To study a rogue planet heading for a near-miss with Earth, Prof. Elliot sets up an observatory on the foggy moors of a remote Scottish island, with his pretty daughter and Dr. Mears, a former student with a shady past. Soon after arrival of reporter John Lawrence, a ship from Planet X just happens to land near the observatory. Is the visitor (who actually looks alien) benevolent? What are Mears' real motives for trying to communicate with it? Written by

Plot Synopsis:
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Opening scene shows us an isolated building. Journalist, John Lawrence (Robert Clarke) explains he does not think he will survive the night, but is determined to tell the story of the man from planet X before he dies.

Flashback...............

John Lawrence discusses with an astronomer about the discovery of planet X rushing towards Earth and reports Earth has been bathed in radar waves. The astronomer tells Lawrence about the work of Professor Elliot (Raymond Bond) has been involved on an isolated Scottish Island. The Island was chosen because Prof Elliot worked out this would be the closest point of approach by planet X to Earth

Lawrence travels to the island to interview Elliot about his research and findings regarding the planet. On arriving he is greeted by Enid Elliot (Margaret Field) Who at first he does not recognize, but realizes he'd known since she was a young girl.

The professor and his daughter have taken up residence in a small castle with the professors assistant Dr Mears ( William Schallert) A man we discover has a checkered past, and who might be less than reliable. After settling in and having dinner Lawrence and Enid go for a walk across the moor. While enjoying each others company they discovered a small rocket, which they immediately return to the castle.

Elliot deducts the object is from space, possibly even Planet X. The object is made from some exotic metal that could be extremely useful to Earth. Later that night Enid drives Lawrence to town. On the return journey she blows a tire. Deciding to walk home across the moor, she sees a faint glowing light in the fog. She investigates, discovering a larger version of the object found earlier, she also discovers it has an occupant.Panicked Enid runs back to the castle and tells her father of the discovery.

Excited by the news Elliot convinces his daughter to show him the location. Unseen by the couple, Mears follows them. Arriving at the ship the find no evidence of the alien, a strange beam of light and high pitched sound transfixes the professor rendering him senseless. The professor recovers after a few minutes and explains it felt as if he had lost all self control

Next morning Lawrence returns to the castle and listens to Elliots story. He suggests contacting the police, but Elliot insists on showing him the craft instead. While approaching the spaceship the alien appears with a weapon. While the two men try to communicate with the creature it has some sort of malfunction with its suit and collapses. Lawrence helps the creature then attempts another communication. After many minutes the two men give up in frustration and head back to the castle, the creature for unknown reasons decides to follow.Back at the castle the two men continue their efforts, on the verge of giving up, Meers suggests that maybe using mathematical formulas could work. Requesting to be left alone Meers settles in to spend the night working with the alien

Morning brings news that Prof Elliot is unwell and confined to bed and Lawrence heads to town to get medicine. Meers reports to Elliot that his attempts to communicate with the alien, though it is obvious he has made a break through. With this knowledge Meers realizes the potential power he now wields, but has to control the alien to make full use of the information. To do this he shut the aliens airflow off till the alien agrees to his demands

Unsure that Meers is telling the truth, Enid goes to check on the alien. Later when Lawrence returns from the town he looks for Enid, only to discover both she and the alien are missing. Lawrence equally concerned about Meers agrees to go with him to the ship to see if either Enid or the alien are there. Arriving they see the area is abandoned. Lawrence goes back to town to rally support in case the creature attacks. Meers remains to keep the ship under surveillance.

Lawrence encounters Constable Tommy (Roy Eagle) who is himself looking for the professor. There are a number people from the village missing and the constable wants to know whats going on. Lawrence explains all he knows the officer and townsfolk that have gathered. The townsfolk are skeptical about the story till the police officer confirms the real reason the professor is in the town. Lawrence goes back to the castle to check on Elliot, but is attacked by two men, now under the control of the alien. Lawrence figures out the alien is building an army and getting ready to attack the village. He then finds Tommy who tells him the radio and telephones are all out of order and they have no way to contact the outside world until he remembers the heliograph they can use to contact passing ships

During the next night another two villages are abducted and Lawrence discovers the men have been used to move the ship and fortify the aliens position.

Unannounced two strangers appear, Inspector Porter (David Ormont) both from Scotland Yard. It seems Constable Tommys effort to contact a ship succeeded and the message about the alien threat got throughAfter inspecting the site the two Yard officers agree the only way to stop the alien is to call in the army. Porter understands that some of the villagers could be at risk and gives Lawrence two hours to save anybody he can

Lawrence concerned about his chances, writes a final account of events this is the point we were at when the flashback began.

Finished he heads out over the moors to see what he can do

Approaching the ship he first finds Prof Eliot and tries to communicate. He discovers Elliot in the same zombie like state he was when they first found the ship. Playing a hunch he leads Elliot away from the influence of the ship, then tells him to walk straight and he will find safety. Next he locate Meers who refuses to leave and still believes the alien can give him untold power

Meers also explains the aliens intent. Apparently Planet X is a dying world and the aliens are planning to relocate, enslaving Earth with their special rays. Leaving Meers to his own devices, Lawrence works his way around the camp successfully rescuing the other enslaved villages. All he needs now is to find Enid and he can leave

The alien emerges from the ship sensing something is wrong. Lawrence ambushes him and breaks his breathing equipment, immobilizing the invader. Lawrence then enters the ship and saves Enid. Moments later the two hours are up and the army open fires with rocket launches. Meers realizing the danger tries to help the alien before a shell lands close by and destroys the ship Meers and the alien

Overhead Planet X is seen sweeping across the sky before changing course and heading back to deep space

Enid and Lawrence discuss the situation the next morning, there is clear romantic overtones however their thoughts are tempered by the fact the world can never know what happened on the island

Role credits

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humble-2 from Los Angeles, ca
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Just saw this at the Edgar G. Ulmer retrospective at the American Cinematheque. I wasn't expecting much, but found it entertaining, well-paced and beautifully photographed. Robert Clarke discussed this 6-day, $41,000 curio after the screening. Seems this was the first film EVER to deal with aliens making contact with the Earth. It broke the house record at Oakland's Fox Theatre. If you can allow for the cheap sets, this one is worth a look. Ulmer's camera work, including numerous tracking shots, are superbly done. Also, the whole film was shot on the set for Ingrid Bergman's "Joan of Arc."

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clearwrite from US
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One of the five sci-fi's I remember every single detail of from my earliest days as a fan. For the genre, I think it's considerably above average. The moor is nicely atmospheric. There's one of every character in the book: the good guy, the bad guy, the local sheriff, the lovely damsel, her father the old professor, etc. The scene where we're looking for the first time through the window of the ship and the visitor peeks out from the other side is easily as good as the three-fingered-hand-on-the-shoulder in War of the Worlds. Nice "character" to the visitor, for whom, like Karloff's Frankenstein, we end up feeling some empathy .

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walt whizzer (audiohead78@yahoo.com) from Georgia, USA
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A shoestring budgetter directed by Edgar Ulmer. One of the first (if not the first) alien invasion films. The little alien, a child-like being with a big, solemn face, is known to Scottish villagers as 'the bogey' and strikes mortal terror into their hearts with his HypnoRay, a laserlike beam which reduces them to easily programmable zomboids. His motives are unclear throughout the film until a hypnoidal Dr. Mears 'spills the beans' near its end. Strong points: eerie atmosphere, production design; moody 'film noir' photography, engaging music score and interesting story. Weak points: muddled script(more plotholes than a Stephen King cemetry); stilted dialogue and wooden acting. Recommended only for diehard 1950s sci-fi fans(like myself)- this film is both a joy and a disappointment.

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march9hare from sparks nv
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a diminuative alien arrives on Earth in what looks for all the world like an oversized Christmas tree ornament and terrorizes a sleepy little Scottish town. Ultimately, both he and his spaceship are destroyed just as Planet X whisks by the Earth. This early fifties sci-fi effort was rushed into production to capitalize on Howard Hawks' "The Thing", and looks it. How rushed? Would you believe a six day shooting schedule? Six days; that's all Mid-Century Films could afford with a budget of less than $60,000. Shot on sets leased from the Hal Roach Studios (most were originally used in the film "Joan of Arc") and with less-than-convincing backdrops, this film somehow manages to capture a moody atmosphere that's perfect for the genre. Add to this an eerie score, and you can just overlook the genuinely hilarious alien. Everything about this creature screams "CHEAP!!!", from the obvious duct tape around the mouthpiece to the control valve on his backpack that looks like it was stolen from Alice Kramden's sink. What optical effects there are are nicely rendered by Jack Glass, and most of the performances are okay, especially that of Roy Engel, who plays Constable Tommy with an accent that would make James Doohan envious. Margaret Field plays Enid, Professor Eliot's daughter and the (we guess) love interest for Robert Clarke, the American reporter. We used the modifier "we guess" because there's no chemistry between the two, despite Clarke's repeated - and obvious - advances. A good deal of the dialogue is pretty strained, as well. Example: Prof. Eliot says to the two: "Let us concentrate on this remarkable object" and:"Ssshh! The scale is delicate; it responds to a breath upon it." Does anybody talk like this? Nobody we know. In spite of all this, plus the fact that the terror is somewhat forced and just why the alien's spaceship comes equipped with a hypnotic ray is never explained, believe it or not, "The Man from Planet X" isn't really a bad film, just a cheap one, and Robert Schallert fans can add a star. Try it; believe us, you COULD do worse!

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whrichards from Oxford, England
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Having caught this film quite by accident, i felt gripped not only its innate cheesiness but also several little gems of direction and production design. If you can get past the stereotypes (doddery professor, beautiful daughter, brash American newsman), and the awful accents (isn't that policeman Irish, rather than Scottish?!) The Man From Planet X is a very watchable b-movie. The alien reminded me of the last days of the Spirit comic strip and the lonely croft amongst the billowing fog was a very stark image. Add to this the beautifully sleek (although wholly impractical) spaceship, typically 50s in design, some great chiarascuro cinematography (the alley abduction scene), plus that low-pitched camera outside the dungeon, and you've got a very technically engaging movie.

Never mind that the plot's got more holes than a string vest (where did all those soldiers come from?) and the acting and script are as wooden as a Scots pine dresser, enjoy it on a technical level if you can't engage with the human drama. As with many films of this ilk, the denoument was a bit hurried but all in all, this watches as well as (or dare i say, better than) any episode of Dr Who - with which it shares many similarities.

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BaronBl00d (baronbl00d@aol.com) from NC
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An elderly scientist has discovered that a new planet has somehow changed its orbital path and will soon come dangerously close to the Earth. An American reporter goes to the northern most reaches of Scotland to meet with this professor in hopes that he can tell the world of his findings. Upon arrival he meets the young, beautiful daughter that he knew previously as a gawky child and a Dr. Mears, a scientist that should have been jailed for some past crimes but somehow was not convicted and was staying at the Professor's castle because of their former relationship as teacher and pupil. It is with this exposition that famed B director Edgar G. Ulmer then sends an alien in a small, weird-looking spaceship to this area for the purpose of scouting out another place for his/its own kind. Well, the story takes some interesting, some obvious steps in terms of fleshing out the story, but when the end result is viewed - one should be impressed with several things. First of all, the budget for this film was incredibly small. Ulmer rented out the old sets from Joan of Arc and then transformed them into the castle and Scottish bogs. They are convincing thanks to his heavy use of fog machines. The fog swirls and floats throughout. His special effects are not that bad either for the budget. The alien created looks surprisingly eerie in the fog as it looks through its glass helmet with those glazed, cold, blank eyes. But Ulmer does more than just create an alien that terrifies a region. Ulmer gives the alien a bit of soul. He ends up being a menace, but a question arises that would he have been that same menace if an evil human being had not been involved in trying to communicate with him. Ulmer leaves the answer to you - and it is a stylish, almost profound thing to do in a film like this. Make no mistake, The Man from Planet X is a B picture all the way, but it is a quality B picture with solid, innovative direction, haunting images, good acting from Robert Clarke as the lead, Margaret Field(Sally Field's mom) as the love-interest/daughter, and good-old William Schallert as the conniving Dr. Mears. My favourite performance though is by Roy Engel as a Scottish policeman. He can chew up some scenery!

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Jay Raskin from Orlando, United States
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If this film had come out in the mid-50's, it could be dismissed as another low-budget, silly outer space invasion movie. However this movie appears to have been the first of such space invasion movies. It opened in March of 1951. Later that year came the openings of "The Thing from Another Planet" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still." Two other 1951 films, "When Worlds Collide" and "Superman and the Mole Men" have some space invader elements, but don't quite qualify for the genre.

The fact that it was shot in six days on a budget of $43,000 makes it more amazing. Compare that to "The Thing From Another World" ($1.6 million) or the "The Day The Earth Stood Still" ($1.2 million). While none of the technical aspects come near those two movies, the movie does have an interesting style and look that foreshadows the 1953 classic "Invaders From Mars" and even has elements from "Invasino of the Body Snatchers".

The movie is a little ambiguous about whether we are dealing with unfriendly (a la "The Thing")or friendly aliens (a la "The Day"). It seems a bit schizophrenic here with an alien that can be scary in one scene and downright adorable in another. Not having any prior such movies to really go by, the writers seem unsure in which direction to go.

Robert Clark is fine in the lead as a newspaper reporter. Margaret Field (Sally Field's mother) is good as the female love interest. William Schallert (Uncle Martin or Papo on "The Patty Duke Show) stands out as a surprisingly creepy scientific assistant.

What really carries the film is Edgar Ulmer's energetic direction. Ulmer ("Black Cat" "Dishonored Lady" and "Detour")always keeps the viewer on their toes, inserting off-beat and unexpected material in nearly every scene.

It is a must for film history buffs and others will find it engagingly silly.

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Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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The reporter John Lawrence (Robert Clarke) visits Dr. Robert Blane (Gilbert Fallman) and learns that his friend, Prof. Elliot (Raymond Bond) has discovered a new planet that is in route toward Earth and has moved to an observatory on the Burry Island to observe from a closer location. John heads to the Scottish island and is welcomed by Prof. Elliot's daughter Enid Elliot (Margaret Field), who is now a beautiful young woman. They go to the observatory to meet Prof. Elliot and John finds Dr. Mears (William Schallert), who is his disaffection. When Enid returns home after driving John to an inn in the town, she has a flat tire and finds a spacecraft landed on the island with a weird alien inside that follows her home. While Prof. Elliot and John want to investigate the reason why the alien landed on Earth, Dr. Mears has second thoughts. What are the true intentions of the extraterrestrial being?

"The Man from Planet X" is a campy and lame sci-fi in black and white, but also a cult for fans (like me) of sci-fi from the 50's. The story of a close encounter with an alien is from the same year of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" that is a classic. The open end, where the true intention of the extraterrestrial being is not disclosed, is excellent. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): Not available on Blu-Ray or DVD

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daytimer59 from Baltimore, Maryland
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The Man from Planet X, as an early 50's space invader movie, isn't among the best of that type and scarcely lives up to the hype it got at the time. It has most of the familiar elements common to sci-fi invader movies of the day: a strange ship landing from another planet (reminds you of a diving bell); a hostile alien (reminds you of a diver); a kindly old scientist; a devious assistant bent on personal gain; an attractive young lady; a handsome reporter; a headstrong police inspector; the usual enslaved villagers and the troops called in near the end to confront the ship. The atmosphere on the foggy Scottish moors masks the poor set quality. The alien communicates through musical sounds, an idea that was used much later in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Overall, the movie is murky, uneventful and predictable. Despite its mediocrity, it is important from a historical perspective, as it was among the initial entries to the sci-fi wave to follow.

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lemon_magic from Wavy Wheat, Nebraska
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I saw this film with a couple of friends of mine who are SF buffs, working their way (chronologically) through the history of films with SF and fantasy elements. It was a pleasant surprise to see something this good from Ulmer, since my previous experience with him was a snoozer called "The Amazing Transparent Man".

Among its strong points were nice moody lighting, some very nice camera work and cinematography, some snappy acting from the lead actor (Clark) and the scientist and the bad guy (much better than a film with this kind of budget can usually hope for) and some nice use of design and well crafted effects to overcome a tiny budget. I was especially impressed by the fact that the opening scenes, where the hero and the professor have to wade though a ton of exposition, are still pretty engaging and interesting. The alien is a nice example of "less" being more - the huge head, the sketched-in features, the glass bubble helmet and the diminutive body all make for a striking image that goes a long way toward helping the viewer get into the film. So why only a "6"? (Well, it's a "strong" 6). Well, the screen play kind of loses steam right after the plot point where the alien disappears from the castle , apparently taking the heroine with him.

After a nice tight piece of ensemble acting with the five principals (if you count the alien), suddenly the movie is filled with a bunch of villager and extras argy-bargying around in bad Scottish accents, and the hero KNOWs where the alien is (back in his ship) and he KNOWS where the girl is (with the alien), but the hero just sort of sits and watches the crashed alien craft without taking any action. He talks a lot about the situation with the local sheriff. This goes on for way too long. There's also a sub plot about villagers being abducted which isn't quite convincing. And then via deus ex machina, Scotland Yard shows up and takes things in hand, and while things improve after that, the momentum and interest generated by the first half are never quite regained.

But the wind up isn't all that bad, even if it is somewhat abrupt.

I wouldn't recommend "Man" for anyone who isn't a big fan of old time SF films, but anyone who loves them will find a lot to enjoy in spite of the problems.

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AKAs Titles:


Certifications:
Australia:G / Sweden:15 / UK:A / UK:PG (DVD) / USA:Approved (PCA #15073)