mark.waltz Pretentious to the point of absurdity, this is one of the dumbest "smart" movies ever made. It all takes place on "the planet next door", a new arrival in our solar system that somehow parks itself between Earth and Mars. Four scientists (two men and two women) catch the express rocket to what is named Nova and find the planet to be exactly like Earth and inhabited by similar critters. Encounters with snakes and some friends mammals leads to an island filled with large Rubbermaid and alligators, and some of the silliest looking creatures outside of "It Conquered the World". There's also a giant fly that gets pelted with bullets simply for landing too close. A fight between one of the men and a normal sized rubber alligator is the comic highlight of the film. Calling a giant lizard a duplicate of a T-Rex has to be the dumbest scientist statement ever made. This one truly ranks among the worst of the worst and makes Ed Wood a genius in comparison.

MARIO GAUCI Gordon's debut film certainly gave no indication of his longevity within the fantasy genre: while it is not in the same awful league as, say, ROBOT MONSTER (1953) or Ed Wood's entire body of work, it is all the worse for being dishonest! One simply cannot play up the notion of a gigantic prehistoric creature, and then provide your audience with nothing more than a magnified lizard – to say nothing of having the gall to describe it as being akin to a Tyrannosaurus Rex! For what it is worth, the premise (scripted by Tom Gries!) of an Earth-like planet surfacing in our solar system which, when inspected, is found to still be in its infancy i.e. the age of dinosaurs and active volcanoes (though, thankfully, we do not get to see monosyllabic caveman roaming about) was not too shabby. However, like I noted before, if the budget does not extend to at least a competent level of special effects (after copious stock footage had already served for the space flight with, amusingly, an utter dearth of shots displaying the astronauts inside the vessel!), it would have been better to undertake a more manageable venture in the first place! As it stands, even if barely lasting an hour, the running-time is padded-out with a plethora of scenes revolving around the things I hate most in life: in fact, reptiles of all varieties put in an appearance here (with a particular astronaut being the brunt of most attacks, including a one-on-one with an alligator and – genuinely heart-stopping – being slithered all over by a giant dark-skinned snake)! The titular monster, then, shows his dominance over the rest by winning out in separate combats with another crocodile and an iguana. Perhaps the most outrageous element of all is the decision by the heroes to nuke the place (why would they even require a nuclear weapon during a scouting mission…for what right do humans have to destroy the life-form of another world, however hostile its reception?!) – but, of course, with no harm done to themselves – when they prove unable to overcome "King Dinosaur"!

drystyx This is a story of four likable astronauts who land on a very Earthlike planet with giant lizards.The astronauts are neatly paired as two men and two women.Fortunately, we don't have any psychotic bad guys in the group. It becomes a survival quest in a strange land.However, Gordon never really seems to make up his mind about what direction to go. That's the weakness of the movie.We get such a standard fare of actions, and shots of giant lizards, that we wonder if there is a direction. There is none.On th good side, the characters aren't one dimensional. They are basically likable, some braver than others, some more foolish than others, but basically likable.The weakness here is that what should have been a good original dram, stage play type, of survival Robinson Crusoe style, becomes hyped with ridiculous footage of giant lizards, and of an atomic blast.We get the feeling that the movie was made around these images. Someone wanted to show a giant lizard and an atomic bomb, so the rest of the movie was made around it. We get a feeling that the action scenes were shot first, and then the rest of the movie made later. This is the mistake of letting a storyboard artist write a script.The movie should have gone in either direction. Either the complete monster movie, or the survival drama. Obviously, the survival drama would have worked better. A Swiss Family Robinson in space, so to speak. We wouldn't even need all of the "monster" footage. Most of it could just as easy been dramatized without showing the monsters.

John W Chance This is one of the worst 'monster island' type early fifties cheapies. It's note worthy only, however, for the mind boggling ending. This time the 'monster island' is actually a new Earth like planet, Nova, that has suddenly appeared near the Earth. The premise, development, dialog and acting are full of laughable 'science' making this an outstanding choice for Mystery Science Theater 3000. For some this also means it qualifies for the "So bad, it's good," category, but this is just plain bad film making. The great 'SBIG' movies, like Ed Wood's 'Citizen Kane,' 'Glen or Glenda' (1953) or 'Plan 9 From Outer Space' (1959) have absurd or unique qualities in the writing, photography, use of stock footage and acting.You always hope that the dinosaurs in these films will not be men in monster suits as in 'Unknown Island' (1948), or close ups of iguanas and salamanders. But no-- there are the iguanas, but we also get a gila monster and a Kodomo dragon (monitor lizard).It was Roger Corman who broke ground by creating his own monsters for his mid fifties science fiction films, definitely the peaks of the fifties genre with such wonders as 'The Day the World Ended,' (1955), the amazing story of the Ultimate Collaborator (Lee Van Cleef) in the under rated 'It! Conquered the World,' (1956), 'Not of This Earth' (1957), and 'Attack of the Crab Monsters' (1957), leading the way. But not Bert I. Gordon.Usually when the characters first land and see a volcano, you know that at the end of the movie, the volcano is going to explode and destroy the island, a cliché done to death in countless movies (and serials) since the 1930s. But wait! This one ends differently! As two of the four scientists rush to the island to save the others, the man is lugging a rectangular box, and as they are reunited, running away from the 'dinosaurs' he says "I brought an atomic bomb. This is a good time to use it!" !! He sets the timer for 30 minutes, and they escape in rubber rafts to the mainland, hiding behind a knoll just as the A-Bomb goes off. As the mushroom cloud rises and blooms, one man says to the other, "Well, we did it!" The other replies, "Yes, we certainly did! We brought civilization to Nova!" Your jaw drops in disbelief. The unintentional meaning of this according to our current reading (i.e., Civilization equals destruction by man-- see also the Catholic Church's list of new sins; Oppenheimer's naming the bomb Shiva, and the new definition of man as the species destroying the earth through global warming and causing extinction of other species) must be in stark contrast to the fifities' meanings, I'm assuming, which must combine "wiping out evils paves the way for civilization," and America's ability to wield such a weapon 'proves' that we are the forefront of 'civilization,' both referenced by our dropping of the A-Bomb on Japan.Is that what they were thinking? Other than the ending, this movie was not absurd or well written enough to merit more than a 1.NOTE: The current DVD version has another Lippert production, 'The Jungle' (1952), supposedly filmed in India, with a great Indian sound track, and some pre-Bollywood native dancing. Filmed in sepia, it's a better film.