For years, my only awareness of this film was the reference to it in "Science Fiction Double Feature," the first song in The Rocky Horror Picture Show: "Anne Francis stars in Forbidden Planet." When I did finally see it, I was stunned at how advanced the special effects and the soundtrack were, given the film was made in 1956.
The film's spaceship is outfitted with hibernation chambers that are very similar visually to the transporters made famous ten years later on the TV show Star Trek. It also features one of the first film robots possessed of a human-seeming personality, Robby the Robot. And the soundtrack has to be some of the earliest electronic music ever — put a beat on it and you could spin it at Movement.
The composers, Louis and Bebe Barron, were cheated out of a credit by the producers, who wanted to avoid paying their guild fees. They weren't the first to make electronic music for a soundtrack (per Wikipedia, the theremin synthesizer had been used for Spellbound in 1946) but they did produce the first all-electronic film score.
Planet is very loosely based on Shakespeare's The Tempest, and there are also some similarities to Ridley Scott's Alien. Both films begin in a similar way with the ship's crew waking after a long journey through space, and both feature unseen (for a time) enemies. Planet concerns a mission led by Commander John J. Adams (Leslie Nielsen) to a planet some light years from Earth. 20 years before, an expedition went there to colonize it. When Adams and his men arrive though, only Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon), his daughter Altaira (Anne Francis), and Robby the Robot remain. Morbius says that a planetary force killed all the others on the expedition and destroyed their spaceship; he and Altaira only escaped because they had decided to stay on the planet. Morbius has been tinkering with a machine, left behind by the Krell, the previous residents of the planet, which can increase intelligence to super-genius levels. This has allowed him to construct Robby and other gadgets. Meanwhile, Altaira can't remember any humans other than her father, and she is very intrigued with the nice young Earth men. The only problem is, Morbius' experiments with the machine seem to have unleashed an invisible, malevolent force, one that doesn't take kindly to visitors.
Will Commander Adams, Dr. Morbius, and Altaira escape the unseen menace? You'll have to go to the Redford this weekend to find out.
Forbidden Planet is showing in Cinemascope with the cartoon "Duck Dodgers in the 24-1/2 Century" at 8:00 on Friday, January 20 at 8:00 p.m. and on Saturday, January 21 at 2:00 and 8:00 p.m. at the Redford Theatre,17360 Lahser in Detroit. Tickets are $4. For more information, call 313.537.2560.
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