Master of the World

Matheson's script took two Verne novels ("Robur the Conqueror" and "Master of the World"), and added touches of irony in the characters. (The "gentleman" Mr. Evans, when he sees his girl turning towards government agent Strock, tries to kill Strock at every chance.) William Witney, a famed second unit director, used every trick he ever learned in Republic serials to make the movie look slick on a low budget. (I've never seen such continuous use of a rear projection screen in any other movie.) But the real delight is Vincent Price's Robur, a man of good will but with some severe personality problems. I think he'd be a suitable children's introduction to the antihero and the character with a tragic flaw. For me, the romantic theme music by Les Baxter, especially over the end credits, makes the movie. (Fortunately, they didn't use the maudlin lyrics version in the film!) The recent video release of the film restores the theatrical prologue of "wacky" flying machines from silent movies.

I saw Master of the World mainly because of Vincent Price who is one of my favourite actors. It is far from perfect, but is fun and deserves better credit. The effects are not great where you can tell that they are low-budget, while the stock footage of other costume epics looks rather clumsy, the Globe theatre suddenly appearing in Victorian London also happens to be anachronistic. And Vito Scotti overacts to the verge of embarrassment. However, the costume and set designs are nice to look at and Master of the World is at least well photographed. The music score manages to be both rousing and bombastic, the script while talky is intelligent and humorous and the story is fun. Charles Bronson has been better but he is at least appealing, while Henry Hull is amusing. Stealing the film though is none other than Vincent Price, who commands every frame with his ever effortless suavity and panache, and he is also deliciously sinister when needed. All in all, an enjoyable film with a great Price but at the same time it could have been more. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Based on two Jules Verne novels. This is an exciting action adventure with an emphasis on world domination and flying machines. The evil Robur (Vincent Price) is the navigator of an airplane ship hell-bent on destructing all of the worlds war machines and armies for the purpose of peace on earth (what a mad case). He must be stopped by Strock (Charles Bronson) a government man whose tough but level headed.

The effects are brilliant for an early 60's film and the screenplay and music is spot on. This is a lot of fun.

This film is a mish-mash of two Jules Verne novels (none of which, I have read), and I think it is a fairly good adventure.

It's interesting to see Charles Bronson in an early role (before he hooked up with Mr. Winner and went-all bitter vigilante'), he turns in a good performance. And the late-great Vincent Price is just right as Robur, Captain of the flying ship "The Albatross", in one of his trademark not-strictly evil genius roles - more like, men who usually have good or honourable intentions, but are driven to madness and the use of terrible means to acheive them. The rest of the cast are all of a fairly good standard, except the character of Mr. Prudent, I find him extremely annoying and the acting is also quite poor.

The effects are alright (you have to take into account it's the early 60's) and the set of the ship itself looks good and is well crafted. But the parts where the ship is supposed to be over land (some country- or-other), are almost funny because you can clearly see that the ship is super-imposed on to a completely different piece of film.

Overall Good, with an important message (discussed and challenged in the movie), that is more relevant, today, than ever.

This is a fun movie to watch, full of charm and thinking characters in entertaining action, debate and introspection. With Vincent Price in the lead as Robur(who has declared war on warfare with his flying machine the Albatross) and Charles Bronson as his unlikely heroic nemesis Strock(almost an early era anti-hero), how can one not be intrigued? But also there's grand adventure, costumes and an 18th Century setting to boot. Also the main theme of the need to end warfare remains a very strong one and the film never loses sight of this. Just great stuff to watch.