Journey to the Seventh Planet (1962)

Would-be auteur Sidney Pink strikes again, 26 September 2009

Searching for life on another planet, a group of astronauts stumble on a virtual utopia when they arrive on Uranus. "Virtual" being the key word, however, as nothing is real. Uranus is inhabited by a strange creature capable of taking the thoughts of the astronauts and bringing their dreams and desires to life. But this being has plans beyond Uranus that include the conquest of Earth.

Journey to the Seventh Planet is a real mixed bag. Filmed in Denmark by would-be auteur Sidney Pink, Journey to the Seventh Planet has some interesting ideas behind its plot, but it suffers from poor execution. On the positive side, the idea of a creature that uses its victims' thoughts against them as a weapon might not be new, but here it's handled in an interesting manner. I liked the way the creature brings up childhood memories and crushes in an attempt to lull the head astronaut into a false sense of security. Or the way the creature keeps throwing woman after woman at the womanizer played by John Agar. Unfortunately though, the negatives far outweigh these positives. First there's Pink's weak direction. The film suffers from poor pacing and too many scenes with nothing much going on. I blame Pink's direction for making the movie un-fun (if that's a word). Second, there are the terrible special effects. Sometimes when watching a low budget movie like Journey to the Seventh Planet, I'll find the low budget effects charming. Not here. These are just low budget effects. Next, other than Agar, I'm not familiar with any of these Danish actors. But I feel somewhat confident that their anonymity is due to their acting ability and not their nationality. Also, I'm usually a John Agar fan and supporter, but Journey to the Seventh Planet might be one of his weakest performances I've seen. It's way below average for him. Finally, there's the dubbing. I've seen enough foreign genre films that dubbing usually doesn't bother me. But here, it's just weird. Everything seems exaggeratedly slow because of the bizarre sounding dubbing. Really distracting.

So, in summary – a few good ideas undone by poor production values, weak direction, below par acting, and lousy dubbing. A 4/10 is about the best I can give Journey to the Seventh Planet.

4/10