Plan 9 From Russia.
It's just terrible. Not only because it's designed to feed the general paranoia of the times. The threat was real enough. It's that the last thing we needed in 1952 was still MORE fear. After McCarthy, Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs, and the Korean War, nobody was unaware of what was geopolitically up. MacArthur was urging us to nuke China. And, facts aside, fantasies abounded. There were Commies under every bed. We were told that Eisenhower himself was nothing more than a communist dupe. No kidding. Look up the John Birch Society.
On top of that, the movie itself -- its very execution -- is a mountain of schlock. Lots of "combat" footage in the first half hour, ripped off from gun cameras used in Korea, Germany, and the Pacific. You get a chance to see another Japanese Kamikaze disintegrate over a carrier. The Russians are never identified as such. They're just the generic enemy in this film, a kind of re-run of the Nazis, complete with uniforms of riding breeches and boots, like the Gestapo.
Let me put this in a nut shell. It's a commercial movie that has nothing to do with patriotism. It does not provoke thought, just regurgitation. It's designed to tap directly into the paranoia of the period, but it's so excruciatingly shabby that it can assuredly achieve its goal only in a mind no older than ten years. Yes, children will love it. The confusing world they live in is reduced to simple good and simple evil. Grape Nuts are good; masturbation is bad.
The performers are actors and the roles are stereotyped, with two exceptions. Dan O'Herlihy adds a human dimension to his cynic. He's believable. He was fine in a similar role in "Fail Safe". And whatever happened to Peggy Castle, the blond in the case? She had an oneiristic beauty, something out of one of those scented ads in a glossy fashion magazine.
Anyway, if you enjoy feeling that you're surrounded by enemies, this is your meretricious piece of cinematic trash.
It's just terrible. Not only because it's designed to feed the general paranoia of the times. The threat was real enough. It's that the last thing we needed in 1952 was still MORE fear. After McCarthy, Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs, and the Korean War, nobody was unaware of what was geopolitically up. MacArthur was urging us to nuke China. And, facts aside, fantasies abounded. There were Commies under every bed. We were told that Eisenhower himself was nothing more than a communist dupe. No kidding. Look up the John Birch Society.
On top of that, the movie itself -- its very execution -- is a mountain of schlock. Lots of "combat" footage in the first half hour, ripped off from gun cameras used in Korea, Germany, and the Pacific. You get a chance to see another Japanese Kamikaze disintegrate over a carrier. The Russians are never identified as such. They're just the generic enemy in this film, a kind of re-run of the Nazis, complete with uniforms of riding breeches and boots, like the Gestapo.
Let me put this in a nut shell. It's a commercial movie that has nothing to do with patriotism. It does not provoke thought, just regurgitation. It's designed to tap directly into the paranoia of the period, but it's so excruciatingly shabby that it can assuredly achieve its goal only in a mind no older than ten years. Yes, children will love it. The confusing world they live in is reduced to simple good and simple evil. Grape Nuts are good; masturbation is bad.
The performers are actors and the roles are stereotyped, with two exceptions. Dan O'Herlihy adds a human dimension to his cynic. He's believable. He was fine in a similar role in "Fail Safe". And whatever happened to Peggy Castle, the blond in the case? She had an oneiristic beauty, something out of one of those scented ads in a glossy fashion magazine.
Anyway, if you enjoy feeling that you're surrounded by enemies, this is your meretricious piece of cinematic trash.