Forbidden Planet (1956)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Fred M. Wilcox

Writers: Cyril Hume, Allen Adler, Irving Block

Cinematographer: George J. Folsey

Composers: Louis Barron, Bebe Barron

Cast: Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen, Warren Stevens, Jack Kelly, Richard Anderson, Earl Holliman, Robby the Robot

Adapted from Allen Adler’s short story, itself based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Wilcox’s intelligent, visually arresting, and thoroughly entertaining piece of science-fiction – following the progress of a military party’s routine journey to a far off planet, upon which they find only one of the original colonial settlers still alive, the rest having died mysteriously some years previously – winningly mixes wonderfully stylised, studio-bound effects and sets with vaguely camp but refreshingly ideas-based scripting to good effect. Iain.Stott