Forbidden Planet (1956)

Forbidden Planet (1956)

starring Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen

directed by Fred Wilcox

98 minutes

Starship C-57D lands on Altair IV despite a warning from one of its only two inhabitants, Doctor Morbius (Walter Pidgeon). Commander Adams (Leslie Nielsen) and his crew are there to find out what happened to the Bellerophon, another starship which landed on Altair IV twenty years before.

Doctor Morbius tells them a bit about what happened to the rest of the crew and passengers of the Bellerophon. He also shows them the fantastic technology that the Krill, the former inhabitants of Altair IV, left behind. It isn't long before Starship C-57D and its crew are attacked by a giant invisible creature. Some crewmen are killed. Commander Adams decides that it is too dangerous to stick around.

Doctor Ostrow, using some of the alien technology figures out what is really going on. Using it kills him but he manages to communicate with Commander Adams before he dies. Adams convinces Altaira, who has fallen in love with him, that she needs to leave with them but her father is not ready to abandon his life's work.

Thoughts

I wasn't sure what I was getting into when I watched this movie. I had heard of it but I really didn't know much about it. I knew that Leslie Nielsen was in it and that there was a big robot, that was about it.

I saw Forbidden Planet on the big screen at the AFI Silver Theater. The movie was introduced by Count Gore DeVol. He talked about the movie, showed some clips of himself introducing it on Creature Feature, and had a trivia contest in which members audience competed for prizes. The movie was scheduled to begin at 7 PM but the movie itself didn't begin until about 7:45 PM.

Richard Anderson had a small part in this movie as a member of the crew of the C-57D. I know him best from The Six Million Dollar Man where he played Oscar Goldman.

I'm not so sure about this movie. I like what it is trying to do but I think that it falls short of success. Maybe if I had seen it when I was much younger then I would have liked it a lot more. I watched it a second time at home on Tubi. It made a little more sense but it still feels lacking in terms of the story. I have no complaints with the look of the movie. The problem might be that the story seems to be secondary to the special effects.