IMDb meta-data is a runtime of 1 hour and 18 minutes, rated 3.6 by 381 cinemitizens.
Genre: Sy Fy, sorta.
Verdict: Sword and sandals in space! Well on high, in the Himalayas anyway.
One of the quartet of Gamma 1 movies directed by Anthony Dawson aka Antonio Margheriti on whom more below.
Climate change is happening in 1967 and the crew of the Gamma 1 space wheel, which looks a lot like a blow-up water ring, are on the job. Ice caps are melting. Sun belts are flooding. Dust bowls are mud. Rivers are deserts. Deserts are teeming with wild flowers. The hills are alive with the…. Ooops. Getting off track.
Wait, no! It is not climate change, Erich. It is a team of alien NBA players in the stock footage of Edmund Hillary’s Himalayas turning the heat up and down. How they do this is anyone’s guess. The screenwriter did not bother trying to explain it.
These big, hairy aliens have come not to praise humanity but to bury it. Impatient with our efforts to murder ourselves, the aliens have come to speed catastrophe, bringing ballot boxes stuffed with
Russian votes for the Twit in Chief. What do they want? Real estate! When do they want it? Now!
Although we get early shots of the water ring in the space, it has nothing to do with the story. That’s the way it is.
The aliens start by wiping out a weather station in the mountains. Square Jaw and crew set out to see off these creatures. The girlfriend of one of the weather station personnel comes along to provide screaming. Girlfriend is no sooner there than she falls into the arms and related matter of Square Jaw. He is used to this and extends comfort to her. Missing boyfriend is forgotten.
There are nice touches that do not compensate for the runtime. When Square Jaw and his loyal band are taken captive, they engage in a speculation contest — think seminar —- to interpret what they see: The hairy apes tending the high tech volt meters. ‘The creatures are slaves. They are automatons doing the bidding of a higher intelligence.’ Then one of the apemen speaks to them in a BBC voice that one never hears on the BBC these days. What! The ape speaks! And he makes sense. This was the year before the reversal in ‘Planet of the Apes’ (1968) when Chest Heston spoke and made sense for the last time.
The boss ape’s argument is that humanity is doomed and the apemen are hitting fast forward because they need to relo. It seems one of their science experiments went wrong. They gotta go and fast. It unleashed a plague of GOPers on their home world. Following the Dr No playbook King Kong apeman shows-and-tells his whole set up to Square Jaw, including where the off-switch is.
There follows the escape of the captives who foil the plan. The end? Not quite.
Then it goes on. Yes that was only the first 45 llllooonnnggg minutes. The apemen have a second base, strangely it looks exactly like the one just destroyed. Square Jaw and his team attack it and destroy it. Is now the end….? There was tension among the fraternity brothers at this point. But yes, the end.
That the Yeti in the Himalayas might be superior beings waiting to claim the Earth once humanity committed Republicancide is brilliantly done in ‘The Abominable Snowman’ (1957), reviewed elsewhere on this blog. Nothing like that mystery and insight is to be found in this mishmash.
Antonio Margheriti (1930-2002) used the name Antony Dawson, and once, memorably, Anthony
Daisies, perhaps to avoid embarrassing his nearest and dearest. He started life as an engineer, shades of Roger Corman, and got into films as a technician. Once in the door there was no stopping him. IMDb credits him with fifty-seven films as director and scores of others as assistant director, producer, and special effects.
Antonio Margheriti aka Anthony Dawson.
His first feature film was Sy Fy, namely ‘Assignment: Outer Space’ (1960) followed by ‘Battle of the Worlds’ (1961), both reviewed elsewhere on this blog.
He established himself as a director who could produce a film with or without a budget. Accordingly producers gave him no rest. He was contracted to do four Sy Fy films and he did them all in three months, using the same sets, costumes, and actors. These titles live in infamy as the Gamma 1 quartet. All are reviewed on this blog, such is my commitment to serving readers.
‘Wild, Wild Planet’ (1966) ‘I Criminali della Galassia,’
’’War of the Planets’ (1965) ‘Diafanoidi Vengono da Marte,’
‘War between the Planets’ (1965) ‘Il Pianeta Errante,’and
‘Snow Devils’ (1965) ‘La Morte Viene dal Pianeta Aytin.’
There is no connection between the Italian titles and the English titles. There is little connection between either the Italian or English titles and the stories. Nor is there any connection of one story to another nor any continuing characters. Nor much of anything else.
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