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Greetings, and welcome to VIEWING THE CLASSICS. Here you'll find capsule reviews of vintage movies from the early days of cinema through the 1970s, with a special emphasis on sci-fi, horror, and mystery movies. Be sure to check out the Pages links, where you can find a Film Index of all my reviews, links to the reviews organized by cast members, directors, and other contributors, and links to my reviews of the films of talented young director Joshua Kennedy.

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Monday, February 12, 2018

Phantom From Space (1953)

Starring Ted Cooper, Harry Landers, Jack Daly, Noreen Nash, Rudolph Anders
Directed by W. Lee Wilder
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

The police and communications experts join forces in tracking a fugitive, who is in reality a space alien who is invisible when not wearing his spacesuit.

Another collaboration between producer/director W. Lee Wilder and his son Myles who co-wrote the screenplay, the production suffers a bit from its low budget, but the invisibility effects are fairly decent, and I found the story engaging enough.  There's not a dynamic lead actor among the cast, the camera setups are fairly static, and at times there's a bit too much expositional dialogue, which are to the film's detriment, but William Lava's music score is a strong asset, and the alien's reveal at the climax doesn't disappoint.  This is a better film than Wilder's Killers From Space and The Snow Creature, and the first I can think of that introduced the subject of an invisible alien being.

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