The 27th Day (1957)

Five seemingly random individuals find themselves mysteriously on board an alien craft. The alien gives each person three capsules. Each capsule is capable of wiping out vast sections of the Earth's population, but will not harm anything else. The five are sent back to their homes with their powerful weapons and told that they have 27 days in which to either use their devices to destroy humanity or find a way to live in peace. If they should chose to wipe-out the Earth's population, the aliens will take over the world. If not, the aliens will move on and look for another home. Each of the five is left with a horrible dilemma – how to handle this kind of power?I was going to get into detail on a whole political thing about some of the deeper aspects of The 27th Day, but I've since thought better of it. I usually write about the entertainment value of a film and what I liked and didn't like. I tend to leave the deep thinking for people who are much smarter than me. All I say on the subject is I would hate to see anyone allotted this kind of power given the current state of affairs in the world where words are considered a form of violence. I'd hate to see what someone would do with these capsules just because they felt slighted, etc. The ending of the films is especially troubling. So the people in the film discover how to use their devices to kill only those they consider evil because they do not support freedom? How do you decide who is in favor of freedom and what is your definition of evil? Were all those communists you wiped out really evil? Or were some of them living under a regime they did not agree with? Just a silly, illogical, nonsensical way to end the film. On to other things. So, was The 27th Day an entertaining film? Reading through some of the comments on IMDb, I know it has its fans, but I'm not really one of them. The film is well made, it has a reasonably interesting premise, and it features rock solid acting. But, unfortunately, it is all pretty much a bore. I found most of the movie as dry as dust. I had to fight with myself to stay awake. The relatively short 75 minute runtime just seemed to drag on and on forever. People talking and talking and talking with nothing much happening. Not what I call entertainment. And then there's that ending I've already discussed. What a mess. My one sentence summary: The 27th Day is a well-made film that suffers from a deathly dull script and an ending I find especially troubling. An unfortunate 4/10 from me.

Pretty typical of golden age sci fi, in that we get a basic story that follows an isolated group of characters.As you probably know by now, 5 individuals from different nations are each given a flask of "power", which only they can open. It rings much like an old Twilight Zone episode in the imagination of the story.The power is very devastating. If they use the power, the aliens claim they will invade. All five are very reasonable and sane in their viewpoints of this power, and the task which would have been easy is made much harder when the aliens hijack all the communications on Earth and announce not only that they have done this, but the names and locations of the five people.Aside from one insane military leader, the characters are all very three dimensional, so among dozens of sane characters, the one insane one is not difficult to believe.The landmark scene involves one humanitarian scientist who volunteers to become a guinea pig. The "not so landmark" scene is the climax, which is a major letdown, even for the year this was made. Amid all the imagination and credibility of the characters, the "solving of the puzzle" scene looks ill placed. The rest of the film is very interesting.

Interesting little movie, a product of the times and rather short at 1h 15m. This is simply an American propaganda movie of the 1950s. Leading man Gene Barry does a workman like job as the conscience of the few chosen to carry the weapons of mass destruction. The rest of the cast provide sufficient background decoration including the always interesting Stefan Schnabel in an early role looking very Stalin like as megalomaniac leader of the USSR. With a face like that, he was made to play the Soviet heavy. Odd casting decisions here and there - leading lady Valerie French is OK to look at but she sounds bizarrely and comically like Princess Diana. I was surprised to see she was actually British as it sounded like she'd been badly voice coached. Clearly some budget problems beset this movie with quite large chunks set inside a stable/tack room at a California race track. Having set themselves a time line involving 27 days (e.g. 27th Day of the title), they had to fill the story up somehow and try and introduce a mechanism for creating romance between the leading man and woman. Worth watching as a movie of the times and as a bit of social history, but I think other movies like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" do a more entertaining (if tacky) job of providing allegories of good versus evil and democracy versus dictatorships common in movies of the Cold War.

Great film! An excellent example of good SF that doesn't focus on special effects and a very engaging story that keeps you glued to the end, not only is it good SF, it's good film making. Even though it's 50 years old I found it to be a new take on the tired alien abduction/invasion "We Are Not Alone" storyline. Even with the 100 million dollar budgets of today's SF films they can't make a story as compelling as this one.I don't recall having seen this before TCM ran it on New Year's day 2007 (and I suspect most of the other voters saw it then as well) but it should take its place next to comparable films such as On the Beach, The Day the Earth Caught Fire, When Worlds Collide, The Magnetic Monster (another lost gem) and Day the Earth Stood Still.