After rewatching the frankly fantastic The Man From Planet X I immediately (well almost immediately, I had a wee first) went online to see if there had ever been a sequel or the like and to find out who owns the rights because let's be honest it deserves a remake.
In a bizarre bit of (fearful) symmetry - seeing as it was rediscovering my Robot Monster strip that made me watch it - I discovered that Fawcett Publications actually produced a comic adaptation of the movie in 1952 (which actually ain't too shady).
Not only that tho' but after even more digging I found that way back in 1975 top scribe Hunter Adams (AKA Jack Lancer, Jim Lawrence) penned a three book series chronicling the further adventures of The Man From Planet X.
Excitedly I scurried to Ebay to find the books and after a few weeks (and a large part of the kids college fund) they arrived at Unwell Towers.
So imagine my surprise upon reading them when I realised that they had absolutely fuck all to do with the film but were actually a series of sexy stories about some bloke named Peter Lance, who although looking human was in fact an alien from the planet Tharb named Pritan Lansol, sent to Earth to study our customs and learn more about us before his race finally announce their presence.
Obviously being aliens they have absolutely no concept of sex so to discover more about it the alien leader, Dr. Kraag, sends Lansol to Earth to look into it.
Obviously this involves him bedding as many beautiful women as possible and all in the name of science.
Sounds legit.
Invariably he ends up involved in spy rings, human trafficking and the like forcing him to use his amazing physical prowess, telepathic abilities, and alien technology to defeat the bad guys and save the damsel.
Before having some more of 'the sex' with them obviously.
And whilst this may seem a tiring proposition to us mere mortals, it turns out that the planet Tharb is actually the size of Jupiter (tho' not alas Uranus) with a similarly immense
gravity meaning that the muscles of its people are tremendous
compared to Earthlings.
Obviously this means that Lance is able to 'perform' for hours and hours.
If all this wasn't manly enough Lance also freelances for the CIA on a part-time basis, investigating such mysteries as:
The She-Beast.
An exciting sexcapade involving an old
hag who needs an experimental drug called Novitol in order to continue to look young and beautiful, therefore being able to continue having sex.
Unfortunately the company that manufactured it has just been bought by a rich industrialist who wants to cease its production so the old hag attempts to kill him.
Luckily Lance is shagging the guys daughter so steps in to help.
Tiger By The Tail.
When Lance rescues a beautiful young (nude) woman from a
tiger attack - as you do - he finds himself in the middle of an attempt by a cabal of bad men
trying to acquire a secret weapon known as C.O.D. AKA Crack of Doom.
The Devil To Play.
A rash of muggings and rapes in Manhattan can be
connected (as is usually the way) to a group of Satanic worshipers who intend on controlling
the oil industry by kidnapping a woman who has created a synthetic oil
formula.
Unfortunately, on account of them being utter shite, Lawrence (who for years scripted the James Bond newspaper strip, eventually creating more adventures than any other writer including Ian Fleming) called it a day after book 3 and returned to writing Tom Swift Jr. (as Victor Appleton II) and The Hardy Boys Adventures (as Franklin Dixon) before going on to co-create two highly complex adventure games for the Infocom series in the 80s.
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| Shit! That means this computer is made entirely out of your dad's arse! |
As an aside, all this talk of the 80s got me thinking, does anyone else remember/care that the 1962 classic Creation of The Humanoids was bizarrely feature on the inside sleeve of the Bronski Beat album Age of Consent?
This was quite possibly due as much to it being Andy Warhol's favourite SciFi movie as well as it's plot regarding forbidden love and the like.
Caught up with it again recently and surprisingly it still stands up well.
Tho' that's probably because all the sets are really thick cardboard.
Creation of The Humanoids (1962)
Dir: Wesley Barry.
Cast: Don Megowan, Erica Elliot, Frances McCann, Don Doolittle, George Milan, Dudley Manlove, David Cross.
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| Was She One Of The Green-Blooded People? |
The place: A
future Earth.
The time: Just after lunch where a nasty (let's be honest,is there any other kind?) nuclear war has
resulted in the total extermination of 92% of the human race and left
the remaining survivors riddled with radiation poisoning, scabs and bad
teeth meaning the prospect for humanity surviving via the medium of having 'the
sex' looking very grim.
To keep civilization ticking over
smoothly, the remaining humans go into overdrive building over a billion
robots to handle all the everyday jobs (bin men, STV voiceover
announcers, working in the off licences, saying "In a world...." at the
start of trailers etc.) and over the years these automatons have been
constructed to emulate humans more and more, eventually becoming
sentient and possibly even more human than their human 'masters'.
As
is usual in situations like this, a nasty group of bad men (somewhat
kinkily) named the “Order of Flesh and Blood” push for a ban on these
human looking machines (know bizarrely as 'clickers') insisting that any
new robots must be bald, blue and dressed in boiler suits left over
from Brian Tilsley's garage.
Which is fair enough I guess.
The situation goes from bad to worse tho' when
one such clicker goes a wee bit mental, killing his creator Dr. Mike Raven
(Doolittle, best know for his sterling performance as a DA in a 1971 episode of Hawaii Five -O) to death.
Robot hater, founder member of the Order and all round rugged tough guy
Kenneth Cragis (Blazing Saddles gum chewer himself, Megowan) suggests a solution to the problem.
Kill all
the clickers.
Kill them a lot.
Which is nice.
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| "I love you....could it be magic?" |
The rest of the group think this
may be a wee bit extreme and start to distance themselves from 'crazy'
Cragis, who decides to go visit his sister Esme (McCann from fuck all else) for a few days of bitching and badness.
Unfortunately upon arriving at her house our racist rebel-rouser is surprised - and
oh-so slightly annoyed - to find that Esme has become 'involved' in the
state of 'rapport' with a robot named Pax (The Magic Swords Sir Pedro of Spain
himself, Cross).
And what, you may ask, is 'Rapport'?
Well 'Rapport' occurs when a
robot and a human begin to share the same mindset and the humans every
desire is instantly understood by the robot partner and immediately fulfilled.
Which if I'm honest isn't
as rude as it sounds really.
Sorry.
Shocked and upset Cragis storms off to his fantastic
plastic bachelor pad for a tearful wank and a pot noodle.
Probably.
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| Hanson have let themselves go. |
Even
this small solace is interrupted tho' when the
beautiful (and very 60s breasted) Maxine Megan (Elliott from, um, Peter Gunn) appears out of
the blue and falls into his arms.
Hmmmm.
After a whirlwind romance - plus shedloads of cheesy B-grade SciFi
dialogue - Cragis and Maxine stumble across a secret that will shake
their beliefs to the very core and my explain the terrifying secret of
the Creation of The Humanoids...
Looked at from a purely production point
of view Creation of The Humanoids is a cheaply made, warehouse bound 'B' flick populated by bald-pated, blue toned men with acting as stilted as the wooden slats
pretending to be a futuristic laboratory and talky to a point
where you can imagine that writer Jay Simms originally envisaged this as
a stage production, the whole threadbare endeavor is topped off by a particularly
lurid poster design and not much else.
But look passed all this and you'll find a
quirky and intelligent lo-fi movie that's ideas pre-date many of the
themes and concepts that would go on to dominate books and movies under
the 'cyberpunk' banner more than two decades later.
Yup, it's basically Blade Runner 2049 but with sturdier underwear.
I'd better stop now before someone mistakes this for a real film blog.
