Planet Outlaws (1953) User Reviews

God Bless America!

[zeppo-2 · 3/10 · 19 July 2005]

Final words from this edited version of the 1939 serial, as the added on narrator warns the viewers of the threat of evil dictators. In this case the one in the film is Killer Kane but was obviously a thinly veiled allusion to Hitler when the serial was originally made.

The whole film is a grim allegory to the Nazi regime, right down to the mindless slave labour of Killer Kane's 'Robot Battalion,' fitted with a mind controlling helmet, they work till they die. A terrible reminder of the Nazi death camps.

Re-edited and released again in 1953, with an introduction and voice-over to explain the plot, it now returns as a warning against the then perceived 'Red Menace' of Starlin's Russia.

The editing is choppy at best but does get rid of a lot of the padding and recapping of the plot that make the old serials rather slow and boring to watch for today's modern audience. What we're left with is mainly the action which is somewhat simple by today's standards but was probably exciting at the time it was made.

The whole film is as corny as a box of Kellogs and with Buster Crabbe in the lead role, this is really a Flash Gordon story in all but name. Playing Buck Rogers who finds himself suspended in time and reawakened in the 25th century, Crabbe's easy going charm helps carry things along. As he quickly acclimatizes to his new environment and leads Earth's forces against the named 'Planet Outlaws' led by the aforementioned, Killer Kane.

It's strange viewing this from today's perspective, as in this future world there are no computers, mobile phones or even radar! The spaceship pilots have to look out the windows to see what's happening. Plus it seems the ships of the future only have one seat in them and everybody else stands. It all seems very primitive when compared to today's mega-budget special effects films but that's been rather unfair.

This is more something to watch as a reminder of how it used to be and seen like that, it's quite enjoyable. Just don't expect too much!

Interesting yet dreadful at the same time...

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 26 April 2010]

This film is a condensed version of the 1939 serial starring Larry 'Buster' Crabbe as 'Buck Rogers'. I assume that when television came along, studios often edited down the serials into a movie-length version for viewing at home. I know they did that with one of Bela Lugosi's serials, "The Phantom Creeps". Unfortunately, this is NOT a super-successful idea, as the resulting film seems a bit choppy and episodic. Plus, by 1953, the special effects and stories of Buck Rogers seemed incredibly dated! In fact, you just have to see how incredibly awful the space ships are--they're so bad they are tough to describe in mere words--and you might find yourself laughing at it!

As for the story, in many ways it's just "Flash Gordon" (also a Crabbe serial) all over again but with a few changes in the plot. Here with Buck Rogers, he arrives in the future instead of the present day like Flash Gordon. It seems that Rogers and his sidekick were in a dirigible accident and got frozen--and just happened to successfully unfreeze 500 years in the future. Oddly, despite having no idea about this ultra-modern world, Rogers magically could out-fly and out-do everyone of the 25th century!! What a guy! Once he's no longer in Popsicle form, he joins the resistance--a group trying to overthrow the gangsters running the planet. So, for help, Rogers and his pal try appealing to the residents of Saturn--and this backfires so badly, the Saturnians offer the gangster boss (Killer Kane) their help! Oooops! Will Buck manage to fix things or will his 'help' result in the complete obliteration of the opposition?! Tune in and see for yourself.

Overall, the film is incredibly dated and manages to both be interesting as a curiosity AND dreadful and boring at the same time. I think the longer you watch it, the more dreadful it becomes, so in hindsight I think it might be good that they did distill the serial after all. A curiosity and interesting for some, but amazingly hard viewing otherwise.

Has anyone actually watched this movie?

[harlow28 · 5/10 · 13 August 2010]

Have watched many times and also the serial it came from... Love the old science fiction movies... Especially in black and white... Yet I wonder if any one has really watched this oldie... Every time I have seen it, one thing keeps bugging me about the character of Buck Rogers... Here on the IMDb site for "Planet Outlaws" the military rank of Buck is Colonel... Yet every single time I have seen this movie I distinctly hear Buck Rogers being referred to as Lieutenant ( excuse the spelling )... Not once in the movie have I ever heard Buck being referred to as Colonel Buck Rogers... Probably not the best review posted to this site but it is my first and thought I would put this to you all... I give it 5 out of 10... cheers

Nearly Three Hours Of Footage Is Missing!

[StuOz · 9 February 2020]

Very edited down version of the famed 1939 Buck Rogers serial.

This lasts 71 minutes and the original Buck Rogers serial lasted nearly four hours! That might be all good and well to those who just want a brief blast (sorry) of the original Buck Rogers but watching "Planet Outlaws" is no way to judge the full complete serial (which is now available for all to see in a fine print).

For starters, the original serial concludes with Buck and his young "Boy Wonder-type" pal Buddy having an amusing light hearted little chat with each other - this is gone from "Planet Outlaws"!

This serial is an important part of screen science fiction history. Granted, it is not as grand as Metropolis or Things To Come (1936) but it is more fun than them. I struggle to think of a pre-1939 space production that has this sense of fun. It is more fun and better made than Flash Gordon (1936).

Flash Gordon (1936) has a studiobound feel while Buck Rogers (1939) has outstanding location filming at Red Rock Canyon. Flash walks around in short pants while Buck has long pants. Other things make Buck a better serial as well.

Okay, some might think I am building up this serial too much. After all it is a show with fireworks blowing out of the back of spaceships, but who cares - it was 1939 after all! 1939 might have been the year of Gone With The Wind to most serious film fans - but give me the FUN of Buck Rogers any day!

Not a Star Trek world

[bkoganbing · 3/10 · 14 December 2011]

Someone at Universal Studios got the bright idea to edit out all the cliffhanger chapter endings and re-release an old Buck Rogers serial as a feature film in 1953. The advances in science have rendered it laughable in those Cold War years, now the film is high camp.

The original serial had the notion that a 20th century dirigible pilot and junior sidekick Buster Crabbe and Jackie Moran crash near the North Pole and their bodies are cryogenically frozen and thawed out by those who found them 500 years later which is about the same time that the Starship Enterprise was doing its thing. But this is not a Star Trek world that they've come back to. Although in the original Star Trek series in one of the comic episodes a humanoid people did take on the gangster culture from 20th century earth.

In this film because we did not deal with the Al Capones and Lucky Lucianos back in the day as we should have, they're on top now and the boss of all bosses is a guy named Killer Kane played by Anthony Warde. Fortunately Crabbe and Moran fall into the hands of the Resistance who have holed up in a Hidden City. There are some other humans on Saturn and most of the film is devoted to making an alliance with them.

Science Fiction as a film form does have a half life. Jules Verne, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov can write about the wonders of the future, but you can read it and use your imagination and a hundred, a thousand years from now it will adjust depending on how far humans advance. But once it's on film it stays.

The Buck Rogers films are pretty laughable and campy for today, but I wonder what Gene Roddenberry's vision will look like a hundred years from now, just how much will he have gotten right?

Tacked on is a prologue and epilogue of narration where a Cold War era message is hammered home. That too is a relic of the times.

It's Too Bad Neither This Nor The Original Is Very Good

[Chance2000esl · 3/10 · 22 September 2008]

This is one of four feature version attempts made from the serial 'Buck Rogers' (1939). This one, released in 1953, in addition to condensing the story down to a trim 69 minutes, has an added prologue and epilogue filmed that year. The prologue narrator suggests that as the submarine, airplane and atomic bomb were written about years before they actually became a reality, so too will the existence of flying saucers be proved in the near future. What a non sequiter! He makes reference to the science-fiction writer (it was Cleve Cartmill) who was investigated by the FBI which thought that he had used classified information to write about the A-bomb years before it was created.

Supposedly, this is the prologue to the story of Killer Kane and his quest to rule the Earth. Cut to the condensed archival footage of the 'Buck Rogers' serial, with Buster Crabbe, Jackie Moran, Constance Moore, Anthony Warde and C. Montague Shaw. Not much derives from the original story or comic strip-- Buck (Buster Crabbe) and Buddy (Jackie Moran) go into suspended animation and wake up 500 years in the future, where they meet Lt. Wilma Deering (Constance Moore). That's it. Very quickly they take sides with Dr. Huer (C. Montague Shaw) and 'The Hidden City' in its war against the tyrant Killer Kane (Anthony Warde). For some reason, in order to win the war they need to form an alliance with the government of Saturn, so our trio of heroes wind up going there three times. The alliance is made; they storm Kane's city, and he is turned into a mindless robot. The continuity is pretty good in condensing the story, but as a result, in several scenes we see things going on in the background that are never explained since so much from too many chapters has been skipped.

Travel to the far future was a common trope in science fiction from H. G. Wells on, and the emphasis was usually on the contrast or differences between our time and that of the future. Here, in Buck's new 25th Century, we get anti gravity belts (from the original story), terrestrial spaceships that double as interstellar ones, a high speed tunnel car, a mind control device, and a funny triangular space gun. The best part for me was the great art deco sets of Killer Kane's city.

Killer Kane just doesn't make it as an evil tyrant, since about all he does is stand around berating his council members for their incompetence, except when he tries to put the Robot Battalion coffee pot on Buck Rogers (deleted from the feature versions). I had this same reaction when I watched the entire serial. Anthony Warde didn't have a menacing enough tone of voice, but had more of a high pitched yell. He was better in other serials where he was not the lead villain. The 1953 epilogue narrator warns us of the rise of any future Killer Kane (an obvious reference to Joseph Stalin of Russia), and facing the camera says, "God bless America!"

We get a lot of music from Max Steiner's great score for 'The Bride of Frankenstein' (1935), Buster Crabbe's winning personality and cheerful take charge attitude, and the great deco and recycled 'Flash Gordon' sets. It's too bad that neither this nor the original serial is very good. Unfortunately this squeezed down version moves so quickly and does so little that I can only give it a 3.

Buck Rogers Conquers Communism in the 25th Century

[wes-connors · 4/10 · 7 April 2010]

After a 1938 airship mishap, our handsome hero and his young pal are buried in an avalanche; but, they employ an experimental gas to put themselves safely in suspended animation. "When Buck Rogers (Buster Crabbe) and his sidekick Buddy (Jackie Moran) are aroused from centuries of cryogenic sleep, they are enlisted by Wilma Deering (Constance Moore) to save the world from the grasp of a tyrannical gangster named 'Killer Kane'. They travel to the planet Saturn to get some much needed help for their assignment, and then set out to deal with Kane and his villainous cohorts," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

This re-produced feature-length version of the fondly remembered 12-part serial "Buck Rogers" (1939) must have held up well for 1950s Saturday matinée and television audiences, due to its futuristic plot and imaginatively recycled sets. Apparently, the original chapters were edited down, with (brief) new work done on the opening and closing segments. "The planet Saturn" isn't as peculiar a setting as it might seem, if you consider they may be referring to "Saturn's planet Titan." No comment on the suggestion the place is populated with helpful Asians. The end brings Buck Rogers into the then popular anti-Communist fold.

**** Planet Outlaws (1953) Ford Beebe ~ Buster Crabbe, Jackie Moran, Constance Moore, Anthony Warde

Clunky Buck Rogers action flick

[Red-Barracuda · 3/10 · 10 June 2013]

Planet Outlaws was a science fiction movie that was cobbled together from material taken from a 1930's Buck Rogers serial. This was no doubt done because in the post-Atomic bomb Cold War years of the 50's science fiction was really popular. In fact, the film-makers have presented the story as an allegory against the evils of communism, with a dictator whose minions are turned into unthinking servile robots! But whatever the underlying message, this is an old-style action movie where the good guys are really good and the bad guys are complete rotters. There is no ambiguity at play here that's for sure.

The film begins with a brief sequence to set the scene - a hot air balloon piloted by Buck Rogers and his buddy crashes and is buried in snow in the North Pole; they go into suspended animation and are awoke 500 years in the future where they immediately align themselves in a conflict between decent folks and a criminal overlord called Killer Kane.

This would very possibly have seemed like quite an old fashioned film even in the early 50's. It was after all culled from material from a 30's serial. But they have tried to make it as relevant to the times as they could, however, editing a serial down to a 70 minute movie does present some problems. The result is a somewhat frantic movie with lots of big events dealt with very briefly; we have, for example, three trips to and from Saturn as opposed to one proper one. Buster Crabbe stars in the lead role and I suppose he has an uncomplicated clunky charm, if a little dull; his nemesis Killer Kane is not a very interesting villain either. It's unquestionably a very silly film indeed with some amusingly daft spaceships and costumes but it does have some decent sets and some quite impressive model work for the cityscapes. The incessant soundtrack in the background does become a little wearing though, as does the film overall to be honest. As all of these types of movies are, this one does have a time capsule appeal but it's excessive clunkiness makes it a little too tedious, despite the constant action.

"If all of Saturn is like this, you can have it."

[classicsoncall · 3/10 · 1 May 2006]

The 1939 "Buck Rogers" serial clocks in at just about four hours, and though "Planet Outlaws" is just a bit over an hour itself, the repetitious nature of it's programming makes it feel almost as long as the original. I wasn't counting, but how many trips did Buck (Buster Crabbe) and sidekick Buddy (Jackie Moran) actually make between Earth and Saturn?

The film's limited budget really shows through in virtually every scene, and is never more apparent than in the shots of the space ships themselves. Keeping in mind that "King Kong" was made six years earlier in 1933 should give one a good idea of what kind of shoestring this must have been made on. In the story, Buck and Buddy go into suspended animation for a period of five hundred years after their dirigible goes down in an Arctic region in 1938. Amazingly, a record of their original mission still exists, which helps with their credibility once they're discovered.

The villain of the piece is one Killer Kane, attempting to rule the world, the universe and anything else beyond that. As Kane, Anthony Warde doesn't have that larger than life charismatic evil of say, a Darth Vader, or even a Ming the Merciless. What he does have though is the technology to render an entire 'Robot Battalion' of captured enemies to do his bidding. Interestingly, whenever a good guy removes a helmet from one of the slaves, the mind control connection dissolves, even when the helmet is immediately put back on!

Well, I guess it doesn't have to make sense. Buck Rogers was the product of a simpler time, when forays into outer space science fiction was a wide open experiment, along with the relatively new medium of talking pictures. Viewed in that context, the film has a unique perspective to offer if one can refrain from being too critical. Have some fun with this one, space ranger.

Blah-net Outbores

[Bezenby · 3/10 · 7 May 2014]

When they edited this one down from a serial, did they take out all the good bits? I'm all up for an old sci-fi film, but all Planet Outlaws seemed to involve was people flying in and out of secret bases and travelling to Saturn over and over and over again. This film seems to least three times longer than the stated running time.

Buck Rodgers and his borderline catamite sidekick Buddy are frozen in time when Buck lets out a vindaloo fart right at the moment of impact when their plane crashes. Enveloped in a spicy cloud of gas for a thousand years or so, Buck is awoken by the rebels of future planet Earth, who are involved in a conflict with dictator Killer Kane. Buck and young, nubile Buddy join the rebels and are immediately involved in a rush to get to Saturn in order to sign a treaty with those Saturn guys to join them against Killer Kane. However, Kane's men beat them to it and man does this film involve a whole lot of nothing.

That's really the plot: the rebels flying about trying to avoid Kane's ships, everyone trying to get to Saturn to sign some damn treaty or other, and people sneaking onto each other ships, Buck being shot down etc etc. There's some gumpf about people being turned into mindless robots and to be honest the only good part was the hilarious narrator who frames the film.

Did Buster Crabbe ever do anything good? This film is pants. Nabonga wasn't too good either, and the Alien Dead was awful.

Lackluster compilation

[Billiam-4 · 4/10 · 18 December 2021]

A feature film made as a compilation out of portions from the Buck Rogers sci-fi serial loses much of the original's dramatic structure and makes the ramshackle special effects appear even sillier.

A charm of its own

[hms66 · 6/10 · 12 January 2006]

The old movies, and especially the old serials, had a naive charm of their own. Starting with the characters, there was no ambiguity here. Bad guys did bad deeds and only bad deeds. Good guys did good deeds and only good deeds. This characterization is very apparent in this movie. Killer Kane is all evil and Buck Rogers is the next thing to a saint.

The futuristic sets and apparatus are a hoot. They would be laughed out of todays science fiction films. Compare with Stars Wars, big difference. The space ships eject sparks more appropriate to fireworks than a rocket engine. Saturn is a rocky planet, not a gas giant. The uniforms are ridiculous. Why bother with pressure suits and space helmets. Computers, what are they? The hero, of course, is indestructible, and so on.

All of this elements, and a few more, make old movies the charmers that they are.

Nostalgic and exciting, yet simple

[marshalskrieg · 4/10 · 7 July 2015]

OK, this one often is listed as being from 1953, but this is not exactly correct- it is an edited version of the 1939 serial.Keeping this in mind, it still seems a bit dated by 1939 standards (the costumes, and the (in)famous electric razor sounds emanating from the rocket-ships). On the plus side, we see that the original 1939 audience got exposed to television, lasers,interplanetary spaceflight, and robots. Re-releasing this in edited form in 1953 could have been part of forming the space pioneer mind-set among American youth that eventually propelled the US to the Moon in 1969, so we can thank Buck Rogers for some of the inspiration.

The pace is good, the action keeps coming, but the plot and directorial execution is very simple. This was made primarily for children and early teens, so things never get too complex here. Not really the best of the Buck Rogers material that's out there. This is mainly for die-hard fans of the principal character and fans of Buster Crabbe.

Tales Of Futures Past...

[azathothpwiggins · 3 August 2021]

Buck Rogers (Buster Crabbe) takes off in his airship in 1938, only to be flung into the future year of 2500! Now, Buck and his trusty cohort, Buddy (Jackie Moran) must assist mankind in the battle against eeevil uber-criminal, Killer Kane (Anthony Warde) and his army of bucket-headed human robots!

Absolutely absurd, yet tons of fun to watch, PLANET OUTLAWS is the 1950's feature length, condensed version of the original serial from the 1930's.

Contains wobbly, acrobatic aerial dogfights, big-big ray guns, "advanced" solid state / analog technology, gravity belts, life on Saturn, amazing hats, lots of capes, and dubious underground fortresses.

Sit back and enjoy the irony of an ancient film about the still-distant future...

Edited Buck

[BandSAboutMovies · 4/10 · 11 November 2023]

Planet Outlaws is the edited Buck Rogers serial from 1938. It was edited again to feature length and titled Destination Saturn as it was syndicated to television,. It was edited again into in the late 70s and called Buck Rogers with the theatrical poster advertising, "Star Wars owes it all to Buck Rogers."

Lieutenant Buck Rogers (Buster Crabbe, who was also Flash Gordon) and Buddy Wade (Jackie Moran) are lost somewhere in the North Pole in 1938. The Nirvano Gas they have in their ship causes them to go to sleep for five hundred years, waking up in 2440.

The future has been taken over by Killer Kane (Anthony Warde) and his army. The only people left to fight him are Dr. Huer (C. Montague Shaw), Wilma Deering (Constance Moore) and Air Marshal Kragg (William Gould). Buck and Buddy join up and head to Saturn to fight against the super crime bosses of the future.

This serial reuses a lot of things, such as the vehicles, a set and costumes from Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars, background music from The Bride of Frankenstein, the theme from Tim Tyler's Luck and background shots from Just Imagine,

Forty years later, Buster Crabbe made a cameo appearance as Brigadier Gordon on the Buck Rogers TV series episode "Planet of the Slave Girls." Gordon tells Buck (Gil Gerard), "I've been doing this since before you were born." When Buck, at 533-years-old, asks "You think so?"

Buck Rogers 1939 Serial Re-edited Into A Feature Film

[Rainey-Dawn · 3/10 · 18 January 2017]

It's just over an hour long, watchable and kinda fun. Is it good? Yes and No, it depends on how much you like Buck Rogers and silly "B" Sci-Fi flicks. It's a classic example of older, fun "B" Sci-Fi that fans of the genre might enjoy. It is not what you call a good movie just silly fun.

This was originally a 1939 Buck Rogers Serial. In 1953, it was re-edited and put together to create this short feature film. I have not seen the original serial, so I'm unsure just how much was cut out for this movie but I'm sure it was all the unnecessary extra stuff.

Buck Rogers fans the film should delight, Sci-Fi fans might enjoy it while others might want to pass on this one.

3.5/10

Cutting a classic serial down by 67%.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 10 January 2016]

There's always a way to pull a buck out of the movie going public, and for those young boys who hadn't been around when the original Buck Rogers had come out, getting to see it probably on a Saturday afternoon was a thrill, especially if they went with their father who had seen each of the chapter plays as a kid.

I have never seen the full serial and really don't have the time amongst my movie research to see all four hours of it, so this greatly edited version of it will do just fine. For a serial made more than 75 years ago, it holds up very well, with Buster Crabbe handsome and heroic as Buck. A survivor of a trapped dirigible, he wakes up from being frozen centuries later, he must catch up on modern (or futuristic) technology and shows he's got what it takes to remain a hero many moons later.

I'd like to think that young people today could enjoy this for its imagination, but they have been greatly spoiled by the noisy sound effects and computer generated animation of today. Constance Moore is a fine female lead with Jackie Moran as Crabbe's equally heroic sidekick and Anthony Warde a wonderfully nefarious villain. A lot of the back story seems to be missing, as is Manu of the thrills of the original, but the choice bits have remained, making this simple and to the point.

Not bad low-budget sci-fi fun from the 1930's--I simply wish I was watching the entire, original and unedited serial instead!

[talisencrw · 6/10 · 16 April 2016]

Let me say right off the bat that at least for me, there were two things working in this film's favour even before I started it (as 2 nifty percent of my infamous Mill Creek 50-pack, 'Nightmare Worlds'): a) I love the old-time serials, a part a week at the theatres, each with a cliffhanger ending; and b) I'm a fan of Buster Crabbe, from seeing him previously both as Tarzan and in a Flash Gordon serial. Directors Beebe and Goodkind were masters at the format, and this is no exception (although since it's from the 30's, and with B-movie budgetary restrictions at that, I readily dismiss all negative comments from people complaining that for the 1950's, it's really crappy filmmaking--it's NOT from the 50's, but simply edited then into a feature-length film the company could then sell, most probably to television stations).

I enjoyed it, though I wish that instead of seeing this, I was watching the unedited, undiluted full serial that was originally made. I have read that the best and most exciting parts were edited out.

20 years before i came to earth, but pretty cool

[professorjeffreypbrown · 7/10 · 11 September 2020]

My dad told me about Buck Rodgers, so in honor of him, I watched it. RIP The large scale sets were actually pretty well done. You can tell a lot of work went into their design and writing of the script. The acting was solid. Most of all I loved the sputtering ships, gravity belts, and space jargon. Very campy and fun, and for the time, it must have been pretty cool action for the audience. And with Buck Rodgers and his side kick, i see where Batman got his Robin. Cool beans