Movie Info
Movie Name: Journey to the Seventh Planet
Studio: Cinemagic Inc.
Genre(s): Sci-Fi/Fantasy/B-Movie
Release Date(s): March 10, 1962
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Don’t cross the streams!
A mission to Uranus leads to a spaceship to be trapped by an alien presence. Captain Don Graham (John Agar) must lead his crew to discover the force holding them hostage and stop it from reaching Earth. With the ability to “give” visions of whatever the crew wants or fears, the enemy’s strength seems endless…and the temptation might be too much.
Directed by Sidney W. Pink, Journey to the Seventh Planet was a low budget European sci-fi film. The American International film was reedited with some clips from other pictures, and the movie has been released packaged with Invisible Invaders.
Come here…I just want to hug you with my sharp talons!
Journey to the Seventh Planet is the perfect movie for a ten-year-old. If the movie had been called Journey to Uranus, I think it would have been a hit…but it still leads to great Uranus jokes.
The story has some originality in film form but is derivative of a few works. There are a lot of comparisons to the story “Mars is Heaven!” from Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles and the novel Solaris (which hadn’t been put to film yet). Both stories involve planets where people’s dreams and fantasies come true. The basic concept is interesting, but I find the story a bit odd.
You said if I let you guys bury me, you’d dig me out!
What is weird about the movie is that the humans are the invaders. They land on the planet and immediately want to kill the entity. It (of course) is revealed later that the entity wants to invade Earth, but before that it was just a creature living on Uranus that was content until humans interfered…good going guys!
The movie is anchored by John Agar as the captain but for the most part is a B-Movie loaded picture. With B-Movie actors, you get average performances, but they do work for the most part in the movie. Much of the movie features foreign actors so there is a lot of dubbing and funky accents. Plus, you get “space babes” that show up to tempt the male astronauts.
Uh, oh…a swirly eye thing!!!
The movie has a couple of surprisingly good visuals involving a claymation rat creature (as a nightmare of one of the people), but it also has a swirly hypnosis thing in front a weak cheap eye. Other than that, it is very standard imagery. Shots from The Angry Red Planet and sound effects for Rodan were mixed in for the movie.
Journey to the Seventh Planet has a few moments, but fails to really get past average sci-fi. It is worth checking out if you are a fan of sci-fi, and it is less common than many of the sci-fi standards. The story might feel a bit old at points, but try to remember it was actually kind original when it was made.
