Target Earth (1954) (film review).
Don’t be surprised if I look at a lot of old SF films right now. When ordering up these films, a lot of the time it’s like a scavenger hunt while reading ‘The Encyclopaedia Of Science Fiction Movies’ by Phil Hardy. A damaged right arm from a fall in early December gives me some needed rest time to watch a film and a little exercise typing.
You’re not always sure what you’re going to get until it arrives. By that, I mean, is it official, private, simply forgotten, or out in the public domain? ‘Target Earth’ is 80 years old, and, frankly, I’d be surprised if it popped up on TV.
Nora King (actress Kathleen Crowley) wakes up in Chicago to find the city deserted. Well, except for the odd corpse and then a transient man from Detroit, Frank Brooks (actor Richard Denning) surprises her. Following his mugging, he remained unconscious throughout the night.
At a cocktail bar, they find Vicki Harris (actress Virginia Grey) playing a piano and Jim Wilson (actor Richard Reeves) drinking their lives away and no doubt unconscious when the city was evacuated. Convincing them to join them, they find cars with their distributor caps missing and meet Charles Otis (actor Mort Marshall). They find themselves hiding from a giant shadow and not wanting to see what it is; they hide out in a hotel and get some indication of an invasion by an army from yesterday’s newspaper. A robot zaps Otis, who panics and flees in fear. The others decide to stay upstairs in the hotel, figuring these robots won’t check everywhere.
Meanwhile, we meet Lt. General Wood (actor Arthur Space) as he and his team recap the events, and the scientists think they came from Venus. The people at the hotel witness an air force attack on the robots and come to a similar conclusion.
Although Wood is preparing to use a nuke, the army finds a broken robot, and chief researcher Tom (actor Whit Bissell) is determined to find out what happened.
The two couples have a problem with an armed man, Davis (actor Robert Roark). Once the confrontation concludes, one of the robots smashes through the window, prompting them to flee once more. Then the military arrives. The rest is a spoiler.
Like a lot of films with evacuated cities, it looks eerily bare, and it’s a fair bet it was recorded on a Sunday. The robots, well, one of them, are a touch laughable, and you would think a forerunner to Metal Mickey (look him up), but typical of the time period. The balance of story with personal caught in a deserted city and the military trying to beat the invaders balances the situation, explaining what is happening to the viewer. Done on a small budget, it is actually effective as far as it goes.
GF Willmetts
December 2024
(pub: public domain. 1 DVD 76 minute black & white film)
cast: Richard Denning, Kathleen Crowley, Virginia Grey and Richard Reeves
