Rating: 
Summary: Plan 9 and Beautiful Women
Review: A two-for-one send up of silly b-movies. Alien invaders and space exploration make up the themes of these tales of exploration and caution.Invisible Invaders si about some aliens who have made themselves and their stuff invisible. Atomic testing on Earth has pushed them to wanting to take over the Earth from their nearby base on the moon. They will use the bodies of the dead to further their plans. Either Earth must surrender or they will destroy all humans. John Carradine is excellent as an animated corpse. Although he is only on screen for a short time, his voice is used for most of the alien communications. A small group in a scientific bunker must find a way to stop the invaders before all humans are killed. Seventh Planet has a UN exploration team in 2001 traveling to Uranus to search for life. None has been found on the nearer planets. When the arrive they find themselves in a small region of German forest complete with village and beautiful women. But the real answers lie on the real surface of the planet. It was funny to see then traipsing though a forest and claim they still had not found any life (talk about not seeing the forest for the trees). The pseudo Earth history is laughable at this time and sexism is very strong. But it still has its moments with monsters, special effects, and outrageously bright color added because its in color (I love the spider with mustard and ketchup for blood). B-movie fans should rejoice to get two movies for a reasonable price. The only disadvantage of this DVD is that each film is on a different side so you can't watch them straight through. But it does mean that the picture quality is very good. The only special features are subtitles and the original trailers.
Rating:
Summary: Plan 9 and Beautiful Women
Review: A two-for-one send up of silly b-movies. Alien invaders and space exploration make up the themes of these tales of exploration and caution. Invisible Invaders si about some aliens who have made themselves and their stuff invisible. Atomic testing on Earth has pushed them to wanting to take over the Earth from their nearby base on the moon. They will use the bodies of the dead to further their plans. Either Earth must surrender or they will destroy all humans. John Carradine is excellent as an animated corpse. Although he is only on screen for a short time, his voice is used for most of the alien communications. A small group in a scientific bunker must find a way to stop the invaders before all humans are killed. Seventh Planet has a UN exploration team in 2001 traveling to Uranus to search for life. None has been found on the nearer planets. When the arrive they find themselves in a small region of German forest complete with village and beautiful women. But the real answers lie on the real surface of the planet. It was funny to see then traipsing though a forest and claim they still had not found any life (talk about not seeing the forest for the trees). The pseudo Earth history is laughable at this time and sexism is very strong. But it still has its moments with monsters, special effects, and outrageously bright color added because its in color (I love the spider with mustard and ketchup for blood). B-movie fans should rejoice to get two movies for a reasonable price. The only disadvantage of this DVD is that each film is on a different side so you can't watch them straight through. But it does mean that the picture quality is very good. The only special features are subtitles and the original trailers.
Rating:
Summary: John Agar Double Feature - with a Sid Pink movie!
Review: At last, the "Sid Pink Trilogy" is available on DVD! Sid got his ticket punched when his "Angry Red Planet" did well at the Saturday-matinee box office, and went on to direct the (in)famous "Reptilicus". (See my reviews of THOSE two, also here on Amazon.) Enamored with the Danish locations of that film epic, Pink decided his next film, "Journey to the 7th Planet", would be made there, too. The entire film was shot on a 22 by 44 foot soundstage (except for the stock footage and "special effects") for a total cost of $75,000 - and $25,000 of that went to Agar and the female lead, Gretta Thyssen! As a result, we get a spaceship with a wood-plank floor, a few scrap ejection seats, and LOTS of primary-color displays. Pink picked Uranus as the destination because he believed that it was unknown enough that he could depict ANY sort of environment and be able to get away with it. The plot owes a lot to Ray Bradbury's short story "Mars is Heaven!", wherein the crew of a ship landing on Mars is greeted by family and relatives in an old-fashioned front-porch-and-lemonade village. In "Journey", the crew meets up with assorted Danish femme fatales in a thatched-roofs-and-cocoa Danish village, all manifestations of a giant cave-dwelling brain intent on hitching a ride back to Earth with the ship. Fans of "Reptilicus" will recognize most of the rest of the cast, all of whom needed to have their voices dubbed because of their Danish accents. Superb print, outstanding rendering of the hallucinatory color schemes, and great fun all around. "Invisible Invaders" was entirely new to me, and if you excised the stock footage, the film would be about 20 minutes long. Although willowy John Carradine gets top billing and a prominent feature on the cover, he's on-screen for less than 2 minutes. After being killed in an explosion at an atomic-weapons plant, invisible aliens who have been living on the moon for 20,000 years take over his body (as if there would be anything left to take over.) Hey, *I* didn't write it, OK? These "invisible invaders" shuffle around looking for corpses to inhabit so that they can carry out nefarious deeds of sabotage, since they don't actually have any weapons of their own. It's up to John Agar (wearing an ill-fitting flight suit and a flight cap seventeen sizes too small for him) and co-star Philip Tonge to find a way to defeat these poseurs from their underground bunker (actually the same cave in Bronson Canyon that "Robot Monster" was filmed in!) Again, a really nice, clean print (except for the stock footage, which varies wildly in quality) and a painless way to pass an hour. Recommended for all you fans of John Agar *and* the immortal Sid Pink. Just one question - why is there an empty pair of shoes on the cover of the DVD case?
Rating:
Summary: Carradine, Agar, and GRRRETA THYSSEN!!!!
Review: INVISIBLE INVADERS "stars" John Carradine as a scientist who blows himself up, only to be re-animated / possessed by an invisible alien entity. He is used as a messenger to warn earth of an impending invasion. Well, the "invasion" mostly consists of stock footage of buildings burning or crumbling. The highlight has the dead rising from their graves, shambling along somewhat convincingly. Yep, it's a zombie holocaust! Meanwhile, another scientist, his cute daughter, her whiney boyfriend, and an army major (John Agar) seal themselves in an underground facility and frantically search for a way to thwart the alien onslaught. Not bad. JOURNEY TO THE SEVENTH PLANET has John Agar again. This time he's a captain Kirkish astronaut on a UN (?!) space mission in that distant year 2001. With his commander and crew of bumpkins, Agar sets out to explore the planet Uranus. Unbeknownst to them, a strange lifeform (aka: giant green brain-monster w/ one eye) has read their minds during their arrival, and recreated a familiar earth landscape from their memories. It has also inhabited the place with beautiful young überbabes, including the eye-popping Greta Thyssen! OK, I want to go to Uranus right now! Anyway, the big green brain also knows our heroes' deepest fears and creates a one-eyed rat beast, and a giant tarantula to attack them. Thankfully, John Agar smirks throughout. This is a good double feature w/ laughs aplenty. Go ahead and buy it...
Rating:
Summary: Agar Double Feature
Review: Invisible Invaders is the better of the two. Aliens take control of the dead (Plan 9?) and attempt to control earth. Agar (Major Jay) and some scientists work feverishly to find a way to stop the invasion. Good 50's sci-fi. However....Journey to the Seventh Planet lacked the substance to be proclaimed "good" but is a fair bowl of popcorn,late night, sci-fi spoof about a creature bringing the space explorers memories/fantasies to life as he plots to come to earth for a takeover. What it lacks in action it somewhat compensates in the humor dept. I also saw a familiar spider and heard familiar spider "noises" which im convinced were "borrowed" from Earth vs. the Spider. All in all a good package for the price of admition.
Rating:
Summary: Two from Agar
Review: Journey to the 7th Planet:
A United Nation exploration team lands on Uranus and discovers that a "brain" rules the planet. This brain uses the memories from the team's mind to create images for them to experience while on Uranus (e.g. one finds a replica of his village, one that is scared of rats finds a giant one, and or course they all meet their girlfriends.) Invisible Invaders:
The Invisible Invaders have been on the moon (of all places) for 20,000 years and have decided to take over the Earth unless it's surrenders immediately. Well the Earth does not surrender and the Invaders arrive and start taking over human corpses. These corpses march all over the countryside reeking havoc, and taking over bodies as people are killed. The day is saved when John Agar uses a high frequency sound device to drive the invaders out of the corpses.
Rating: 
Summary: what!!!
Review: man i love old and crappy 50's sci fi films like these.bad acting, crappy special effects.A great film to watch with friens on a friday or a saturday night.
Rating:
Summary: "Journey to the 7th Planet", finally...
Review: OK, they're both trashy. Still, the wonderfully self-gratuitous John Agar is here...TWICE!! "Invisible Invaders" is silly, but the transfer to DVD is quite good. John Carradine must've thought this was the end of his career, and it's a shame. He had a few decent performances left in him. But, with the help of Edward L.Cahn (often referred to as Ed Wood's less-talented little brother), he had nothing to do but glower and look tired. It's silly, and like all Cahn films, loads of trashy fun. I saw "Journey to the 7th Planet" as a kid, and not since. It's really not that bad, with a terrific premise. Unfortunately, the monsters and sci/fi stuff look mostly fake. There was a slight moment when the cyclops monster appeared and thought there might be a Ray Harryhausen moment (great stop-motion photography) but it only lasted a few seconds. Filmed in Denmark, with a Danish cast (all dubbed), Agar had an almost interesting role. He played second fiddle, and had a chance to actually give some character to the role. The women were absolutely gorgeous, starting with the lovely Greta Thyssen and not ending there. The plot, though contrived, was actually quite interesting in premise, a trip to Uranus and the concept of what was encountered. Like I said, I saw it as a kid and somehow always remembered this film and its idea. It's silly, fun & entertaining. Once again, I applaud MGM's "Midnite Movies" series for bringing more trashy fun to my house, and at a good price. ("Journey" has a nice 1.85:1 Widescreen).
Rating: 
Summary: Some good fun
Review: The first movie on this DVD is quite silly, and should be entertaining to those who get a laugh from really bad movies. Journey to the Seventh Planet is hardly Oscar stuff, but I would see it as being better than Invisible Invaders. Some of the ideas remind me of stuff I've seen on classic Star Trek, though the end is very weak. Kids who like sci-fi should enjoy this one; my husband did when he was a boy. Buy the DVD if you want a few hours of fun, but don't expect much else.
Rating:
Summary: They Come to Us / We Go to Them
Review: The prolific Edward L. Cahn's "Invisible Invaders" was released a few months before Ed Wood's infamous "Plan 9 From Outer Space" and in many ways is similar to it, right down to its Cold War anti-nuclear message. Physicist Adam Penner (Philip Tonge, featured in "House of Wax" and "Macabre") objects to the arms race. Sound familiar? When his colleague Karol Noymann (John Carradine, here in basically a cameo appearance) is killed in a nuclear accident, he resigns from the federal "Atom Commission." After Noymann's funeral, an invisible emissary from an interplanetary dictatorship with a long-standing base on earth's moon reanimates the scientist's body and issues Penner an ultimatum: now that it is about to enter the Space Age, earth must surrender or be destroyed. Penner's assistant John Lamont (Robert Hutton, fresh from his role in "The Colossus of New York") dutifully takes the message to the commission's heads in Washington, but is not taken seriously. The invisible invaders proceed to enter the bodies of the recently dead and use them to commit "sabotage" all over the world. The Air Force sends Major Bruce Jay (John Agar, who'd just done a fine job in Nathan Hertz's campy "Brain From Planet Arous" but who spends the second half of this movie doing an uninspired John Wayne imitation) to transport Dr. Penner, his daughter (Jean Byron, who would go on to play Patty Duke's mother on TV), and Dr. Lamont to a secluded bunker where they develop a weapon that eventually defeats the invaders. Screenwriter Samuel Newman, who would go on to craft suspenseful teleplays for "Perry Mason" and "The Wild, Wild West," here borrows a few plot elements from Fred F. Sears' 1956 film "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers." Director Cahn was an old hand at directing zombies, with "Creature with the Atom Brain" and "The Zombies of Mora Tau" under his belt by this time. Special effects artist Roger George did a competent job on this his first feature film. Paul Dunlap's score, with its military marches offset by eerie extraterrestrial interludes, later turned up in "The Angry Red Planet." Though "Invisible Invaders" was obviously a rushed and at times careless production - Cahn helmed a total of seven films in 1959 alone, and even more than that the following year - the film's influence on George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" is unmistakable. "Journey to the Seventh Planet" is basically a remake of producer Sid Pink's earlier science fiction effort "The Angry Red Planet," which is itself a quirky and inventive reworking of "The Wizard of Oz." Filmed in Denmark in 1961, this film opens in the year 2001, when the earth has abolished war and is governed by the United Nations. Talk about optimism! When no life is discovered on the first six planets orbiting the sun, an international team of five astronauts is dispatched to the planet Uranus to investigate an unusual form of radiation emanating from it. Expecting to find a forbidding, icy landscape, the astronauts are astonished to find evergreen trees and running streams on its surface. Not long after a whole village the ship's captain recalls from his youth materializes in the distance, complete with women each member of the ship's crew knew and loved on earth, the five begin to suspect their memories are being tapped and used to create convincing illusions. Eventually they penetrate the barrier that seals the forest off from the rest of the planet, and discover that a giant alien brain is manipulating their thoughts and hopes to dominate earth. Enlisting the help of the women the brain has created for them, all but one of the men manage to break free of its control and escape, though presumably without destroying the brain completely. (Someone has to sing, "I wait for you... somewhere on the seventh planet" as the rocketship speeds away.) Except for John Agar, who had just completed "Hand of Death," and Greta Thyssen, who had recently appeared in "Terror Is a Man" (available on DVD as "Blood Creature"), most of the cast had appeared in director Sid Pink's "Reptilicus." Fans of the film will be happy to know that the new DVD version contains the original song sung over the end credits by Otto Brandenburg, who's almost (but not quite) worthy of Tony Bennett. Although the special effects, many of which were trimmed or reshot by American International after the film wrapped in Denmark, are primitive by today's standards, the film's comic book colors and hypnotic visual inserts give much of the film an almost psychedelic look that's definitely worth checking out today.
|
