While the first few films about space travel-primarily those by George Pal- were relatively serious and full of good intentions to get it right, the prime sources of inspiration for most of the films of the 1950s and early '60s-the first sci-fi boom-were not so much austere scientific journals and speculative studies, but rather the mad, bad pulp magazines of the 1930s, '40s, and '50s. These glorious mind-meddlers had already inspired movie serials and comic books of the same period, from Republic, Columbia, and Universal in the movie houses to EC, DC, and Atlas (later Marvel) on the newsstands. Feature films followed much the same pattern, and so, well-meaning trying-to-be-intelligent fare like Destination: Moon and Conquest of Space gradually gave way to more brainless frolics such as Cat-Women of the Moon and The Angry Red Planet. But there was room for both, and a market for both. This book looks in detail at space travel films of the '50s in chronological order, from the relatively sober but hilariously dated Destination: Moon and Rocketship X-M to the B-movie insanity of Cat Women of the Moon and Queen of Outer Space. Along the way, we'll take a Flight to Mars, see what happens When Worlds Collide, visit the Forbidden Planet, find out what so aggravated The Angry Red Planet, and witness humankind's Conquest of Space. The book also includes the lowbrow parodies of Abbott And Costello and the Three Stooges, the less disreputable Trek-like World Without End and It, the Terror from Beyond Space, the film that inspired the Alien and Predator genre. Plus Missile to the Moon, The Phantom Planet, and 1964's First Men in the Moon. Also includes a brief cover gallery of books and magazines of the era, and a photo feature of space travel on TV during that period. Not bad for the price of a couple of magazines! Jon Abbott has been writing about film and television professionally for nearly forty years. He has contributed to most of the major sci-fi magazines in that time. He is the author of numerous books on popular culture, including the highly regarded Cool TV series. He currently writes for Infinity magazine. In the previous three titles in this series, which can be enjoyed individually or as a set, we looked at the creatures who came here... or who were already here and got defrosted, mutated, or irradiated! This final volume deals with our efforts to Go There... So brace yourself, buckle up, ray guns at the ready, fish bowls on your heads, and don't forget to take a packet of three for all those delightful space babes you're going to encounter in this, the fourth and final of our studies of 1950s sci-fi movies...

While the first few films about space travel-primarily those by George Pal- were relatively serious and full of good intentions to get it right, the prime sources of inspiration for most of the films of the 1950s and early '60s-the first sci-fi boom-were not so much austere scientific journals and speculative studies, but rather the mad, bad pulp magazines of the 1930s, '40s, and '50s. These glorious mind-meddlers had already inspired movie serials and comic books of the same period, from Republic, Columbia, and Universal in the movie houses to EC, DC, and Atlas (later Marvel) on the newsstands. Feature films followed much the same pattern, and so, well-meaning trying-to-be-intelligent fare like Destination: Moon and Conquest of Space gradually gave way to more brainless frolics such as Cat-Women of the Moon and The Angry Red Planet. But there was room for both, and a market for both. This book looks in detail at space travel films of the '50s in chronological order, from the relatively sober but hilariously dated Destination: Moon and Rocketship X-M to the B-movie insanity of Cat Women of the Moon and Queen of Outer Space. Along the way, we'll take a Flight to Mars, see what happens When Worlds Collide, visit the Forbidden Planet, find out what so aggravated The Angry Red Planet, and witness humankind's Conquest of Space. The book also includes the lowbrow parodies of Abbott And Costello and the Three Stooges, the less disreputable Trek-like World Without End and It, the Terror from Beyond Space, the film that inspired the Alien and Predator genre. Plus Missile to the Moon, The Phantom Planet, and 1964's First Men in the Moon. Also includes a brief cover gallery of books and magazines of the era, and a photo feature of space travel on TV during that period. Not bad for the price of a couple of magazines! Jon Abbott has been writing about film and television professionally for nearly forty years. He has contributed to most of the major sci-fi magazines in that time, and is the author of numerous books on popular culture, including the highly regarded Cool TV series. He currently writes for Infinity magazine. In the previous three titles in this series, which can be enjoyed individually or as a set, we looked at the creatures who came here... or who were already here and got defrosted, mutated, or irradiated! This final volume deals with our efforts to Go There... So brace yourself, buckle up, ray guns at the ready, fish bowls on your heads, and don't forget to take a packet of three for all those delightful space babes you're going to encounter in this, the fourth and final of our studies of "Sci-Fi before Star Wars"...

The 1950s was a golden age for cinematic sci-fi, offering up dozens of films of varying degrees of interest, competence, and entertainment. Some of it was schlock, knocked out by fast-buck con-men and opportunists, who inadvertently created iconic trash. Some of it was tedious, well-intentioned, and tiresome. Those are mostly forgotten. And some of it was inspirational, memorable, and for the True Fan, literally life-changing. No-one could have known, back in the 1950s, that decades later these films would still be showing, written about, admired and respected, loved and laughed at, featured in magazines and books, released on home video, DVD, and streaming services, picked apart, studied and quoted, cracked a beer open to, and enthused over, while more serious and sensitive fare of the era gathered dust. Flying Saucer Films of the 1950s features detailed coverage of such classic sci-fi films of the '50s as The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Thing from Another World, Invaders from Mars, It Came from Outer Space, This Island Earth, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, War of the Worlds, and I Married a Monster from Outer Space. Also included in full detail are The Flying Saucer, The Man from Planet X, Plan Nine from Outer Space, Invasion of the Saucermen, The Mysterians, Battle in Outer Space, The Cosmic Man, and Teenagers from Outer Space. The other three books in this series are Giant Bug Movies of the 1950s (Them, Tarantula, The Deadly Mantis, The Black Scorpion, The Fly, Earth vs. the Spider, etc.), Panic in the Streets: Sci-Fi Movie Mayhem in the 1950s (The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, It Came from Beneath the Sea, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Twenty Million Miles to Earth, The Giant Claw, The Blob, etc.), and Space Travel in 1950s Cinema (Destination: Moon, Rocketship X-M, Forbidden Planet, Flight to Mars, Conquest of Space, When Worlds Collide, Cat Women of the Moon, Queen of Outer Space, etc.), all available on Amazon. Four fun-filled, fact-filled studies of sci-fi films of the Fifties begin here, with Flying Saucer Films of the 1950s... All four volumes combine to make up a detailed study of "Sci-Fi Before Star Wars", the science-fiction boom of the 1950s. Jon Abbott is the author of numerous books on 20th century film and television available on Amazon. He has written over four hundred articles and features for over two dozen different publications, trade, specialist, and populist, and is currently writing for Infinity magazine.

This study will compare the USSR and the United States according to their cinematic use of science fiction in the late 1950s and 1960s in order to coincide with the period of de-Stalinisation and thaw in the USSR, and late McCarthyism in the United States. The genre provides an opportunity to express the two powers' scientific stand-off through fiction, and serves as a vehicle for the dissemination of ideas and propaganda. Post-1956 marks the time when the period of de-Stalinisation officially began and science fiction saw a carefully crafted rebirth for it served as a tool that could reflect the socialist ideal and quasi-religious faith in science that was promoted by the party. Science fiction uniquely demands for an imaginative view of the future, and therefore, corresponds with the Marxist- Leninist future-oriented ideology. For this period, the themes for American science fiction are hyperbolised monsters and invasion, and reflect the fear of the otherness of the Soviet Union, and its threat on domestic ideals. These themes are reflected in movies as 'Angry Red Planet', and 'Them!'. On the other hand, Soviet science fiction movies focus on the heroic Soviet man who frequently receives calls for help from outer space, and overcomes great trials to save those not living in utopia. This storyline is represented in 'Towards a Dream', and 'The Sky is calling'. The author gives special attention to the Soviet movie 'The Sky is calling' and the subsequent redubbed American version 'Battle beyond the Sun'. Further, she addresses alterations or plot, and subtle propaganda messages in the Soviet movies 'Planet of Storms', and the Hollywood remake 'Journey to the Prehistoric Planet'.

Over the course of several decades, scientific fact has overtaken science fiction as humankind's understanding of the universe has expanded. Mirroring this development, the cinematic depictions of space exploration over the last century have evolved from whimsical sci-fi fantasies to more fact-based portrayals. This book chronologically examines 75 films that depict voyages into outer space and offers the historical, cultural, and scientific context of each. These films range from Georges Melies' fantastical A Trip to the Moon to speculative science fiction works such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris, and Contact, and fact-based accounts of actual space missions as depicted in The Right Stuff, Apollo 13, Salyut 7 and First Man. Each film is analyzed not only in terms of its direction, screenplay, and other cinematic aspects but also its scientific and historical accuracy. The works of acclaimed directors, including Fritz Lang, George Pal, Stanley Kubrick, Andrei Tarkovsky, Robert Wise, Ron Howard, Robert Zemeckis, Ridley Scott, and Christopher Nolan, are accorded special attention for their memorable contributions to this vital and evolving subgenre of science fiction film.

Who doesn't love a 'panic in the streets' scene? As a kid watching sci-fi movies, it was the part I always loved the most, the moment I eagerly waited for after seeing The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms on television for the first time. Hordes of everyday mugs, interrupted in their boring lives by the massive creature rising from the docks or alien saucers obliterating buildings above them... that was the money shot for this little wide-eyed scamp. Not all of the films in this book deliver those screaming crowds, though they all include that all-important element of mounting hysteria, that escalation from minor disturbance to all-out alerts to the helpless authorities. To be truthful, these are the leftovers, the films that didn't fit into the other three categories in this series, which are: Flying Saucer Films of the 1950s; Giant Bug Movies of the 1950s; and Space Travel in 1950s Cinema. But what tasty leftovers they are. This volume features some of the very best of 1950s sci-fi in all its mad glory: for me personally, Revenge of the Creature, It Came from Beneath the Sea, The Giant Claw, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Twenty Million Miles to Earth, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, and The Hideous Sun Demon are among some of my most loved and returned to films of the period. Also included are The Neanderthal Man, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Amazing Colossal Man, The Blob, Monster on the Campus, The Werewolf, Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman, War of the Colossal Beast, Behemoth the Sea Monster, and Invisible Invaders. Put all four volumes together, and you have a pretty good guide to the glories of Sci-Fi Before Star Wars. So don't hang around here... We've got dinosaurs, giants, blobs, cavemen, extraterrestrial lizards and buzzards, an octopus, the Gill man, pod people, werewolves, zombies, and a sun demon waiting for you in these pages, so grab those running shoes and head for the hills... They're coming...!! Jon Abbott has been writing about film and television professionally for nearly forty years. He has contributed to most of the major sci-fi magazines in that time, and is the author of numerous books on popular culture, including the highly regarded Cool TV series. He has been publisahed by McFarland and is currently writing for Infinity magazine. Click on my name in blue to see my other titles.

Science Fiction Film develops a historical and cultural approach to the genre that moves beyond close readings of iconography and formal conventions. It explores how this increasingly influential genre has been constructed from disparate elements into a hybrid genre. Science Fiction Film goes beyond a textual exploration of these films to place them within a larger network of influences that includes studio politics and promotional discourses. The book also challenges the perceived limits of the genre - it includes a wide range of films, from canonical SF, such as Le voyage dans la lune, Star Wars and Blade Runner, to films that stretch and reshape the definition of the genre. This expansion of generic focus offers an innovative approach for students and fans of science fiction alike.