November 27, 2025 • 37 mins
Aaron and Darlene watch some classic sci-fi from the 1950s and '60s, good and bad. They talk about what makes these films memorable and fun, and if you should take a trip back in time and enjoy these films as well.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
But aren't you fellows ever positive only about doomsday?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
What could be worse than disappointing a little girl disappointing
a big girl.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
I have other ways of securing your cooperation. Sorry, miss
I was giving myself an oil job.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
When was it just azumbly as we've seen attitude to
it since we gave to a few low cabbages an
intellectual carrot.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
That mind boggles you see you see your stupid lives.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Stupid, stupid, I said Santa Claus.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Long enough, we will bring him to Mars.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
I've been afraid a lot of times in my life,
but I didn't know the real meaning of fear until
until I kiss peck me.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
One thing will be clear. It's not from man to
interfere in the ways of God's life.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Gooding me, everybody, and welcome to Earth Versus Soup episode
two eighty four. I'm Aaron Pollier, I'm Darlene. We have
gone right back to doing science fiction, thank God, and
we well, Darlene, you actually found this one, yes, I did,
and it is for d Man from nineteen fifty eight.
(01:27):
I'm a little surprised that we have not watched this
one before, mainly because of everyone who's in it? Well,
what information do you have.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
On your in your notes there?
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Well, it was The Evil Force in UK. It was
reissued in the United States as Master of Terror.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
It's eighty five minutes long. Okay, and it's nineteen fifty.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
It's in color. It's in color, and it has a
lot of people in it that we probably do need
to talk about. We have as our leading man Robert Lansing.
Robert Lansing is I know him from Star Trek. He
was in Assignment Earth as Gary seven. So the time
(02:17):
agent that was back with his cat during the Apollo
at launch. Do you remember that it was? It was
a backdoor pilot that Gene Roddenberry was making for a
different television series.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
But I'm sure we've had him on something that we did.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Boy, that's actually a very good question, Darlene. I don't
remember him immediately in anything that we have done. He
was kind of known for Westerns and I'm quickly scrolling
through his his his IMDb, but I don't see anything
that's jumping out at me. Twilight Zone he was in,
(02:57):
so like, Okay, so we have him. We have that.
Our leading lady is Lee Merriweather and This was her
first her first movie that she did. She was also
in Star Trek in a season three episode called That
Which Survives, So again that's where I know her from.
She was also also the original Catwoman in the nineteen
(03:22):
sixties Batman movie, which I also know her from. She
had a guest appearance on the TV series of Batman
from the nineteen sixties, but not as Catwoman, which unfortunate.
And she actually really does stand out in this movie,
both for acting chops and actually being very striking unscrewed.
(03:46):
Other than that, we have just a slew of other
kind of TV actors that we've probably encountered many times
throughout our lives. But I don't know if you have
any other Like.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
You're the person that knows the guy's names to faces,
I just register them as their character.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Okay. Other than that, I think we can just kind
of jump into the plot here.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
It starts with a very fancy mate plant painting of
a building.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Fancy matte painting of a building. Okay, well, I actually
just oh you're talking about that. No, it doesn't. It
has groovy music during the opening credits.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yes, it does have groovy music, and it flashes so warning.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
If you have epilepsy. Yeah, I will say this for
a movie from nineteen fifty eight, the groovy music in
the beginning does not. It feels a little ahead of time,
doesn't it.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, but I it's behind times to us.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, it just feels like something from the sixties.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah, So yeah, we do get that really cool matte
painting of the Wells laboratory at night, and there's a
man inside and he waits for someone to pass by,
like a gaun guard. And I okay, at this point
in the movie, we need to plause for a second.
I assume this is our not leading man, but also
leading man. His name is doctor Tony Nelson. He's played
(05:15):
by James Cognan. But hold on, I think this guy
has broken into the laboratory because he's hiding from a
security guard.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
No, he's just there. He works there, and he was
just there during the night when he's not supposed to be.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Which does not make sense because he's he's actually an
employee of this laboratory doing work for the owner. I
was immediately confused.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
I don't think he was doing work for the owner.
I think he was just doing his own experiments.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
That's not what he says, okay, But anyway, he's doing
this experiment and he's trying to push a wooden dowel
through a steel plate, then a steel rod when the
wood fails, and he's talking about like how matter can
occupy the same space that he knows it's possible because,
and let's be fair, this is something that later on
(06:10):
was done later on by Buck Ubonzi, that you know,
most of solid matter is just empty space, so why
can't you just move things through it? Well, because then
you get things like Uss Pegasus in the next generation,
where you're phasing through a rock and then materialize back
(06:31):
into like real space and you're halfway stuck in an asteroid. Anyway,
it's that kind of concept moving through solid matter because
it's mostly just empty space. Now they refer to this
as moving through the fourth dimension, which to me means
that you're offsetting yourself from time, which applies to this
(06:54):
movie in other ways, but it doesn't really make sense
when moving through matter. We'll get to it. We'll get
to it. So he catches the whole lab on fire
through sheer incompetence and since there are no safety features
in this highly experimental lab such as fire extinguishers, the
whole building burns down.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Well I had to laugh because on the wall it
says no smoking.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
No, it says no smoking on there because there are
no fire safe there's no fire safety equipment. That's why
it says no smoking. So a spark sets off a fire,
the whole building burns down. The owners out there like.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Mister Wells yeah, saying he's now lost one.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Hundred thousand dollars. It's going to take one hundred thousand
dollars to rebuild this entire lab. And it's so I
think I'm fired, right, And he goes, yeah, get the
hell out.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
And Tony takes a semi truck.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yeah into Fairview fair View Research. Yeah, and his brother
works there, his brother Scott Nelson, played by Robert Lansing. Okay,
and his team is also It also has Linda Davis. Now,
Linda Davis is played by Merriweather, who I already said.
(08:17):
And Linda is a strange character because she refers to
herself as a secretary, as an assistant and also a
competent scientist, but they never refer to her as a doctor.
They generally they generally kind of look down at her
(08:41):
in some ways as like the other the other like experimenters.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, she's just there's yeah, there is that. That's there.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
It feels weird because she is the only woman on staff.
But because she's the only woman on staff, obviously she's
the secretary.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Like that's when it comes to Nielsen just takes everyone
for granted. That's there.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
No, No, I would disagree. He does not, but other
people do, like Roy Parker, and.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
He's more important. He's thinking is experiment is more important
than the people around him.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yes, for sure, that I will agree with. But they
have this like experiment that they're making a new element
and they call it like Carsonium or something like that.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Well they call it that because the owner of the is.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Carson is Carson, doctor Carson. So they shut down the experiment.
It fails. Then we have Scott and Tony meet and
we have we also meet Roy Parker, who is one
of the other part of the team, and we immediately
see him as a jerk. He is clearly a jerk.
He's a douchebag. He's there just to like rip ideas
(09:57):
off of other people.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Yeah. Linda tells him no, okay, and he doesn't take no.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah. Yeah, So we learned that Scott is going to
ask Linda to marry him, and I think, oh no,
it's going to be one of these weird love triangle movies.
And it kind of is. But we need to talk
about the plot a little out of order at this
point because nineteen fifty eight, I guess I didn't have
(10:28):
any I didn't have any real expectation other than it
to be as bland and uninteresting as a love triangle
story could be in the nineteen fifties. But this there's
a little something here, and it's because well, let's just
(10:50):
go with the plot for a second. Let's go back
to the plot. Maybe I do need to talk about
the plot. We have a scene with all of them
going to dinner.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Well, the one thing I should say on this part
is it is Linda who invites.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Tony out to dinner. Yeah, and Scott's like, eh, okay, whatever,
that's fine. Yeah, Linda says Tony should should work with Scott.
Scott agrees that Tony should work there, and at this point,
what what comes across is Linda almost comes across as
(11:24):
a temptress at this point in the movie, because she's
being super flirty and like staring at at at Tony
across like a merry go round, like leaning.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
He's doing so too.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
He is, but she's being very forward. And no, I
wouldn't say Tony is doing the same thing here. He's
he's interested, but he's not being forward where she seems
to be really now, I think this changes. This changes
very quickly. But in this first scene she seems to
be really aggressive league going after him.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
But in the office he was.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
He was. It's a very strange switch around. But like
in my notes, I said, during the scene when they're
in this playground, I think Tony, it feels like Tony
would have been very uncomfortable, especially at this point excuse
Darlene's coughing. I think Tony would have been very uncomfortable
(12:31):
with how Linda was flirting because he Tony now knows
that Scott is going to ask her to marry him,
but it doesn't come across that way. So Scott just
sort of looks at these two that are giving googly
eyes to each other and shrugs and says, you know what,
(12:54):
I gotta go. I have something to do, and he
just makes a stupid excuse. And then at this point,
like Tony and Linda just start kissing and it's that's
in the folly, isn't it not the folly? It actually
looks wrong. It's an actual ruin. But he pulls away
and then walks away, and we don't really get why. Again,
(13:17):
I don't really get the dynamic. It seems to switch
a bit.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
But did we even get a reason later on?
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, we do, which is why I'm like, Okay, there's
a little more meat to this than your typical love
triangle type thing. So we have more tests that happen.
Now Tony is working there. Scott goes down to check
on the experiment and what the experiment looks like. It
looks like a nuclear pile. That's basically what it looks like.
(13:44):
Tony shows up and well, Tony, Tony at this point,
he doesn't have the job. I apologize. He says he
doesn't want the job, and Tony says that he can't
stay here because of Linda, but he doesn't say Linda.
It's clear that he doesn't want to be here and
he's just trying to walk around the subject with Linda. Now,
the Linda keeps calling into the office while the two
(14:06):
brothers are having an argument, saying the experiments work. The
experiments worked, and we learned that like Carganite, the owner
of this laboratory comes in doctor Carson. He's giving like
a press conference, and of course Carganite has has military purposes,
et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
See a steal that cannot be penetrated or.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Well, it's a super hard material and super dense.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Okay is it dense? Good? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:36):
So, uh, Scott and Linda have a moment together. Now,
Remember Tony is the one that Linda has been flirting with.
Scott has been wanting to ask her to marry him.
So scottlanda like giggle and walk out of this press
conference saying, yeah, Carson takes credit for everything.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
It's Carson did a very bad thing. He didn't even
know his scientist name.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
No, and he takes credit for all the work that
his team did while he was never really there. Unfortunately,
this is something that is still common today where somebody
that is well Thomas that hasn't always did it, but
like just any kind of supervisor or manager that takes
credit for their team's work and likes passing along the
(15:22):
blame to the team when something doesn't work. He's that
kind of douchebag. I don't like them, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Anyway, there's worse with the Roy Parker character though.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Roy park is a piece of shit, let's be fair.
So Tony tries to explain his idea about having material
penetrate other matter, and he finally gets like Scott and
Linda together and he shows them a piece of steel
with a pencil put through it, and he goes, look,
I did it accidentally years ago. I have never been
(15:54):
able to like reproduce.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
It, and I think I willed it.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
I think I willed it to happen. That's the only
explanation that I have. And at this point Scott checks out.
He's like, so you you believe in magic that your
will did this? And okay, to me, that's an Aleister
Crowley reference. You know that that will is a part
(16:20):
of like magic working, et cetera. But anyway, that's probably
just me and all the weird books that I've read
through my life that I immediately started like thinking, is
he referencing Aleister Crowley? Like? Anyway, So Scott doesn't believe
any of it. Linda chases after Tony. After Tony kind
of like stomps out thinking that no one believes him.
(16:41):
And then this is where Linda like professes her love
to Tony. It was creepy, and Tony says, look, I
can't stay here. Scott doesn't respect me and I stole
another woman from him before that he was going to marry.
(17:02):
I'm like, whoa wait a second, and then Tony goes, look, look, look,
I admit that I did wrong, but this woman was
bad in fact when I when I took her from him,
she used me and then threw me away. And I'm
glad it happened to me and not him, but it
was still my fault and I can't have this happen again.
(17:28):
And she says, look, Tony, I love you. It doesn't matter,
and they kiss and I'm thinking, okay, this is this
is gonna end in tears. But at least there's like
an interesting backstory now that Tony Why Tony is trying
to pull back that he heard his brother before, he's
never really forgiven himself. I don't know feelings, thoughts.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
I don't have any feelings or thoughts on that one,
because it's just there.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
It's there, But I mean, is that different enough from
most love triangle things that we see in these movies
to really kind of take note of it. I thought
it was, but.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
I it felt to me somewhat like it was written
to throw in romance to this thing. Okay, and what
happens later you have to give her a person that's
going to be there later.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Boy, that's a really cynical take on it. I don't know.
I think there's like I think they're trying to build
a bit of backstory with Tony and Scott why they
don't like immediately trust each other, why they're not immediately
working together, And it gives them, it gives the viewer
a little more tension with this woman that clearly both
(18:58):
of them are attracted to. Well, I shouldn't say clearly,
because Scott doesn't really give off the whole I'm attracted
to her vibe.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Yeah, And I don't blame Linda for feeling used by him,
by him because he kind of just.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
I don't think she can not used.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
She says, I don't want to be just an assistant, just.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
A She wants to be a wife and a lover
and and and.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
She wants to be more than just someone for him
to be just a round Okay, And that's what she feels.
That's why she wasn't attracted to him.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Okay, so Tony finally finally screw it. Whatever Linda's Linda's
gonna be with me or whatever, but I'm gonna start
this job. Time passes, Tony starts getting equipment to do
these experiments with, you know, the anteroster that he's building,
and Scott sees Linda flirting with Tony and he's he's
(20:03):
clearly looking down trodden more and more seeing that they
haven't told Scott yet. And then Scott sees a doctor
because of pain. And it turns out at this point
that the doctor is like, there's nothing wrong with you.
In fact, you're a superhuman. I don't know what it is,
but your brain waves are like way stronger than headaches. Yeah,
(20:24):
but his brain waves are like super super super strong,
and that's why he's having headaches. He's like a superman.
He's advised to go see a specialist, but instead he
goes to see Linda. And this is where we see
Linda babysitting her niece played by Patty Duke. It's Patty
Duke's like twelve years old at this point, but it's
(20:45):
Patty Duke. She actually has lines she's a good child actress, Like, okay,
it's Patty Duke. That's weird. Scott here proposes marriage to.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Linda, and that's where you find doubt that Lynn did.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Yeah, has all these feelings about like being just seen
as somebody to be around. It's like, no, no.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
I'm just there to take notes. I'm just there too.
I don't want to be that.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
She says that she admires him more than anyone else,
but it's no more than that, Tim and he runs
back off the lab. He starts getting dizzy. He looks ill.
He breaks open Tony's locker. He takes all the equipment out,
sets it up, and then he tries to put a
pencil through a block of steel, but pushes his hand
through the block of steel instead and he can't get
(21:35):
it back out. Roy comes in and steals the notes
while like, Scott is hiding and I don't know why
he's table. I don't get why he's hiding. He could
have hit his hand or something like that, but it
seems like he's in pain. But he says later that
there was no pain.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Yeah, I don't I don't get that home.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Why he literally The only reason he hides is so
Roy can steal all the notes about the experiment. That's
the only reason he does. So he steals all the
notes Scott hides. He finally pulls his hand out, and
then Scott calls Tony and tells him about his success.
So Roy, now with the stolen notes, goes and gives.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Us straight to old man Carson.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
And says, I need a promotion in money and is
this worth something to you? And of course, douchebag Carson says, yeah, yeah, sure,
we'll work together.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Uh. When Tony they go to do the experiment, Tony
says that the amplifier isn't even working.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
He goes, yeah, the amplifier you didn't have working at all.
You did this solely because of your will. It must
be because of those like incredibly powerful brain waves that
are giving you headaches. And so he actually doesn't even
need the equipment. He can just do it on his own, okay,
And it really truly was a fluke that Tony could
(23:02):
have that Tony did it that one time. Okay, that's
kind of cool. So Scott says they shouldn't ghost talk
to the owner, and Tony says that there might be
side effects, but Scott's like, a screw it, I'm just
going to go home. And therefore Scott, instead of being
(23:23):
a smart scientist, decides to start doing crazy crap. And
this to me feels like it's verging into the whole
invisibility serum from the invisible Man, that it's clearly driving
him a little crazy.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Almost immediately, doesn't he He have Tony take Linda home?
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Yeah, and then he walks He goes and takes a
letter out of a mailbox by putting his hand through it,
starts laughing, and then puts the letter back. He did
not commit a melony by stealing mail.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Oh, but he does later.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
He does things later that are like that. Yeah, but
then he he ends up going to like he walks
past a grocery store and like reaches through the window
and gets an apple. And it's actually kind of a
neat effect. It's very simple, starts eating. It's a very
simple effect though, Like there really is no window there,
and they just put a light beam there, so it
looks like his hand is moving through and glowing through
(24:22):
a pane of glass, but it's not there, obviously. He
starts he's laughing, and then he stops in front of
like a jewelry store. It just reaches through the window
and like fondles a diamon necklace and then puts it back,
but then starts.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Laughing because it was at that point it made more
sense to me on the love triangle thing of he
was thinking of her at that time.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Yeah, and then he's like, screw it whatever. So Tony
calls Scott the next morning to wake him up, and
Scott looks.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
She forgot that he looked at the bank.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
No, well, he looked at the bank, that's it. So
he calls up Scott wakes him up. Scott looks older,
he actually looks all worn. And there's a newspaper that
says a local bank was robbed of fifty thousand dollars
last night. There's no no idea of how it was done, okay,
So Scott refuses to come into work. He goes to
(25:16):
see the doctor he saw before, and he puts his
hand through the doctor accidentally, and it just kills the doctor,
aging him to like not to dust, but like to
death though, yeah, it ages him to death. And then
Tony and Linda think it might be accelerating time in
(25:37):
like limited areas like this effect, Scott ends up like
hiding all the equipment inside the Carsonium reactor. He then
walks through a wall into Carson's study and then demands
the notes from Carson. Then he kills Carson and everyone
like all these murders are the cops are just finding
(25:57):
like bodies that have been aged to like it's but
they all are wearing the clothes of the younger person
or whatever. And he kills Carson. Tony and Linda are
called in to see the body, and a detective questions
Tony and the cops are like, boy, there's something weird. Hey,
wait a second, that robbery you heard about the other night,
(26:20):
there's something weird. You're a scientist, aren't you. What would
cause a thousand dollars bill to be stuck way through Yeah,
embedded halfway through a safe door? And Tony kind of goes, uh,
oh shit, Okay, that's who's doing it. Yeah, Scott's murdering everybody.
Why is he murdering everybody, Darlene, Is there any reason
(26:41):
he's murdering anybody?
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Well, so the first one was accident.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, and then he starts murdering people randomly, almost, but
there is a reason for it, but it's kind of
contradicted later on in a weird way. Anyway, we'll get
to it. So Scott ends up walking to Linda's bedroom
at night. She freaks out, tries to run but faints
when Scott just kind of walks through the upstairs wall
(27:07):
and then drops to the ground, and you have to think, boy, well, Scott,
Scott was really good to like turn back on his
solidity before he went straight through the ground.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
She runs out of her bedroom down the stairs, opens
up the front door and.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
If he's standing there, he's standing there.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
That's when she passes out.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
So Tony finds all the money in Scott's house and
Linda takes him and Linda take it to the cops.
Scott ends up having There's this weird scene where Scott
goes into a sleazy bar and a sex worker comes
out and flirts with him.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
They call her a b girl.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yeah, a big girl. She's a sex worker and she
flirts with them and they're gonna go off and make
out in his car or whatever, so Tony. Tony theorizes
that Scott is stealing energy from people so he doesn't
deteriorate further. Because they've seen how he looks older?
Speaker 1 (28:04):
H when and then all of a sudden, look, okay.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Yeah, so Scott in the car, Scott kisses the sex
worker and she basically just immediately ages to death, and
Scott seems younger again. Cops say they've there's been four
more killings that are like this now, so at this point,
they like theorize that the only way Scott is staying
(28:28):
alive is by like draining energy from other people.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
So if it's draining life, then why isn't when he
touches pay plants and stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Like that, Why couldn't he do that? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Why doesn't it go?
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I don't know, like, why couldn't he take energy from
a tree or a plant instead of just killing people, like.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
If it's life force?
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Yeah, and and he seems like he's a good person,
like he chooses not to kill certain people, So why
is he choosing to kill anyone?
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Because he chose not to kill Linda Patty Duke.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
He chose not to kill Patty Duke.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Yeah he Yeah, there was that scene too.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
And he chose not to kill Linda. That's true. So
it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, Like he's
he the character is written differently differently depending on the scene,
which is a shame.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
The cops put up a chase, is what.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Yeah, they corner him in a small area. He ends
up killing a cop and getting away, and Tony's like, dude,
Scott's indestructible because you can shoot him all day and
he just turns in substantial and bullets go right through him.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
But Tony said something that made me go, hmm, he's
gonna keep deteriorating, is what.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
So Tony says, I need to give myself the same
treatment to be excuse me, to be able to pass
through wall so I can be able to chase after
him wherever he goes.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
And Linda tells him no.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
But it doesn't matter. Tony's still gonna try to do it.
Does he succeed, No, because he's not super powered like
freaking Scott's brain is. He's trying, He's trying real hard,
but he just can't do it. So after a little bit, like,
Roy Parker ends up leaking all of these plans to
capture Scott to the press. So Scott learns about the
(30:22):
plan to capture him at the laboratory because of Roy
Parker being a dick, and plans for it. So Roy
Parker gets killed by Scott and a whole bunch of
other cops end up getting killed by Scott because of
Roy Parker. Screw him whatever.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Yeah, they go to trap.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Him, yeah, and he ends up going into like the
reactor three and he tries to reach in to get
all the equipment that he hid inside the reactor and
Tony cranks the reactor's power up and it like blinds
him for a little bit, which kind of makes sense
kind of. He's like, dude, you tried to kill me.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
But then they were they ran out, but Linda did not.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Yeah, And Linda's in there.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Because she's in the control room.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
And Scott comes back in and basically says, you tried
to kill me. Linda begs him to stop. Scott stop,
and Scott breaks down and just starts crying and says, Linda,
I can't. I need to be near you. That's the
only way I can keep my sanity. To stop. And
(31:35):
it's actually kind of a tense scene in a weird way,
like I actually thought it was well done.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
He goes to let him kiss her and that's when
she actually shoots him.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Well, they kiss and he does not kill her. That's
the thing. Like he chooses not to kill her again,
and she shoots him and he kind of like looks
at her and goes well because he wasn't expecting to
be shot, so he was actually physical for the moment.
And he's like he kind of looks at his bloody
hands and he says, you can't kill me. I'm in
I'm you know, I'm indestructible, and he rants and raves
(32:09):
and then moves into the wall the reactor and dies
like inside the.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Reactor because he's losing blood.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
He's losing blood regardless. Yeah, and he just dies of
the reactor. The end, he probably is like halfway in
all the difference and the end, Yeah, yeah, boom done.
So it's a weird plot. It's a very weird plot.
What else can I talk about with this? It is
a very strange plot. But what worked? What worked it?
Speaker 1 (32:39):
It didn't have it didn't have the pauses that you had,
so I guess the pacing worked.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Pacing worked. Agree with that. I actually think even though
the special effects look kind of crummy today, for like
the the how they cut him into going through certain things.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Made him ghost at sometimes.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, I think it actually was pretty good for nineteen
fifty eight, nineteen fifty nine, I'll say it worked. I'll
say the special effects work, even though like to our
eyes today they're clearly bad, but for this time and
they were.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
You could see sometimes that they powdered his hair.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
But the special effects, I'll even say the acting is
barely verges into the it works category. Like I actually
was kind of engaged.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Well, I don't think it was the acting. I think
it's the There wasn't very many characters that were characters. Yeah,
that's one of the biggest problems I have.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
But I'm talking about what works.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Well, That's what I'm saying is that I think that's
it's not the acting that was the problem. I'm thinking
it was more of that they didn't have why Parker
was a how do you portray a character.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
I'm not saying the acting didn't work. I'm saying the
acting did work in it. I think the acting was
pretty good for having a very limited, two dimensional kind
of characters. Okay, so like I think the movie succeeded
for the acting against the writing. I'm not saying the
writing didn't work because it did have problems, but it
(34:27):
still engaged me enough. To say, well, Okay, it's average.
I'll say it doesn't fit into either category. But I
can't think of anything else that really generally works in
this film. But what doesn't work is I don't know,
I don't know if anything truly dumps into the it
didn't work category in this, Like, yeah, the pacing was
(34:49):
actually good, special effects were good, the acting was good.
The writing was eh, but it's not bad. The plot
is fine, it's interesting in a lot of ways. Obviously,
the science is bad, but I can't really hold that
against the movie. I think the casting was really good.
(35:10):
I don't know, can you think of anything that truly
dumps into the it does not work category?
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Like I said that most of the characters were characters characters, yes,
two dimensional characters, and that I think took them the
acting down, but the.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Acting was still pretty good. Yeah, right, But other than that,
I don't know. Like I didn't walk out of this
thinking this was like a new gem for us.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
No, but it wasn't a bad either. No, I would
say five and a half.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
I would say this is a five and a half six, Like, yeah,
I don't know when I'll watch this again, but I
kind of liked it. We both recommend it, though, right, yes,
I don't know if there's a ton to talk about
more about this movie. I know this might be a
kind of a short review because the plot's very easy
to sum up. I will say that the scenes with
(36:14):
Linda and Tony flirting, while at the beginning it's uncomfortable,
they actually do seem like they have chemistry on screen.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
And the person Robert Lansing, really made sure he was
mostly detached from people.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Yeah, and that I actually think that was pretty good
acting too. I'll even say the sets were pretty nice.
I don't know. I keep thinking of other things that
I kind of liked. I thought it was amusing that
that Patty Duke wasn't it so young? And she's just
sort of there as like a guest appearance. I don't know.
(36:56):
I recommend it five and a half six. You're saying
five and a half six, right, Yeah, Okay, maybe we
should just hold it there. This was four D Man
from nineteen fifty eight to fifty nine.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
I'm eron, I'm DARLINGE good evening.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
We keep watching the Skies. At no point in your
rambling incoherent response were you even close to anything that
could be considered a rational thought.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
Thanks for listening to this episode of This Week in Geek.
Hungry for more, check out our website at this Week
in Geek dot Net. You can subscribe to the podcast,
browse our Twitter and Instagram, and leave your thoughts on
today's topics. If you'd like to give us some feedback,
send us an email at Feedback at this Week in
Geek dot Net. Tune in next time, and remember, lower
your shields and surrender your listenership.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
We would be on a if you would join us.
Thank you for your cooperation. Good night,
But aren't you fellows ever positive only about doomsday?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
What could be worse than disappointing a little girl disappointing
a big girl.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
I have other ways of securing your cooperation. Sorry, miss
I was giving myself an oil job.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
When was it just azumbly as we've seen attitude to
it since we gave to a few low cabbages an
intellectual carrot.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
That mind boggles you see you see your stupid lives.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Stupid, stupid, I said Santa Claus.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Long enough, we will bring him to Mars.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
I've been afraid a lot of times in my life,
but I didn't know the real meaning of fear until
until I kiss peck me.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
One thing will be clear. It's not from man to
interfere in the ways of God's life.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Gooding me, everybody, and welcome to Earth Versus Soup episode
two eighty four. I'm Aaron Pollier, I'm Darlene. We have
gone right back to doing science fiction, thank God, and
we well, Darlene, you actually found this one, yes, I did,
and it is for d Man from nineteen fifty eight.
(01:27):
I'm a little surprised that we have not watched this
one before, mainly because of everyone who's in it? Well,
what information do you have.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
On your in your notes there?
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Well, it was The Evil Force in UK. It was
reissued in the United States as Master of Terror.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
It's eighty five minutes long. Okay, and it's nineteen fifty.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
It's in color. It's in color, and it has a
lot of people in it that we probably do need
to talk about. We have as our leading man Robert Lansing.
Robert Lansing is I know him from Star Trek. He
was in Assignment Earth as Gary seven. So the time
(02:17):
agent that was back with his cat during the Apollo
at launch. Do you remember that it was? It was
a backdoor pilot that Gene Roddenberry was making for a
different television series.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
But I'm sure we've had him on something that we did.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Boy, that's actually a very good question, Darlene. I don't
remember him immediately in anything that we have done. He
was kind of known for Westerns and I'm quickly scrolling
through his his his IMDb, but I don't see anything
that's jumping out at me. Twilight Zone he was in,
(02:57):
so like, Okay, so we have him. We have that.
Our leading lady is Lee Merriweather and This was her
first her first movie that she did. She was also
in Star Trek in a season three episode called That
Which Survives, So again that's where I know her from.
She was also also the original Catwoman in the nineteen
(03:22):
sixties Batman movie, which I also know her from. She
had a guest appearance on the TV series of Batman
from the nineteen sixties, but not as Catwoman, which unfortunate.
And she actually really does stand out in this movie,
both for acting chops and actually being very striking unscrewed.
(03:46):
Other than that, we have just a slew of other
kind of TV actors that we've probably encountered many times
throughout our lives. But I don't know if you have
any other Like.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
You're the person that knows the guy's names to faces,
I just register them as their character.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Okay. Other than that, I think we can just kind
of jump into the plot here.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
It starts with a very fancy mate plant painting of
a building.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Fancy matte painting of a building. Okay, well, I actually
just oh you're talking about that. No, it doesn't. It
has groovy music during the opening credits.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yes, it does have groovy music, and it flashes so warning.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
If you have epilepsy. Yeah, I will say this for
a movie from nineteen fifty eight, the groovy music in
the beginning does not. It feels a little ahead of time,
doesn't it.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, but I it's behind times to us.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, it just feels like something from the sixties.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah, So yeah, we do get that really cool matte
painting of the Wells laboratory at night, and there's a
man inside and he waits for someone to pass by,
like a gaun guard. And I okay, at this point
in the movie, we need to plause for a second.
I assume this is our not leading man, but also
leading man. His name is doctor Tony Nelson. He's played
(05:15):
by James Cognan. But hold on, I think this guy
has broken into the laboratory because he's hiding from a
security guard.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
No, he's just there. He works there, and he was
just there during the night when he's not supposed to be.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Which does not make sense because he's he's actually an
employee of this laboratory doing work for the owner. I
was immediately confused.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
I don't think he was doing work for the owner.
I think he was just doing his own experiments.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
That's not what he says, okay, But anyway, he's doing
this experiment and he's trying to push a wooden dowel
through a steel plate, then a steel rod when the
wood fails, and he's talking about like how matter can
occupy the same space that he knows it's possible because,
and let's be fair, this is something that later on
(06:10):
was done later on by Buck Ubonzi, that you know,
most of solid matter is just empty space, so why
can't you just move things through it? Well, because then
you get things like Uss Pegasus in the next generation,
where you're phasing through a rock and then materialize back
(06:31):
into like real space and you're halfway stuck in an asteroid. Anyway,
it's that kind of concept moving through solid matter because
it's mostly just empty space. Now they refer to this
as moving through the fourth dimension, which to me means
that you're offsetting yourself from time, which applies to this
(06:54):
movie in other ways, but it doesn't really make sense
when moving through matter. We'll get to it. We'll get
to it. So he catches the whole lab on fire
through sheer incompetence and since there are no safety features
in this highly experimental lab such as fire extinguishers, the
whole building burns down.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Well I had to laugh because on the wall it
says no smoking.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
No, it says no smoking on there because there are
no fire safe there's no fire safety equipment. That's why
it says no smoking. So a spark sets off a fire,
the whole building burns down. The owners out there like.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Mister Wells yeah, saying he's now lost one.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Hundred thousand dollars. It's going to take one hundred thousand
dollars to rebuild this entire lab. And it's so I
think I'm fired, right, And he goes, yeah, get the
hell out.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
And Tony takes a semi truck.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yeah into Fairview fair View Research. Yeah, and his brother
works there, his brother Scott Nelson, played by Robert Lansing. Okay,
and his team is also It also has Linda Davis. Now,
Linda Davis is played by Merriweather, who I already said.
(08:17):
And Linda is a strange character because she refers to
herself as a secretary, as an assistant and also a
competent scientist, but they never refer to her as a doctor.
They generally they generally kind of look down at her
(08:41):
in some ways as like the other the other like experimenters.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, she's just there's yeah, there is that. That's there.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
It feels weird because she is the only woman on staff.
But because she's the only woman on staff, obviously she's
the secretary.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Like that's when it comes to Nielsen just takes everyone
for granted. That's there.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
No, No, I would disagree. He does not, but other
people do, like Roy Parker, and.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
He's more important. He's thinking is experiment is more important
than the people around him.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yes, for sure, that I will agree with. But they
have this like experiment that they're making a new element
and they call it like Carsonium or something like that.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Well they call it that because the owner of the is.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Carson is Carson, doctor Carson. So they shut down the experiment.
It fails. Then we have Scott and Tony meet and
we have we also meet Roy Parker, who is one
of the other part of the team, and we immediately
see him as a jerk. He is clearly a jerk.
He's a douchebag. He's there just to like rip ideas
(09:57):
off of other people.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Yeah. Linda tells him no, okay, and he doesn't take no.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah. Yeah, So we learned that Scott is going to
ask Linda to marry him, and I think, oh no,
it's going to be one of these weird love triangle movies.
And it kind of is. But we need to talk
about the plot a little out of order at this
point because nineteen fifty eight, I guess I didn't have
(10:28):
any I didn't have any real expectation other than it
to be as bland and uninteresting as a love triangle
story could be in the nineteen fifties. But this there's
a little something here, and it's because well, let's just
(10:50):
go with the plot for a second. Let's go back
to the plot. Maybe I do need to talk about
the plot. We have a scene with all of them
going to dinner.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Well, the one thing I should say on this part
is it is Linda who invites.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Tony out to dinner. Yeah, and Scott's like, eh, okay, whatever,
that's fine. Yeah, Linda says Tony should should work with Scott.
Scott agrees that Tony should work there, and at this point,
what what comes across is Linda almost comes across as
(11:24):
a temptress at this point in the movie, because she's
being super flirty and like staring at at at Tony
across like a merry go round, like leaning.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
He's doing so too.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
He is, but she's being very forward. And no, I
wouldn't say Tony is doing the same thing here. He's
he's interested, but he's not being forward where she seems
to be really now, I think this changes. This changes
very quickly. But in this first scene she seems to
be really aggressive league going after him.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
But in the office he was.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
He was. It's a very strange switch around. But like
in my notes, I said, during the scene when they're
in this playground, I think Tony, it feels like Tony
would have been very uncomfortable, especially at this point excuse
Darlene's coughing. I think Tony would have been very uncomfortable
(12:31):
with how Linda was flirting because he Tony now knows
that Scott is going to ask her to marry him,
but it doesn't come across that way. So Scott just
sort of looks at these two that are giving googly
eyes to each other and shrugs and says, you know what,
(12:54):
I gotta go. I have something to do, and he
just makes a stupid excuse. And then at this point,
like Tony and Linda just start kissing and it's that's
in the folly, isn't it not the folly? It actually
looks wrong. It's an actual ruin. But he pulls away
and then walks away, and we don't really get why. Again,
(13:17):
I don't really get the dynamic. It seems to switch
a bit.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
But did we even get a reason later on?
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, we do, which is why I'm like, Okay, there's
a little more meat to this than your typical love
triangle type thing. So we have more tests that happen.
Now Tony is working there. Scott goes down to check
on the experiment and what the experiment looks like. It
looks like a nuclear pile. That's basically what it looks like.
(13:44):
Tony shows up and well, Tony, Tony at this point,
he doesn't have the job. I apologize. He says he
doesn't want the job, and Tony says that he can't
stay here because of Linda, but he doesn't say Linda.
It's clear that he doesn't want to be here and
he's just trying to walk around the subject with Linda. Now,
the Linda keeps calling into the office while the two
(14:06):
brothers are having an argument, saying the experiments work. The
experiments worked, and we learned that like Carganite, the owner
of this laboratory comes in doctor Carson. He's giving like
a press conference, and of course Carganite has has military purposes,
et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
See a steal that cannot be penetrated or.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Well, it's a super hard material and super dense.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Okay is it dense? Good? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:36):
So, uh, Scott and Linda have a moment together. Now,
Remember Tony is the one that Linda has been flirting with.
Scott has been wanting to ask her to marry him.
So scottlanda like giggle and walk out of this press
conference saying, yeah, Carson takes credit for everything.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
It's Carson did a very bad thing. He didn't even
know his scientist name.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
No, and he takes credit for all the work that
his team did while he was never really there. Unfortunately,
this is something that is still common today where somebody
that is well Thomas that hasn't always did it, but
like just any kind of supervisor or manager that takes
credit for their team's work and likes passing along the
(15:22):
blame to the team when something doesn't work. He's that
kind of douchebag. I don't like them, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Anyway, there's worse with the Roy Parker character though.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Roy park is a piece of shit, let's be fair.
So Tony tries to explain his idea about having material
penetrate other matter, and he finally gets like Scott and
Linda together and he shows them a piece of steel
with a pencil put through it, and he goes, look,
I did it accidentally years ago. I have never been
(15:54):
able to like reproduce.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
It, and I think I willed it.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
I think I willed it to happen. That's the only
explanation that I have. And at this point Scott checks out.
He's like, so you you believe in magic that your
will did this? And okay, to me, that's an Aleister
Crowley reference. You know that that will is a part
(16:20):
of like magic working, et cetera. But anyway, that's probably
just me and all the weird books that I've read
through my life that I immediately started like thinking, is
he referencing Aleister Crowley? Like? Anyway, So Scott doesn't believe
any of it. Linda chases after Tony. After Tony kind
of like stomps out thinking that no one believes him.
(16:41):
And then this is where Linda like professes her love
to Tony. It was creepy, and Tony says, look, I
can't stay here. Scott doesn't respect me and I stole
another woman from him before that he was going to marry.
(17:02):
I'm like, whoa wait a second, and then Tony goes, look, look, look,
I admit that I did wrong, but this woman was
bad in fact when I when I took her from him,
she used me and then threw me away. And I'm
glad it happened to me and not him, but it
was still my fault and I can't have this happen again.
(17:28):
And she says, look, Tony, I love you. It doesn't matter,
and they kiss and I'm thinking, okay, this is this
is gonna end in tears. But at least there's like
an interesting backstory now that Tony Why Tony is trying
to pull back that he heard his brother before, he's
never really forgiven himself. I don't know feelings, thoughts.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
I don't have any feelings or thoughts on that one,
because it's just there.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
It's there, But I mean, is that different enough from
most love triangle things that we see in these movies
to really kind of take note of it. I thought
it was, but.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
I it felt to me somewhat like it was written
to throw in romance to this thing. Okay, and what
happens later you have to give her a person that's
going to be there later.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Boy, that's a really cynical take on it. I don't know.
I think there's like I think they're trying to build
a bit of backstory with Tony and Scott why they
don't like immediately trust each other, why they're not immediately
working together, And it gives them, it gives the viewer
a little more tension with this woman that clearly both
(18:58):
of them are attracted to. Well, I shouldn't say clearly,
because Scott doesn't really give off the whole I'm attracted
to her vibe.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Yeah, And I don't blame Linda for feeling used by him,
by him because he kind of just.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
I don't think she can not used.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
She says, I don't want to be just an assistant, just.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
A She wants to be a wife and a lover
and and and.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
She wants to be more than just someone for him
to be just a round Okay, And that's what she feels.
That's why she wasn't attracted to him.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Okay, so Tony finally finally screw it. Whatever Linda's Linda's
gonna be with me or whatever, but I'm gonna start
this job. Time passes, Tony starts getting equipment to do
these experiments with, you know, the anteroster that he's building,
and Scott sees Linda flirting with Tony and he's he's
(20:03):
clearly looking down trodden more and more seeing that they
haven't told Scott yet. And then Scott sees a doctor
because of pain. And it turns out at this point
that the doctor is like, there's nothing wrong with you.
In fact, you're a superhuman. I don't know what it is,
but your brain waves are like way stronger than headaches. Yeah,
(20:24):
but his brain waves are like super super super strong,
and that's why he's having headaches. He's like a superman.
He's advised to go see a specialist, but instead he
goes to see Linda. And this is where we see
Linda babysitting her niece played by Patty Duke. It's Patty
Duke's like twelve years old at this point, but it's
(20:45):
Patty Duke. She actually has lines she's a good child actress, Like, okay,
it's Patty Duke. That's weird. Scott here proposes marriage to.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Linda, and that's where you find doubt that Lynn did.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Yeah, has all these feelings about like being just seen
as somebody to be around. It's like, no, no.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
I'm just there to take notes. I'm just there too.
I don't want to be that.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
She says that she admires him more than anyone else,
but it's no more than that, Tim and he runs
back off the lab. He starts getting dizzy. He looks ill.
He breaks open Tony's locker. He takes all the equipment out,
sets it up, and then he tries to put a
pencil through a block of steel, but pushes his hand
through the block of steel instead and he can't get
(21:35):
it back out. Roy comes in and steals the notes
while like, Scott is hiding and I don't know why
he's table. I don't get why he's hiding. He could
have hit his hand or something like that, but it
seems like he's in pain. But he says later that
there was no pain.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Yeah, I don't I don't get that home.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Why he literally The only reason he hides is so
Roy can steal all the notes about the experiment. That's
the only reason he does. So he steals all the
notes Scott hides. He finally pulls his hand out, and
then Scott calls Tony and tells him about his success.
So Roy, now with the stolen notes, goes and gives.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Us straight to old man Carson.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
And says, I need a promotion in money and is
this worth something to you? And of course, douchebag Carson says, yeah, yeah, sure,
we'll work together.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Uh. When Tony they go to do the experiment, Tony
says that the amplifier isn't even working.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
He goes, yeah, the amplifier you didn't have working at all.
You did this solely because of your will. It must
be because of those like incredibly powerful brain waves that
are giving you headaches. And so he actually doesn't even
need the equipment. He can just do it on his own, okay,
And it really truly was a fluke that Tony could
(23:02):
have that Tony did it that one time. Okay, that's
kind of cool. So Scott says they shouldn't ghost talk
to the owner, and Tony says that there might be
side effects, but Scott's like, a screw it, I'm just
going to go home. And therefore Scott, instead of being
(23:23):
a smart scientist, decides to start doing crazy crap. And
this to me feels like it's verging into the whole
invisibility serum from the invisible Man, that it's clearly driving
him a little crazy.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Almost immediately, doesn't he He have Tony take Linda home?
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Yeah, and then he walks He goes and takes a
letter out of a mailbox by putting his hand through it,
starts laughing, and then puts the letter back. He did
not commit a melony by stealing mail.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Oh, but he does later.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
He does things later that are like that. Yeah, but
then he he ends up going to like he walks
past a grocery store and like reaches through the window
and gets an apple. And it's actually kind of a
neat effect. It's very simple, starts eating. It's a very
simple effect though, Like there really is no window there,
and they just put a light beam there, so it
looks like his hand is moving through and glowing through
(24:22):
a pane of glass, but it's not there, obviously. He
starts he's laughing, and then he stops in front of
like a jewelry store. It just reaches through the window
and like fondles a diamon necklace and then puts it back,
but then starts.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Laughing because it was at that point it made more
sense to me on the love triangle thing of he
was thinking of her at that time.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Yeah, and then he's like, screw it whatever. So Tony
calls Scott the next morning to wake him up, and
Scott looks.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
She forgot that he looked at the bank.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
No, well, he looked at the bank, that's it. So
he calls up Scott wakes him up. Scott looks older,
he actually looks all worn. And there's a newspaper that
says a local bank was robbed of fifty thousand dollars
last night. There's no no idea of how it was done, okay,
So Scott refuses to come into work. He goes to
(25:16):
see the doctor he saw before, and he puts his
hand through the doctor accidentally, and it just kills the doctor,
aging him to like not to dust, but like to
death though, yeah, it ages him to death. And then
Tony and Linda think it might be accelerating time in
(25:37):
like limited areas like this effect, Scott ends up like
hiding all the equipment inside the Carsonium reactor. He then
walks through a wall into Carson's study and then demands
the notes from Carson. Then he kills Carson and everyone
like all these murders are the cops are just finding
(25:57):
like bodies that have been aged to like it's but
they all are wearing the clothes of the younger person
or whatever. And he kills Carson. Tony and Linda are
called in to see the body, and a detective questions
Tony and the cops are like, boy, there's something weird. Hey,
wait a second, that robbery you heard about the other night,
(26:20):
there's something weird. You're a scientist, aren't you. What would
cause a thousand dollars bill to be stuck way through Yeah,
embedded halfway through a safe door? And Tony kind of goes, uh,
oh shit, Okay, that's who's doing it. Yeah, Scott's murdering everybody.
Why is he murdering everybody, Darlene, Is there any reason
(26:41):
he's murdering anybody?
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Well, so the first one was accident.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, and then he starts murdering people randomly, almost, but
there is a reason for it, but it's kind of
contradicted later on in a weird way. Anyway, we'll get
to it. So Scott ends up walking to Linda's bedroom
at night. She freaks out, tries to run but faints
when Scott just kind of walks through the upstairs wall
(27:07):
and then drops to the ground, and you have to think, boy, well, Scott,
Scott was really good to like turn back on his
solidity before he went straight through the ground.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
She runs out of her bedroom down the stairs, opens
up the front door and.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
If he's standing there, he's standing there.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
That's when she passes out.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
So Tony finds all the money in Scott's house and
Linda takes him and Linda take it to the cops.
Scott ends up having There's this weird scene where Scott
goes into a sleazy bar and a sex worker comes
out and flirts with him.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
They call her a b girl.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yeah, a big girl. She's a sex worker and she
flirts with them and they're gonna go off and make
out in his car or whatever, so Tony. Tony theorizes
that Scott is stealing energy from people so he doesn't
deteriorate further. Because they've seen how he looks older?
Speaker 1 (28:04):
H when and then all of a sudden, look, okay.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Yeah, so Scott in the car, Scott kisses the sex
worker and she basically just immediately ages to death, and
Scott seems younger again. Cops say they've there's been four
more killings that are like this now, so at this point,
they like theorize that the only way Scott is staying
(28:28):
alive is by like draining energy from other people.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
So if it's draining life, then why isn't when he
touches pay plants and stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Like that, Why couldn't he do that? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Why doesn't it go?
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I don't know, like, why couldn't he take energy from
a tree or a plant instead of just killing people, like.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
If it's life force?
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Yeah, and and he seems like he's a good person,
like he chooses not to kill certain people, So why
is he choosing to kill anyone?
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Because he chose not to kill Linda Patty Duke.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
He chose not to kill Patty Duke.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Yeah he Yeah, there was that scene too.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
And he chose not to kill Linda. That's true. So
it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, Like he's
he the character is written differently differently depending on the scene,
which is a shame.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
The cops put up a chase, is what.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Yeah, they corner him in a small area. He ends
up killing a cop and getting away, and Tony's like, dude,
Scott's indestructible because you can shoot him all day and
he just turns in substantial and bullets go right through him.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
But Tony said something that made me go, hmm, he's
gonna keep deteriorating, is what.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
So Tony says, I need to give myself the same
treatment to be excuse me, to be able to pass
through wall so I can be able to chase after
him wherever he goes.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
And Linda tells him no.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
But it doesn't matter. Tony's still gonna try to do it.
Does he succeed, No, because he's not super powered like
freaking Scott's brain is. He's trying, He's trying real hard,
but he just can't do it. So after a little bit, like,
Roy Parker ends up leaking all of these plans to
capture Scott to the press. So Scott learns about the
(30:22):
plan to capture him at the laboratory because of Roy
Parker being a dick, and plans for it. So Roy
Parker gets killed by Scott and a whole bunch of
other cops end up getting killed by Scott because of
Roy Parker. Screw him whatever.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Yeah, they go to trap.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Him, yeah, and he ends up going into like the
reactor three and he tries to reach in to get
all the equipment that he hid inside the reactor and
Tony cranks the reactor's power up and it like blinds
him for a little bit, which kind of makes sense
kind of. He's like, dude, you tried to kill me.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
But then they were they ran out, but Linda did not.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Yeah, And Linda's in there.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Because she's in the control room.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
And Scott comes back in and basically says, you tried
to kill me. Linda begs him to stop. Scott stop,
and Scott breaks down and just starts crying and says, Linda,
I can't. I need to be near you. That's the
only way I can keep my sanity. To stop. And
(31:35):
it's actually kind of a tense scene in a weird way,
like I actually thought it was well done.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
He goes to let him kiss her and that's when
she actually shoots him.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Well, they kiss and he does not kill her. That's
the thing. Like he chooses not to kill her again,
and she shoots him and he kind of like looks
at her and goes well because he wasn't expecting to
be shot, so he was actually physical for the moment.
And he's like he kind of looks at his bloody
hands and he says, you can't kill me. I'm in
I'm you know, I'm indestructible, and he rants and raves
(32:09):
and then moves into the wall the reactor and dies
like inside the.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Reactor because he's losing blood.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
He's losing blood regardless. Yeah, and he just dies of
the reactor. The end, he probably is like halfway in
all the difference and the end, Yeah, yeah, boom done.
So it's a weird plot. It's a very weird plot.
What else can I talk about with this? It is
a very strange plot. But what worked? What worked it?
Speaker 1 (32:39):
It didn't have it didn't have the pauses that you had,
so I guess the pacing worked.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Pacing worked. Agree with that. I actually think even though
the special effects look kind of crummy today, for like
the the how they cut him into going through certain things.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Made him ghost at sometimes.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, I think it actually was pretty good for nineteen
fifty eight, nineteen fifty nine, I'll say it worked. I'll
say the special effects work, even though like to our
eyes today they're clearly bad, but for this time and
they were.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
You could see sometimes that they powdered his hair.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
But the special effects, I'll even say the acting is
barely verges into the it works category. Like I actually
was kind of engaged.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Well, I don't think it was the acting. I think
it's the There wasn't very many characters that were characters. Yeah,
that's one of the biggest problems I have.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
But I'm talking about what works.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Well, That's what I'm saying is that I think that's
it's not the acting that was the problem. I'm thinking
it was more of that they didn't have why Parker
was a how do you portray a character.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
I'm not saying the acting didn't work. I'm saying the
acting did work in it. I think the acting was
pretty good for having a very limited, two dimensional kind
of characters. Okay, so like I think the movie succeeded
for the acting against the writing. I'm not saying the
writing didn't work because it did have problems, but it
(34:27):
still engaged me enough. To say, well, Okay, it's average.
I'll say it doesn't fit into either category. But I
can't think of anything else that really generally works in
this film. But what doesn't work is I don't know,
I don't know if anything truly dumps into the it
didn't work category in this, Like, yeah, the pacing was
(34:49):
actually good, special effects were good, the acting was good.
The writing was eh, but it's not bad. The plot
is fine, it's interesting in a lot of ways. Obviously,
the science is bad, but I can't really hold that
against the movie. I think the casting was really good.
(35:10):
I don't know, can you think of anything that truly
dumps into the it does not work category?
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Like I said that most of the characters were characters characters, yes,
two dimensional characters, and that I think took them the
acting down, but the.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Acting was still pretty good. Yeah, right, But other than that,
I don't know. Like I didn't walk out of this
thinking this was like a new gem for us.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
No, but it wasn't a bad either. No, I would
say five and a half.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
I would say this is a five and a half six, Like, yeah,
I don't know when I'll watch this again, but I
kind of liked it. We both recommend it, though, right, yes,
I don't know if there's a ton to talk about
more about this movie. I know this might be a
kind of a short review because the plot's very easy
to sum up. I will say that the scenes with
(36:14):
Linda and Tony flirting, while at the beginning it's uncomfortable,
they actually do seem like they have chemistry on screen.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
And the person Robert Lansing, really made sure he was
mostly detached from people.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Yeah, and that I actually think that was pretty good
acting too. I'll even say the sets were pretty nice.
I don't know. I keep thinking of other things that
I kind of liked. I thought it was amusing that
that Patty Duke wasn't it so young? And she's just
sort of there as like a guest appearance. I don't know.
(36:56):
I recommend it five and a half six. You're saying
five and a half six, right, Yeah, Okay, maybe we
should just hold it there. This was four D Man
from nineteen fifty eight to fifty nine.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
I'm eron, I'm DARLINGE good evening.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
We keep watching the Skies. At no point in your
rambling incoherent response were you even close to anything that
could be considered a rational thought.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
Thanks for listening to this episode of This Week in Geek.
Hungry for more, check out our website at this Week
in Geek dot Net. You can subscribe to the podcast,
browse our Twitter and Instagram, and leave your thoughts on
today's topics. If you'd like to give us some feedback,
send us an email at Feedback at this Week in
Geek dot Net. Tune in next time, and remember, lower
your shields and surrender your listenership.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
We would be on a if you would join us.
Thank you for your cooperation. Good night,
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