Thursday Sci-Fi day on TCM!

Updated on June 26, 2012 By Ken Begg 30 Comments

Fire up those Tivos / burners.

All times CST.

5:00 AM The Time Machine
7:00 Village of the Damned
8:30 The Manster
9:45 Snow Devils
11:30 War of the Planets
1:15 Wild Wild Planet
3:00 Five Million Years to Earth
4:45 Green Slime

Of particular note is the inclusion of all four films set on the Gamma 3 space station: Snow Devils, War of the Planets, Wild Wild Planet and Green Slime. Although the later is generally announced to be in widescreen, it never has been (to my knowledge) shown that way on TCM. However, since Warners released it in widescreen on their DVD-R service, maybe they finally have such a print.

Village of the Damned and Five Million Years are always worth another look, and TCM probably shows the best looking version of The Manster you’re likely to come across.

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  • SteveWD

    Green Slime was in widescreen on TCM already about last November.  They showed it after Equinox.  It was kind of jarring seeing effects that bad in widescreen.

  • Speaking of jarring, there’s quite a few plummets in quality on that list.  Time Machine!  Village of the Damned!  Then EEEAAAARRRRGH down to The Manster.  And we don’t even wanna talk about the drops between 5,000,000  Years and Green Slime .  Wowzers.

  • Ken_Begg

    Glad they finally got that attended to. They always announced it being widescreen, but they always showed it zoomboxed.

  • Ken_Begg

    Well, I find both Manster and Green Slime much more enjoyable than Time Machine, so there’s that.

  • Last time I saw Green Slime I had zero fun with it.  It might be worth a relook.  Especially since my standards of “Awful” have had a bit of recalibration.

  • GalaxyJane

    Almost makes me wish I’d kept my cable.  But paying 80 bucks more a month just for TCM? Not so much.

  • Gamera977

    ‘Snow Devils’? Never heard of it and didn’t know there was a fourth movie in the Gamma 3 universe. There is no plot summary on TCM’s site! I was really disappointed by ‘War of the Planets’ though. It’s nowhere near as fun a ‘The Green Slime’ and ‘Wild Wild Planet’. I hope ‘Snow Devils’ is one of the better ones.

    You know, someone should do a RPG set in the Gamma 3 universe, rules would include everyone being required to speak with an Italian accent or as if they’re dubbed…

  • Ken_Begg

    Luckily I just have to pay $24, and I get Discovery Channel and the Food Network to boot.

  • Ken_Begg

    Calling Sandy Petersen…

  • Beckoning Chasm

     “Snow Devils,” like “Wild Wild Planet” and “War of the Planets,” was directed by Antonio Margheriti, which ought to lower the fun expectation meter to a dangerously low level….

  • Gamera977

    I was looking over the cast of ‘MacArthur’ that aires tonight (June 26) on TCM and noticed Kenneth Tobey as Admiral Halsey which brought on a bit of a chuckle:

    ‘I must have the special rocket torpedo for Midway in case the Japanese show up with their giant radioactive octopus!!!’

    Also listed is Russell Johnson as Admiral King who could probably whip one up out of coconuts and bamboo….

  • Ken, about this Gamma thing. THE GREEN SLIME takes place on Gamma 3 and isn’t technically a part of the Gamma series. The four films that involve the Gamma 1 were THE WILD, WILD PLANET, THE SNOW DEVILS, WAR OF THE PLANETS, and  WAR BETWEEN THE PLANETS (aka PLANET ON THE PROWL). They’re split into two mini-series as two films have the station under command of one captain, and the other two feature another character (Holstead -wild, wild planet and war of the planets, my favorites- and Jackson, maybe?). I’ve long wished that someone would release a box set of all four Gamma films, but no dice so far.

  • Sheesh! I STILL say that “Anthony Dawson” space operas are the most fun you can have at the movies!

  • There are four, but one is missing from the roster.

    The Gamma 1 films are:
    THE WILD, WILD PLANET
    WAR OF THE PLANETS
    WAR BETWEEN THE PLANETS (aka PLANET ON THE PROWL)
    THE SNOW DEVILS

    If you really wanted to, I suppose you could count THE GREEN SLIME as an unofficial entry, but it isn’t truly connected. If they ever get off their cans and release a box set of the Gamma series, though, I wouldn’t put up a fight if they included THE GREEN SLIME as a bonus disk, however!

  • You honestly want to compare FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH and THE GREEN SLIME on terms of quality? Is it even fair to compare the two? One is intellectual science fiction, the other pulp adventure. One somber and over-rated, the other lively and under-rated.

  • I’ll grant they’re about as scientifically rigorous as a Mr. Peabody cartoon, but they’re dandy pop/pulp adventure movies.

  • Ken_Begg

    Green Slime isn’t particularly overrated.

    I kid, but Quatermass and the Pit is probably one of the 20 great sci-fi movies ever, and it’s entirely lively on its own terms.

  • I wish someone would tell me why that is. I saw the film again recently and remain unimpressed. Is it me? I thought the earlier Quatermass movies were much better.

  • Ken_Begg

     Well, all the films are terrific, but Pit is the best. I mean, good is in the eye of the beholder, but there’s little doubt Pit is the best by general acclamation. Partly, although not solely, it’s because Andrew Keir is a much better Quatermass than the clearly disinterested Brian Donlevy was (he wasn’t even the right nationality!). Hell, Dean Jagger was a better Quatermass, and he wasn’t even playing Quatermass.

    Pit has the best supporting cast, too.

  • I must admit it was well-cast, although I never found Keir all that compelling as Quatermass (maybe I instinctively liked Donlevy because he was an American?), he just struck me as being a grouch. The film is certainly well-made, with handsome production values and (over all) fine effects work. The basic premise of unearthing a vessel from another planet and the reaction to said discovery were intriguing, but as a whole I always found the film rather flat.  ENEMY FROM SPACE was much more exciting, I felt. I don’t know, FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH has a sort of smug feel about it that doesn’t rub me right either. In the end, I find the film interesting and well-done, but one of the best 20 science fiction films ever made? I hardly think it makes the top 50, given everything the genre offers. Personal taste, true, but it’s sort of like listening to people who think Jamie Lee Curtis is sexy. I just don’t see it.

  • Beckoning Chasm

     Yeargh, Rock!  I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one.  I find Margherit’s work at best is uninspired and plodding, and at his worst I am envious of people like Helen Keller or The Who’s Tommy.

  • Beckoning Chasm

     I think it comes down to personal taste, Rock.  I’d put “Pit” not just in the top twenty, but in the top ten–maybe even in the top five.  It has enough ideas for a half-dozen films, yet it deals with those ideas intelligently enough that I never find the film over-stuffed.  It’s also loaded with atmosphere, particularly in the creepy early scenes done in the abandoned houses.  I remember showing my ex this one on laserdisk, and during the bits where the policeman notices the scratches on the walls, I slowly turned toward her with my eyes rolled up in my head, Tor Johnson-style.  When she looked at me, she jumped!  (I was something of an SOB.)

  • GalaxyJane

    I honestly don’t miss it a bit.  I actually watch more TV now that I dropped my cable. I have fiber optic internet and a streaming box on my TV. So between the Netflix I was already paying for, Amazon Prime (ditto), 7 bucks a month on Hulu Plus and the 15 or so local channels I get OTA, there are still more things to watch than there are hours in the day, and I actually watch stuff I want to see rather than wasting hours just flipping channels.

    But there was something just plain fun about catching something you’d always meant to watch at an odd hour. Then again, now I just do the same thing with all the Blaxploitation flicks that play on Bounce (one of our local digital subcarrier networks) in-between Soul Train reruns.

  • The Rev.

    We’re actually considering doing something similar.  We got a Netflix and Hulu Plus subscription we can use through the Wii, and are looking into Rokus.  I’ll miss having a few of the channels (mostly TCM, Discovery, and Chiller and Siffy for my crap movie fix), but looking at the movies available online I think I’d be plenty busy.

  • GalaxyJane

    I hit this in more detail on Ken’s post today, but I love my ROKU boxes, they have hundreds of channels for movies and specialty content available and many of them are free or very low cost (for example, I think I paid 3 bucks for lifetime access to a B SciFi and horror movie channel that even includes a bunch of 1950’s 3D flicks.

  • Wouldn’t be the first time I haven’t agreed with someone. I still shake my head in confusion when I hear people say “Live and Let Die” was a great Bond theme.

  • The Rev.

    “…I think I paid 3 bucks for lifetime access to a B SciFi and horror movie channel that even includes a bunch of 1950’s 3D flicks.”

    Well, hell, I’m sold.

  • zombiewhacker

    The last fifteen, maybe twenty minutes of Five Million Years To Earth is terrific.  If the rest of the movie were as good as the third act, it would probably make my top sci-fi film list.

    Unfortunately, it wasn’t.

  • Ken_Begg

    I don’t know. I can’t see the problem with a film ending in a spectacular fashion. Up until then it’s all intellectual meat and foundation building, allowing for the very exciting action climax.

    Again, there’s a lot going on here. Aside from the ‘Man shaped by aliens’ plot–quite ahead of its time, this having come out before 2001: A Space Odyssey–I again love Kneale’s intersection of science and superstition. The idea that the universal image of the Devil and demons derived from a latent race memory of the Martians is just brilliant stuff.

    Meanwhile, even though the military guy is wrong–as he’d need to be, since it’s a Quatermass film and the latter has to be right–the idea that the missile was a German propaganda device is pretty nifty. There’s a lot of great ideas packed in this film.

  • zombiewhacker

    Well, at least we agree that the ending is great.