One of my all-time favorite Holiday films, first time I saw this I was just a little kid and I saw it on television one Christmas eve. I was really inspired by colors and the set design of this film. It has been regarded as one of the worst films ever made. In my mind this film stands out as not that at all. filmed entirely on Kodachrome ! They just don’t make films like this any more.

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a 1964 American science fiction comedy film directed by Nicholas Webster, produced and written by Paul L. Jacobson, based on a story by Glenville Mareth, that stars John Call as Santa Claus. It also features an eleven-year-old Pia Zadora as Girmar, one of the Martian children.

The film also marks the first documented appearance of Mrs. Claus in a motion picture (Doris Rich plays the role), coming three weeks before the television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which also featured Mrs. Claus.

The film regularly appears on lists of the worst films ever made, is regularly featured in the “bottom 100” list on the Internet Movie Database

Plot:

The Martians Momar (“Mom Martian”) and Kimar (“King Martian”) are worried that their children Girmar (“Girl Martian”) and Bomar (“Boy Martian”) are watching too much Earth television, most notably station KID-TV’s interview with Santa Claus in his workshop at Earth’s North Pole.

Consulting the ancient 800-year-old Martian sage Chochem (a Yiddish/Hebrew word meaning “sage”, though pronounced differently from the film’s version), they are advised that the children of Mars are growing distracted due to the society’s overly rigid structure. From infancy, all their education is fed into their brains through machines and they are not allowed individuality or freedom of thought.

Chochem notes that he had seen this coming “for centuries”, and says that the only way to help the children is to allow them their freedom and be allowed to have fun. To do this, Mars needs a Santa Claus figure, like on Earth. Leaving Chochem’s cave, the Martian leaders decide to abduct Santa Claus from Earth and bring him to Mars.

The Martians cannot distinguish between all the fake Santas, so they kidnap two children to find the real one. Once this is accomplished, one Martian, Voldar, who strongly disagrees with the idea, repeatedly tries to kill Santa Claus along with the two kidnapped Earth children. He believes that Santa is corrupting the children of Mars and turning them away from Mars’ original glory.

When they arrive on Mars, Santa and the children build a factory to make toys for the Martian children. However, Voldar and his assistants, Stobo and Shim, sabotage the factory and change its programming so that it makes the toys incorrectly. Meanwhile, Dropo, Kimar’s assistant, who has taken a great liking to Santa Claus and Christmas, puts on one of Santa’s spare suits and starts acting like Santa Claus. He goes to the toy factory to make toys, but Voldar mistakes him for Santa and kidnaps him.

When Santa and the children come back to the factory to make more toys, they discover that someone has tampered with the machines. Voldar and Stobo come back to the factory to make a deal with Kimar, but when they see the real Santa Claus, they realize that their plan has been foiled. Dropo, held hostage in a cave, tricks his guard Shim and escapes. Kimar then arrests Voldar, Stobo, and Shim. Santa notices that Dropo acts like him, and says that Dropo would make a good Martian Santa Claus. Kimar agrees and sends Santa and the children back to Earth.  from  Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

It has been a very longtime since I have done a Movie of the Week post. I recently re discovered this Russian classic  from 1962. much of this film was used in two American Sci-Fi films, that had nothing to do with this film…. This is the original film in Russian with sub titles. the special effect shots in this film are incredible along with the sets and production design. I believe this film is very underrated and should be listed as one of the greatest examples of Science Fiction cinema ever made. So if you have some time to kill, sit back and enjoy this film.

Planeta Bur (Russian: Планета Бурь) is a 1962 Sovcolor Soviet science-fiction film scripted by Alexander Kazantsev from his novel, and co-scripted and directed by Pavel Klushantsev.

In English, the film is often informally referred to as Planet of the Storms, Planet of Storms, Planet of Tempests, Planeta Burg, and Storm Planet, though it was never actually released in the US in its original form until the 1990s, via home video. It is better known to American audiences via two American television movies which featured special effects and most of the primary footage from it: Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet and Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women.

Synopsis
Three Soviet spaceships, the Sirius, the Vega, and the Capella, are on their way from Lunar Station 7 for the first human landing on Venus, and the first exploration of the planet. But the Capella is suddenly struck by a large meteorite and completely destroyed, killing all aboard. After mourning the loss of their friends, the remaining two ships, the Sirius and the Vega, soon continue on, even though the planned mission required three ships. A replacement spaceship, the Arcturus, will be sent from Earth, but will not arrive for two months.

The cosmonauts aboard the Sirius (Ilya, Roman and Alyosha) and aboard the Vega (Ivan and Allan, and one woman, Masha) all agree that proceeding with the landing and exploration is better than waiting two months, so Ivan and Allan, with their large robot assistant “John” (now partly dis-assembled for flight), descend in their glider spacecraft from the Vega to Venus, leaving Masha in orbit to monitor communications between the ships and ground crews….but all contact is lost with her after they land in a misty swamp. The gigantic, tall Sirius spacecraft gently lands upright and vertically on its four shock-absorber wing struts, but at a different, volcanic-terrain location, and because the atmosphere is poisonous, the men exit the Sirius in their protective spacesuits and helmets….While wandering around some large boulders, Aloysha is suddenly attacked and dragged by a large carnivorous plant creature toward its mouth, but he is quickly rescued by Ilya and Roman. After photographing the creature and sharing some jokes about the incident, they proceed to search for Ivan and Allan in their hovercar (unloaded from the Sirius).

During their journey, they hear what sounds like a distant eerie voice of a woman, and then soon encounter a gigantic, sedate brontosaur-like creature, from which one of the men quickly takes a blood sample from its tail, as the others laugh. Meanwhile, after completely assembling robot John, Ivan and Allan are suddenly attacked by several human-size tyrannosaur-like beasts in the swamp, some of which they kill with their handguns. Later, they come across a large deep ravine, so with cords attached to one of the gigantic tall trees near the edge of the ravine, -and to John, -and to an anchoring boulder, John powerfully fells the tree over the ravine by rotating his torso. They then walk on the tree, over the ravine, while listening to recorded music John plays. Allan is later weakened by a wound by the attack at the swamp, so robot John finds a cave for their protection from the wet environment. However, both men develop a fever and are soon too weak to stand.

During the search in their hovercar over ocean water near a beach, the Sirius crew submerge themselves in the hovercar to escape an attack by a large flying pterosaur-like creature. Underwater, they discover a head sculpture of one of the flying creatures (with ruby gemstone eyes), apparently made by an intelligent being. After they emerge onto the beach, Alyosha also finds a strange small triangular rock, which he keeps.

After they radio-contact robot John and learn of the men’s fevers, they instruct John to immediately give life-saving medicine to the men. Ivan and Allan soon recover, just as flows of molten hot mud surround them. Desperately, Ivan has John carry them safely across the steaming mud, but John over-heats and slows from the added weight on him, so John attempts to forcibly remove them with his claw and painfully injures Allan. The hovercar group suddenly arrives just in time to rescue the men and quickly leave the area, but robot John, now non-functional from the intense heat, slowly falls into the now deep molten flow and perishes. During their trip back to the Sirius, they again see another gigantic brontosaur-like creature, and some other fin-backed dinosaur-like animals.

After safely returning to and entering the Sirius, they discover a recorded desperate message from Masha saying she was going to go against her orders from Lunar Station 7 and land, to attempt to search for them….causing them anguish that she probably did not survive. But now unstable ground and a rain flood are threatening the Sirius, so they must take off immediately, leaving behind several unloaded supply cases. During the rush, Alyosha discovers that his strange rock has crumbled apart to reveal a small sculpture….of a beautiful woman’s face, proving there is intelligent life on Venus. He starts shouting to the others aboard about what he’s found as they hurriedly pull him in. They quickly launch off, just before the ground begins to break apart. Rising into space, they suddenly regain radio-contact from Masha, who tells them she finally decided to remain in orbit for them, as she was ordered to. The Sirius then proceeds to safely return to Lunar Station 7.  ~ From Wikipedia

Day the World Ended is a 1955 independently made black-and-white post-apocalyptic science fiction film, produced and directed by Roger Corman, that stars Richard Denning, Lori Nelson, Adele Jergens, and Mike Connors. Chet Huntley of NBC, later of The Huntley-Brinkley Report, served as the film’s narrator. Day the World Ended was released by American Releasing Corporation (later American International Pictures) as a double feature with The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues. The film’s storyline centers on a heroic scientist who, with a small band of other survivors, must face off against a mutant monster following an atomic war that appears to have destroyed human civilization.

An atomic war has seemingly destroyed most, if not all, of human civilization, leaving the Earth contaminated with radioactive fallout. The apparent single exception is an isolated box canyon, surrounded by lead-bearing cliffs, in which former U.S. Navy Commander Jim Maddison (Paul Birch) lives with his daughter Louise (Lori Nelson) in a home that he has stockpiled with supplies in anticipation of such an apocalypse. Louise is engaged to be married, but her fiancé is missing.

Into this natural bomb shelter stumble survivors, who by chance were inside the canyon when the atomic war occurred. After initially refusing to admit them, Jim relents when his daughter appeals to his humanity. Among the survivors are a geologist, Rick (Richard Denning), who happens to specialize in uranium mining, and a small-time hood, Tony (Mike Connors with his “moll” Ruby (Adele Jergens), who were on their way to San Francisco. There are two struggles for survival: the first is a simple question of whether the radioactive fallout will dissipate, and if so, if it will do so before the rain comes to wash out what is in the atmosphere to fall to Earth, contaminating the shelter. The second threat comes in the form of a hideous atomic mutated monster (Paul Blaisdell), which seems bent on killing anything it comes across, but only consuming those creatures contaminated by fallout. A less obvious but no less dangerous threat is the hidden menace of Tony. Although seemingly charming and helpful, his true character and intentions are that he wants the other men out of the way, so that he can have both women for himself.

All three dangers coincide as the mutated monster kidnaps Louise. It then releases her into a small lake, where it is obviously afraid to enter. Rick appears and attacks the creature, but it runs away as it begins to rain. Following the creature as it is being destroyed by the rain, they come to realize that the creature is Louise’s missing fiancé. Tony, having stabbed Ruby to death after she realized that he wants to be with the younger Louise, then steals Jim’s pistol. He quietly waits to ambush Rick when he returns with Louise. As Tony takes aim, Jim produces a second pistol and shoots Tony dead.

Jim has been slowly expiring from radiation poisoning. He reveals that the rain is radiation-free and will wash away all of the remaining contamination, making the world safe to venture out into again. As he dies, Jim also reveals that he has heard voices of other survivors on the radio. After the rain, Rick and Louise, now the final two survivors, walk hand-in-hand out of the canyon (as the end card “The Beginning” appears on screen). ~ From Wikipedia