Planet Outlaws

The old movies, and especially the old serials, had a naive charm of their own. Starting with the characters, there was no ambiguity here. Bad guys did bad deeds and only bad deeds. Good guys did good deeds and only good deeds. This characterization is very apparent in this movie. Killer Kane is all evil and Buck Rogers is the next thing to a saint.

The futuristic sets and apparatus are a hoot. They would be laughed out of todays science fiction films. Compare with Stars Wars, big difference. The space ships eject sparks more appropriate to fireworks than a rocket engine. Saturn is a rocky planet, not a gas giant. The uniforms are ridiculous. Why bother with pressure suits and space helmets. Computers, what are they? The hero, of course, is indestructible, and so on.

All of this elements, and a few more, make old movies the charmers that they are.

Very edited down version of the famed 1939 Buck Rogers serial.

This lasts 71 minutes and the original Buck Rogers serial lasted nearly four hours! That might be all good and well to those who just want a brief blast (sorry) of the original Buck Rogers but watching "Planet Outlaws" is no way to judge the full complete serial (which is now available for all to see in a fine print).

For starters, the original serial concludes with Buck and his young "Boy Wonder-type" pal Buddy having an amusing light hearted little chat with each other - this is gone from "Planet Outlaws"!

This serial is an important part of screen science fiction history. Granted, it is not as grand as Metropolis or Things To Come (1936) but it is more fun than them. I struggle to think of a pre-1939 space production that has this sense of fun. It is more fun and better made than Flash Gordon (1936).

Flash Gordon (1936) has a studiobound feel while Buck Rogers (1939) has outstanding location filming at Red Rock Canyon. Flash walks around in short pants while Buck has long pants. Other things make Buck a better serial as well.

Okay, some might think I am building up this serial too much. After all it is a show with fireworks blowing out of the back of spaceships, but who cares - it was 1939 after all! 1939 might have been the year of Gone With The Wind to most serious film fans - but give me the FUN of Buck Rogers any day!

Planet Outlaws was a science fiction movie that was cobbled together from material taken from a 1930's Buck Rogers serial. This was no doubt done because in the post-Atomic bomb Cold War years of the 50's science fiction was really popular. In fact, the film-makers have presented the story as an allegory against the evils of communism, with a dictator whose minions are turned into unthinking servile robots! But whatever the underlying message, this is an old-style action movie where the good guys are really good and the bad guys are complete rotters. There is no ambiguity at play here that's for sure.

The film begins with a brief sequence to set the scene - a hot air balloon piloted by Buck Rogers and his buddy crashes and is buried in snow in the North Pole; they go into suspended animation and are awoke 500 years in the future where they immediately align themselves in a conflict between decent folks and a criminal overlord called Killer Kane.

This would very possibly have seemed like quite an old fashioned film even in the early 50's. It was after all culled from material from a 30's serial. But they have tried to make it as relevant to the times as they could, however, editing a serial down to a 70 minute movie does present some problems. The result is a somewhat frantic movie with lots of big events dealt with very briefly; we have, for example, three trips to and from Saturn as opposed to one proper one. Buster Crabbe stars in the lead role and I suppose he has an uncomplicated clunky charm, if a little dull; his nemesis Killer Kane is not a very interesting villain either. It's unquestionably a very silly film indeed with some amusingly daft spaceships and costumes but it does have some decent sets and some quite impressive model work for the cityscapes. The incessant soundtrack in the background does become a little wearing though, as does the film overall to be honest. As all of these types of movies are, this one does have a time capsule appeal but it's excessive clunkiness makes it a little too tedious, despite the constant action.

After a 1938 airship mishap, our handsome hero and his young pal are buried in an avalanche; but, they employ an experimental gas to put themselves safely in suspended animation. "When Buck Rogers (Buster Crabbe) and his sidekick Buddy (Jackie Moran) are aroused from centuries of cryogenic sleep, they are enlisted by Wilma Deering (Constance Moore) to save the world from the grasp of a tyrannical gangster named 'Killer Kane'. They travel to the planet Saturn to get some much needed help for their assignment, and then set out to deal with Kane and his villainous cohorts," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

This re-produced feature-length version of the fondly remembered 12-part serial "Buck Rogers" (1939) must have held up well for 1950s Saturday matinée and television audiences, due to its futuristic plot and imaginatively recycled sets. Apparently, the original chapters were edited down, with (brief) new work done on the opening and closing segments. "The planet Saturn" isn't as peculiar a setting as it might seem, if you consider they may be referring to "Saturn's planet Titan." No comment on the suggestion the place is populated with helpful Asians. The end brings Buck Rogers into the then popular anti-Communist fold.

**** Planet Outlaws (1953) Ford Beebe ~ Buster Crabbe, Jackie Moran, Constance Moore, Anthony Warde

Buck Rogers (Buster Crabbe) takes off in his airship in 1938, only to be flung into the future year of 2500! Now, Buck and his trusty cohort, Buddy (Jackie Moran) must assist mankind in the battle against eeevil uber-criminal, Killer Kane (Anthony Warde) and his army of bucket-headed human robots!

Absolutely absurd, yet tons of fun to watch, PLANET OUTLAWS is the 1950's feature length, condensed version of the original serial from the 1930's.

Contains wobbly, acrobatic aerial dogfights, big-big ray guns, "advanced" solid state / analog technology, gravity belts, life on Saturn, amazing hats, lots of capes, and dubious underground fortresses.

Sit back and enjoy the irony of an ancient film about the still-distant future...