(1956) 

Distributor : Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Director : Fred M. Wilcox
Wring credits : Alan J. Adler, Irving Block, Cyril Hume,
William Shakespeare (play, "The Tempest")
Producer : Nicholas Nayfack

Cast :

Walter Pidgeon ................. Dr. Edward Morbius
Anne Francis ................. Altaira Morbius
Leslie Nielsen ................. Commander John J. Adams
Warren Stevens ................. Doc Ostrow
Jack Kelly ................. Lt. Jerry Farman
Richard Anderson ................. Chief Quinn
Earl Holliman ................. Cookie
George Wallace ................. Bosun
Bob Dix ................. Grey
Jimmy Thompson ................. Youngerford
James Drury ................. Joe Strong
Harry Harvey Jr. ................. Randall
Roger McGee ................. Lindstrom
Peter Miller ................. Moran
Morgan Jones (II) ................. Nichols
Richard Grant ................. Silvers
etc ...

 

The reasons for Forbidden Planet’s success are much the same ones that made 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Star Wars (1977) the undisputed sf classics of their respective generations - and that is the unbridled sense of wonder that each offers. What can be seen in each of these films is how much they stand head and shoulders above their contemporaries in terms of the mind-stretching distance of the places they are able to take audiences up and away from the here and now. Forbidden Planet is maybe one of the purest cinematic injections of the much abused term ‘sense of wonder’. It seems almost entirely designed to keep producing things that totally dwarf humanity and its achievements - we are shown colossal caverns of power grids descending all the way to the center of the planet with giant Van der Graaf accelerators sliding up and down them like elevators; there is a gauge that registers energy output on geometric scale of increase and at the climax we see every single one of these flashing; there is a Krell brain boosting device where a genius-level human only registers as an idiot child on the Krell level. Few films devote so much in the way of special effects just to establishing background. This comes filled with its beautiful shots of multiple moons in purple skies or of the saucer passing across an eclipse of the sun. They are scenes that have a beauty that goes beyond the merely functional carrying of the plot. Certainly while one might debate about whether it is the best, it is certainly the most gorgeously produced of all 1950s sf films Earth interplanetary cruiser C57D goes to the planet Altair IV to check on a research team. They are warned from orbit to leave, but instead choose to land. They meet the Earth archaeologist Dr Edward Morbius and his beautiful daughter Altaira, the only survivors of the expedition. Morbius shows them the marvels of the Krell, the race that once inhabited the planet - colossal energy wells stretching to the planet’s core and a mind-boosting device that has enabled him to understand their devices and build an all-purpose robot as his servant. Altaira, who has never met another man, proves temptation too hard to resist for the crewmen who try to educate her what a kiss is. But then at night an invisible energy field enters the ship, destroying equipment and killing men. The crewmen realize it is a monster from the Krell’s ids - that they tried to suppress their base desires but the suppressed emotions used their devices to take energy form and killed them off. And now Morbius's subconscious, angry at the attentions of the Earthmen on his daughter, has created his own id monster to destroy them.