ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Warning! This super-low-budget film is so poorly done that even the most forgiving fans of 1950s sci-fi will find little to praise about it, despite the fact that star Robert Clark contributed to fondly remembered films such as "The Man from Planet X", "The Hideous Sun Demon", and "Beyond the Time Barrier"

Admittedly the story is imaginative and ambitious — but this movie is cursed with such horrible acting, direction, and editing that the result is a film which looks much worse than most amateur home movies. The dialogue is laughable, the plot elements illogical, and the music annoyingly fragmented. During the first few minutes of the film, a truly inept narrator offers horribly written comments about what is going on.


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____X____X____SPOILER ALERT____X____X____

The wild-but-fragmented story involves a geologist (Clark) who lives alone in the woods with his trusty dog. Two kidnappers arrive with an abducted heiress (Marilyn Harvey). While the kidnappers negotiate for their victim's ransom' a spaceship lands nearby (although it's never actually shown), and a buxom blonde alien (Shirley Kilpatrick) emerges, dressed in a shimmering, skintight metallic suit and wild eye makeup. Kilpatrick has no spoken dialogue and few close-ups.

The shapely Miss Kilpatrick is surrounded by a force field which makes her glow in the dark and gives her a deadly touch. The FX depicting these ideas are very poorly done.

Most of the story takes place at night, and the audience struggles to make out the dim and poorly photographed images.

Robert Clark eventually figures out the alien's weakness, and he concocts an acid bomb which eats through her protective metal suit. This climactic scene, however, sounds far better than it plays in the film.

Poorly produced and directed by Ronnie Ashcroft at a total cost of $18,000. He sold the film to Samual Z. Arkoff for $60,000.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[orzel-w]

This is one of the many '50s sci-fi movies for which it would have been better to save your money and just stand outside looking at the poster.
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...or not...

WayneO
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[Brent Gair]

In many scenes, the She Monster is seen walking backwards away from the camera. I recall reading that, during production, she split a seam on the back of her costume. Rather than sew up the costume (thread costs money), they just continued photographing her from the front. So, if it became necessary for her to walk away from the camera, they just had her walk backwards rather than turn around and expose her backside through the unrepaired costume.

[Bud Brewster]

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Ah-ha.

Gosh, Brent, this movie certainly has an interesting backstory . . .
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Rick]

I can't disagree with any of the terrible things y'all have had to say about THE ASTOUNDING SHE-MONSTER. It is bad. It is a bad movie. Yep, no doubt about it..

And I love it.

I saw it at the LeRose Theater in my hometown in August of 1960, almost exactly 56 years ago. I was ten years old and barely scratching the surface of the monster movie world.







The weird thing is that, even that day, sitting in that theater, I knew immediately that it was a crummy movie. I rated movies in those days on a 1-10 basis and this one earned a rating of 2 from me. Doesn't get much worse than that.

But I love it. And it's not exactly nostalgia, nor is it exactly love for all things terrible. It's some of both of those, of course. It would have to be. But it's also that the movie has a weirdness to it which makes it pretty darn irresistible to me.

That stark cabin out in nowhere, with that one lonely road outside. The small cast, the glowing lady... it simply has a weird and wonderful feel to it. I'm sure that was all unintentional, just a byproduct of a tiny budget and limited talent. But however it got there and whatever it is...I love it.
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Man need not kneel before the angels,
Nor lie in death forever,
But for the weakness of his feeble will.

[Bogmeister]

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__________ The Astounding She-Monster Trailer


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The early sections of this film, or the first act, remind of Ed Wood's films (I read somewhere that Wood was rumored to be involved). There's narration about cosmic suicide, and that another planetary civilization of Antares decides that Earth must be wiped out before we wipe out the rest of the universe — it's nonsensical.

The narration is also poorly worded and poorly delivered; the narrator sounds like he's reclining on a couch, sotted with wine.

There is an interesting technique used for such a low budget film — the scenes of the alien female (Shirley Kilpatrick) usually fluctuate and warp, as if she's giving off waves of energy.

In the plot, the strategy of this more advanced civilization appears to be the sending of a female-shaped monster to the backwoods to terrorize a few animals and people who happen to be there.

A couple of crooks kidnap an heiress and take her to a cabin in the woods where resides a geologist (Robert Clarke). I was quite bored by this up to this point but then something happens at around the 20-minute mark.

The head crook (who looks like a slim Broderick Crawford, played by Keene Duncan) gets into this debate with the hero (Clarke). The crook obviously despises rich folk (hence the kidnapping) and also favors distribution of wealth, to the disgust of the hero.

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The set-up is clear: the crooks represent the Marxists or the communists, though these days they would be liberals. The hero is the standard capitalist and the conservative.

And the invading she-monster alien? Well, her touch kills — she dispenses radium poisoning to whomever she comes in contact with. Perhaps she represents military might or simply atomic weaponry, which kills regardless of political affiliation — though two guesses as to who manages to avoid her touch by the conclusion.

There's some minor tension generated since the female alien is invulnerable to bullets and appears to get more motivated to touch others as the film progresses. There's an out-of-left field revelation at the end which also makes no sense.

Directed by Ronnie Ashcroft.

BoG's Score: 3 out of 10

Astounding Trivia: one of the lowest-budgeted films ever, even by the standards of low budget films in the fifties; in The American International Pictures Video Guide write-up, the figure mentioned is $18,000.

Ashcroft drew inspiration from Roger Corman's The Day the World Ended, in terms of a small scope. Also, very short, at 62m. Ashcroft, also the producer, was on his last dollar by the time he finished this, but he managed to sell it to Sam Arkoff for $60,000 because Arkoff thought it cost $40,000 to make.


BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus

[Bud Brewster]

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Only Bogmeister could find subtle political allegory in this miserable little movie!

I could watch this film five times in a row and never spot the clues to a deeper meanings described above. And the amazing thing is that his assertions make perfect sense!

Whether director Ronnie Ashcroft really intended any of the ideas Bogmeister inferred to be present in the plot is debatable, but I still admire Bog for putting so much thought into the subject.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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I found two nice pictures of Miss Shirley Kilpatrick without her She Monster makeup and outfit. She's a surprisingly pretty young lady.


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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I cheated and watched the climax of this move today. I was amazed to discover that it ends with a completely unexpected twist which gave the whole story a certain amount of "retroactive" intelligence and imagination.

If you're like me and aren't willing to sit through the whole film, go the 58:00 mark and find out what startling revelation Robert Clark and his blond co-star learn about the glowing, sexy, alien lady.

_________ The Astounding She-Monster (1958)


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)