Journey to the Seventh Planet

Surprisingly enjoyable bad flickage. Sid Pink (may he rest in peace), the Danish auteur who served up "Reptilicus," presents "Solaris" on the cheap, more than a decade before the USSR's version. An evil, one-eyed alien brain in a cave on Uranus creates illusions based on what the astronauts are thinking. They keep thinking of lush forests and beautiful Scandinavian women, so where's the problem? Long as nobody thinks of Mr. Sta-Puft, they should be OK. I'm surprised The Duke doesn't show up, since John ("Look, I'm starring in yet another cheesy SF movie") Agar, just about the only non-(badly-)dubbed member of the cast, wears an embarrassed look that says: "I was in 'Sands of Iwo Jima' with John Wayne... SIGHHH..."

Now on DVD, double featured with "Invisible Invaders." Microwave the popcorn and enjoy.

I enjoyed watching this movie, but why did Karl have to take all that punishment? I mean, my man was a rookie on a mission to where Earth's Astromen had never been before, and was expected to shoulder the responsibilities of say, Don, the co-pilot on this fantastic voyage, who, as it turns out, is smooth like butta with the ladies. And what's with the one guy who dreams of, not women, but delicious apples? If you do decide to watch it, make sure you stay tuned for the closing credits, for you will hear one of the sweetest space ballads of all time.

Am I wrong here, or is this plot basically the same as the Ray Bradbury story? I couldn't find any reference to Bradbury on the IMDb entry for this movie.

I know Bradbury did resolve a similar conflict over "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms". Aside from that, I always enjoy John Agar movies, I wish more of them were available on DVD, "The Mole People", "Tarantula", and "Attack of the Puppet People", for example.

There is also a thin similarity to the Star Trek Season One episode "Shore Leave"

Otherwise, I'm happy to have this movie in my SciFi collection.

If you don't know by now, this science fiction adventure is one of the original "mind benders", an outer space flick in which aliens use mind control.

And against this kind of mind control, what can one do? If a character is powerful enough to warp your sense of Reality, then how can you truly fight it? We get a full throttle effect by showing a full length movie in which the outcome is really decided immediately, only no one knows it.

The super formidable enemy, the one you must rely solely on God's graces, or luck, to beat, is the one who controls all you perceive and conceive, the one whose control over what you see, hear, sense, is completely contrived by this foe.

We go through a series of adventures, and the characters seem totally out of control, but that's because they have no idea what Reality is any more. They go through total Chaos.

And the ending, which I won't spoil, leaves the audience in total Chaos, but also explains that indeed, there is nothing to be done but rely on luck if your perceptions are out of your control.

Overlooked film. It actually is better than many of the later ripoff versions which tried to be too contrived in modernism, by that I mean that the later films wanted to establish that SOME humans were superior enough to overcome this obstacle, which is flat out silly. If you have no direction and no vector, you are totally helpless to change your situation. This film goes under the old school of Credibility premise instead of the 1970s contrived "Man is God" premise.

In the year 1962 this Science Fiction film arrived in our small home town at the local theater. It was called " Journey to the Seventh Planet. " All the kids ran to see it. Most of us were innocent youngsters and few knew anything of Science and fewer of the Solar System. During the movie with a large box of 10 cent popcorn and 5 cent coke, we watched in awe at the planet monsters, screaming in terror. The story was interesting enough, Earthmen of the future (2001) unite under the United Nation Flag, build a space ship, blast off to visit Uranus, the 7th planet. There the four spacemen wearing flimsy rubber suits, plexi-glass helmets and kitchen gloves, encounter a Blob or Mind-Creature who plans to conquer Earth and enslave the population. The giant creatures they encounter in the movie were exactly what attracted small children. As adults today, we wonder just how a cheesy, simple and hokey movie could produce such ear-splitting screams from an audience full of kids. John Agar stars as Capt. Don Graham, with Carl Ottosen, Peter Monch, Karl Ove Sprogøe as the crew. If you're an adult today, you too can create some modern nightmares in your kids, if they promise not to laugh too hard. Recommended for very young monster-seeking five-year-olds. *