THIS ISLAND EARTH—“Then you know that shortly we can expect Zagon to commence and sustain an all-out attack. Our ionization layer must be maintained until our relocation is effected.”  What he said. Words of cosmic wisdom from ‘The Monitor’, supreme ruler of Metaluna, distant planet crumbling under meteor bombardment by enemies from somewhere ‘out there’. Emissaries are dispatched to another distant world—ours—to seek help. As the selected earthlings will discover “Mutaluna lies far beyond your solar system, in outer space!”

The Final Frontier had to wait because the 86 minutes of Man Meets Mutant kid-pleasing begins with a triumphant blast of “Look at us!” music that blankets worshipful overhead views of Washington D.C. in the opening shots, signalling that Ike’s best & brightest are ready for anything from Russki ICBM’s to Guatemalan peasants. But were we really prepared for 7-inch foreheads, an ‘interocitor’ that “has 2,486 parts“, a leading man (Rex Reason as studley ‘Dr. Cal Meacham’) who aced the contest for Deepest Manly Voice in Hollywood and a lady scientist (Faith Domergue as ‘Dr. Ruth Adams’), whose smouldering shoulders are due to be seized & squeezed by one of the weirdest, most identifiable monsters of the era?  These probing questions are answered easier than any of the ‘scientific’ ones presented in the pulpish script written by Franklin Coen (The Train) and Edward G. O’Callaghan. Don’t forget (fore)heady input from Jeff Morrow as ‘Exeter’, the suavely serious ambassador who beseeches help from Earth intellectuals in order to save his home orb from being pulverized into so many free-ranging atoms.

Flush from the success of the swamp-bound Creature From The Black Lagoon, Universal-International and producer William Alland joined the sci-fi space racing with a fairly lofty $800,000 budget (and all-important Technicolor) for once-cool-now-quaint special effects, matte paintings, blinking multi-hued gizmos and creepy, oddly lustful mutant design. Joseph Gershenson was the Music Supervisor overseeing contributions from, among others, a young striver named Henry Mancini. The sound effects team came up with a variety of ‘science & space’ noises as well as maybe overdoing the generic explosion sounds that rain sonic mayhem upon Metaluna; maybe they swiped leftovers from the tracks for To Hell And Back. Popcorn flew at random with a box office gross of $4,900,000, 70th place for the year. *

A new generation discovered its sundry charms when in 1996 Mystery Science Theater 3000 dissected it on the snark table. Nostalgia fave (find Glenn Erickson’s fond fount here) is still chewy fodder today.

Look, baritonal playboy-pilot-scientist, you may be taller but I saw her provocatively bared shoulders first, and later I shall live for years on an island with two smokin’ foxes. So butt out!

With Lance Fuller (Metalunan hardass ‘Brack’, bad cop to Exeter’s good one, with an even loftier forehead), Russell Johnson (‘Dr. Steve Carlson’—don’t overly tax your puny human brain coming up with generic character names), Douglas Spencer (‘The Monitor’, sees all, demands more), Robert Nichols (‘Joe Wilson’, again with the names, as Cal’s assistant who helps him put together the interocitor’s “2,486 parts“), Karl Ludwig Lindt (‘Dr. Adolph Engelborg’,”of Munich“) and Richard Deacon (as a pilot–don’t worry, folks, but the plane is being flown by Richard Deacon).

We know it’s the 50’s because of the atomic bra thoughtfully designed by H. Hughes Support, Inc.

* Aliens in 1955?  The peaceful Boomer year that gave us Davy Crockett, Disneyland and Rock & Roll also saw my parents giving their two daughters a living male toy to coo at & tickle. More frightening, ranked for attendance following This Island Earth were It Came From Beneath The Sea, Revenge Of The Creature, Tarantula, Conquest Of Space, The Quatermass Xperiment, Day The World Ended, The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues, Bride Of The Monster, The Atomic Man and Creature With The Atom Brain.