When the biggest name in your movie is Richard Kiel and you never actually see his face because he’s wearing a totally cheesy rubber alien costume then you know you’re watching a B-movie! By the way, Richard Kiel played the great Bond villain Jaws in The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker.
As the movie opens several of Earth’s space ships have disappeared in a certain part of space, so Captain Frank Chapman (Dean Fredericks) and his partner are sent out to investigate. A series of problems lead to his partner’s death as well as his ship crash landing on a small asteroid.
On the asteroid, Rayton as he learns it’s called, he shrinks down to the size of its inhabitants and is put on trial. He is forced to live among them and never be allowed to leave. He winds up in a love triangle between two women, but another man who doesn’t like the competition loves one of the women and challenges him to a fight to the death.
When this is settled Chapman learns about the Rayton’s enemies, The Solarites (a name very reminiscent of the particle Solarmanite from Plan 9 From Outer Space), and ugly angry race that wants to steal the Rayron’s technology.
After an attack from the Solarites, the one they have prisoner escapes and threatens the life of Zetha (Dolores Faith) the girl that Chapman has fallen for. Chapman and his rival, Herron (Anthony Dexter) team up and save the day.
In classic B-movie Sci-fi fashion the logic of the film is completely flawed and ridiculous, the dialogue is bad, the acting is worse and the special effects are wonderfully cheesy. The best part of this film is the Solarites, a classic b-movie monster who howls and flails his way through the asteroids caves causing all sorts of havoc.
By all means, this is a really bad film, but it is a really bad, fun film.
The film is presented in 1.33:1 fullscreen and 2.0 Mono sound. The film is presented in its original black and white and a new colorized version. The color version for this film is fun, but it really is just better in black and white.
Trailers You get colorized trailers for Plan 9 From Outer Space, Night Of The Living Dead, Reefer Madness, House On Haunted Hill and She.
This isn’t one of the better b-movie films and should be reserved for b-movie enthusiasts. I highly recommend watching the MST3K version of this film, which, sadly, is not included in this release, but you can watch it in color.
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Legend Films presents The Phantom Planet. Directed by William Marshall. Starring Dean Fredericks, Richard Kiel and Coleen Gray. Written by William Telaak, Fred De Gorter and Fred Gebhardt. Running time: 82 minutes. Not Rated. Originally released in 1961. Released on DVD: October 21, 2008. Available at Amazon.
