Journey to the Seventh Planet (1962)

BACKGROUND: According to Producer/Director Sidney Pink's book "So You Want To Make Movies". Sid's plot for JOURNEY TO THE SEVENTH PLANET evolved from his idea of a powerful being that could utilize it's brain at full capacity. He then chose to set this alien mental giant on one of the least known planets in our solar system, Uranus. In Sid's own words: "A completely developed brain that is the last vestige of a super society could well have existed on such a planet. The brain's ability to sustain itself in the heated bowels of the planet's core was also within the realm of possibility."This film was shot in Denmark, and it was Sid's second directorial effort that came on the heels of REPTILICUS. The budget was a minuscule $75,000 and the Danish studio was so small that the scene of the Uranian, ice crystal forest was confined to a 32' X 18' set space.According to Sid, the director's cut contained an original, electronic, musical score by Danish composer Axel, and special effects (stop motion animation) by a non-mainstream artist, Bent Barfod. For better or for worse, AIP heavily re-edited this film and we are only left with intriguing stills of the original monsters.Apparently, the musical score and special effects were too avant-garde for the taste of Sam Arkoff. Sid Pink stated that Arkoff and AIP didn't understand or appreciate the exotic look and sound of his film. As a result AIP deleted the unconventional looking effects and the exotic music, and substituted a more familiar American look and feel to the picture. Ignoring Sid's protests, AIP inserted new effects sequences (stock effect scenes from earlier AIP features and one original scene of a stop motion animated monster by Jim Danforth) and replaced most of the music score with "canned music".Without reviewing the original footage themselves, many critics have simply parroted the AIP argument that the original effects were terrible and had to be replaced. More likely, AIP simply didn't want a novel, foreign looking film to scare away conservative American patrons.THE PLOT: In the year 2001, a UN spaceship with five astronauts is sent to investigate strange radioactive emissions that have originated from Uranus (the seventh planet of our solar system). The crew consists of Eric the Commander (Carl Ottosen), Capt. Don Graham (John Agar), Karl (Peter Monch), Barry O'Sullivan (Ove Sprogoe), and Svend (Louis Miehe-Renard).While in orbit above Uranus, a swirling golden light paralyzes the he crew in mid-motion. A malevolent voice intones "Come,, that I may learn and judge... I shall drain your minds and possess you". This alien mind probe would have passed unnoticed by the crew except that a fresh apple from what seemed like a moment ago has shriveled up and decayed. Although the commander knows that the inexplicable blackout that they experienced might have lasted for days, he orders an immediate landing on the planet's surface.As their ship sets down on the landing zone, the frozen landscape ripples and transforms into a lush vegetated area. When the crew disembarks, they are dumbfounded to find themselves in an earthlike forest. Even more strange is that the forest seems virtually identical to the one near Svend's home. Closer examination reveals that the trees and shrubs are rootless.Buildings and beautiful women materialize to further distract and confuse the men. Later, a force field is discovered around the outer border of the forest,. In order to discover who or what is manipulated their minds and manufacturing people and places of their dreams and desires, the commander realizes that they must penetrate the force field and seek out the source of the pulsing radiation.When they pass through the force field, the true surface of Uranus is finally revealed. This is a bizarre world of ice crystal forests with razor sharp edges, pits of frozen ammonia (quick snow), and strange swirling gases. The hostile entity that they seek is located deep in a cavern that is warmed by geothermal gases. Can the astronauts survive the attacks of monsters that are dredged up from their darkest nightmares and still manage to defeat the alien before they fall under it's total control?WHAT WORKS: Set design & costumes: The control room of the spaceship Explorer 12 is nice and roomy with an upper deck and elevator. Plenty of gauges on the wall, well labeled air lock controls, and a large multi-colored panel made the ship interior interesting and attractive.The forest set contained a dense under story and was unusually well detailed with flowers, and fruiting trees. The force field is discovered under a thick mat of moss.The ice crystal forest set was a remarkable Bava-esque design of stark expressionist "trees" , swirling mists, and various colored lighting. The alien's cave displayed more of stylistic sensibility of design.The table-top, miniature set of the landing site was extremely well done. The rippling transition between frozen landscape to forest and back again are some of the best effects scenes.The jumpsuit styled uniforms sported a distinctive blue and white UN space agency logo and appeared realistic for an interplanetary flight. The space suits where electric blue with striking yellow belts, boot inlays, and helmets. The suits gave the impression that they were made of some kind of advanced material that was lightweight but well insulated against the cold.Music: Ib Glindemann's lush instrumental score over the opening sequences can pleasantly linger in the mind well after the film is over. Capeheart and Tableporter's lounge music over the final credits help maintain the dreamy feel of the film through the last frame. Although AIP replaced the original electronic score with stock musical cues (largely from "The Day the World Ended") from Ronald Stein, it worked prettywell for this film.The colorful, impressionistic title sequences of the spaceship passing by Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn were created by Bent Barfod and are quite lovely to behold. Once again, the overall dreamlike quality of the film is strongly enhanced by these sequences.John Agar: Despite chasing everything in a skirt, John Agar's character loosened things up and his charm helped spark the film. John delivers the film's best line to crewmate Barry: "Paradise Uranus, complete with rats, several Eves, and even your apples".Ann Smyrner: Smyrner was a striking nordic beauty who possessed both talent and intelligence. She made Ingrid an unforgettable character who was by far the most real and independent creation on the planet.Primary Concept: The concept of an entity that can fully utilize it's brain at full capacity with nearly unlimited mental power has seldom been explored in cinema. In this case, the powerful alien brain doesn't merely create illusion, but is able to transform matter into other forms.Obviously, the astronauts are not breathing illusionary oxygen in the manufactured forest, nor do they build an imaginary acetylene torch (the alien does replace the torch that was fabricated in the blacksmith shop with an illusionary one though).One has to wonder if Mr. Pink's script that was copyrighted in 1960 was somewhat borrowed by Gene Roddenberry's Talosians in "The Cage" (mind probes, illusions of pleasure and pain) and "Savage Curtain" (earthlike zone on an inhospitable planet with past characters brought to life).WHAT DOESN'T WORK: Dubbing: The dubbing of the foreign cast members speaking phonetically is delivered in a most stilted fashion. This problem is a serious detraction.Greta Thyssen: Apparently, Greta plays herself here. That means we have a prima donna scene stealer who thinks she is a "star". Sid Pink commented on how Greta was something of special effect herself. Her sex pot attributes were largely phony. Sid stated that "she was intentionally almost bald under the wig, allowing her to pull up her cheeks and creating those sexy almond eyes. Her boobs were mostly cotton and her fabulous rear was built into her costume.Worst line of film: After walking though a woods with luxuriant plant growth, Don says "Has anyone seen anything alive?" Hello Don, plants are alive.FINAL WORD: For some reason, this film often gets short shift from the critics who dismiss it too hastily. Perhaps, this is largely due to some bad mouthing from Ib Melchoir (who's screenplay was heavily revised by Sid Pink) as well as the AIP business decision to Americanize the non-mainstream special effects.Through the combination of some surprisingly imaginative sets, the sublime use of color and music , the concept of though control and illusion, as well as some early- sixties cheese, make JOURNEY TO THE SEVENTH PLANET a fun and compelling film to view. Unlike many of the more technical cut and dry science fiction films out there, this one can seep into the viewer's subconscious and lodge itself into a kind of alpha dream state.

An international team of astronauts is dispatched to the planet Uranus. It seems that the U.N. has been receiving radiation signals from the seventh planet, so these brave men have the task of exploring and determining the cause of this signal. They land to find a strange environment where an all-powerful alien intelligence has the power to turn the thoughts of man into reality. Fortunately, since these men often have women on the brain, a succession of beautiful babes materialize, to entice and confuse them.This could have and should have been more fun. Alas, it's not that enjoyable, because even if one approaches it as a "so bad it's good" schlock production, it doesn't work that well because it's basically too dull. Sidney W. Pink (who also wrote the screenplay with the famed writer Ib Melchior) isn't much of a director, because he brings no energy and a fatally slow pace to these proceedings. The women, including Greta Thyssen...as Greta...and Ann Smyrner as Ingrid, provide some appreciable eye candy, but the acting from most everybody concerned is atrocious. Starring actor John Agar, playing Captain Don Graham, has some fun playing a cheerfully sleazy guy, but his talents alone can't spark much life into this movie.At the very least, "Journey to the Seventh Planet" can boast what are reasonably amusing visuals given the obvious cheapness of the production, and a priceless one eyed rat monster, which sadly isn't on screen for very long. The evil alien antagonist is likewise a hoot. Also, this has a rather lengthy (and innovative) closing credits sequence for a movie of this age, accompanied by a silly theme song.If you're a dedicated sci-fi junkie, you might want to give this one a look, but you're advised to go in not expecting very much.The pronunciation of the name Uranus here is funny; whether or not the filmmakers wanted their audience to keep from snickering is uncertain, but this approach backfires.Five out of 10.

If you don't know by now, this science fiction adventure is one of the original "mind benders", an outer space flick in which aliens use mind control.And against this kind of mind control, what can one do? If a character is powerful enough to warp your sense of Reality, then how can you truly fight it? We get a full throttle effect by showing a full length movie in which the outcome is really decided immediately, only no one knows it.The super formidable enemy, the one you must rely solely on God's graces, or luck, to beat, is the one who controls all you perceive and conceive, the one whose control over what you see, hear, sense, is completely contrived by this foe.We go through a series of adventures, and the characters seem totally out of control, but that's because they have no idea what Reality is any more. They go through total Chaos.And the ending, which I won't spoil, leaves the audience in total Chaos, but also explains that indeed, there is nothing to be done but rely on luck if your perceptions are out of your control.Overlooked film. It actually is better than many of the later ripoff versions which tried to be too contrived in modernism, by that I mean that the later films wanted to establish that SOME humans were superior enough to overcome this obstacle, which is flat out silly. If you have no direction and no vector, you are totally helpless to change your situation. This film goes under the old school of Credibility premise instead of the 1970s contrived "Man is God" premise.

For some reason by 2001 humankind has skipped over the 7th planet for whatever and a UN expedition is now exploring Uranus. You can see immediately why Journey To The Seventh Planet was not entitled Journey To Uranus. Now that I've gotten that out my system.The most distinguishing characteristic of Uranus is that instead of spinning on its axis in orbit around the it rolls instead. The five visible moons of Uranus look like a giant pinwheel in space.Well better films than this have failed to predict the correct future, 2001 - A Space Odyssey immediately comes to mind. When the expedition gets to Uranus instead of the methane atmosphere, subzero freeze that are on Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune the other gas giants, they find an Elysian field like existence with some of the most curvaceous women you'll ever see on screen.Of course this is all an illusion and what's driving it is a giant brain which can convert just about anything to anything and it reads the minds of the expedition. What a sex obsessed bunch this was, especially John Agar.The giant brain is looking for transportation to earth with a population it can enslave. Will the men of the expedition figure it all out and stop the brain? That's what you watch the film for.Journey To The Seventh Planet is one of those films you put your brain on hold and just enjoy. But if it were made today and you hope humankind would have a more diverse future expedition say for 2080, if you had gay people on the trip as astronauts what interesting fantasies the brain might pick up.