of the movie is fast-paced and suspenseful, right up to the end.
Dryer hose Legs and Arms!!!
I had memories of this Film since I was 5 yeats old. Dreams of giant robots terrorizing people left behind in a city deserted. I found the DVD on Amazon and after viewing it for the second time in 48 years I enjoyed it as much the second time around.
An overlooked minor gem, but NOT in widescreen
You know, I'm not one of those people who insists movies be presented in widescreen. Especially for older movies, it's just not that big of a deal. But TARGET EARTH screams out for a widescreen transfer from the first HORRIBLY CROPPED FRAME. You can't even read most of the opening credits because of the sloppy transfer job. It's inexcusable, especially when you refer back to the box and see "Widescreen" prominently printed on the cover.
Having said that, this was my first exposure to this taut, cheap little invasion flick, and I was fairly impressed. The black & white photography adds much to the feeling of isolation and desperation experienced by the characters. And the robot is pretty decent, by 50's sci-fi standards. Heckuva climax, too. But you'll have to see that for yourself.
Recommended for any fan of classic science fiction.
"The Crawling Eye" is one of those movies that people like to lump in with campy fifties monster movies like "The Brain that wouldn't Die" or "The Giant Gila Monster". It's actually several cuts above those films due to the intelligent script and the beautiful cinematography--the Swiss Alps never looked better even if it was all shot on a set. Forrest Tucker makes a capable leading man as he does in "The Abominable Snowman". The sinister cloud was apparently done by filming a piece of cotton attached to a photograph of a mountain, but it is amazingly effective. Less successful are the "crawling eyes" themselves at the end of the film--they look like white, veiny cabbages waving their leaves around. Particularly unimpressive is the climactic shot of them gathered around the obviously... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Quentin Lawrence DVD Release Date: Released the 04 December 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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OK so this thing starts out with the intrepid girl reporter bumping into a road block and a friendly Marine telling her to go back. This is the kind of thing that gets IGRs hopping along (pun intended) in these kind of movies. After a couple of skirmishes with The Man an old geezer Army Dude takes a liking to her and spills: the whole town was destroyed and all the people are missing. Cut to Peter Graves and his "this-dog-is-gonna-die" research assistant at the Giant Inedible Fruit research lab. Oh ho ho, it's so hard to keep the snails and ...uh...grasshoppers out of the giant-fruit-making equipment. But the shoe doesn't drop. Later, the assistant gets eaten by a giant grasshopper, Peter and The Girl go to Washington and get dissed by some generals until someone calls on the phone, Pete... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Peter Graves - Peggie Castle - Morris Ankrum Director(s): Bert I. Gordon DVD Release Date: Released the 25 March 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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A textbook example of '50s-era science fiction, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers boasts not only a solid script and competent performances, but some genuinely impressive stop-motion effects courtesy of one of the industry's uncontested masters, Ray Harryhausen. Scientist Hugh Marlowe (who faced a more benevolent invader from space five years earlier in The Day the Earth Stood Still) discovers that UFOs are responsible for the destruction of a series of exploratory space rockets launched by his space exploration project. The saucers' helmeted pilots land on Earth and deliver an ultimatum to humanity via Marlowe: fealty or complete annihilation.
Harryhausen's painstakingly intricate saucers and the destruction they wreak (particularly during an assault on Washington, D.C.) are... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Hugh Marlowe - Joan Taylor Director(s): Fred F. Sears DVD Release Date: Released the 17 September 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Astronomer and all-around scientific hero Jeff Morrow (he of the stone face, Cro-Magnon brow, and heavy voice of dire intonation) discovers a new celestial body that suddenly changes course and slams into the Pacific Ocean off the Mexican coast. Meanwhile a mysterious white light takes over the body of lab director John Emery, who becomes the eyes and ears of the UFO when it emerges days later as a skyscraper-sized robot. Morrow and his crew--including his beauty-with-brains girlfriend, Barbara Lawrence; wisecracking sidekick, George O'Hanlan; and computer, SUSIE, which whirs and blinks but offers little real help--leap to the rescue, but not before the Mexican air force takes on the giant in a scene reminiscent of King Kong. Director Kurt Neumann, best known for the original... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Kurt Neumann DVD Release Date: Released the 22 August 2000 Usually ships in 24 hours
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