I Come in Peace

  

I Come in Peace (aka Dark Angel)
1990
Craig R. Baxley

I just want to say that I Come in Peace is a fantastic title. There is never a real reason for the being in question to say it, but it works as a threat and a punchline and is easily the best thing about this film.

By 1990, our buddy cop action movie technology was very well developed. I Come in Peace serves as an example of just about every trope you’d ever expect to see in this kind of film. A partner getting killed early on? Check. A loose cannon cop who doesn’t play by the rules? Check. A new partner who’s by the book? Check. Top that off with a mild science-fiction element and we have an unoriginal but still entertaining action movie.

Detective Jack Caine (Dolph Lundgren) is a wise talking cop who loses his partner while investigating a local heroin ring. His new partner is a straight arrow Federal agent (Brian Benben). The two find a strange disc weapon at a crime scene. Elsewhere in the city an 8ft tall humanoid (Matthias Hues) is stealing heroin for its own needs while a space cop (Jay Bilas) arrives to take it down. Eventually these various people cross paths in shootout after shootout, in what amounts to a movie you’ve probably seen a dozen times in other forms.

"Excuse me, I have to go take my estrogen."

 

Despite being rote, the movie is still engaging thanks to some great looking action scenes. The aliens are the twist in the formula and to make their focus extraterrestrial drug dealing is a decent twist, but in function there’s really nothing that separates these aliens from human drug dealers in any other movie. It does add in fun weapons and these lumbering giant people making weird faces while talking.

Dolph Lundgren plays a very typical cop character for the era, nothing seems to get to him, the death of his partner and the realization that aliens exist end up happening within hours of each other and he just keeps on wisecracking. This is definitely a holdover from the 1980s, on the other hand, there is an undeniable charm to his performance and it is a fun if paper thin character.  His chemistry with Brian Benben’s Agent Smith is another trope, but it works in that capacity. Both Matthias Tuttle and Jay Bilas put some very idiosyncratic performances as our alien opponents. They are both a mass of weird twitches and expressions. It’s a very simple approach but it works well to communicate that these are not humans merely, but trying to imitate them.

"Dolph, can you get me in an Expendables movie or something?"

 

I Come in Peace is not a great film, it’s derivative and repetitive, but I still found myself enjoying it. Yes it trash, but it’s comfortable trash from the end of particular era of film when something like this would get a theatrical release. If want a far better version of this movie go and watch The Hidden (1987), but if you are up for some silly action, with silly characters and a really carefree attitude, I Come Peace does just fine.
 

Space Master X-7

 

Space Master X-7
1958
Edward Bernds

Space Master X-7 takes a more realistic approach to its science fiction. There are no rubber monsters, flying saucers, or ray guns, instead we get a level of technology that is just slightly above what you would expect from the late 1950s. Space Master X-7 also forgoes the usual professional emotionless scientists and women in distress for far more grounded people who make mistakes and follow their baser desires in spite of their high intelligence. This puts Space Master X-7 next to more science minded films like The Magnetic Monster (1953). This also makes the title a bit of a misnomer as space barely factors into the overall story.

The story shares some similarities to First Man in Space (1961), a space probe to returns the Earth with a mysterious substance that creates a fast-growing rust when it comes in contact with human blood. When the lead scientist’s own infidelity comes back to haunt him, the ‘bloodrust’ is let loose on Earth thanks to a woman unwittingly spreading it as rushes back to Hawaii lest her husband found out about her affair with the scientist.

 

"Why do people keep asking me to slap them?"

  

Space Master X-7 starts like a more typical science-fiction film with lots of technical speak, stock footage and space stuff before it veers into an almost noir like tale of toxic love, finally the film takes a third turn into a procedural as the police and scientists attempt to track down the woman before she inadvertently destroys the world through a contagion that she doesn’t know she’s carrying. I often hear complains about 1950s era SF being plodding and dull, Space Master X-7 manages to keep things moving by constantly switching up its story.

This film can’t overcome the one issue that often plagues SF of this era and that is having memorable characters.  Paul Frees is a delight as Dr. Charles T. Pommer because it’s so rare we get a scientist character who also has a dire personal life filled with selfishness and cheating. He has more dimension than 99% of other 1950s SF characters so of course he’s not too long lived in this film. This leaves our other interesting character and flip side to Dr. Pommer, Lyn Thomas as Laura Greeling. Greeling’s entire motivation is get home before her husband finds out she’s been cheating. I do wish the story had stuck with her more and touched on the impact of her accidentally killing a lot of people, but the story opts for a happier if weaker ending.

 

"They called me mad when I said I could
make a nuclear pot roast."

  

Space Master X-7 is a decent example of a mature science fiction story in an era where rubber suits and spaceships ruled popular culture.  It’s well thought out and keeps things fresh by always having something different to offer as the story unfolds. A good film for those looking for a change of pace.

Oh yeah, Moe Howard shows up in a distracting cameo as a taxi driver. I have no idea why.

The Bamboo Saucer

The Bamboo Saucer
1968
Frank Telford

Flying saucers and the Cold War were staples of genre cinema for decades and hit their height in the 1950s and 1960s. By 1968, with the Vietnam War causing so much strife both in Vietnam and the US, people had become weary of all the pointless death in the name of a proxy war that more and more were publicly turning against. It is interesting how this is reflected in The Bamboo Saucer and that it probably would have been a completely different film if it had been made just a few years earlier.

An Air Force test pilot (John Ericson) is chased by a UFO. After his adventure, not only is there no evidence, but also nobody believes him. His pursuit catches the notice of a secret organization that reveals a similar craft may have landed in China. A small team are air dropped in to the find the UFO. They run into another team of scientists from the USSR and two decide to form a truce to find the craft before the Chinese army finds them.

"It smells like Fritos in here!"

The majority of The Bamboo Saucer plays out like a spy adventure film. We have mysteries, secret organizations, a military that is hiding the truth, and a little glob trotting. Despite this being a low budget film, the adventure does feel big. It does the important work of making the effort to reach the flying saucer feel earned and I think the most interesting part of this is how the USA and USSR backed teams join forces and are shown to be equally heroic when things grow dire.

It was with no small amount of delight for me to watch this cold war spy film turn into a proper science-fiction film with a message of cooperation. The USSR and USA groups are given some nuance when it comes to their views and characters. The Chinese aren’t given quite this deep a look, serving more as the faceless bad guys who push our heroes to work together. It would have added yet another level of nuance and show that all people could benefit from cooperation had they been given more to do. This production had already caught the ire of the US military for not showing it in the most perfect light, which means they were doing something right at least.

"A craft from the planet Ertl."

 

I enjoyed seeing this as a color production, it helps the whole experience feel bigger and more important. The downside of this is that it makes the already dodgy special effects stand out even more. While there is something certainly charming the obvious model effects it does diminish the feeling of large-scale adventure up to that point, but it’s a minor quibble.

The Bamboo Saucer is a minor gem that offers quite a few surprises, especially if you’re used to the tone of cold war films from this era. A fun adventure that has something to say, The Bamboo Saucer is worth taking for a spin.

The Year of the Sex Olympics

 

The Year of the Sex Olympics
1968
Michael Elliott

The Year of the Sex Olympics is a lot of things, comical, absurd, mean spirited, and deeply cynical about the future. It’s primarily notable for a) being written by Nigel Kneale who brought us the Quatermass films as well as Halloween III (1982) and b) predicting much of what would become the reality television landscape. The Year of the Sex Olympics postulates that television as literally the opiate of the masses as in it is a tool to control population. Shows emphasize sex so that the overpopulated proles watch rather than practice. Shows put kings on the end of slapstick comedy to quell revolution. Art and games are automated, requiring no human input.

During the show, 'Sportsex' where couples are given points for having sex, a protestor dies live on camera causing the disinterested audience to suddenly become engaged. The programmers realize that placing people in real life situations with life and death consequences is key to keep the population watching and thereby keeping them from doing anything else, like questioning their world.

Sex Olympics special choking exhibition game.

 
The real predictive part comes in when Nat (Tony Vogel), Deanie (Suzanne Neve), and their daughter become part of a show where they live outside in a small hut. They have to survive on their own with no real technology. To Nat this is a way to escape their dystopia, but the trick is, there is no escape. They are still on a television program and the reality that they think is authentic is being manipulated too. There is no way out of this panopticon. The events take a turn for the vicious here and whatever absurdities we were faced earlier are brought into sharp contrast.

Where The Year of the Sex Olympics is less successful is in its interpretation of future culture. It’s really nothing more than 1960s youth culture stretched out the nth degree. It works as note of satire in the moment but by 50 years later it just feels outdated. Just a few years later, A Clockwork Orange (1971) would create a future youth culture that just unfamiliar enough to feel like it is from another time while still feeling connected to human culture of the time.

"My head is warm, but my torso is freezing."

The future language of these people is simple and sprinkled with slogans that sound like they were taken from commercials. Kneale stated that he saw these future humans as being post spoken language, instead relying on shared memes and visuals. It can be difficult to parse what people are saying early in the story but the overall plot isn’t complicated so it is easy to keep on top of things.

Nigel Kneale was no fan of the youth, and you need only look at this story and the Quatermass Conclusion (1979) to see that in action. The kids aren’t alright, they are lost in their own indulgences and ignorant of the past at best and deliberately amoral and cruel at their worst. Nat bucks the trend of his peers, but he pays dearly for it.

 

I Married a Monster from Outer Space

 

I Married a Monster from Outer Space
1958
Gene Fowler Jr.

I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958) is in many ways archetypal 1950s SF film. Insidious forces from outside are slowly infiltrating a small town by taking the place of the men in town one-by-one. We only have one person who knows what is happening and they struggle to get anyone to understand the danger the world is inr. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) is probably the most well-known film that fall into this category, but there are plenty of others such as, The Brain Eaters (1958), and The Day Mars Invaded Earth (1963) as other examples. I Married of Monster from Outer Space has one notable difference from these films and that is a laser focus on the expectations from social roles as they were defined in the era

"These storms always make my sinuses hurt so badly."

The core of I Married a Monster from Outer Space centers around marriage and having children. We open on a table of men at a bar celebrating/commiserating the upcoming wedding of one of their own. They drunkenly complain about being married and/or not being married. The original intent of this scene is supposed to be humorous but the misery coming off of these men is palpable. They are trapped in a strict social code that demands they get married and produce offspring. To these men it spells the end of freedom. The first lines spoken are by two women at the bar, presumably older unmarried women or sex workers, complaining about the unavailability of these men and hoping that there might be one who will break social norms and go out with them.

Throughout the film there is an undeniable anxiety about pairing up and making babies. The men are at best resigned to it if not outright resistant, the women are terrified that they won’t be married or be able to produce children. The aliens mirror the women in that they are anxious to complete their task and figure out how to have children with human women but for them it is for survival rather than expectation. These characters exist in a universe where procreating is the only significant drive and the passing along of genes is all that is important. Several times in this film we see pets, which often serve as substitute children, killed by the aliens. To them there is only one valid kind of offspring and that is one derived from one man (or alien) and one woman squeezing out a kid.

Garmonbozia

The men of the town only swing into action once they realize that they are being replaced. The fact that the invaders are taking over a social situation that they themselves wanted little to do with never crosses their minds. The aliens succumb to the overwhelming violence of the townsfolk and a couple of substitute children in the shape of German Shepherds.

The twist in this SF narrative is subtle but interesting. Bill (Tom Tryon) (the alien version) begins to see Marge (Gloria Talbott) as not just someone to breed with but as a being with her own life. This is a view that even Marge seems to struggle with in her fervor to get married and be a mother. In the end we are left not with a question of when will the aliens return but rather will Marge see herself as an independent person or fall back into the socially acceptable role that she wanted so badly.