The Cosmic Man

In THE COSMIC MAN, a UFO crash-lands on Earth, causing great concern for the military. When a scientist is called in to examine the craft, he discovers a floating orb, hoverin about six feet off the ground. Not surprisingly, the military views it as a weapon.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to anyone, the orb's occupant (John Carradine) is silently creeping about, causing panic. At first, he spends his time as a shadow figure (aka: a superimposed negative image), eventually taking on a human appearance.

Uh oh!

The military can't leave well enough alone, and decides to take control of the spaceship. This causes the mysterious visitor to reveal his agenda.

This is another movie, like STRANGER FROM VENUS, that owes much of its existence to THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. The same, basic idea runs through all three films. The biggest difference here is that COSMIC MAN just isn't as interesting or exciting...

Not expecting much at all, I was a little surprised at how much I enjoyed this very small budget take on Day the Earth Stood Still. For all the plodding along and pretty miserable effects, the story is quite literate and even has some elements of HG Wells First Men In the Moon, that being the idea of space travel via an "gravity" repelling shutter device. The lead scientist does his part well, in a role that would have been Peter Graves' had he not been busy on Beginning of the End. He has a certain combination of ease and comfort in his role and it comes across as very realistic, the best of the cast, and livens up all the scenes which he is in. John Carradine puts in a typical decent performance but has to do double-duty since there is no Gort available here. Unfortunately, this weakens the film, and we wish there were more of a menace on his part, or more of some kind of ultimatum, but then that's why we return to view Day the Earth Stood Still again and again. Yet you can watch this "version" at least one time and not feel disappointed.

An unidentified object is tracked going at extreme speeds around the globe. A mysterious object is found in Bronson Canyon (a real location used in the filming of "Robot Monster" 1953). Naturally, the military is antsy and requests a top scientist Dr. Karl Sorenson (Bruce Bennett) investigate.

All the elements are there with the three-way love interest between the widowed mother Kathy Grant (Angela Greene) of a crippled kid Ken (Scotty Morrow), scientist Dr. Sorenson and military Col. Matthews (Paul Langton.) They must speculate on the good bad and ugly of their mysterious invader (John Carradine).

An added plus is the fun of seeing the technology of the time this film was made. And a vintage look at the Griffith Park Observatory. Too bad they did not show the inside as there is a nifty pendulum that swings with the rotation of the earth.

We are in luck as we get two space speeches before the conclusion. Will we heed the warning or is this the end?

It reminded me of "The Day The Earth Stood Still" but it wasn't as good. Not so scary creature and a very unusual spaceship. It has to be considered in the context of the times, which was the late 1950s. During it's day it probably was a good, scary Sci-Fi movie that gave the viewers nightmares after watching it. Over the years it's lost a lot of it's effectiveness. Consider that you are going to watch a 1959 movie. Things were different then. This movie should be considered a semi classic Sci-Fi, old fashioned drive in movie. It wasn't the best that came out of the 50s but I thought it was very enjoyable and a must see for any classic Sci-Fi viewer.

Others have said, "The Cosmic Man" draws heavily on the ideas, characters presented on "The day Earth Stood Still", and I agree with them.

But, it is still a decent low-budget movie. It is well-intentioned and one can feel that a honest effort was put into making it.

Special effects are at a minimum. The Cosmic Man's spaceship is nothing more than a white sphere with a somewhat irregular surface. There are no blinking lights, no rubber-suited monsters.

The Comic Man is one of these movies to be watched on a rainy Saturday night when there is nothing else to do. In this type of circumstance, "The Cosmic man" can be a good time-filler.

Watch and enjoy for what it is.