Subject: RETROSPECTIVE: FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956)

From: [email-masked] (Andrew Hicks)
Date: 19 Jun 1996 21:08:48 GMT

FORBIDDEN PLANET
                       A film review by Andrew Hicks
                Copyright 1996 Andrew Hicks / Fatboy Productions

(1956) 1/2 (out of four)

	Among the ranks of 50's science-fiction movies, 
FORBIDDEN PLANET is considered to be one of the best, which 
makes me more determined than ever to stay away from the other 
ones. You can tell from the first minute what quality entertainment 
the movie holds, as a giant pie-plate flying saucer on a string flies 
by and the narrator tells us that, by the year 2200, space colonization 
will have spread out to other solar systems.

	That's where Captain Adams (Leslie Nielson) and his crew 
come in. They've been sent out to check on a mission that hasn't 
been heard from in twenty years. And when they get to the 
atmosphere of this coincidentally Earth-like planet, a voice on the 
radio warns them to stay away. They don't, of course, landing the 
pie plate to find a giant robot waddling toward them. It's Robbie the 
Robot ("As Himself," the opening credits inform us), who looks like 
a giant jukebox with human legs. "Do you speak English?" Robbie 
asks them. "If not, I speak over 187 languages and their various 
dialects and subtexts." A stone-faced Nielson replies, "Colloquial 
English will do just fine, thank you."

	Robbie leads them to his master, the morbid Dr. Morbius 
(Walter Pidgeon), the only inhabitant of the planet. Or is he? Out 
walks his beautiful daughter, Alta (Anne Francis), who was born 
during the one year timeframe before some mysterious, unseen force 
killed off all the colonists except for Pidgeon, who was "immune." 
Now he and his daughter are living with the robot, who does all the 
housework, can create any substance and has the strength to topple 
a house.

	No, he's not a dangerous monster that's going to terrorize 
the crew (that comes later), he has a "built-in safety device" that 
prevents him from killing people. Morbius demonstrates by asking 
Nielson if he can borrow "that formidable-looking sidearm of yours" 
and ordering Robbie to shoot Nielson with it, an order the robot 
cannot compute. Seems like an amazing piece of machinery, right? 
But, as Morbius tells Nielson and his space crew, "Don't attribute 
feeling to him, gentlemen. Robbie is simply a tool." With no men 
on the island for Alta to chase after, you have to wonder if that 
last phrase has more than one meaning. 

	Don't think me a pervert, because we're given more than 
ample evidence that Alta is sex-starved. When she sees Nielson's 
men, she announces seductively, "You're lovely." And the feeling 
is more than mutual, as the Lieutenant replies, "From over here, the 
view looks like heaven," right in front of her father. (Lucky for him 
Morbius can't order the robot to shoot him with the formidable-
looking sidearm.)

	The subplot involving Alta's naivete involving men and 
the men's innate horniness involving her continues for a while, as 
the bad Lieutenant gets her to kiss him under the pretense that it's 
a healthy Earth custom, after which she says, "There must be 
something seriously the matter with me because I haven't noticed 
the least bit of stimulation," quite an ego blow to the poor 
Lieutenant.

	It's Nielson she has the hots for, which she realizes after he 
chews her out for putting all his men in such a sorry state. "I am in 
command of eighteen competitively-selected, super-perfect physical 
specimens with an average age of 24.6 who have been locked up for 
376 days," he bellows, ordering her to put on something a little less 
revealing. And apparently, it's not just the humans who are drawn 
to Alta. She has the wild animals under her control and even Robbie 
the Robot looks a little flustered after she calls him several times 
before he finally waddles in, apologizing for his tardiness by 
admitting, "I was giving myself an oil job." What a dipstick.

	The movie continues with a predictable revelation -- the 
planet was once inhabited by an advanced race of people who 
perfected advanced technologies but were exterminated by that 
unseen force, which also attacks Nielson and his crew, who shoot 
back a few animated phasers at it. Throughout the movie, the music 
score buzzes with other-worldly music that makes even the cheapest 
Casio keyboards sound symphonic. The special effects are bad even 
for that time and you already know what the dialogue is like. Suffice 
it to say, the acting is just as laughable. Leslie Nielson is almost as 
funny in this serious role as SPY HARD and the NAKED GUN 
movies combined.

	FORBIDDEN PLANET should be forbidden on this planet.

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