The Cosmic Man (1959)

With that booming voice pulling its strings to get your attention, you have no real choice, and it's obvious that he's going to command your attention no matter how bad the film. Coming down to earth in a bubble not unlike Glinda the Good's in "The Wizard of Oz", he is as far from over the rainbow as a visitor from elsewhere can be. Wearing a long overcoat, huge hat and over-sized lensed glasses, it's apparent that he's on earth for a mission that the military guarding this huge ball does not want to hear. Speaking calmly but with great commanding presence, it's obvious what he's there for. After all, we've seen this plot line in dozens of science fiction B movies since the early 1950's, and one more attempt won't hurtWatchable and fun, it's somewhat talky and dull whenever Carradine is not on screen. Former athlete turned character actor Bruce Bennett is the other fairly known actor in the film, playing the man in charge, and unsure how to deal with Carradine's presence. Angela Greene plays the mother of a young boy who befriends Carradine, while Paul Langton is the military leader who finds himself at odds with doctor Bennett over how to deal with the unearthly visitor. It's apparent that once again, earthlings have no hospitality towards other worldly beings, and that could eventually mean our planet's doom.

"The Cosmic Man" is a charming attempt to make a $5.00 version of "The Day the Earth Stood Still". It's an extremely low-budgeted Sci-Fi movie from the late fifties, so this generally means there are stern scientists talking a lot of pseudo-philosophical gibberish and asking themselves way too many rhetorical questions, villainous looking military men fantasizing about weapons of mass destruction and mysterious alien forces with minds that are immeasurably superior to ours. When a spherical UFO – a gigantic golf ball actually – is discovered in a small Californian canyon community, the army wants to nuke it and a local scientist wants to study it. Meanwhile, the alien passenger sneaks out of his interstellar golf ball and begins exploring the earthly habits, rites and inhabitants. This is where our cute and cheap little B-movie rips off "The Day the Earth Stood Still", in fact, as the alien witnesses the imbecility and self-destructive nature of the human race. How come aliens get such a kick out of observing how stupid we are? Like in a few hundred of the films he starred in, John Carradine receives top-billing even though he appears all together perhaps for a whole five minutes. "The Cosmic Man" is often rather dull and doesn't contain any real action, but it certainly has good intentions and an earnest supportive cast.

Others have said, "The Cosmic Man" draws heavily on the ideas, characters presented on "The day Earth Stood Still", and I agree with them.But, it is still a decent low-budget movie. It is well-intentioned and one can feel that a honest effort was put into making it. Special effects are at a minimum. The Cosmic Man's spaceship is nothing more than a white sphere with a somewhat irregular surface. There are no blinking lights, no rubber-suited monsters. The Comic Man is one of these movies to be watched on a rainy Saturday night when there is nothing else to do. In this type of circumstance, "The Cosmic man" can be a good time-filler. Watch and enjoy for what it is.

For once Maltin has reviewed something correctly: The Cosmic Man is a sad Day the Earth Stood Still rip-off. We have the alien representative who disguises himself as a human and befriends an intelligent, open minded scientist and a single mother and her child, we have the closed minded military men who want to capture and question the alien to gain his knowledge, and we have the "fantastic" special effects. Only the acting, fx, and dialogue don't quite measure up to The Day the Earth Stood Still. A key example of this is the kid in this: apparently being a child wasn't enough, but instead they had to make him a cripple to heighten the messianic qualities of the alien. I say watch "The Day the Earth Stood Still" instead, and all you'll miss is a standard Carradine performance.