Odissea sulla Terra

In the 70's, as a kid when looking through the new TV Guide for the week's monster movies, the only thing as good as finding a Godzilla film or two was finding the Godzilla wanna-bes, like the undeniable classic "The X From Outer Space."

"X" is probably the personification of "cheesy Japanese monster flick." This monster is silly-looking, the FX are horrid, the music is terrible, and the film is a total blast. The "X" attacking planes and destroying buildings is just good and bad enough to make everyone happy.

The reason this film is a blast is because it has a lot of charm and heart. Those are a few of the ingredients that certain giant monster films made back then lack, and that's why they are unwatchable and truly bad, while films like "X From Outer Space" are bad but have enough of those things to make it fun. When a film lacks those things and is clueless, you get dreck like "Queen Kong" and "A.P.E."

There's nothing wrong with "The X From Outer Space" if you are simply into watching fun giant monster films with actors in suits (no computer crap) stomping on miniature buildings and swatting airplanes on wires out of the sky.

Words cannot adequately describe the genius of a film that is certain to be

critically examined by afficionados of the genre for years to come. Look for the inevitable Hollywood remake with Cameron Diaz cast as the female lead.

Spotlight on Guilala (pronounced GOO-LA-LA) and his agonizing struggle to

determine his/her/its own destiny, perceptible through the translucency of the classic "alien monster run amok" thematic device. Groundbreaking special

effects underscore Guilala's haunting portrayal of a space monster who is both hunter and hunted, his fate resting in the hands of one solitary American

heroine who places herself in harm's way for the greater good-the preservation of man-and more importantly-woman-kind. Peggy Neal's performance as Lisa is

astonishing, crystalline in its sensitivity. Her coif remains perfect throughout. Fans of the novel are of course among the film's harshest critics-others applaud director Kazui Nihonmatsu's unique interpretation of the original tome, myself among them. The film is more than a visual feast-it reminds viewers that the key to the centuries-old mysteries of life on Planet Earth may lie somewhere beyond the stars.

In letterbox, in a near-pristine print, in the original Japanese (with subtitles) I have to say this is a much better film than the one most of us saw on TV, back in the day.

For one thing, the line "Monsters have rights, too!" is never uttered. even in translation. (Although -- now that I think of it -- some people might prefer the dubbed version precisely because of its goofiness.) Of course, that's just the dialog, and even the most handsome presentation of this film can't obscure its marvelously wacky weirdness.

The miniatures and effects are kind of a mixed bag. The space-related sets and models are actually fairly well executed, but the monster effects are often sub-Toho, sometimes hilariously so, like when an absurdly out-of-scale F-101 Starfighter crashes into the X and just sort of hangs there for a few seconds. I think that's more from a lack of experience with kaiju flicks on the part of the studio and its technicians than penny-pinching. In the Criterion edition, at least, it's obvious that Shochiku put a not inconsiderable amount of money into this production.

Silly as it undeniably is, there are in fact some very creative moments in this movie, such as when the monster absorbs too much energy from a nuclear reactor and turns into a gigantic, red-hot sphere which bounces around Tokyo, wreaking fiery havoc until it plunges into a lake.

When you look at the competition, stuff like "Gappa: The Triphibian Monster" and "Yongary", in its very odd and quite unique way this is clearly one of the most entertaining of the Toho-wannabe giant monster films of the 60s.

Oh this one was pretty bad, flat and low budget the first 45 minutes, with the highlight being a sinister Pumpkin Pie in outers space(!!) harrassing our sturdy tinfoil ship and its crew. Then you get to the chase, with the giant Aquatic chicken/lizard/guinea hen letting loose on poor old back-lot Japan.

Bad miniatures, bad sound, the three Caucasians are guys we might be intended to identify with ala Raymond Burr in the first Godzilla, but don't you believe it-Franz Gruber looks like a 6 foot Gary Owens from Laugh-in with a Chermann accent, the other two are crosses between Buddy Hackett and Dick York. Peggy Neal has the Angie Dickinson bit down too.

Your Japanese cast are all kinda interchangable, none of them any threat to Tishiro Mifune's reputation. The F/X are lousy, the dialogue and dubbing grade Z.

My fave parts? Besides the attack of the giant Pie? Where do I begin? There's the demo of the Moon's low gravity, showcased by two actors on trampolines in space suits, the trampolines hidden behind a 'crater edge'. The flaming bubbles the monster spits out at the world's worst Tank and plane miniatures. The great chase where two guys in a yellow-green jeep, pulling a trailer carrying a 'cargo of radiation'-filing cabinet with a radiation insignia on its side-race '80'mph down the road, while the 200 foot(100 foot? seems to chage size...)monster kinda shuffles after them, one big rubber paw waving ineffectively at the guy holding the 'Cargo box' and the driver putting the pedal to the metal. You don't for a second believe that the shufflin' X from Outer Space can catch up and grab'em, but he/it/she does. Riot! You also have a funny scene where at Army Headquarters, they show a guy on a step ladder, moving a little X from Outer Space Magnet from one town to another along a wall-map...Oh Lord. That one had me rolling in the aisles.....Then there is the obligatory stomp through the city, where these rubber suited guys always seem to concentrate on poorly made power line miniatures-after which you get the grand finale. They spray some white foam on the X from Outer Space, from a series of straffing runs-the X nailing a few last jets for good measure before being encased in the goo and making like the melting Stay Puff Marshmallow man of Ghostbusters. They then fling the little white sporestone essence of the X into orbit around the Sun, while Peggy Neal and Co. wax philosophic about how Monsters have rights too...Very, Very hard to keep a straight face while watching this one. If MST3K never did it, you have to say what a shame. The movie was a target and then some for Cro and the boys.

What more is there to be said? Sheer incompetance, bad acting, poor F/X....this gets a star for chutzpah and another half for the Villainous Pie.

*1/2 outta ****-if you like bad rubber suited monster movies, this is for you. Just don't say you haven't been warned.

It starts with a bunch of astronauts preparing for a mission to Mars, three guys and a girl, of course (and an American girl with a crush on the Japanese mission commander at that!), while the mission commander meanwhile has an uneasy relationship with the beautiful moonbase communications officer who is a good friend of our beautiful blonde scientist (they even shower together).

Anyway, once they're enroute in space things start to happen, like blocked communications signals and asteroid showers, and a weird UFO with a tracking beam that deposits some sort of glowing spores on the ship. Naturally they bring one back and it grows into a giant semi-chicken-shaped monster who stomps off towards Tokyo. Then it becomes your typical man-in-a-suit monster movie.