This Island Earth

This intelligent slice of 1950s sci-fi - two and a half years in the making proclaimed the poster proudly - ranks among the best and most cleverly conceived of the genre. Really it's a film of two parts. A talky earthbound section finds brainy boffins being recruited, nay shanghaied, by the marvellously otherworldly Jeff Morrow to save his distant homeland from destruction by interplanetary warfare. That's followed by a full-blooded space opera featuring astounding surrealistic landscapes on the planet Metaluna and fearsome insect-like mutations with huge bulbous craniums. It's hokey at times, but its message is clear: the more advanced the technology, the greater the scope for destruction.