 | |
| This wholly amazing landscape poster for Fred M. Wilcox's Forbidden Planet is just one of the remarkable posters that were made for it |
In 2200, a spaceship full of randy men are en route to a mysterious planet, where Dr. Morbius and his beautiful daughter have lived alone for 20 years. But with the frightening knowledge of the Krell, a highly evolved native species extinct some 200,000 years, the fiendish subconscious of the doctor has manifested itself in a homicidal monster!
There are both laughable and thought-provoking aspects of Forbidden Planet. - An example of the latter is its theme of being able to create merely by thought.
Walter Pidgeon (Hit the Deck (1955)) is good as the inquisitive doctor, while Leslie Nielsen (Columbo (1971-75)) is a bit daft as the captain.
Forbidden Planet is considered a landmark science fiction film for its portrayal of humans traveling in a faster-than-light spaceship of their own making, taking place exclusively in space and on an alien planet, having a robot as an actual character in it, as well as being the first to use an exclusively electronic score. It is written by Cyril Hume (Ransom! (1956)), based on a story by Irving Block (Kronos (1957)) and Allen Adler (The Giant Behemoth (1959)), inspired by William Shakespeare's The Tempest (1610/11), and directed by Fred M. Wilcox (I Passed for White (1960)).
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: 1.9 mil. $
Box office: 2.7 mil. $
= Big flop
[Forbidden Planet premiered 23 March (USA) and runs 98 minutes. The original 1952 screenplay by Adler and Block was titled Fatal Planet and took place on Mercury in 1976. Shooting took place exclusively in in-door sets in Los Angeles. Robby the Robot cost a steep 125k $ to create, about 7 % of the film's budget, and was later used in The Twilight Zone, along with other costume and props from the film. It was sold at an auction in 2017 for 5.3 mil. $, making it the most valuable movie prop ever sold at an auction, beating a 2013 sale of the Maltese falcon from The Maltese Falcon (1941). The film made 1.5 mil. $ in North America and 1.2 mil. $ abroad, only making it a big flop by Film Excess' standards, but reportedly it earned a handsome 210k $ profit. It was re-released on a children's matinee bill in 1972 in a version with 6 minutes cut out. It was nominated for an Oscar for Best Special Effects, which it lost to The Ten Commandments. Pidgeon returned in These Wilder Years (1956), Nielsen in The Vagabond King (1956) and Anne Francis in The Rack (1956). Wilcox returned with I Passed for White (1960). Forbidden Planet is certified fresh at 98 % with an 8.2 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Forbidden Planet?
No comments:
Post a Comment