It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

A planet is orbiting dangerously close to planet Earth and a mysterious spaceship has landed on the Scottish Moors...Friend or Foe?Breaking it down you find that The Man from Planet X is a standard sci-fi movie that would often be bettered the longer the 1950s boom of sci-fi films continued. However, this is in no way a bad thing given the guile and craft that went into making it a picture of worth.Edgar G. Ulmer and his crew are armed with a $100 budget (exageration of course, but you understand I'm sure) and almost make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Working with old sets that were used on Joan of Arc (1948), the pic is a lesson in low budget film making of note. Ulmer brings a plethora of fog and mists to cloak the sets, while he shoots his cast in low lights and shadows to ensure his sci-fi tale never has a chance to be found out as a cheapie.As it happens the story is decent enough. Alien visitor from a dying planet needs something, but what? He can't communicate vocally and of course the humans meeting the visitor have different agendas. There's some suspense, a little bit of nutty science, and even some sexual flirtations. All in all a good solid sci-fi picture, one that showcases the unheralded skills of its director. And not even a papier-mâché headed alien can under value that fact. 7/10

Shot in less than a week in late 1950 for just 41,000 dollars, this managed to beat THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951) to theaters by a solid month, making it one of the very first films about alien invaders landing on Earth (something previously seen only in a couple of serials). Los Angeles reporter John Lawrence (Robert Clarke) gets wind of some strange astronomical phenomena and promptly heads to a barely-populated island off the coast of Scotland to further investigate matters. There, he meets up with Professor Elliot (Raymond Bond), who has recently discovered that a new planet he's dubbed "Planet X" has entered our galaxy and is slowly heading toward the Earth. Though it isn't expected to actually collide with our planet nor will it become visible to the naked eye, it will be getting close enough to study and could possibly effect weather patterns. What no one anticipates is an entirely different and possibly catastrophic threat.John arrives on the island, is introduced to Elliot's friendly daughter / obligatory love interest Enid (Margaret Elliot) and the scientist's nosy, sketchy assistant Dr. Mears (William Schallert) and then heads to an inn for the night. After dropping him off, Enid's car breaks down on the trip back, forcing her to walk. She sees a glowing light, discovers a fallen spacecraft and briefly sees an alien visitor through a window. Initially skeptical of her story, the Professor and John go back to the ship the following day and indeed see the alien. Because they show signs of kindness toward it, it follows them back home like a stray puppy. Dr. Mears devises a way to communicate with the visitor using math formulas, but since he's really only interested in making money, he roughs up the alien after he gets the information he's looking for. The alien decides to strike back; turning villagers into mindless slaves to help him build a "wireless directional beam" as he stages a full-scale takeover.This is neither the best nor the worst that 50s sci-fi has to offer but it's certainly watchable, especially considering it was shot in just 6 days for peanuts. Veteran 'B' movie director Ulmer (best known for the Karloff / Lugosi horror classic THE BLACK CAT [1934] and the excellent noir DETOUR [1945]) was quite used to working with limited funds so he's able to stretch the budget about as far as it can go and creates a wonderfully moody and foggy rural atmosphere in the process. Also helping to curb major costs was the availability of sets left over from the big budget Oscar-winning JOAN OF ARC (1948). The design of the spaceship (which looks like a sphere with a giant silver ice cream cone on top) and the alien itself (which has a squinty-eyed, completely immobile sourpuss putty face) are less impressive, but typical of the time and really shouldn't bother anyone already accustomed to 50s sci-fi flicks.One of the things I liked most about this one is that we're never sure what the aliens' true intentions are. The alien scout seems friendly at first and possibly would have peacefully cooperated with humans to work out a solution to their problem if it hadn't been needlessly attacked. Then again, its initial demeanor could have just been a facade to trick the characters when it had malicious plans all along: "X" is revealed to be a dying planet that will soon be covered with ice so the alien race are desperate for a new home. We are never told one way or another but I personally like to think it's the former since the alien very easily could have used its slave ray gun on the characters early on, yet doesn't show any signs of hostility until it is provoked by Dr. Mears.American character actor and sci-fi regular Roy Engel (sporting a good Scottish accent) plays a small supporting role as a local constable. Clarke, Field and Schallert all returned the following year in a loose follow-up companion film titled CAPTIVE WOMEN (1952, aka "1000 Years from Now"), which had the same writer / producers (Jack Pollexfen and Aubrey Wisberg) but was made for a different production company by a different director.

"The Man from Planet X" is routine overall, but it has a reasonably interesting concept - that of a wandering planet that has left its orbit - and has enough heavy atmosphere to make it an entertaining view. Said planet will come closest to Earth around the area of an island off the Scottish coast. Soon the locals realize that a representative of an alien intelligence has landed. The amusing looking creature seems to be harmless at first, but when ambitious and greedy scientist Dr. Mears (the solid veteran character actor William Schallert) starts bullying the creature into giving him information, it changes its mind and gets hostile, turning Mears and others into zombie slaves. It's up to intrepid American reporter John Lawrence (Robert Clarke) to figure out a way to stop an invasion from taking place, and to get word to the authorities.B movie perennials Clarke and director Edgar G. Ulmer are in fine form here; Ulmer did a fine job of working his way around the low, low budgets of his films. Here he has the crew add fog to the sets of the Ingrid Bergman film "Joan of Arc" to create an eerie feel. There's a minimum of characters until the climax when citizens are mobilized against the menace; until then there's a rather intimate feel to the proceedings, and the pacing is deliberate, with a focus on mood and feel rather than action.The acting is sincere from all concerned, with Clarke a likable, low key leading man, and lovely Margaret Field (mother of Sally Field) an appealing leading lady. Schallert is malevolent fun as the self centered Mears; other nice characterizations are by Raymond Bond as eminent scientist Professor Elliot and Roy Engel as Tommy the Constable. Clocking in at a trim 71 minutes, "The Man from Planet X", written and produced by Aubrey Wisberg and Jack Pollexfen, is a good if not great little film worth a look for genre buffs.Seven out of 10.

The Man from Planet X (1951)Edgar G. Ulmer is one of those B-movie directors who has a bit of a fan club based on a couple of key films--in this case "The Black Cat" and "Detour." Both are great--unqualified, compromised, odd, vaguely daring, and vaguely cheap.I wish I could say the same for this one. This just looks like a step, or half a step, above "Plan 9" and that ilk. The acting ebbs and flows, the props are embarrassingly cheesy, and the plot is plain old simplistic and dumb. Of course, that's giving it no credit for pushing some boundaries the way Jules Verne did in fiction, because "Planet X" is an early space film. It's set on earth, but it deals with that big one--what if an alien lands. In fact, it isn't that far off from Ed Wood's "Plan 9 from Outer Space," which came out 7 years later. So Ulmer is cutting edge! But wait, what about "The Day the Earth Stood Still," which for all its cheapness is totally fabulous, and came out in that same year, indeed six months earlier, in the summer of 1951? Yes, something was in the air.There's no sense dissecting this film, but just be warned it's not a high quality flick, and as a cult flick it lacks some of the idiosyncrasies and brazen edges of a film like "Detour," which is a paradigm of great and awful B-movie ingenuity.