Infofreak Review of The Phantom Planet

The Phantom Planet (1961)

Goofy low budget 60s sci fi schlock. Stupid but entertaining.

[10 December 2002]

'The Phantom Planet' is almost your archetypal silly low budget 50s/60s sci fi movie. Set in 1980(!) the story concerns a couple of astronauts on a mission to search for some colleagues who have inexplicably vanished. The team is led by the fearless Captain Chapman (a wooden Dean Fredericks), who soon finds himself a prisoner on "the phantom planet", shrunk to miniature size, and forced to choose between two alien beauties (one of whom is played by 'The Killing's Coleen Gray), while clashing with suspicious planet person Herron (Anthony Dexter, who also appeared in the supremely silly 'Fire Maidens From Venus'), all the while plotting his escape. The acting is poor, the dialogue lame brained, the special effects as inept as you can imagine, all in all great fun if you dig this kind of moronic camp fun (and I do!). The cast also includes veteran Francis X. Bushman who already had a film career spanning fifty years(!!) when he made this, and an uncredited Richard Kiel (best known to most movie goers as "Jaws" in a couple of 1970s Bond films, but also fondly remembered by trash fans for the idiotic horror flick 'Eegah' made shortly after this) as the utterly ludicrous Solonite monster. This may not be the best bad movie I've ever seen, but fans of the genre will have a great time watching it.