Space Master X-7

I can't give this film more than five stars, because it's just a standard, low-budget 50s horror flick featuring the usual gimmicks:

1. Phony narrator claiming this is a "true story" 2. Manmade spacecraft returning to earth with deadly virus/creature 3. Desperate attempt to control spreading of virus 4. Scientist who dies attempting #3

And really, it's not outstanding in its genre, because it has a clunky ending and it tends to veer from true SF to being a chase picture. Most of the middle of the picture has nothing to do with the evil spores from outer space.

BUT...where have you ever seen Paul Frees on camera before? I didn't see his name in the credits, but when Prof. Pommer started talking, I shouted, "That's Paul Frees!" Here's a man with hundreds of credits (and many uncredited roles) but they've almost always been for his voice. Even in this pic, he also "appears" as the announcer voice in the bus station. Space Master X-7 gives him a good reel or more almost by himself, as a scientist attempting to figure out what the virus is. He's not matinée idol material, but the film shows that he could act with more than his lungs.

AND...a couple of scenes with Moe Howard, down on his luck between the demise of Columbia's short film division, and the amazing comeback of the Stooges in the early 60s. When I saw the names Bernds and Maurer in the credits, I almost wondered if the film was going to be a parody, since they're the pair that did most of the Stooges' 60s features. Maurer kindly gave his father-in-law Moe a decent part as a cabby who helps police find the missing (spore-infected) woman.

It was fun to find this film on TV, since it had disappeared for decades. For fans of SF schlock, it's a must. But definitely for fans of Moe and Paul (Boris Badenov) Frees!

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.

As a 12 year old, this was the most mind blowing movie of my childhood. Much more scary than the "A" movie, The Fly (great movie), released with it. I would always think that the mold would get into the house and eat me away (something like Necrotizing Fasciitis). Even though this movie is in B&W, the movie, for me, was much scarier than the BLOB. This is one of the two most psyche scaring movies of my childhood...the other being GOG. Honorable mention for this segment would go to the Crawling Eye, Invasion of the Saucermen, and War of the Satellites. My dad was a sci-fi nut as much as me and the two of us would see every new release as soon as they came out. These movies are very much part of my upbringing/childhood. I would love to get a copy of Blood Rust/SpaceMaster X7.

As a child I spent the summers with my grandparents in northern New Jersey. In the summer of 1959 the parents of a friend of mine were taking him to see a movie at a drive-in and I was invited,which movie didn't matter to me, just a chance to see a movie was great. The movie was Space Master X-7 and as child of 11 it scared the heck out of me (my mental film vault still has a has a clip of the scientist being absorbed by the fungus). That was the 1950's, cold war, Castro and all, traveling to outerspace was still a dream. A child of 11 today would find the movie laughable and the effects lame, but in the dark of a summer night in 1959 the movie had its effect.

This independent cheapie released by 20th Century Fox had a potential to be a lot better than it was. Clearly also the plot was ripped off from that other 20th Century Fox film Panic In The Streets.

Try as I might I could not get passed the fact that the military would let Dr. Paul Frees take home cultures of this fungus taken from outer space. It's a fungus that is rust colored and it is apparently what gives Mars its color. Which begs the question what in that world does it feed on.

After a fight with his ex-wife who is visiting him on custodial issues Paul Frees is killed when that red fungus gets loose. Bill Williams and Robert Ellis representing security for the space program are on a desperate hunt for Lyn Thomas the ex-wife who they know was the last person to see Frees alive as she is unknowingly carrying the stuff.

From that god awful premise the film does in fact become exciting and the climax on board a Honolulu bound flight over the ocean is very well staged.

If this had been produced at a major studio like Fox and given a decent budget this might well have become a science fiction classic.