zardoz-13 Review of The Cosmic Man

The Cosmic Man (1959)

Another "Day The Earth Stood Still" Sci-Fi Clone

[3/10 · 10 November 2010]

The marginal but interesting sci-fi saga about a large white cue ball shaped spacecraft that comes to Earth and hovers in place without the slightest sign of movement is another "The Day the Earth Stood Still" clone with a wholly predictable plot about an alien being who is intent on thwarting mankind's nuclear impulses. John Carradine appears occasionally without a costume as the sinister being. He runs around looking like a negative image and then masquerades as an old timer in a hat, big coat, and large spectacles. The military send a notable scientist (Bruce Bennett of "Treasure of the Sierra Madre") to conduct tests of the giant cue ball. Eventually, the cosmic man appears before Pentagon generals and gives them a lecture about mankind's predisposition to kill itself and perhaps harm others in the vast universe. Just to show that the cosmic man is not without sentiment, he heals a little boy who cannot walk. Totally forgettable epic was only one of the two movies that director Herbert S. Greene helmed. The other was "Outlaw Queen." This mediocre, black & white, Allied Artists release clocks in at a trim 72 minutes and most of the footage with the giant cue ball spacecraft was lensed on location in Bronson Canyon where "The Robot Monster" was shot. Nobody dies in this earnest little movie that was a product of the Cold War.