I diafanoidi vengono da Marte

With the advent of space travel, many space stations are sent into the cosmos. It's New Year's Eve. Space station Alpha-Two is attacked by the Deafenoids which brainwash its crew. Captain Tice and his crew find the Alpha-Two crew frozen and they come under attack themselves.

It's an Italian spaghetti sci-fi movie. The actors are dubbed. It has 50's sci-fi designs with a dash of 60's style. It's European. It's not that imaginative but the miniature work is silly fun. The spacewalks are ridiculous. It's bad but there is some fun with the weird mix of badness. The actors are not helped by the stiff dialogue. The story is essentially The Fog in space which limits any action. People rarely run in this movie. There is an all-out brawl later in the movie but it's too late by then. This is begging to be mocked in a fun way.

Steadfast, but dreary and second-rate low-budget b-grade sci-fi matinée by Italian director Antonio Margheriti (better known for such films as; "Cannibal Apocalypse" and "Naked You Die"). Anyhow "The War of the Planets" (the second addition to the Gamma One series) is typical fodder, that can't escape its over melodramatic sub-plotting with stodgy dialogues and the direction is limply brought across. Its budget shows with the obviously fashionable miniature sets and models… as well as all-out plain and spotty effects (where the aliens are a glowing green mist or light of energy that possesses its victims). Some of the junky space sequences are rather laughable too (like astronauts floating in space, which is clearly by rope). The idea is workable, but the lacklustre execution is less accommodating despite some spaced-out atmospheric visuals and colourful set decors. Textbook performances (with the likes of Tony Russel and Franco Nero) come across shallowly flat, but there seems to be too many characters that at times it got hard to tell which space station / ship the action was focusing on. On the other hand the patchy score remains effectively uncanny. Not entirely awful, but still an utter drag.

I have seen this film just once - back in 1969 when it got a second release as a morning show in one of the local cinemas in my hometown, Bangalore. All right, it is blatantly outlandish and extremely B-movie from the Italian stable, but as with many European films of its genre, has its moments. I thought that some of the special effects were very impressive - particularly the HAPPY NEW YEAR formation spacewalk by the astronauts in the beginning of the film. The 'invasion' of humans by the green Martian 'space mist' is decidedly silly from modern standards, but that and several other scenes in the film do raise unintentional laughs. Tony Russell is the obligatory American lead intended for the Western market but it is nice to see a young Franco Nero in one of his early roles. The sets are occasionally creaky but not as bad as some reviews make out. In all, a worthwhile addition to anyones camp-movie collection if it is ever released on DVD.

One of the four GAMMA series SF films from Italy's Antonio Margheriti. Not as "wild" as WILD WILD PLANET, but still fun in colorful low-budget vein. This time, the space crew has to battle a race of aliens who turn men into mindless slaves via a green gas. Reminiscent of stuff going back to INVADERS FROM MARS and IT CONQUERED THE WORLD, not to mention the loosely concurrent STAR TREK pilot "THE CAGE", it has a visual flair that helps it move past a very slow middle act.

But, all cult film fans will at least want to tune into the First act with what is certainly cinema's most bizarre New Year's Eve celebration with space-walking astronauts literally spinning and floating in formation! And wait 'til you see the big finale! All this to Italian 60's lounge rock courtesy of Angelo Francesco Lavagnino. The film shares with other Euro SF films of the period decidedly 'mod' music sequences (the famous STAR WARS 'Cantina' sequence has nothing on this stuff) - I.E. Germany's SPACE PATROL and even something as sober as the Czech classic VOYAGE TO THE END OF THE UNIVERSE.

Far from classic, but it was a fun period in Italian SF. Though one has to be careful when attributing dialog to the dubbed USA versions, this one has a doozy -- An astronaut has been "taken over" by the aliens, which sparks the comment: "He's gone Galactic!" Too bad the TCM print you are most likely to see isn't Letterboxed (as so much of their vault is). (the closing credits are letterboxed)

It's not even close to being the best spaghetti science-fiction film ever made - far from it, in fact - but Antonio Margheriti's War of the Planets is another refugee from TNT's 100% Weird that recently popped up commercial free (and sadly pan and scan) on Turner Classic Movies. Starring American expat Tony Russel - who got his screen start as a bartender in Elvis' King Creole - as the commander of Earth's space forces, War of the Planets is a very low-budget story of alien invaders attacking our solar system from their base on Mars. The aliens, ever mindful of the filmmakers' need to keep costs down, are represented by dry ice and flashing green lights. The great Franco Nero co-stars and there's a suitably spacey Angelo Francesco Lavagnino score.