“Plan 9 from Outer Space” is a science fiction film about aliens aboard flying saucers attacking California’s San Fernando Valley who intend to conquer Earth by resurrecting corpses from a Hollywood cemetery. This is a classic example of filmmaking from director-screenwriter Edward G. Wood Jr. who made pictures on a shoe-string budget, resulting in bad production values, terrible writing, and mostly bad acting from the performers. Wood even doubled as the film’s editor.
The cast includes Gregory Walcott and Mona McKinnon as valley residents, Tor Johnson and Duke Moore as policemen, Lyle Talbot as General Roberts, Dudley Manlove and Joanna Lee as aliens, Tom Keene as Col. Edwards, Maila Nurmi as Vampira, Criswell as the narrator, and Bela Lugosi as the old man in stock footage filmed by Wood independently of the movie’s production. This was Lugosi’s final film role in a career that began in 1917.
The watchable and unwatchable “Plan 9 from Outer Space” was a big flop at the box office for producer Ed Wood, Reynolds Pictures Inc., and Distributors Corporation of America. It became a cult favorite, especially after critic Michael Medved name it the Worst Film of All Time. An interesting footnote is that actor Lyle Talbot, noted for many mainstream roles such as the Nelson’s next door neighbor for ten years on television’s “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,” stated that he never turned down a movie role, even for B projects.
Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957)
cinema
My Review
“Plan 9 from Outer Space” is a science fiction film about aliens aboard flying saucers attacking California’s San Fernando Valley who intend to conquer Earth by resurrecting corpses from a Hollywood cemetery. This is a classic example of filmmaking from director-screenwriter Edward G. Wood Jr. who made pictures on a shoe-string budget, resulting in bad production values, terrible writing, and mostly bad acting from the performers. Wood even doubled as the film’s editor.
The cast includes Gregory Walcott and Mona McKinnon as valley residents, Tor Johnson and Duke Moore as policemen, Lyle Talbot as General Roberts, Dudley Manlove and Joanna Lee as aliens, Tom Keene as Col. Edwards, Maila Nurmi as Vampira, Criswell as the narrator, and Bela Lugosi as the old man in stock footage filmed by Wood independently of the movie’s production. This was Lugosi’s final film role in a career that began in 1917.
The watchable and unwatchable “Plan 9 from Outer Space” was a big flop at the box office for producer Ed Wood, Reynolds Pictures Inc., and Distributors Corporation of America. It became a cult favorite, especially after critic Michael Medved name it the Worst Film of All Time. An interesting footnote is that actor Lyle Talbot, noted for many mainstream roles such as the Nelson’s next door neighbor for ten years on television’s “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,” stated that he never turned down a movie role, even for B projects.