The Story: Just a note…this is the first Infernal Review to be written since my return to the good ol’ USA. For that matter, it’s the first review to be written in the USA. Hmmm…its also the first one to be done on my laptop since my real computer is still in transit from Europe.

I saw the last few minutes of this movie about twenty years ago on a lazy Saturday afternoon. So while picking up things I needed for my new home and saw the DVD for sale I just grabbed it. Actually, my cable isn’t on yet so I have no other diversions except for DVD’s to watch on my laptop. (No phone yet either, so I can’t even go online).

David Randall is a South African pilot  (and no, he's not an African South African)  that specializes in transporting documents for people. He’s hired by Dr. Bronson of the Mt. Kenna observatory to bring secret information to Prof. Hendron in America. They don’t want Randall to know what the information is, but he manages to find out from Hendron’s beautiful daughter, Joyce. And its pretty bad news. Bellus, a rogue star with a single earthlike planet called Zyra is streaking towards earth. In less than a year it will “crush” our big blue marble. Hendron and Dr. Frye give this information to the UN in hopes of constructing spaceships in time so that some people will be able to make it to Zyra and survive. Unfortunately the scientists at the UN laugh at them telling them that there is no danger. I find that a little hard to believe that not one other astronomer somewhere on the planet has noticed a STAR heading for us.

And I always thought that Bellus was supposed to another planet and Zyra was just a smaller planet in its orbit. It seems that Bellus is supposed to be a star…they say so in the movie….so that complicates things…at least for me. After all, even a white dwarf star is gonna be hot. Bellus is a huge red star, several 1000 times larger than Earth. Wouldn’t a big [unwrite]ing star begin to roast the planet well before it hit? What effects would a star have on our own sun if it got that close? There’s no details given on those questions, but I did wonder.

Anyway, Hendron finds salvation in the form of wheelchair-bound rich bastard, Stanton. Stanton is a mean ass rich dude, so we can pretty much tell what’s going to be his ultimate fate. He agrees to finance the building of a spaceship to ferry survivors to Zyra as long as he gets a seat on the ship. (sounds fair…if I buy you a car the least ya can do is give me a ride) Randall stays around to help out and becomes a thorn in the side of Tony Drake, a Medical Doctor and Joyce’s fiancée. Joyce was thinking about marrying Tony but she’d rather have Randall.

The best and the brightest young people are gathered to build the ship but less then a hundred of them can go, and they’ll be chosen by lottery. As Bellus looms nearer, earthquakes and tidal waves devastate the world. Amazingly Randall and Drake go on a rescue mission in a helicopter to bring supplies to people stranded in remote places…though I don’t see why. I mean, they’re gonna die anyway. And Drake is flying the helicopter! This guy is a doctor AND a pilot? Joyce, baby, you’re making the wrong choice! At one point while saving Mike, a little boy stranded by floods, Drake thinks about and almost abandon Randall so he can have Joyce all to himself, but he doesn’t. Randall has announced that he doesn’t want to go on the ship…he thinks he’d be a waste of space and someone more worthy should have his seat. Joyce is really upset by this. Drake manages to get Randall to go by lying to him. He tells him that Frye has a heart condition that may make it impossible for him to remain conscious after lift off and then no one will be able to land the ship…unless Randall agrees to be copilot. Thinking that now he has a useful purpose, Randall agrees.

As the world comes to an end the people that weren’t chosen revolt and try to take over the ship. The lucky ones hurry aboard for take off, but Hendron purposely stays behind and keeps mean old Stanton from getting on board thinking that the less weight the better chances the ship has of making it to Zyra. The ship takes off (on a ramp no less….geez, escape velocity was easier in the 50’s huh?) Even though Randall then discovers that Drake lied about Frye in order to get Randall aboard, Randall isn’t pissed. How could he be? They’re watching the Earth being pulverized on the view screen.

The ship lands on Zyra and the survivors walk out onto the new world. The end.

Pretty anti climactic sounding, huh? I guess in the fifties this must have been pretty scary, but after watching movies like Independence Day and the Terminator, When Worlds Collide barely unsettles me. I will say this though…I liked it better than Armageddon. The movie is supposed to be a science fiction classic according to the case, and perhaps it is. I only recognized one actor in it and without my reference materials and the Infernal archives I’m really only guessing as I type this….Jonathan Hoyt, who played Stanton was also the crazy old coot in Attack of the Puppet People and the doctor on the pilot for the original Star Trek. (I copied the Infernal Archives to CD before I left Stuttgart, but the movers packed my disk case while I wasn’t looking! AAARGH!)

Best Lines:  “You invented those cardiographs for my benefit!” - Randall to Drake when he sees that he was lied to in order to get him to go on the ship. He seems happy about it, despite having just seen the earht being fried to crispy crunch.

Are you kidding me?

1.) Considering the mind boggling distances between planets how the hell can TWO planets make it Earth within the space of a few months? Last I heard space was really really big. And they must be coming from outside of our solar system or someone else would have seen them before the scientists figured out what was going on. Any bozo with a decent telescope would have noticed two new planets barreling past Neptune if not.

2.) Speaking of bozos how can the *cough* learned men at the UN refute the evidence that Bellus is on a collision course with the Earth? I’m no astronomer, but how difficult is it to see a big ass planet coming towards you? These morons deny the facts way to easily. And even if Bellus or Zyra wasn’t coming to hit the Earth but just pass by, that’s cause for an emergency.

3.) Stanton is pretty much “Snidely Whiplashic” in his evil. We’re supposed to not like him because he’s selfish and mean to others, but the movie beats you over with it. He’s so unlikable that there’s not even a hint of humanity in him. Its funny in a way because it also means he’s not very smart. Stanton himself told the others that people would turn against each other and even kill in order to be one of the lucky survivors to get on the spaceship, but he doesn’t even consider that since he’s in a wheelchair…which means physically he’s not going to be a threat to most people…that maybe he should be a little nicer to people if he wants to survive.

4.) They make a big enough deal about needing a good pilot to fly the ship to Zyra but after seeing the controls I think I could have flown the stupid thing. All Randall did was push a few buttons and move a joystick.

5.) Randall’s a helluva guy. He finds out that the end of the world is nigh so he lights his cigarettes with money and is pretty jolly about it. Then he helps out on the spaceship construction…at the highest levels…but turns down a seat on the ship because he thinks someone more useful to humanity should have it. And he turns it down knowing that Joyce wants him to go because she’s in love with him. What a guy! Think about it…on one hand he can stay on Earth when Bellus hits it and die a fiery and most likely painful death or he can go with the survivors and live on a new planet making hot monkey love to Joyce. I think I know which choice I’D make…the one with the hot monkey love.

Nudity and Sex: None. You really didn’t think there would be did you?

Huh?:

Geez….I know this flick was made in the fifties and all, but its not too hard to see what kinda new world the filmmakers were shooting for. There ain’t nothing’ but white people on the spaceship! No Asians, Arabs, Hispanics, or Black folks. Who financed this movie, David Duke?

Ok…..the people worry that the spaceship might not have enough fuel to land safely on Zyra so every single ounce of weight aboard it has to be something useful. Yet they’re willing to let little kid Mike bring a [unwrite]ing pregnant stray dog in lieu of some chickens? Aren’t they bringing animals with them anyway? So there ought to be at least two dogs going in the first place? Why bring a mangy mutt along if its not really needed? If food is scarce on Zyra they might need those damned extra chickens. As it looks they might have to have pooch burgers and puppy stew if grub gets hard to come by.

Zyra is a….cartoon. Really. Its animated! I thought I was watching Song of the South for a minute!

Why is it a snow-covered mountain valley when the ship lands on Zyra, but a lush green valley when the people walk out? A lush green cartoon valley I might add.

The Final Judgment: This flick is probably gonna bore the pants off of anyone whose been weaned on high budget computer enhanced, special effect laden sci-fi movies of our times. Theres no naked chicks, no cool robots, no pulse pounding violence.

Heck, Earth’s destruction wasn’t even that exciting. (I’ve seen more destruction in an average Godzilla flick…and better, too) Still, if you have about 90 minutes to spare and you like older movies seek it out. Its not gonna rock your world, but it kept me from being too bored in my at the moment empty house. The Inferno only gives it 2 devils though, because when all is said and done, its enjoyable in a hokey way, but not really that exciting.