Very well executed

Dreadfully Boring

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

A pretty decent Roger Corman offering about a group of people who find themselves amid a mountain range that is full of lead after a nuclear holocaust. They include a survivalist and his daughter, a young man knowledgeable in science (handsome Richard Denning), a gangster (played by Mike Connors) and his stripper girlfriend, an old prospector and his donkey, and a poor guy who was caught in the radiation. The dynamics are interesting as food and water run low and they become aware that there are some frightening creatures massing over the rim. It's hard to work together when Connors is constantly on the lookout for a gun he can get his hands on. He also has designs on the young daughter and becomes impatient with his girlfriend. There is some poorly developed science here but, of course, we have to have monsters. Corman doesn't disappoint. Not a bad movie.

If you don't like 50's Sci-Fi that's fine. Younger people that did not grow up with them at the moves, drive-ins and TV, compare them to 80's to 2012 Sci-Fi movies and find them silly. Well of course. If you know nothing of history everything before the UNIVERSALLY IMPORTANT date of your birth has no significance. If it occurred before that it is without worth. I will not launch in to where this leaves us in the future, a present with no history. What does bother me is when they say in some manner, "another stupid end of the world movie", "another stupid atomic bombs end the earth film". This scenario to them is not in the range of possibility and thus unthinkable to them. It is so out of the range of possibility that the concept no longer exists.They are those who will talk freely about the need to use tactical nukes or major hydrogen or air-fuel bombs. They have watched tons of movies. The bad guys dies and the good guys win. There is no fear left for what the hand of man can do. They are the people that really scare me. They really would start a nuclear war knowing that they will win (because they are the good guys)and everything will get better if we just nuke the Muslims or what ever group it is good to hate at the time. They have no thought of the Earth as a planet and a bio-system. They deny the 99% of scientists and gather around the 1%.This movie was a cautionary tale but such films no longer work with a populous that does not believe in any real planet wide danger. Almost all people think they are invincible in some degree in their teens. However, now many never grow out of teens, no matter how old they are.

Nuclear war has destroyed the world and a group of people congregate in Paul Birch's compound, created for such a disaster. He only has enough supplies for 3 people and is not thrilled about having others around even if his beautiful daughter (Lori Nelson) insists he help them. Among them are brawny and heroic Richard Denning, who seems to know what the disaster is capable of doing, the shifty Mike Connors, who sets his sights on Nelson while trying to get rid of his over-the-hill burlesque hall performer girlfriend (an overly made-up Adele Jergens), and an old man with a mule (Raymond Hatton). Jergens tries to pal around with Nelson (more to keep an eye on her and away from Connors than a desire for friendship), but Nelson becomes strangely aware of the presence of something watching them. Is it one of the men inside the compound or some menacing monster created by the nuclear explosion? Well, it's apparent that it's the later, because the shadows of some ugly creature are seen. And wait until you really see it. It's worthy of inclusion as one of the silliest looking creatures of the sci-fi craze of the 1950's. It's no wonder that young people today look back at the 50's sci-fi with reluctance and consider it all so silly because in many cases, it is. There are some genuine classics of the genre ("Them", "The Thing", "The Day the Earth Stood Still"), and a lot of dreck. This is one of the latter.Most of the performances are not worthy of criticism, but two in particular (Connors and Jergens) are filled with such humorous nuances that they can't go unmentioned. Jergens seems more like Connors' drunken Auntie Mame than his girlfriend, while Connors can't get a line out with a sneer. There is an outrageously funny finale to their pairing. Watch this with a comic frame of mind, and you will enjoy it much more and not feel like you've wasted 90 minutes of your time.

I saw the remake of this film, "In The Year 2889", before I saw the original, and I have to say that the experience made me appreciate the good points of this Roger Corman quickie much more than I might have otherwise."2889" was a piece of dreck, while this is an actual movie, with actual actors, that a person can watch with some enjoyment...once, anyway.Denning (a geologist) and Connors (a crook) give their usual snappy performances in this movie, and Paul Birch (the fellow who owns the house that the cast of characters take refuge in) is given better direction, better lines, and a part that shows his strengths to much better advantage than the previous movie I saw him in ("Beast with 1,000,000 Eyes").On the other hand, Corman's usual problems with pacing and energy and rhythm manifest themselves immediately. There are too many talky scenes that go nowhere (especially between Connor and the girlfriend);too many plot holes that the movie hopes we will overlook; too many badly choreographed action sequences (except for one beautifully staged scene where Denning/"Rick" fires a rifle at the advancing creature as the camera stays behind Ricks shoulder - that was NICELY done) and too many moments of glib hand waving pretending to be actual major movie elements (did you know that mutants with diamond hard skin are created by H-bomb blasts and die when exposed to non-poisoned water?) And if you're going to invoke God in a Doomsday scenario, you need to do it a lot more convincingly than Corman's screenplay does at the end.Oh, and the monster is ridiculous. He's just another prototype/ variation of the Giant Pickle from "It Conquered The World". I'm not casting aspersions on Paul Blaisdell, I'm sure he did his best with no time and a tiny budget...but the monster is ridiculous.Still, there was plenty to like about it. I always enjoy watching Richard Denning, Lori Nelson makes a great Barbie Doll, and there is a nice sense of claustrophobia and paranoia as the plot advances. Worth seeing once if you are interested in the history of Science Fiction movies, or Corman, or Giant Pickles.