Les Survivants de l'infini

I saw this film for the first time when I was about 10 years old and it has always stuck with me and when I saw it was on video I bought it immediately. I think that this is more than a B picture and what people have to remember is the fact that this film was made before all the great advances in special effects. Another thing that made it interesting was the fact that through the first half of the film you really didn't know if Exeter was human or alien. It wasn't until the second half of the film that we did see there was more to this mysterious group. This film is definitely an underrated classic of its era.

Guess I'll have to watch MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: THE MOVIE to find out what is so bad about THIS ISLAND EARTH. The film is intriguingly plotted, beautifully photographed, and has excellent (even by contemporary standards) art direction, costume design and special effects. So what if Rex Reason sounds as if he was dubbed (he always sounds that way), and some of the other performances seem a bit stilted. The Metaluna Mutant was the most memorable outer space monster until ALIEN.

I can only recall one technical error in the film. After the interociter (communicator) has been reduced to molten metal, Rex Reason picks up a Geiger counter and says, "It's no longer radioactive." There IS no set up for this (i.e., when it proved to be radioactive).

I'd certainly rate this film in the top ten of the best science fiction films of the fifties (probably in the top five). It's philosophical, exciting and well made.

The planet Metaluna is desperate need of Uranium to power its defense . As Aliens led by Exeter , Jeff Morrow , come to Earth seeking scientists to help them against enemy invaders . Two scientific , Rex Reason Faith Domergue , are deceived , menaced , abducted and transported from earth to a weird and ruined planet where occurs explosion and destruction.As our heroes are theatened by unknown forces .

Acceptable Scifi movie has thrills , intricate gadgetry , emotion , FX ahead of their time and super mutant monsters .This classic and rare Sci-Fi is considered to be the first serious film about interplanetary escapades .It contains primitive special effects and abundant matte painting . Including passable effects of a flying saucer based on a famous picture of an unidenfitied flying object UFO . Mediocre interpretation by an average cast. Starred by little known actors as Rex Reason as a nuclear scientist , Jeff Morrow as the rare alien , and the beautiful Faith Domergue as a nuclear fission expert who screams lustily . Other secondaries are given little to do such as Lance Fuller , Russell Johnson , Douglas Spencer and Richard Deacon . Here stands out the decent makeup by Bud Westmore creating pulsating cranium FX makeup on a gigantic and ugly Alien monster. Although some reviewers felt that the mutant utterly ruined an otherwise acceptable film . It was shown in US drive-in on a double bill with another classic Scfi titled Forfidden planet .

Strange but appropriate musical score from Herman Stein , Hans J Salter and Henry Mancini . Colorful cinematography in brilliant technicolor , by Clifford Stine , as technical details are presented in convincing enough fashion , being the only technicolor scifi movie Universal-International ever made .This genuine and decent science fiction was well produced by Willian Alland and professionally directed by Joseph M Newman . He was a prolific craftsman who made all kinds of genres as drama , gangster movie , Film Noir , adventure , such as : Tarzan ,Jungle patrol , The king of the roaring 20s the story of Arnold Rothstein , Love nest , Great Dan Patch and , of course , Science Fiction with this vintage film of the fifties titled This island earth. Rating : 6/10 , decent movie . Essential and indispensable watching for SciFi buffs . Well worth seeing.

This is a great treat from a wonderful era of Sci-Fi. Those who complain of the hardware aspects have no romance - an Earth scientist receives an unsolicited manual and roomful of parts to build a futuristic two-way TV, but the parts are a marvel and the pages of the manual aren't paper, but some manner of flexible metal. After constructing the "Interociter", our hero receives a broadcast from Exeter, a fellow scientist with a suspiciously prominent forehead, inviting him to join his research team of the world's greatest experts in their fields. What follows is a comic book come-to-life, and in vivid, 3-part Technicolor! This film is beautiful to look at, and apparently many of today's best Sci-Fi filmmakers did. Rex Reason is fine as our hero, Jeff Morrow is one of the most memorable aliens of the era, and Faith Domergue is a fine actress and is mysteriously one of the most unsung beauties ever. And as to the hardware, the special effects, etc - there is actually nothing to complain about at all...the spaceship, the planet Metaluna, aliens, etc, are not merely passable for the 50's, they are compelling by today's standards. If you have just a bit of imagination, this is one of the best Sci-Fi classics of it's time, and still makes many contemporary efforts pale in comparison.

I am old enough to have seen "This Island Earth" when it was first released. After "Forbidden Planet", it was the only other film for a decade to take place outside of Earth's solar system. Galactic fiction had been written for decades by Edmond Hamilton and a handful of others, very successfully; but it is still rare and hard to handle in film, because it requires some level of ideas and logical development of a political-philosophical system other than conventional and unimaginative acceptances--the stock in trade of those who rip off headlines, use titles such as "Across the Ses of Stars"--and then write nothing at all to go with the promising title. Here we have a mysterious robot-controlled aircraft's flight, mail from aliens, the building of an Inter-Rossiter communication device, tall-domed aliens (exhibiting a variety of ethical characters), interstellar flight, a war on a planet called Metalluna, flaming comet-missiles, a competent alien mutant creature, an intelligent cat named Neutron, romance, news conferences, good and bad advice and more. The original story line, for those who have not read Raymond Z. Jones' original mystery-sci-fi, is much better than what was done with its ideas in the film's script. In that novel,Earth was to be destroyed, because it was in the way and being used as a base by one of two sides in a huge interstellar war; at the end, the hero, whose ingenuity has saved the one side, has to make a speech to save the Earth--a climax that did not make it into the film version. Handsome Rex Reason, who lacks classical accent ability, plays scientist Cal Meacham, opposite Faith Domergue, a fair actress who does well as Ruth, his long-lost love, or is she. The film is stolen by Jeff Morrow as Exeter, also star of "Kronos"; Douglas Spencer is a bit disappointing as The Monitor, as is Lance Fuller as an evil Metallunan; the special effects such as rays that explode cars and the aforementioned comets are interesting for their time. What is right about the film I suggest is its color, its adventure narrative and swift-paced unfolding, since it is rather well-directed; what is lacking is the first-rate ideas of the novel from which it was adapted. "This Island Earth" ( a phrase later used in "Star trek's "All Our Yesterdays" also) is arguably a welcome change from all those sci-fi films where rockets seem tied to earth, unable to expand the human horizon. I like it, and recommend it to anyone who wants to escape from the present mean-streets ugliness cult's movies; it is physically beautiful and frankly more entertaining than most have credited it with being these past 50 years.