Sixties City - Science Fiction Films of the 60s

	The Day Of The Triffids From the book by John Wyndham Philip Yordan Steve Sekely Howard Keel, Nicole Maurey, Kieron Moore, Janette Scott, Mervyn Johns, Alexander Knox The world awakes the morning after an unusual meteoritic display to find that most of the population have been blinded. Bad enough….then along come the lethal plants! Oh, what a beautiful morning….			The Nutty Professor Jerry Lewis Enterprises / Paramount Pictures Jerry Lewis Jerry Lewis, Stella Stevens, Del Moore, Kathleen Freeman, Les Brown, Howard Morris, Elvia Allman, Med Flory, Norman Alden, Julie Parrish, Milton Frome, Buddy Lester, Marvin Kaplan, David Landfield, Skip Ward A goofy college professor invents a potion that turns him into the coolest guy on campus, but the effect never lasts for long. Comedy version of Jekyll and Hyde.
	The Yesterday Machine Carter Film Productions Russ Marker Tim Holt, James Britton, Jack Herman, Sandra De Mar, Ann Pellegrino, Bill Thurman By inventing a time machine, a Nazi scientist enables himself to go back and change the history of events in World War II.			The Mind Benders Anglo-Amalgamated / Novus Basil Dearden Dirk Bogarde, Mary Ure, John Clements, Michael Bryant A scientist subjects himself to an experiment which deprives him of all sensation. It turns him into a sadist, and remains incurable despite the best efforts of his colleagues.
	Battle Beyond The Sun (Mechte Navstrechu) Filmgroup New scenes directed by Thomas Colchart (aka Francis Ford Coppola) Edd Perry, Arla Powell, Andy Stewart, Bruce Hunter This film is a reworked version of the 1960 Russian film 'Niebo Zowiet' which featured the U.S.A. and Russia in a race to be the first to land on Mars. Much of the film is made up of the original footage, new scenes being inserted in place of the anti-capitalist American propaganda heavily featured in the original film. Roger Corman assumed the executive production credit for this film as he was to do again later in two other films remade from the footage of 1962's 'Planeta Bur'. You Tube trailer			Samson In The Wax Museum (Santo En El Museo De Cera) Filmadora Panamerica Alfonso Corona Blake Santo, Claudio Brook, Ruben Rojo, Norma Mora, Roxana Bellini, Fernando Oses, Jose Luis Jimenez, Jorge Mondragon, Conception Martinez The silver-masked wrestler is back, this time confronting the Frankenstein monster in a wax works which is actually a front for the secret laboratory of the mad Dr. Karol and his evil genetic experiments. Santo rescues a woman journalist who has been kidnapped and turns the doctor's strange monstrous creations against him.
	The Birds Universal Pictures / Alfred J. Hitchcock Productions Alfred Hitchcock Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette, Ethel Griffies, Veronica Cartwright, Charles McGraw, Ruth Mc Devitt A Hitchcock classic that needs little or no introduction, dealing with a mass of orchestrated, unexplained attacks by all varieties of birds on the defenceless population of Bodega Bay. More a 'super-nature' film than sci-fi but it proved to be the forerunner to a whole sub-genre of 'nature's revenge' films to come later and were more pure science fiction.			A Dream Come True (Mechte Navstrechu) (Encounters In Space) Odessa Studios Mikhail Karzhukov / Otar Koberidze Larissa Gordeichik, Otar Koberidze, Boris Borisenko, N. Timofeev, P. Shmakov, A. Genesin, N. Volkov, T. Pockena, L. Chinidzhanei, S. Krupnik A follow-up production to Planeta Bur. The inhabitants of the planet Centurius receive transmissions of music from Earth and send a spaceship to investigate. The ship somehow gets diverted to Mars...
	Omicron Lux / Ultra / Vides Ugo Gregoretti Renato Salvatori, Rosemary Dexter, Gaetano Quartaro, Mara Carisi, Ida Serasini, Calisto Calisti A comedy sci-fi in which an alien creature called an Omicron takes over the corpse of an Italian worker and is able to operate machines at superhuman speed. The latent consciousness of the human eventually persuades the alien entity to return to Venus.			The Mouse On The Moon A sequel to 'The Mouse That Roared' (1959) United Artists / Walter Shenson Richard Lester Margaret Rutherford, Ron Moody, Bernard Cribbins, David Kossof, Terry-Thomas, Michael Crawford Comedy film where the population of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick find that their home-brewed hooch just happens to make superb rocket fuel.
	No Survivors Please (Der Chef Wuenscht Keine Zeugen) (Chief Wants No Survivors) Hans Albin Films Hans Albin / Peter Berneis Maria Perschy, Uwe Friedrichsen, Robert Cunningham, Karen Blanguernon, Gustavo Rojo, Ted Turner, Stefan Schabel, Burr Jerger, Wolfgang Zilzer, Dirk Hansen Alien invaders take over the bodies of world leaders in order to create a world war which they hope will kill off all life on Earth leaving it available for their race, which comes from a planet in the Orion constellation, to inhabit. Basically a West German rip-off of 'Invasion of The Body Snatchers'.			Scotland Yard Hunts Dr. Mabuse (Scotland Yard Jagt Dr. Mabuse) CCC-Film Paul May (Ostrmayer) Peter Van Eyck, Werner Peters, Sabine Bethmann, Dieter Borsche, Walter Rilla, Klaus Kinski, Agnes Windeck, Hans Nielsen, Ruth Wilbert As you will recall, if you have been reading these in order, we left the mind of the dead Dr. Mabuse controlling the director of the asylum in which he was imprisoned. The director has a machine that allows him to hypnotise anybody and bend them to his will. The forces of law and order, in the form of Scotland Yard, must try to stop him. You Tube
	Steps To The Moon (Pasi Spre Luna) Bucuresti Film Ion Popescu-Gopo Radu Beligan, Grigori Vasiliu-Birlic, Emil Botta, George Demetru, Ovidiu Teodorescu, Irina Petrescu A short comedic children's film which features a man dreaming of meeting all sorts of people and mythological figures connected with the history of space travel while waiting to board a ship to the moon. There has been a delay in take-off caused by a power failure. Unknown to him the entire spaceport was thrown into darkness when he plugged in his electric razor.			The Man With X-Ray Eyes AIP Roger Corman Ray Milland, Diana Van Der Vlis, Harold J. Stone, John Hoyt, Don Rickles, John Dierkes A doctor discovers a serum which allows him to see first, through his patients clothes (sounds O.K. - get me some!) and later, as the effect grows, to see inside their bodies and identify their problems. Unfortunately, the power increases uncontrollably, eventually driving him to suicide. Oh well - back to the trick spectacles…
	Automania 2000 Halas and Batchelor John Halas Narrated by Ed Bishop, who also starred in the television series U.F.O. A 9-minute, satirical, animated futuristic scifi fantasy having a pop at America's car culture. An anonymous scientist creates cars that are able to reproduce themselves and people live in high-rise stacks made of the same vehicles.			Son Of Flubber A sequel to 'The Absent-Minded Professor' (1961) Walt Disney Robert Stevenson Fred MacMurray, Nancy Olson, Keenan Wynn, Tommy Kirk, Ed Wynn, Charlie Ruggles This time, the wacky inventor produces a rain-making machine that defies all attempts to get it to work properly.
	Unearthly Stranger Independent Artists John Krish John Neville, Gabriella Licudi, Philip Stone, Jean Marsh, Patrick Newell, Warren Mitchell The wife of one of a group of scientists working on a time / space project is discovered to be an alien who is trying to steal their secrets.			The Slime People Joseph F. Robertson Productions Robert Hutton Robert Hutton, Les Tremayne, Robert Burton, Susan Hart, William Boyce, Judee Morton, John Close, Edward Finch Abrams, Tracy J. Putnam, Jock Putnam, Blair Robertson, Joseph F.Robertson Lizard people surround Los Angeles with a wall of mist and start hunting down the trapped humans.
	The Pier (La Jetee) Argos Films Chris Marker Jean Negroni, Helene Chatelain, Davos Hanich, Jacques Ledoux, Jacques Branchu, Philbert von Lifchitz, Pierre Joffroy, Etienne Becker, Ligia Borowczyk, Janine Klein, William Klein, Germano Faccetti, Andre Heinrich Short film - 28mins. In the ruins of post-nuclear war earth survivors research into time travel in the hope of finding a solution to their terminal problems. The man chosen to go back in time has memories of being a witness to a murder during his childhood which leads to a paradoxical ending.			The Haunted Palace Based on H.P.Lovecraft's 'Case Of Charles Dexter Ward' AIP / Alta Vista Roger Corman Vincent Price, Lon Chaney Jr, Debra Paget, Frank Maxwell, Leo Gordon, Elisha Cook Jr A man inherits an old family house and increasingly falls under the influence of an ancestor's portrait which hangs above the fireplace. In a curious mixture of genres, there happens to be a hideous green alien living in his cellar which has plans to impregnate Earth females and create a new race, starting with his wife.
	The Invisible Terror (Der Unsichtbare) Aero Film / UCC Raphael Nussbaum Ellen Schwiers, Hans von Borsody, Christiane Nielsen, Charles Regnier, Ilse Steppat, Heinrich Gretler, Ema Damia, Harry Fuss, Herbert Stass, Hannes Schmidhauser, Erwin Strahl, Egon Peschka, Bert Klaus, Raoul Retzer, Herbert Fux Originally a West German film reworked for U.S. release. Do you really need me to tell you… oh alright… a master criminal steals an invisibility formula invented by a scientist and uses its effect to pull off bigger and better crimes.			Madmen Of Mandoras (They Saved Hitler's Brain) Sans-S David Bradley Walter Stocker, Audrey Caire, Carlos Rivas, John Holland, Bill Freed, Marshall Reed, Scott Peters, Keith Dahle, Dani Lynn, Nestor Paiva, Pedro Regas, Chuck Beston, Hap Holmwood, Dick McHale, Jerry Riggio On the island of Mandoras the Nazis still survive and carry out the orders of Hitler's still-living head. A scientist is kidnapped to help them improve its condition. He is eventually tracked down by his daughter. Golfers will know how hard it is to get out of a bunker......
	The Crawling Hand (Don't Cry Wolf) (The Creeping Hand) (Tomorrow You Die) Hansen Enterprises / Joseph F.Robertson Productions Herbert L.Strock Kent Taylor, Peter Breck, Rod Lauren, Sirry Steffen, Arline Judge, Alan Hale Jr., Beverly Lunsford A space capsule explodes in orbit. In the wreckage that lands on Earth, a teenager finds the arm of an astronaut which returns to life to strangle people. Be fair, there aren't many career opportunities for a severed arm!			Voyage To The End Of The Universe (Ikarie XB-1) Filmove Studio Barandov Jindrich Polak Radovan Lukavsky, Zdenek Steparek, Frantisek Smolik, Otto Lackovic, Irena Kacirkova The adventures of a 25th century expedition to Alpha Centaurus including the discovery, en route, of a derelict 20th century ship filled with skeletons and live nuclear weapons. They are threatened by a mysterious dark star.
	Children Of The Damned One of the sequels to 'Village of the Damned' (1960) MGM Anton Leader Ian Hendry, Alan Badell, Barbara Ferris, Alfred Burke, Sheela Allen, Clive Powell This is 'Village Of The Damned' sequel expanded to an international level. Six children, of various nationalities, who are possessed with a strange intelligence and strong telepathic powers are brought to London by UNESCO. They turn out to be alien invaders.