50's sci-fi b-movie cliches

[AndyC]

Mustn't forget that atomic power works much like electricity, only it's more powerful. You can store it, transmit it, use it to soup up things like radar. The energy comes straight from the reactor, with no need to make steam or drive turbines.

Radioactivity, meanwhile, has an assortment of abilities, from reanimating the dead to giving people special powers. Usually, it just makes things really big, or sometimes really small.

[Gerry]

Ed wrote:

> Don't forget the boxy, slow-moving robot that is strangely
> terrifying to everyone in the movie.  

You mean this one?

[Ed, Ego and Superego]

Perfect!  
-Ed

[Squeakmiester 3000]

Good point, that mysterious power of radioactivity was used even in good pictures, like night of the living dead (i was thinking that Plan 9 had it, then i remmembered it was long distance electrodes fired into the brain. Dispite the non-existance of long distance electrodes, and the fact that were there any long-distance electrodes, you would most likely only be able to fire them into the brain by loading them into a rifle, and shooting someone with them, it makes more sense than radiation).

On the note of the robot, that is an AMAZING robot! Epitomizes 50's movie robots better than torg himself! What movie is it from?



Post Edited (08-16-05 20:01)

[Zapranoth]

1.   Male heroes may wear no shirt, or failing that, may wear a white tanktop that can become artfully soiled and ripped.  (My wife's, that one.)

2.   Decisive and educated women will scream uncontrollably at the sight of aliens and become useless for the duration.

3.   There are no decisive and educated women.

4.   Aliens, when slain, will disgorge large quantities of reddish gelatin all over the floor, particularly if they died by a blow to the head.

5.   Giant things always move in s l o w  m o t i o n.

[2xSlick]

A good movie for the "old scientist has a hot daughter" would be "Them!"
Also has the radiation mutation (nice ring) thrown in as well as the Brig General who fights the monsters in the sewers(!).
Also, the scientist's daughter has no problem with wearing a dress (and possible heels) in the desert.
You might be able to say that the scientist was fairly inteligent with his prediction with the little info they had. Although, if I found a crushed corpse full of formic acid and vasts quantities of sugar stolen from a train car, I would have a hunch at least cow ants were involved.

[Dr. Whom]

Not only giant things move in slow motion. Any monster that looks like a guy in a really heavy rubber suit moves at an excruciatingly slow pace. Remember the witch doctor in From Hell It Came walking away from the monster - backwards! Elaborate plot devices are needed to have the monster actually catch something.

The army has contingency plans for alien invasion. Apparently if the alarm is given, preferably by a small boy or the daughter of a professor and a lab assistant, an armoured division can be mobilised withing hours.

Most importantly, any mutated thing that comes out of the Arizona desert is impervious to a 3030 cartridge. Stands to reason really,  otherwise you'd have a very short movie.

- Ensalada mista, baby!-

[Gerry]

Squeakmiester 3000 wrote:

> On the note of the robot, that is an AMAZING robot! Epitomizes
> 50's movie robots better than torg himself! What movie is it
> from?

TARGET EARTH (1954) from producer Herman (I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF) Cohen.

Trailer, posters, stills, interview here:  <http://www.hermancohen.com/targetearth/index.html> (yet another shameless self promotion).  The trailer is a classic of 50s schlock BTW (as is the entire movie).

[Just Plain Horse]

1. All monsters move slower than an old lady in the checkout line, yet people stand stock still in TERROR! (screaming is optional, depending upon the oral fixation of the director)

2. Anything radioactive= future plotpoint (even a radioactive dollar bill can mutate into a monster capable of destroying Chicago!)

3. Scientists are either brainy jocks or scene-chewing madmen often played by some german guy with a moustache.

4. Women are a higher species of animal incapable of rational thought and are best relegated to menial labor. Are also deviod of the "fight or flight" reflex common in most lower animal species...

5. All monsters are horny (and implicitly male, yet they never engage in homosexual behaviours, despite that this would obviously be easier than risking certain death by trying to mate with a human female)

6. Act with lethal force first and seek to understand afterwards is the general rule of thumb (Suddenly, Jesus realized there was absolutely no other alternative...)

7. Cigarettes are the greatest harbinger of health and well-being known to mankind.

Lesser known rules:

Screaming can be used to convey complex messages in a fraction of the time and over amazing distances in unlikely situations- even if there are louder noises present that would seemingly hinder such communication possible.

Insects are evil incarnate (Ironically, spiders are arachnids, and are therefore neutral)

All aliens speak English, which has managed to penetrate the universe further than any ultraviolet ray.

Space travel is easier to achieve than self-awareness- probably even easier than getting a pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less...

The Nazi's, despite their ever-shrinking ranks and provisions, had plenty of resources available to delve into every avenue of alchemy, black magic, pseudoscience, propoganda and method of cheating death that could be conceivably explored during the last days of the Third Reich. (They should have worked harder on the concept of long-range missles and less on keeping Hitler's brain alive)

[Squeakmiester 3000]

Thanks for the extra sci-fi cliches, and I'll try to see target earth. Before i started this project, i used to not really like 50's sci-fi, and greatl;y prefered 80's post-apocalyptic or dystopian movies. Now, however, they have grown on me.

By the way, i recently saw the cars that eat people. I am less able to enjoy anything now.

[AndyC]

We must also remember the standard features available on spacecraft of the 50s. This, of course, refers to spacecraft of the future, when we're all travelling among the stars - around 1975 or so.

- A single-stage, reusable design. Lands tail-first.

- A door at ground level, putting the control room where the engine should be.

- A control room that is large and rectangular, in spite of the ship's small, cylindrical shape.

- No room for fuel.

- Enough fuel for a round trip to another planet.

- Glassware and bottles of chemicals sitting loose on shelves.

- Ashtrays.

- A rear-view screen that shows the Earth receding behind the ship, but otherwise isn't used much.

- An analog clock.

- Several floors on the ship, with ladders between, oriented so that 'up' is toward the nose (which must be comfortable during takeoff).

- Lots of blinking lights and pipes and pressure gauges, analog meters and buttons and crap that nobody even looks at.

- No bathroom.

A few of the later models (90s ships of the 60s) also come equipped with a shape-shifting feature, allowing them to turn into a Redstone or a Saturn 1B while taking off and landing. You might recall that those models landed by sucking flames into their engines as they backed out of the sky.



Post Edited (08-18-05 12:49)

[2xSlick]

Nice, Andy. I would also like to add a coffee maker and swivel office chairs on the list of things found on a space ship

[Dr. Whom]

During Project Orion, essentially a space ship propelled by nuclear bombs, they were actually planning to build a ship more or less like in the movies. It would have been huge and constructed with sturdy steel girders. Some scientists even thought of bringing their familiy along on an expedition to Jupiter, just like Lost in Space.

[trekgeezer]

Let's not forget that it has to be like the TARDIS, bigger on the inside than the outside.

It also has to be of sturdy enough construction to survive the mandantory barrage of flaming meteors (never have figured out how the meteors were burning while still in space).

[AndyC]

trek_geezer wrote:
> (never have figured out
> how the meteors were burning while still in space).
>

Or why the smoke and flames were going "up."