Space Master X-7

Like the previous commenter I also saw this as a child, and in the spirit of his well written comments, I will add it was at the old Nile Theater in South Minneapolis. I was about 10. I had nightmares about this film for many days after, and to this day 50 years later, I still remember the title! Definitely not for the discerning adult, but my sci-fi grandson would love it! Solid 8 rating for the memories and thrills. However, it is only marginally acted. The special effects are good, and the airplane scene mentioned is thrilling. The oozing through the vent duct in the lab will remind you you are not safe even in your own home. I'd sure like to see this again!

Not sure why they called it Space Master X7. This is more a very light film Noir chase thriller with some rubbery omelette monster thing in a supporting role. Still you can see how it is an ancestor of The Andromeda Strain or Contagion.

Better than it had a right to be! The premise was good, the screenplay was good, even the acting and direction were good. When I was in grammar school, the film was re-released about 1960 and several of my schoolmates kept referring to the "blood rust", some calling it "blood lust" and telling me about the film, I was jealous! I figured it was some sort of zany shocker but never *sighs* got to see it on the big screen. 2009 rolls around and The Fox Movie Channel runs it and at long last I get to see it......Quite good! I have to admit that I was disappointed only because it was such a literate and well handled film and not something akin to a Corman flick. Paul Frees, one of the most overused voices in H'wood gives an amazingly solid performance as an obsessed scientist. I also like the stock music tracks used as well...I picked up several composers in the mix, not the least was Victor Lazslo. Too slick for it's own good! As a child I would have been bored, but not now.....

Space fungus menaces planet earth. Okay, everything else was menacing the besieged 1950's planet, so why not a creepy fungus. Well, it's actually a bloody slime from outer space that spreads like a dirty carpet, and unless trackers can catch up with the shapely blonde Typhoid Mary (Thomas) carrying it, we're all one big toadstool. I'm trying hard, but I just don't recall this epic from 1958, and I rarely missed one of these drive-in specials. According to IMDb, TCF didn't syndicate the film, which is why, I guess, it's gone unseen for 50 years.

Actually, the movie's pretty well produced for its kind. The location shots lend at least some credibility to the wacky plot. And catch those early versions of protective Hazmat suits in the train yard scene. Williams and Ellis do well as the bloodhounds, but why Ellis remains a lowly Pfc with his officer-level credentials seems odd. Also, I really like the unheralded Lyn Thomas as the nervous blonde.

Note that brilliant screenwriter Dan Mainwaring, e.g. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Out of the Past (1947), collaborated on the screenplay. I'm guessing that promising trapped-in-the-airliner concept came from him. Too bad the full potential of those scenes is not realized by director Bernds. At the same time, the movie ends all-too-abruptly, as though the production suddenly ran out of money. I get the feeling that with better backing and a more perceptive director, this drive-in programmer could have turned into an uptown smash on the order of Alien (1980).

When I was kid, I used to sometimes see stills or brief mentions of this film in science fiction movie books or in the pages of "monster" magazines. But for some strange reason this film never turned up on TV, even though other science fiction offerings made by Fox from the same period often did. No one I knew had seen it except for older people who saw it when it was first released in 1958 to theaters. Having seen it recently on video, I can tell you that SPACE MASTER X 7 is no "lost" classic, but its a not bad low budget drive in feature with a slightly unusual menace and director Edward Byrnes deserves credit for trying hard to make a serious (sometimes he tries to hard) adult science fiction thriller. Done in a semi-documentary style, Byrnes sometimes slows down the films pace but overall its not a bad job.

One area of interest to film buffs is the films casting. We have Paul ("man of a thousands voices") Frees in a surprisingly large on screen role as a "heel" scientist who accidently unleashes the "blood rust". Of course the person often mentioned in this film is Moe Howard of the Three Stooges, in a rare character part as a cab driver who helps the feds track down a woman who was exposed to the deadly alien fungus. This film was made when the stooges career was in limbo; between the time Columbia dropped the stooges because it was no longer interested in making shorts, and the time before they boys returned to the screen for feature films. Director Byrnes began his film career directing 3 Stooges shorts, and was good friends with the boys, so it was he who probably got Moe a part in the picture.